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How Were You Fired?

Posted by Cliff on from the informing-you-in-a-not-so-gently-manner dept.

IanBevan asks: "A couple of years ago, the company I was working for was taken over by a larger competitor. I was told, right up until the last minute, that my development job was safe. Shortly thereafter, our illustrious team leader issued a new project plan, and I discovered that all my tasks were suddenly due to finish in about one week's time. Not being a great believer in coincidence, I asked my boss if there was 'anything he would like to tell me'. Of course, there was. Looking back this seems quite amusing now, but it could certainly have been better handled by the PHBs. I was just wondering, how have other Slashdot readers discovered that they have become 'surplus to requirements'?"

3 of 399 comments (clear)

  1. via P45 in the post by DrSkwid · · Score: 3, Informative

    Not even a letter.

    I was off sick at the time and instead of the payslip I was expecting I opened the envelope and it was my P45. It was a Saturday morning too so I had to wait until Monday before I could even speak to anyone about it.

    (a P45 is the document you present to your next employer regarding the tax etc. you have paid)

    --
    There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
  2. Re:what is WARN? please define by Breakerofthings · · Score: 3, Informative

    WARN
    Sorry. Should have made that a link in the original.

  3. Re:Here's a quiz... by tomhudson · · Score: 4, Informative
    Oh, come on. The answer depended on the version of dos and dbase you ran.

    DOS limitations (in config.sys)

    1. 5.0: files=99
    2. 6.0 and up: files=255
    dbase limitations
    1. dBaseIV had a hard-coded limit of 99.
    2. dBase5 had an (again) hardcoded limit of 255 (which you would never hit because you also lost 5 to dos, for a net of 250).
    3. The default number of files open at one time with the compilers available in those days was 20 - 5 (again, stdin, stdout, stderr, aux, prn open at program start by dos by default)
    So if you had answered them something along these lines, they would have been suffering from TMI.