I thought I Was Getting Laid Off Yesterday..

[MsGoGoMoto]

Has this ever happened to any of you?

I get up like business as usual.
Work from home COVID

Log into the company network and begin handling e-mails.
Work till lunch…
Try to log back in, network is down.
Email doesn't work.
Can't fill in my time sheet.
Send a note to IT, it bounces back undeliverable (but they still get it)

Switch WIFIs…. Same deal.
Just about to call my boss like, geeez, thanks…

Luckily IT said system was down..
Then when system came back up.. flooded with emails outlining work on projects from my boss like the network had constipation.

It's happened to me before with another employer, but it was after I put in 2 weeks notice. "Fired" the next day..

[zx10guy]

Similar thing happened to me a long time ago. Tried badging in at a building. Badge reader squawks back at me. Tried again. No go. Guard waves me by. After finishing my business at that building. Something didn't sit well with me as I didn't think it was the badge reader system being down or flakey.

I go to another building on the same badge system. I badge in. Same thing. Ughh. Guard sees me struggling with the badge reader. Tells me to try the next one over. Same thing. He then asks for my badge. I'm thinking...oh crap. He goes into his system and then hands the badge back to me. Says my badge had expired. I need to sort it out with security. Phew. I was thinking all my accesses had been pulled and I was going to be escorted off the compound. I literally thought I was going to take a massive dump through the whole thing.

[DETRoadster]

Similar thing happened to me years back. I stumbled across our entire management team in a conference room having a meeting. Every manager, minus me. I thought "holy shit" they are going to can me and my boss is letting the other managers know. I'm toast. Turns out they were planning a surprise party for me for my 5-year hire-date anniversary.

[vreihen16]

Working in the IT field, the above sounds like what happens to everyone else whenever I try to take a sick or vacation day.....

[c1pher]

I work in IT Security and can understand why people get uneasy when these things happen. I am told to disable accounts all the time prior to letting people go. The biggest reason for this isn’t to be a jerk, but to keep people from deleting or transmitting intellectual property or deleting evidence of wrongdoing which is the reason they are being fired.

[rcracin]

I once walked in and found my desk cleaned out and nothing there. Name tag gone. But my entry fob still worked so that was the strangest part plus I walked in with the HR lady.

Turns out nobody informed me that my desk was moved.

[damack]

I worry about that every time I type my password incorrectly

[c1pher]

Originally Posted by rcracin

I once walked in and found my desk cleaned out and nothing there. Name tag gone. But my entry fob still worked so that was the strangest part plus I walked in with the HR lady.

Turns out nobody informed me that my desk was moved.

I realize furniture is typically company property but some employees have personal items. Some people act like they can just relocate anything they see. I have had to re-acquire my personally purchased adjustable chair at least twice in my current company. It is nicer than the regular stuff, and I get disability for my back so needed something more comfortable and purchased the chair with my own money. And I’m in an office along a set of executive offices, not out in unassigned cubicles where any number of items could be moved without issue. I went as far as doing what I had to do in the military and stencil my frickin chair to prove it’s mine.

[hubbahubba]

Back at the start of the recession, I worked for a large homebuilder in San Diego. At the time, we had 17 communities under construction with a team of 3-10 people in each one. We had 5 rounds of layoffs over the course of several months. Each time the HR and management teams went out to the field to do the layoffs, we could tell who had been let go by the email addresses that would fall off of the construction department email group during the day. The first couple rounds of layoffs was a trimming that needed to be done. Rounds 3 through 5 we saw some very good and talented people go away, and watching those emails was the way we knew who got the axe. Personnel was whittled from 110 to 9. Brutal.

[c1pher]

Originally Posted by hubbahubba

Back at the start of the recession, I worked for a large homebuilder in San Diego. At the time, we had 17 communities under construction with a team of 3-10 people in each one. We had 5 rounds of layoffs over the course of several months. Each time the HR and management teams went out to the field to do the layoffs, we could tell who had been let go by the email addresses that would fall off of the construction department email group during the day. The first couple rounds of layoffs was a trimming that needed to be done. Rounds 3 through 5 we saw some very good and talented people go away, and watching those emails was the way we knew who got the axe. Personnel was whittled from 110 to 9. Brutal.

That’s one way to avoid requiring Covid vaccinations for your employees.

[hubbahubba]

Originally Posted by c1pher

That’s one way to avoid requiring Covid vaccinations for your employees.

Unless you (hopefully) still need 'em.

[MsGoGoMoto]

Originally Posted by rcracin

I once walked in and found my desk cleaned out and nothing there. Name tag gone. But my entry fob still worked so that was the strangest part plus I walked in with the HR lady.

Turns out nobody informed me that my desk was moved.

Got damn.
That's extreme.
Especially if you have personal effects like photos, your own wireless KB/Mouse combo like I do.

[MsGoGoMoto]

Originally Posted by c1pher

I realize furniture is typically company property but some employees have personal items. Some people act like they can just relocate anything they see. I have had to re-acquire my personally purchased adjustable chair at least twice in my current company. It is nicer than the regular stuff, and I get disability for my back so needed something more comfortable and purchased the chair with my own money. And I'm in an office along a set of executive offices, not out in unassigned cubicles where any number of items could be moved without issue. I went as far as doing what I had to do in the military and stencil my frickin chair to prove it's mine.

Taking your personal chair?

[srybicki]

That why I don't work for anyone any more. Got tired of working for idiots.

[vreihen16]

Originally Posted by srybicki

That why I don't work for anyone any more. Got tired of working for idiots.

So you're self-employed now...and still working for idiots! (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

Sorta like that alleged lawyer saying that any attorney who represents himself in court has a fool for a client.....

[2000cs]

Drop one word from that thread title and it could have been a GREAT day!

[erickonphoenix]

Work for a large organization?

Pro tip:If you sense layoffs may be coming. In your conference room booking app, look for large conference rooms held for HR. That's almost always bad news.

[vreihen16]

Originally Posted by erickonphoenix

Work for a large organization?

Pro tip:If you sense layoffs may be coming. In your conference room booking app, look for large conference rooms held for HR. That's almost always bad news.

My employer used a distributed layout when they did our mass layoff. Every person being cut was called to a one-on-one meeting with one of three VP's or the HR director, and their co-workers had no idea that the layoffs were happening until it was all over. Ironically, the person who managed room bookings was among those who were cut.

Being the IT department's primary off-boarding person, I had messages coming in from all four locations telling me to cut off a person's access as they were in their one-on-one. I could barely keep up, and let's just say that my hands were not too stable on the keyboard watching colleagues of 20+ years being let go for budgetary reasons and not something that they did wrong.

As the IT department's only e-discovery person, I also had to make sure that the i's were dotted and t's crossed on every single off-board's access removal documents. (Believe it or not, a scary percentage of terminations result in legal challenges and e-discovery fishing expeditions by attorneys.) In all seriousness, it took me 8 full work days to get the records in order and data archived per retention policy.

I had a friend who worked for a large tech company, that did bi-weekly mass layoffs for at least 6 rounds. They had everyone spend layoff days sitting at their desk with their things packed. If a security guard walked by and tapped you on the shoulder, you had to pick up your stuff and leave. If you didn't get tapped by the end of the day, you lived to work...for another two weeks until the next round. Picture the morale impacts and stress from having to go through that process every other week! My friend wound up being cut in round #6, and was a basket case when the shoulder tap finally came.....

[Suds]

Great click bait!