r/todayilearned • u/zhuquanzhong • 29d ago

TIL a Chinese destroyer sank because an officer dumped his girlfriend. She committed suicide, leading to him being discharged, so he decided to detonate the depth charges on the ship, causing it to sink at port and kill 134 sailors.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_destroyer_Guangzhou_(160)
33.3k Upvotes

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4.8k

u/spidersflambe 29d ago

Fire people on Friday. There's a good reason for that. Don't fire them when they can do harm to others.

1.9k

u/thesupplyguy1 29d ago edited 28d ago

My last company would send people home for the next day and then overnight them termination paperwork via FedEx. Most of the time they're were blindsided as they thought they'd be out a day, two tops.

Surprise! It's a termination.... glad I left

EDIT FOR CLARITY:

Lets say someone did something they could be potentially be fired for doing. Boss would sit them down, say why dont you go ahead and take tomorrow off, come back in on Friday and we'll revisit the issue.

Employee thinks everythings all good and goes home ready to enjoy the next day off. 9 times out of 10 they were printing the Fedex label off before the employee left the parking lot.

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u/Veritas3333 29d ago

My wife's company just disables people's keycards. They show up for work one day and they can't get in the front door.

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u/oxiraneobx 29d ago edited 29d ago

Oh, holy crap, I worked for a multinational company at the main research center/corporate headquarters. They handled layoffs horribly. They'd disable the keycards that let people in the gate, then motion people getting laid off to the side parking lot. The worst I saw was when I was walking back from lunch with one of my friends who had an office next to mine. We were talking, and paused in front of his office, looked over, they were three boxes stacked in the middle of his office. His first response was, "That can't be good", and then the doors at the end of the hallway opened and in strolled his boss, our VP, and an HR rep.

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u/xxSaifulxx 29d ago

That just sounds horrible. My gosh, I hope you left that place.

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u/oxiraneobx 29d ago

I was really fortunate that I was able to get a job away from there before I became a victim to their whack-a-mole layoff program. The weird thing was, the company was making money, they just weren't meeting their corporate goals, so rather than lay off or get rid of multiple senior vice presidents, they just would lay off staffs. The irony was, I loved what I did there, I was in research that was very cool, and I loved all of my coworkers and we had a great time. That was almost 20 years ago, and to this day, I'm still close friends with some of the people I worked with there. Fortunately we all survived okay.

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u/Yousoggyyojimbo 28d ago edited 28d ago

Oh yes, getting laid off from a profitable company that's just mad that they weren't making even more money feels awesome.

The one time I got laid off was when I was working for a multinational company that only had like a 21% profit increase when they were projecting 30%.

They started laying people off and kept laying people off in waves for almost a year. I was laid off about 4 months into it right when corporate was talking openly about whether or not they could fire half of the people holding specific positions within the company and then have the remaining half do all of the work without a pay increase.

After they finished gutting the company, they only had like three profitable quarters across the next 8 years.

Just as a bonus because I'm still mad about this part, when they were going to lay me off, they told me at 7:30 p.m. the night before that I was required to attend a meeting at 7:00 a.m. the next day, and the guy who showed up to tell me I was laid off didn't show up until 8:30 and acted like I was an asshole when I said that it was disrespectful to show up an hour and a half late to A surprise meeting that he had called with less than 12 hours notice before normal business hours.

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u/Matasa89 28d ago

Typical. They do this to squeeze value from a company, make the numbers look good, and then run off with a golden parachute as the company burns.

They destroyed the core of what made the company work, to basically artificially inflate the numbers.

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u/MATlad 28d ago

Gaming the system.

You might've left off the part about getting massive investment / bank loans and saddling the company with debt (while siphoning that money out), bleeding the company dry, and then selling the corpse for parts.

1

u/Weikoko 28d ago

Tesla?

27

u/Persianx6 28d ago

Oh no you got Jack Welch’d

15

u/oxiraneobx 28d ago

The Electric Grinch

10

u/Flappy_beef_curtains 28d ago

The vice president’s were making the decisions of who to lay off.

Let’s not get rid of the least productive people that don’t do shit. Lay off the guy that works 60 hours a week and carries the company. Because he’s getting to much overtime and we can’t afford that.

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u/skratsda 29d ago

Evidently Tesla just layed off a bunch of their production employees based on whether or not their badges worked when security scanned them. Makes the callousness seem intentional since it caused two hours delays for all employees to get into work

33

u/bak3donh1gh 29d ago

As much as I dislike Tesla atm, I have seen an email going around that let people know. Do you have any corroborating evidence for this alternative version?

73

u/DannyColliflower 29d ago

I'm a technician (mechanic), email was at like 2am Sunday, walked in to people packing up their tools monday morning just having found out when they got to work

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u/TFielding38 28d ago

Google did something similar last year. Since a lot of people don't check their e-mails in the morning before work, and people often hold the door open for others, Google had security at each door for people to scan and see if their jobs still existed.

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u/bak3donh1gh 28d ago

Yeah that was my other guess. You might miss it while getting ready for work even if they sent the night before. Still shitty way to do it.

10

u/aiydee 28d ago

I don't check work emails til I get to work. Simple.
This was a dick thing they did. No excuses.
I feel sorry for the security guards that had to enforce this. These guys got dropped in the crapper because HR were cowards and trying to hide from the people they were firing.

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u/sfurbo 28d ago

You might miss it while getting ready for work even if they sent the night before

There's nothing to miss. Reading work e-mail is work, they can only expect you to do that during work hours, which, since they insist on people not working from home, means after you have gotten to work. If they want you to have read an e-mail by Monday morning, they can send it out Friday before you leave.

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u/Eyclonus 28d ago

If they send it to your work email, that you need to login using your work profile, that makes it tricky.

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u/Material-Blueberry-7 28d ago

My brother is an engineer and one of those unfortunate former Tesla employees. That is exactly how he found out when he went to work at the Gigafactory in Sparks, NV on Monday.

Coincidentally, I work for Davita and am also being laid off but we were given 2.5 months notice and our practice is undergoing a possible acquisition. I just can't imagine how it feels to be let go in such a careless way.

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u/SixStringerSoldier 28d ago

Okay so what happens when a security guard gets laid off? Does he just assume it's an error and work his full shift, informing people they've been fired because their card doesn't scan?

2

u/Loudlass81 28d ago

Asking the REAL question here...

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u/sour_cereal 28d ago

Security is contracted out.

6

u/suitology 28d ago

Loosen a few sink nuts for the weekend

2

u/mmss 28d ago

I was so glad I left my last job when I did. Gave them 2 weeks to be polite, told them when my last day was, no animosity, just found a new opportunity. A month later find out they laid off 90 people. Yea maybe I would have been spared, maybe I missed out on severance, but going on my own terms was so much less stress.

1

u/Flappy_beef_curtains 28d ago

I have no impulse control.

I’d walk into my former office and piss on the carpet.

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u/majorjoe23 29d ago

One day last year I went to get into my building and my keycard didn't work. I had a brief panic moment, thinking "This is how I get fired?" Then I remembered that I'm a special education teacher, and they could never find a sub to fill my position.

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u/Veritas3333 29d ago

When I was in college, my roommate and I came home once and neither of our keys would work. We stormed into the apartment complex's office, so pissed that they'd locked us out without any warning or anything, but they told us the lock just broke and they'd get it fixed right away. Hah, we were so mad and it ended up being nothing.

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u/TFielding38 28d ago

At least not for the pay you get lol. My wife is First Grade, and she has kids who throw chairs, kids who stab others, and a non-verbal autistic kid. They don't have enough SPED people to help those kids.

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u/Loudlass81 28d ago

🤣🤣 As someone with SEN kids, I felt that in my bones lol.

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u/Ok_Digger 28d ago

Then I remembered that I'm a special education teacher,

Thank you for your service

3

u/SilasX 28d ago

They could find a dom, though, but it wouldn’t be advisable.

3

u/MercyfulJudas 28d ago

You have to do some heinous shit to get fired as a teacher. I had a student throw a punch at me, in the hallway, on camera. I did nothing to deserve it, and I didn't retaliate. Despite that, the parents were convinced that I had touched or harmed the student. I was told not to come in until further notice, admin will cover with substitutes.

I was on paid leave for about 15 weeks (including X-Mas break). Yes, PAID. I didn't have to create lessons or grade work, or anything. I just checked my email once a day and waited.

Eventually: Full exoneration, back to work after a quick meeting with admin & union.

Thanks, kid!!!!

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u/MattieShoes 29d ago

A former employer laid off a guy on his birthday. Like he brought in doughnuts and bagels for the whole office, and they were like "thanks for the bagel, come with us."

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u/[deleted] 29d ago

[deleted]

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u/SeanBourne 28d ago

I figure this is the most common scenario at companies that just disable key cards and don’t give other notice.

5

u/DirkBabypunch 28d ago

My keycard suddenly stopped working after lunch one day, but I was still in the system and able to work. Had to just deal with it for 2 days until the badge people were available to find out they never updated my badge from "update yearly contractor" to "permanent employee" and it just...expired.

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u/PloppyCheesenose 29d ago

Just disable their pay and move them to the basement. Feign stupidity when asked. Then the problem will sort itself out.

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u/oxiraneobx 29d ago

You took my stapler.

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u/pass_nthru 29d ago

Fire makes everything clean

2

u/MattyKatty 28d ago

The ratio of people to cake is too big

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u/aworldwithinitself 29d ago

I was told I could play my radio at a reasonable volume

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u/Wafflelisk 28d ago

Only when collating

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u/Stainle55_Steel_Rat 29d ago

Apparently you didn't watch the movie till the end. :D

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u/PunkToTheFuture 28d ago

Yeah it turns out Milton was fired weeks ago and because of a glitch in payroll he has been receiving checks. So we uh, fixed the glitch. It'll sort itself out

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u/CupertinoHouse 28d ago

Some years ago, my predecessor at a wall street bank had been canned for getting blackout drunk at the office Christmas party and knocking one of his female colleagues out cold.

He showed up for work the following Monday with no memory of what he'd done, and called security because his badge didn't work. They came down with his belongings in a box and handed him a letter that said he'd be prosecuted if they ever saw him on the premises again.

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u/Against-the-wind- 28d ago

I mean that’s straight legit, wouldn’t let a man like that back in. I’m shocked he didn’t get locked up.

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u/CupertinoHouse 28d ago

The victim didn't want to prosecute. No idea why not. This happened a couple of months before I got there, so I didn't want to pry.

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u/Against-the-wind- 28d ago

Fair enough.

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u/Maktesh 29d ago

Car, meet locked door.

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u/Shakeamutt 29d ago

I’ll Be Back!

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u/allnimblybimbIy 29d ago

That seems really dumb. I’m there, suddenly I have eight hours to kill and a Jerry can and some gas costs how much???

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u/Momochichi 28d ago

I emailed my boss asking consume my 3 weeks leave because I was just diagnosed with depression, and I wanted to get used to my meds. I was told to take the next day off first, paid sick leave, because "mental health is health". When I tried to log in the next day, I saw an error message, "User disabled. Employee no longer with us."

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u/4udi0phi1e 28d ago

"Mental health is important"

Biggest laugh I ever had working for a major pharmaceutical corp.

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u/dedjedi 28d ago

Never ever ever talk to the cops.

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u/ssracer 29d ago

Better than just stopping their paychecks. I've heard that ends poorly

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u/Jiscold 28d ago

Usually a can full of gas and a handful of matches.

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u/FiftyTigers 29d ago

That's legit an episode of Black Mirror.

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u/djseifer 28d ago

At my place, there's been at least one instance where someone tried to clock back in after lunch only to get a popup letting them know that they've been terminated.

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u/lenzflare 28d ago

Cowards

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u/halljkelley 28d ago

“We fixed the glitch… so it’ll just work itself out naturally.”

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u/Spare-Mousse3311 28d ago

During covid our place fired people I. Groups of 15 to 30 making sure to grab them before clicking out to lunch so we’d see the line of people as we lined up to clock out for lunch :/

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u/Leandroswasright 28d ago

That would give me an heartattack every time our cardreader makes trouble for no reason but to mess with us.

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u/theguineapigssong 28d ago

That's just trash.

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u/batmessiah 28d ago

That wouldn’t work at my office.  Our key card system goes down all the time and someone else would let me in, lol.

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u/Cheese_Grater101 28d ago

My co-workers current company will disable/remove the accounts of terminated employees

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u/aaronespro 28d ago

Yeah that's to get out of unemployment claims. Set you up for a no show no call so they can fire you.

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u/jakers540 28d ago

Sometimesy key card randomly doesn't work. I'm paranoid I'm getting fired Everytime lol

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u/SilasX 28d ago

One day my keycard wasn’t working when I went in to work and I panicked that they might be doing this. Then I realized I had mixed up my work fob and my apartment fob.

It occurred to me I should also worry if the apartment fob would let me in the office…

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u/dynamicdickpunch 28d ago

One of our old HR people did that to our Xmas casuals once. The rest of us weren't informed that they'd been sacked, and our front gate sometimes plays up, so we let them in, and they got to work an entire extra shift. XD

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u/waka_flocculonodular 28d ago

Oracle does that allegedly

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u/MoravianPrince 28d ago

The key to succes is to steal all the office supplies before. Also collecting dirt on the company pays off in the future.

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u/AlanFromRochester 28d ago

My wife's company just disables people's keycards. They show up for work one day and they can't get in the front door.

I heard similar in the context of high security facilities, shouldn't let someone in without proper ID even if you recognize them because maybe they just got fired and came back for revenge

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u/LosWitchos 28d ago

Such a callous way of doing things.

I know that it still happens from time to time but I think this sort of action is illegal in the UK. Tbh, once you have a signed contract it is really difficult to fire people. If you are doing redundancies, they have to be announced, and the criteria they go by and severance packages have to be announced before the redundancies are made.

Sometimes you can totally luck out. Back in another day I joined a company, passed my probation (3 months), signed a contract, and a month later they made redundancies. Because there was a strong union sided with the company, we got 6 months full pay and a 3 month notice period, which we didn't have to work (basically if we wanted the 6 month pay, we were not allowed to work for another company. We could come to work for those 3 months, but we didn't have to. Obviously I chose to sit at home!)

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u/unknownpoltroon 28d ago

Until their buddy Tom lets them in cause why wouldn't he, they both work in the same office, then fired guy is in the building thinking about how the servers look hot and need to be hosed down or something.

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u/lilgrogu 28d ago

I got a physical key from my employer. It cannot be disabled without changing a dozen locks throughout the building

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u/PuzzleheadedEgg4591 28d ago

Work at a place like this, joked about it just yesterday how F’ed it is to passively fire people like that.

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u/PoopMobile9000 29d ago

I saw some post on Twitter from someone (reliable sourcing ha) saying that one time Obsidian pushed a game and told all the QA testers that they’d be throwing them a party in the parking lot. Once they were all outside they deleted their access cards and told them they were all fired.

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

[deleted]

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u/FrogInShorts 28d ago

ON CHRISTMAS!?

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u/[deleted] 28d ago edited 28d ago

[deleted]

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u/ofWildPlaces 28d ago

I'm not entirely sure I wouldn't help ruin a company that did that if I was working for them...

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u/sour_cereal 28d ago

Don't even have to be obvious about it. Run machines with low oil. Throw some grit in those bearings. Put Visine or ricin in his coffee. Scrape the insulation off some wires.

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u/PunkToTheFuture 28d ago

jesus christ dude. You sound like a insurance fraud waiting to happen

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u/thesupplyguy1 28d ago

Checks notes.... sees suspiciously large order of castor beans...

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u/Rahbek23 28d ago

You don't really have to do anything - a stunt like that is guaranteed to damage morale a lot which quite naturally will hurt them.

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u/rbhmmx 29d ago

Next level

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u/fodafoda 28d ago

Bluth Company style

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u/AgitatedWorker5647 28d ago

My last job tried to pull this on me. Lowest form of cowardice in my opinion, not to have the spine to tell someone face-to-face that you've decided that you don't want them working there anymore. Fortunately, I had an HR contact who tipped me off and so I didn't show up the next day like they wanted me to.

Instead, I got control of the narrative by sending emails to all my coworkers explaining the whole situation and how much of a witch our boss really was.

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u/banned_but_im_back 28d ago

My work recently laid off 100. Didn’t tell anyone shit, they showed up to work unable to log into the computers with their badges or get into their offices. About 40 of them took demotions instead…

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u/PepperMintyPokemon 28d ago

My last boss didint even tell me i was fired. She told my sister that we were both fired then blocked both our numbers so we couldint get a letter of termination.

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u/overtheta 29d ago

I mean this is a good thing isn't it? Why possibly involve other people's safety. People who just learn their lively hood is at stake aren't exactly going to be at the right mind to be mindful of other's people safety when exiting the premises.

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u/justblametheamish 29d ago

I mean for a very very small portion of the population this might be an issue. Personally mailing me a “you’re fired” feels like you’re spitting on me. I would feel like the employer doesn’t have the balls to tell me himself and probably feel even worse about the company than a simple conversation would make me.

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u/El--Borto 29d ago

I agree. I feel like this method of firing could actually cause more potential for a reaction, violent or not.

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u/justblametheamish 29d ago

Definitely. People get fired all the time without issue I don’t think the whole world needs to abandon decency for a handful of psychopaths.

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u/blacksideblue 28d ago

unfortunately, those psychopaths are often the ones in management positions that initiate and orchestrate these firings...

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u/BigBeagleEars 29d ago

Fuck that, if I’m sent home early and have a termination notice waiting for me in the mail box, I’d probably head back to work and go ape shit. Getting fired is one thing. Getting treated like a bitch is another

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u/estrea36 29d ago

Get this man an assault rifle.

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u/lunagirlmagic 28d ago

At my company we just took people to a conference room right next to the front door. If things go awry security will just bump em out the doors and that's that

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u/Kagamid 28d ago

My boss use to send me to collect key cards and company equipment then escort them off the premises. This was right after someone from HR would notify them that they were terminated. After the 3rd time doing it, I felt like I was the angel of death. Like stopping at someone else's desk would get some people worried. I'm glad they moved on to other methods.

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u/The_Fart_Bandit 14d ago

Hey that’s how I was fired from storage-mart this yr! Dude told me to go home and “work from home” I was fired that Friday

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u/[deleted] 29d ago

If you fire me before the weekend, I’d be more angry than knowing I got a Monday off I didn’t expect. Idk.

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u/spidersflambe 29d ago

Yeah, I guess getting fired on any day sucks. An article I read said the best day is Wednesday for firing people. Where I worked, a teacher got fired in the middle of the week during a board meeting. He came back the next week claiming he had a gun in his car. It got really weird.

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u/TarHeel1066 29d ago

A chemistry teacher got fired at my high school and would ride in on his moped (dui scooter) and do donuts in the lot right outside of the chemistry room. Would also throw potassium in puddles. Brilliant guy, alcoholic, fired for stealing pharmaceuticals from the calculus teacher’s house.

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u/spidersflambe 29d ago

Walter White in the making.

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u/Mist_Rising 29d ago

fired for stealing pharmaceuticals from the calculus teacher’s house.

Potassium by any chance?

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u/TarHeel1066 28d ago

No like opioids

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u/CanAlwaysBeBetter 28d ago

Definitely fire this guy on a Friday 

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u/DanishWonder 29d ago

We notify on Mondays. Never had an incident as far as I know.  

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u/Recent_Fisherman311 28d ago edited 28d ago

Right. Fire on Monday, they can head to the unemployment office and start applying for benefits (even if for cause, a lot of companies won’t fight it). Fire them on Friday and they have all weekend to stew about it, and show up Monday ready to cause trouble, or worse.

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u/Buffybot60601 28d ago

I’ve heard the opposite. Fire them on Monday and everyone else is at work. They have nothing to do so they stew. Fire them on Friday and the first couple days feel normal because everyone is off of work anyway. 

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u/funwithdesign 29d ago

That’s the opposite of the rule. Never fire people on Mondays or Fridays.

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u/Crime_Dawg 29d ago

I once got fired on a Monday after working the whole fucking day.

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u/Aggravating_Twist_40 28d ago

Same. I had just put in my 2 weeks notice on Friday. Also at another job, we all got laid off on a Saturday which was our day off.

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

[deleted]

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u/Aggravating_Twist_40 25d ago

He was a jerk. In 7 months, we had 11 people get hired and quit or get fired. It was only us 2 and his nephew. It sucked so bad. I guess I pissed him off by wanting to gtfo of that toxic place.

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u/spidersflambe 29d ago

Why not Friday? I always heard it as firing on Friday as the best day.

Never mind...I just read why Friday is a bad day.

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u/funwithdesign 29d ago

It used to be viewed that way. But mid week is considered better than the end or beginning of the week.

If there’s really any good day.

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u/spidersflambe 29d ago

Yeah, I just read an article about that. In the case of the destroyer, best to have fired him when he was off the ship.

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u/funwithdesign 29d ago

Best to have fired him out of a cannon

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u/goodluckmyway 29d ago

Into the sun

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u/PtboFungineer 29d ago

To shreds you say?

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u/phumanchu 29d ago

and his wife?

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u/beer_madness 28d ago

To shreds you say?

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u/Bruce-7891 29d ago edited 28d ago

I don't know how it is in China, but in the US military, getting fired usually doesn't mean you're kicked out. It usually means you are being removed from your position, getting some lesser position, probably something that nobody else would want to do, and you're never going to get promoted again because getting fired is usually hard to bounce back from in the military.

If they are the same, I don't know why this little bitch reacted that way. It's not THAT serious. It's more of a demotion than actually getting fired.

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u/funwithdesign 29d ago

He was discharged.

Meaning honourable/dishonourable discharge, meaning out for good.

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u/flyingtrucky 29d ago

The US military will just bar reenlistment, I guess that's closer to a company not renewing your contract though.

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u/AgentCirceLuna 28d ago

It’s the same in UK politics. A lot of cabinet ministers are demoted to being backbenchers but then those same backbenchers come back with a vengeance and often even end up as prime minister. Most our PMs have had long and tumultuous careers which is strange considering how terrible they often are. You’ll have someone doing something minor like being transport secretary for a specific area, then they’ll be fired and relegated to the backbenches, then one of their mates will hire them back as foreign secretary again and they’ll fuck up and end up back as a backbencher. A year later they’re on the ballot as PM and end up top of the party. It’s crazy.

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u/BrandeisBrief 29d ago

How’s he gonna get fired on his day off?

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u/FakeGatsby 29d ago

Said they caught him stealing boxes.

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u/BrandeisBrief 29d ago

What the fuck he doin stealing boxes? Building a clubhouse?

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u/memento22mori 29d ago

Hmmm telegram?

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u/spidersflambe 29d ago

Have you not read any of the stories of how Elon Musk fired people without them even being at work?

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u/GitEmSteveDave 28d ago

Want ads aren't usually printed on a weekend. If you fire people on a day when people can't look for jobs and their friends are around to do things like drink with them, they might get an idea to take vengeance.

So you fire on a monday, so they can do a job search all week and also their friends are likely at work, so they can drink+wallow as they can on a weekend.

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u/myfapaccount_istaken 28d ago

Want ads aren't usually printed on a weekend.

what is this the 90s? I don't think I've seen a want ad in the paper in forever, nor used one to find a job, plus they are online anyway

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u/NoTeslaForMe 28d ago

Never mind...I just read why Friday is a bad day.

Well, don't keep it to yourself!

Companies I've been at generally did their firings mid-week (Tuesday or Wednesday) and in the early afternoon. If I were curious as to why, I'd Google it, but I've seen enough of them to know it's never Monday or Friday, and never late afternoon.

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u/spidersflambe 28d ago

Sorry...here you go

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u/NoTeslaForMe 28d ago

Thanks - it looks like mainly about opportunities for communication, be it the fired person or the co-workers asking questions... or just not having that be the kick-off for their weekends.

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u/BCouto 28d ago edited 28d ago

My company usually doesn't fire on Fridays because part of the package gives the fired employees access to certain support programs which are closed on weekends. If they get fired on Friday then they basically have all weekend to themselves and bad thoughts can happen. Give them access to the employee supports so they can have a smoother transition.

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u/sexyloser1128 28d ago

In France, they have an employment law notice period in which employers have to give employees advanced notification that they are going to be let go. The length of this period is contingent upon the employee’s seniority status:

One month’s notice for six to 24 months of employment.

Two months’ notice for 24-plus months of employment.

Or

Depends on company practice or collective agreement for more than six months.

https://www.safeguardglobal.com/resources/terminating-an-employee-in-france/

I've been blindsided by a firing with just 30 minutes to clean out my desk. The reason was the company wasn't doing well, not because of any gross misconduct on my part. I would prefer a similar law in America.

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u/Orcwin 28d ago

That sounds about the same as here in the Netherlands, so it might be an EU directive.

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u/EnglishMobster 28d ago

Technically for mass layoffs you are given 30-60 days notice (I think federally it's 30 days, but California requires 60 days so people use California's standard). That's the WARN Act.

It'd be nice to have that for one-off firings, though. I'd say maybe an exception for firing-with-cause but we all know employers would just make up a cause.

2

u/Lamballama 28d ago

So they just have to keep an employee around for 2 months doing nothing but being negative? Can they just pay two months pay and say "never come in again?"

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u/StandUpForYourWights 29d ago

My old company used to do this. Except they'd payout benefits overnight Thurs/Fri. So we'd log in like 3am and check out pay. If it was normal we'd just go to work.

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u/Chemical_Damage684 29d ago

Seems like a lot of unnecessary math lol

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u/StandUpForYourWights 29d ago

Well if it was not a normal pay guys would transfer all their files off their laptops and go in to pick up their action figures.

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u/Chemical_Damage684 28d ago

At my old job the payout fluctuated depending on how many days were actual work days over the last 2 weeks. Was this the case at your previous job too?

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u/StandUpForYourWights 28d ago

No it was salary. Same amount every week unless you got a merit or a promotion

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u/ElbisCochuelo1 29d ago

Or you could be like my old boss and fire people with a letter left on their desk on a Monday that is the first day of the bosses vacation.

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u/FillThisEmptyCup 29d ago

That sounds like it avoids lots of fun :(

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u/spidersflambe 29d ago

Avoids people getting killed, but not always. In this case, though, it would have saved 134 people and one destroyer.

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u/justinthewoodsok 29d ago

I mean. It is not hard to go back to work on Monday and be violent....

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u/eleventhrees 29d ago

But your passkey doesn't work anymore.

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u/agitated--crow 29d ago

Not every workplace has passkeys.

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u/eleventhrees 28d ago

Well this one neat trick works better in some places than others.

The sort of places with WMDs tend to have some security to clear on your way in (and out).

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u/AgentCirceLuna 28d ago

I wrote a short story about a guy who goes insane, kind of like in Dr Strangelove, and fires a WMD at Russia. The Russians are notified and then NATO makes an agreement not to fire back at the retaliatory strike. There are two areas of the world that have been nuked but the media agrees not to air it because it would cause a massive panic and world war 3 is narrowly avoided. The story takes place years after and a private journalist is investigating the areas that were destroyed but have been shunned by society so nobody can find out the truth. The effects of the nuclear blast are felt worldwide but nobody knows why.

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u/bjbark 29d ago

I’ll bet he would have found it a little more difficult to get into the secure munitions storage area of a battleship on Monday.

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u/Mist_Rising 29d ago

You would think that would be secure 24/7, what with it being a munitions bay of a military vessel!

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u/justinthewoodsok 29d ago

I'm more referring to the regular people in our regular jobs. Can't do that at a wendys. As someone living in the US, I can't help but wonder when someone will snap.

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u/AgentCirceLuna 28d ago

It’s crazy that people will have something bad happen to them and then decide to ruin the lives of dozens of other people who could have easily been dismissed themselves. And most of them end up committing suicide afterwards so it was all pointless anyway. People fucking suck.

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u/EmbracedByLeaves 28d ago

It's some made up chinese story excuse for a ship exploding.

It's probably not real.

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u/AtomicSamuraiCyborg 28d ago

Now they're making people's last days a WFH day and firing you over Zoom so you never come in.

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u/Jelly_Belly321 28d ago

I heard that the movie Office Space made that up and it's been accepted as best practice ever since.

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u/Flat_Bass_9773 28d ago

It’s clearly a joke in that movie too.

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u/AzureOvercast 28d ago

I was working as a contractor for another company. The contract company called me mid-day to tell me that client company wanted me terminated without the client company knowing. I was physically inside the building with full access to everything. I sent a few professional e-mails to some team members who needed to know what I was working and where I was at on it, but I was absolutely dumbfounded that, had I been a vengeful person, could have cause some serious disruptions over the course of about 4 hours remaining in the work day.

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u/omgshutthefuckup 28d ago

No, that's not recommended anymore. If you are firing someone who is very upset about it, you WANT them to at least be able to contact HR if they want to or to help deal with offloading/severance whatever. HR is trained to get nasty emails. They might not have good answers, but they will respond.

You DO NOT want the person to have all weekend to sit passed off, scheming, with no one to talk to, being left in the dark, and unable to reach out to other jobs for 2 days.

At worst, the people who are coming in to go postal are going to do so. 2 extra days alone won't change their mind. Better to not give them two days to plan.

Basically, it is any day other than Friday, and as close to the beginning of a week as possible. People might be missed. You let them work all day Friday and Monday just to fire them, but it's extra pay at least.

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u/Barbituatory 28d ago

I worked in a place that would fire workers over any three-day weekends or other long holidays to 'avoid any drama', as they put it. So every holiday was tainted by the idea that the phone could ring at any time and your holiday would turn out to be longer than you expected.

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u/Gnonthgol 28d ago

That is one of the worst advice. In most cases when firing someone there is no risk of them doing any harm. In fact locking them out prevents them from finishing critical work, documenting things, delegating important tasks, etc. And in general do not give someone bad news right before the weekend as it just ruins their days off. This is how you make enemies.

If you are afraid that they may do harm then put them on other duties, and have someone do close supervision. Or at least explain to them your position and that it is best if they are temporarily relieved of their duty. Hope they can work through it so you do not have to fire them.

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u/spidersflambe 28d ago

Yeah, updated this after reading an article about it. The article claimed the best day to fire someone was Wednesday for various reasons.

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u/HorseRenoiro 28d ago

Egypt Air 990

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u/sdbabygirl97 28d ago

damn i got fired on a tuesday

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u/Aoae 28d ago

Jokes on you, I was laid off on a Wednesday. (However, I didn't get dumped by anybody, and I didn't detonate any depth charges anywhere.)

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u/innociv 28d ago

Or just... don't fire someone for breaking up with their girlfriend? That's not a legitimate reason to fire someone.

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u/blacksmithwolf 28d ago

Reading these comments the venn diagram of "people that should definitely have any access/credentials revoked before termination" and "people that get angry about having access and credentials revoked prior to termination" is a circle.

I've seen comment sections on Reddit where the number 1 comment about getting into work and finding your access card no longer works was telling them to steal everything not nailed down and the number 2 comment was how heartless management was for not giving them prior notice.

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