How Were You Fired?

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'?"

Comments

Nice

[Evro]

Showed up to work and didn't get paid. CEO didn't come in that day and nobody could tell me when/if we would be getting our money. Turned out that no, we never did get our money. Fucker called us in a few weeks later and asked us to continue working for free. Meanwhile he got his daughter a modeling agent, cell phone, various invitations to hoity-toity parties... a real class act.

Read my old journal entries for how this nearly ruined my life, yay!

Re:Nice

[swillden]

Turned out that no, we never did get our money. Fucker called us in a few weeks later and asked us to continue working for free. Meanwhile he got his daughter a modeling agent, cell phone, various invitations to hoity-toity parties... a real class act.

T'ain't nothin'.

I have an association with (and that's as far as I'm gonna go here) a company which hadn't paid its employees regularly for over a year, though they were all sticking it out in hopes that things would get better. Well, the company got about $50K, just enough to make payroll for the first time in three months. The CFO was getting ready to cut checks when the CEO walked in and told him to hold up, he needed a check for $28,000 first, so the employees would have to get what was left. When the CFO inquired as to what unexpected expense had cropped up that had to be paid now, the CEO replied that his daughter had wrecked her car and he was going to buy her a new one.

The CFO threatened to blow the whistle and walk out with the entire staff, so after some heated words the CEO finally relented and let him pay the employees. It was a private company and the CEO had the legal right to take the money, but the walkout would have killed the company dead (not that it lasted much longer anyway).

Got it all from the bookkeeper who was in the room at the time this went down.

Absolutely unbelievable, but about par for the course for this particular CEO.

Layoffs done right

[scalveg]

On a Tuesday morning, early in the month, after being at work a half hour or so, I got email calling all employees to a 10AM meeting in the only room big enough to hold us all (~300 probably).

The CEO seemed genuinely aggrieved at having to lay many of us (40%) off, reassured us that even then, at the peak of the dot-com bust, we would be getting 8 weeks of salary as severance, and our health coverage was paid through the end of the month. He asked us to return to our desks, where we would begin having one-on-one meetings with our immediate supervisors to learn the details of our layoffs, or new job responsibilities.

As I returned to my desk, I was considering all the projects I would need to wrap up and hand off if I were among those laid off, but when I got back, my computer no longer had access to the network.

I picked up my phone to call IS, but it, too, was disconnected.

It was by then obvious what was about to happen, and I had a pleasant enough conversation with my boss when my turn came. Turned out he had also been let go, and we discussed people we knew at other companies that might have use for me or him.

1) Early in the day, early in the week. Time to head home and immediately get started on the job hunt.

2) Early in the month, so I didn't have to worry about COBRA for a few weeks.

3) Real severance package.

I'm not sure what they could have done better, other than not laying us off in the first place.

Chris Owens
San Carlos, CA

cruel

[falsification]

Mine was very, very cruel. I don't even want to talk about it. While I was there, it was great. But here goes.

First all we employees had to gather in the main meeting room. Management told us to reach under our seats. Below about 5 seats were taped slips of paper. Those five people had to perform in this humiliating contest. They had to do something or say something to embarass themselves. The president of the company is sitting there as judge. Whoever has the right to be the most mortified, in his judgement, won the showdown. I lost, but it was close. Had I won, I would have kept my job.

Then he starts calling us, one by one. Each of us goes up. Some were told to go back to their desks. They were the lucky ones. They survived to work another day. The rest of us had to pick up our commerative plates--the ones we got when we started--and hand them to the president. He said, "So-and-so, you're dead to us." Then he throws the plate into the fireplace (the office was an old mansion). Then we had to leave. People were bawling. Women were fainting. It was something I'll never be able to forget.

I don't think anybody can beat that one.

Re:Locked Doors

[Inthewire]

I agree.
I was "let go" a year and a half ago.
I packed my things, and as I was leaving I remembered that half of the RAM in my workstation was mine - I'd installed it after an upgrade at home.
The network admin knew this, as I'd cleared it with him and done the install in his workshop, but he hadn't come in yet.
I mentioned it to my escort and got a noncommital grunt.
I was peeved, but not much, and I let it go.

Good thing, because eight months later I got a call from the same company - they needed someone to take over their core program and my name had come up.
Now I'm back, making twice the money, and because of the wording of our agreement I own every LOC I produce.
That didn't seem like a big deal (to either party) when I took the job, but now I'm rewriting the entire application.

Don't burn bridges when you can bomb cities.