When your joke is so good that the HR folks want to hear it in person.
Had that today. Not HR. But my boss coming up telling me we have to talk and then also the highest IT guy wanting a meeting tomorrow…
I told the head of HR to go fuck themselves for trying to fire me after interrupting me hustling trying to meet a deadline, to do some HR interview bs, and them refusing to leave after following me to my office. They’re worthless corpo cops and they contribute nothing to an employee. I was hired by the vp and challenged them to fire me and they backed down after talking to him. I don’t work there anymore after they laid off the entire engineering department and ran the company into the ground. It’s enjoyable to watch from the outside though
Frankly, I’d have rather had this experience than what I actually had: nonchalantly walking to my boss’s office right before the office closed for Christmas while thinking he was going to wish me a happy holiday.
I got something similar, just the remote version. Was supposed to have 1:1 with one of the corporate officers (c-suite). He was there, but then, fucking HR lady joined. As soon as she got on, I knew what was up.
They whacked me and most of my team that day in the span of about an hour and a half. HR is a bunch of useless twats and their only value is to read the “you’re fired” script quickly.
Me handing in my resignation letter so I’m one step ahead
🗿
“Huh. What’s this? A spur of the moment Teams meeting with some VP whose name I barely know? Ah. And there’s HR. So it’s THAT meeting.”
Things at my current job are an such a massive shit show already. I imagine that my only reaction to such a meeting would be a full throated laugh, “good luck!” And just drop the meeting.
same.
they wouldn’t be fucked forever, but they’d certainly feel the long cold shaft firmly forced up their urethra for at least a good six months.
That’s exactly how it happened at my previous job :(
I got that call for saying I was “enjoying the view,” meaning the park-like landscaping out the window of an empty office I was admiring on the first sunny day of Spring. A woman in the hallway assumed I meant her butt.
Wait, this doesn’t add up, who did you say it to? Why didn’t they back you up? Did you just say it to yourself? What?
Okay, full story:
I was standing in the doorway of an empty office, looking out the window and talking to myself out loud (because I’m a dork) about how I would arrange it if it were my office. It was a ground floor office with beautiful parklike landscaping outside, nothing but trees and rolling greenery, not even a light pole in sight. As I backed out into the hallway without looking, I sort of bumped into two women, one of whom happened to be my office manager, let’s call her Alice, and the other I didn’t know, call her Miss Congeniality. I felt like I had to say something to explain why I was standing in the doorway of an empty office talking to myself out loud, so as they walked away I said, “I’m just having a nice day, enjoying the view.” They looked at each other and giggled, which made me feel even dorkier.
A month goes by.
There’s a small reorganization and the seating gets shuffled. By sheer chance, Miss C and I are supposed to share an office. At this point she tells office manager Alice that she doesn’t feel comfortable sharing an office with me after that remark I made. “What remark?” asks Alice. “The one about enjoying the view,” says Miss C, “when he was looking at our butts.” Alice tries to stick up for me, saying I was just off in my own world, but Miss C is insistent so Alice reluctantly brings it to HR.
At first I honestly had no idea what they were talking about, as it had been a month and I had forgotten the whole thing. For a week I tried to figure out what the hell I could have said that sounded like “enjoying the view”. Was it something “of you”? Was it “a few”? But nothing came to mind and I was convinced they just had the wrong guy. Then my wife told a friend of mine about it and he just laughed and said, “Knowing <dork> he was probably looking out the window!” When I heard looking out the window, BOOM the whole thing came flooding back. So I went back to HR and related what I now remembered. I asked if I could talk to the accuser but they’re emphatically like, “Oh no no! Don’t anybody talk to anybody, let us handle it!” After a day or two they say Miss C agreed it was probably a misunderstanding.
The end result was that Miss C didn’t have to move in with me and got to keep her solo office. Based on her utter lack of reaction at the time, I’m pretty sure this was what motivated the complaint. But there’s absolutely no way to prove that, and it’s water under the bridge.
haha no way, ouch
Mine have always been they just show up unannounced, take me to a conference room, and lay me off that day.
In a sexy way?
I got laid off literally less than 20 minutes after I finished everything that needed to be done for that quarter. They told me they were waiting for me to finish, and that they had lied to my face about finding me a new position when they closed up my office.
The signs are often there. You know when they start finding time for you to do documentation, a layoff is coming.
I knew my layoff was coming because they let me do absolutely fucking nothing for six months.
I’m doing this one now mostly. Current company was just bought by a bigger company. All major projects have been stopped while we wait for the new bosses to show up and tell everyone what to do (then fire 2/3 of us).
I’m busy looking for my next job now. I have learned that any time there is any major acquisition or merger, get looking THE DAY it is announced. Do not wait, do not hope it will get better.
The management will let the news settle in, then after about a week or two, they’ll send some useless motivational email about how we should value our work, take pride in it, whatever. They’re just trying to keep everyone busy so that they won’t leave because the bosses will get a bonus if they can keep the place stable long enough to hand it over to new management. They let everyone believe that everything will be fine, no need to panic.
The rule is, when you start to see the faces of the new company, it’s fucking over. You have weeks/days left before you’re gone. They’ve already gone through the staff, they know the names, who’s worth keeping (very few), what they do, how much it will cost in lost productivity when they fire everyone off. They have consultants at the ready to come in and clean up the mess left behind after they sweep everyone out. Any hope that you’re a good person or that you know something that nobody else does and that’s useful is just wishful thinking. You represent an expense and they want those to go away. They will spend as little money on you as possible to make you go away. They will typically offer no severance or as little as possible (in the US). They will do what they can to fend off a potential lawsuit so you won’t have any grounds to sue once you’re cut. They’ll keep the people in other countries that actually have labor protection laws and drop all the US workers as fast as possible.
Never sit around hoping things will work out, they will not. Just dust off your resume and get at it.
I’m more like “took them long enough to finally find one thing”
*inhales cigarette* “what took you so long?”
Inhaling a cigarette sounds very unpleasant.
Same vibe as “chewing on a cigar”
exhales cigarette Suit yourself bub
Invite with HR Friday at 4pm.
It’s so rude that they wait until end of day/end of week. I’ve seen my boss do it multiple times, and it’s just like… If you know at 9am, then fire them at 9am. Don’t make them work one whole shift, undoubtedly worrying about this end-of-day meeting, before confirming they were right to be worried and firing them.
Edit: sorry, just to add - I’m sure you’re not being fired! Totally forgot that I was replying to this particular comment!
My company always does them on Thursdays, which is when they run payroll and can cut them off cleanly without back pay owed.
I got a message from my boss today asking me to come into the office (I’m nominally fully remote). It’s probably fine, but…
Reminds me of when I sent the return to office emails out to my team.
I apparently fumbled the wording so badly that one of my longtime friends/coworkers sent me a text asking if there’s going to be layoffs.
If I’m layed off I get a huge settlement and a year of a good unemployement salary. Vacation time.
Could be having you rat on coworkers
Wait, that’s a cardinal, am I reading pope vibes in this meme?
