Most Companies Let People Go without Ever Saying 'You're Fired'

I grew alienated with my last job and began making plans to move to Las Vegas and start a new business and a new life. I took a lot of legitimate vacation time as I was moving back and forth over 3 months between NYC and Las Vegas. Of course, I kept my boss in the dark about my plans.

Just before I was about to go to Vegas for my last swing before I intended to resign, she called me into her office, all serious and menacing. She had been unhappy with my vacation time and the fact I was out of the office a lot, and the rest of her staff were in the dumps covering for me (of course, I dutifully covered for them on their vacations, but they were just feeling sorry for themselves).

Anyway, she had decided to put a good scare in me and put me on '3 Month Probation,' whatever that was, and she actually put together a 'rap sheet' on me listing my moral and professional infractions of my tenure there, which was laughable. As she listed the first 3 points on her list, I laughed at each one (they was literally 'you don't go to firm wide meetings,' and 'you called in sick the monday after your vacation 8 months ago' and other asinine stuff like that), I stopped her right there, told her that I was embarrassed for her that she would make a list like that and have the nerve to read it to me, knowing it was crap, and that she should be ashamed of herself. I also told her that I just had my year-end evaluation about 10 weeks before and I got all top marks, and she neglected to mention any of these infractions even though the first three items on her list all predated my last formal evaluation.

She was stunned and I took that opening to tell her that I quit and was moving to Las Vegas to start a new life, cause the job has been cramping my style for a while.

So I shocked her by quitting on the spot (which I intended to do anyway about 2 weeks later but I just figured 'what the hell, may as well do it now.') Anyway, when I told her to stop reading me her list, I did quickly ask 'hey do you have the time (so and so) and I snuck into your office and had sex on your desk on your list?' Her eyes bugged out and she had no idea if I was serious of joking. Hahaha!!!

She wasn't very bright, and pretty slow witted. She went on vacation as planned and when I came back, she called me in and yelled at me, running me out of town shortly thereafter, cutting the notice I gave her in 1/2 and kicking me out. She said she was withholding her reference for me and this would all be 'on my permanent record.' I actually burst out laughing when she said that and I laughed so hard and did the 'hand trembling - 'I'm soooo scared' thing, saying 'Oh no, not my permanent record!' she actually yelled at me to 'stop laughing!' I genuinely couldn't stop laughing. She was nearly in tears when I left her office!

She badmouthed me during my last week there, telling everyone she could that she 'asked me to leave' which was a lie, I had quit. Actually, I nailed her on that and she lost a lot of credibility - I had pics on my webspace of my new fully furnished and almost fully moved into las vegas apt. Her webof lies caught up with her and she lost a lot of face as it became clear I had started leaving 3 months prior, and she was just being bitter and petty.

Her dept predictably became more negative after I left - the workload increased significantly and her 2 other project manages both resigned (and neither leaving for jobs, just 'leaving') 3 months and 6 months after I left. Her dept was in shambles and she lost everyone's trust.

A good friend once asked me if I think she blames me for that 9 month swing of problems she had at work, and my official response is "I hope so! If it isn't my fault, I don't know whose fault it is!"

So I quit, was fired, was badmouthed, got the last laugh, whatever. None of it really matters much. It's the big secret that corporate america doesn't want anyone to know. None of it really matters very much.

As long as you are a stand up person, things work out. I worked in law in nyc for 8 years or so (1994-2002). There are numerous partners, senior admin, senior attorneys, junior attorneys, and support staff who liked me a lot.

There are more than a few who didn't. Oh well!

There is no lifelong branding - most HR people and employers realize that sometimes its the bosses who have the problems. If you have several credible people who can vouch for you in your work experience, that's all that matters. Even if you don't. it doesn't matter that much really. You can always get a job temping and work your way into a company even with a hideous track record.

Almost nobody has THAT bad a track record, though. Just have some credible people who will say you are a good, valuable fella. Then its the weight of a crabby boss (many of which HR know are incompetent or schemers) agaisnt the weight of 4 or 6 people who say 'Lil'freeper is a wonderful addition to a team.'

Like I said, none of it really matters very much, and it all works out. I went into business for myself, which is the best thing I ever did. No more crabby negative bosses playing favorites. They remain firmly in my past, living in a wonderful prison of their own making.

Things work out! ;-)

My last job was doing 3rd level tech support for a line of software from a large publicly traded software company (not MS).

They did these goofy 360 interviews every year where you are supposed to get 3 coworkers and 3 clients to submit anonymous reviews of you (clients rarely do, but employees have to). Your boss uses those as part of the information your review is based on.

Well, my boss asked me to do a 360 on her. I didn't trust it to be anonymous, so I went easy on her only offering some mild criticisms that wouldn't limit my career if it was known I said it.

The big shock when I got my review was that she totally trashed me as an employee, even though she admitted that our clients were very happy with my service to them and I'm easy to get along with in the same review. I was attacked for handling fewer cases than others with no recognition for the fact that I take the harder cases, and when a new case arrives it is assigned to one of us by the team leader. I also don't close a case then reopen it as a new case over and over to inflate my number (like a certain coworker does) and the number of cases has never been a metric used in evaluation before and nothing had ever been said to me about needing to increase it before.

There was no way to appeal the review other than to try and talk her into changing the review (pointless) but I was allowed to add my own statement on it to my record and I did that. Asking me to review her like that was a setup to prevent my retaliating with accusations against her.

My review was so bad that I was not eligible for the annual bonus and I thought that was part of the motivation. The dept. gets a bonus as a whole and she gets to decide how it is divided up (based on review results) but the bonus was canceled for everyone anyway later on since things had slowed down so much, so if that was her plan it was a failure.

I found out a month later that my team leader (who never got along with her that well but was a hard working dedicated professional) also got trashed unfairly by her and I knew the writing was on the wall. There was one team member who really deserved a bad review, he was not a team player, dragged his feet getting things done, annoyed customers etc. but I don't know what his review was like.

They then implemented this insane time sheet system where you had to track everything in super detail (yes, there was a time sheet code for filling in the time sheet, I kid you not).

It was abundantly clear that they were laying the foundation for wide scale layoffs. There really wasn't enough real work for everyone to do but I made sure my time sheet was not objectionable and hung on until the layoffs came out of spite. If I left on my own it wouldn't cost them anything.

More than half the people in the office were history when it happened, myself included. I had a lot of unused vacation time and had been there for nearly 8 years so their rules stuck them with giving me a very nice severance package. I was really happy to be laid off but tried not to show it too much because everyone else was in shock for some reason. It kind of creeped out my boss and her boss that I was cool with it, I liked that. :)

The slacker team member was also let go and took it hard. The team leader and others in other Dept's. left on their own later on. My dept was left as just the manager and one new employee for whom English was a second language. I'm sure our customers loved that. They moved to a smaller office and are currently at risk of having their whole product line dropped.

There are still tens of thousands of unemployed high-tech workers here and I've been unemployed for over a year now in spite of my best efforts. In that time however I've discovered what it is that I was 'born to do' as Rush puts it, so I'm now chasing after a very new and exciting career.

This Shapiro lady is clearly a hack. I've consulted companies on such issues for as long as she has and have never encountered any such "list". Sure, managers know who wouldn't be missed if they never showed up again, but "secret lists" are for the tinfoil hat crowd.

I don't know. I've been with the same company for 24 years and have worked for eight vice presidents. I have long been the senior manager in the company because our president simply does not promote VPs from inside the company. The last three or four VPs have been jealous to some degree over my relationship with the Pres because he routinely jumps the chain of command and comes to me directly. Anyway, Vice Pres no. 7 and another manager targeted me and my department heads and some of the assistants. I could do nothing as, one by one all were forced out one way or another.

Our major suppliers became alarmed and one of them invited me to interview with them. They sent me a plane ticket to their corporate HQ, rented me a car and put me up in a nice hotel. It turned out that of the four people who interviewed me, three were old friends I had worked with for years and we spent most of the time chatting about fishing and hunting and how great it would be to work and play together. After the "interview" they took me to lunch followed by a tour of the building and visits with other old friends in the company. That evening we went out drinking together.

Apparently word got back to the Pres of what was going on

When I got back I was called in to a meeting with my boss, VP#7, and VP #8. I was told that I would henceforth report to VP#8 but I would have the same duties. Basically my whole division was shifted to VP#8 and, by the way, I was to receive a 25% raise! Next day, VP#8 called me in and told me he knew all about what was going on, that he was sorry for it and that VP#7 and his protege manager were on the way out along with their clique of managers, assistants and sycophants and could I handle the additional responsibilities that would have to be covered. A year later the executive formerly known as VP#7 has been demoted and now mopes around like a scolded dog and all of his sycophants are gone. I have had another 25% raise and have been allowed to design my own office on the top floor in our new building while my former nemesis will be housed in the basement.

There most certainly are hit lists, though they won't be written down.

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