Finally no longer having to work
It's really been the absolute worst thing in life after "being a kid" and "going to school"

I know the setup is that if you don't job hard enough
then something even worse is coming up
living in the streets, which is illegal
then living in the man made hell
called prison, which is just another kind of school

But this time, by seeing it coming,
turns out there's a way to opt out of the bad bits !

I had a meeting with plenty of important people tagged in, yet somehow I didn't think much, if anything, of it. Like it's just a meeting. Which it was. A meeting to inform me I was to be let go of the company. The possibility of that only occurred to me, I think, when prompted to think about it, on another meeting I had right before that one. That's right, two meetings back to back. Yet I was clueless…

Gather round and attend my layoff time tale of woe.

I worked for this company for four years. They fell on hard times and, in place of layoffs, required employees to temporarily give up a portion of their salary on the condition it would be repaid within 2 years with interest, plus increased bonuses proportional with how much you sacrificed. I voluntarily gave up 20% as the company had never had a layoff in its history (no layoffs was part of their alleged culture) and all the old timers gushed about their massive bonuses after downturns like these.

I was given my quarterly review in October and I get a perfect score. I work three weeks, then am badly hurt on the job. It requires fairly major surgery, so I'm out for almost two months.

I literally limp back, probably a little too early. The first day is fine and I'm getting back up to speed. Boss shows appreciation to my dedication as I reasonably could have taken more time to recuperate. I tell her I need to discuss accommodations as I'm still healing. She agrees and sets an appointment for the next morning. Great job HamSandwich, everyone loves you.

I arrive to the accommodation meeting to find the head of HR and my boss. I figure HR is there to help with accomodations. Nope, I'm being terminated. For performance. Huh. I ask about my stellar review. My boss tells me there were issues. I ask about the issues. She is unable to give me any examples. I ask how I was supposed to know I had performance issues when I had a perfect review three work weeks ago and no one can tell me what I've been doing wrong. HR boss bitch pipes in with "Ham, at your seniority level you should just know." Fuck you, boss bitch. Fuck you.

As I'm packing up my things, I realize they cut me one day before my yearly stock shares were to be awarded. Security walks me out and tells me I'm one of many senior level employees being terminated. People are being fired for showing up five minutes late. Upper level admins are walking out in protest. It appears this was the strategy: bank on the company's good reputation to encourage increased voluntary salary cuts, then dump as many high earners as possible if still in a downturn. My boss is a spineless twerp and went along with it. She lies and tells the rest of the department I was terminated for sleeping on the job. Fuck you, boss. Fuck you.

The company had its first round of layoffs a few months later. Those employees also lost the money they gave up. The company's reputation is irreparably harmed and I'm currently suing them for lost wages.

In outside sales so everyone is working remote. I get an email around 7PM that we are going to have a meeting tomorrow (on line of course) at 3PM. I had heard that a big layoff was coming. But why a call at 3PM instead of first thing in the morning if I was going to get laid off. Later that evening I get calls from friends about the 10AM meeting. I told them I never got a message about it, but I did about a 3PM meeting.

What they did was all the people they were laying off were on the 10AM meeting. It was half the total sales force. at the 3PM meeting for the survivors, they explained to us what was going on.

Well at least its suspect enough to prepare :). I once came in at 9am and we had random people funneling everyone into a conference room with HR people to tell us our department would no longer be needed.

Lmao in my case my computer just randomly restarted and asked for a security pin while I was busy working on something. I learned through our WhatsApp group that we got laid off lol.

Call with HR was when I already knew and nothing like this, I tried to get them to let me keep my $7k MacBook, no chance, literally everything was non negotiable so the call was absolutely pointless.

In my previous company, at about 9PM, about half the company got an invite for a 9AM meeting, and the other half for a 10AM meeting, we saw all the name in our invite of course. Let's say the evening was hard, to guess which group was staying and which group was fired! I was in the "stay" group, this repeated every quarter and after 3 or 4 quarters it was my turn to be in the fire group, the next quarter they closed the company and fired the remaining employees.

The HR lady was like the picture.

Where the fuck do y'all work that your HR "rep" looks like Anne Hathaway? Every company I worked for had a lady that looked like she retired after thirty years of proctoring detentions at a public highschool.

Sorry, too busy. Why can’t my manager fill you in on my current projects?

Just deline the invite and you are safe ;)

Brb, backing up my script folder and deleting anything I haven't already shared with the team

That smile. That damned smile.

I think this is their mask.

That's why I decline meetings without a proper agenda. No agenda = lack of preparation = waste of time = not a meeting.

This sent a bad chill along my spine. PTSD.

I look at this smile and think "There is no HR in Ba Sing Se"

She looks like a whitewashed Victoria Newman from the boys.

I got an invite for a meeting the next morning. I was like "they wouldn't be that stupid, right?". Well, they were. I had time to prepare something funny but I was disarmed by their stupidity.

It has to be a Friday too.

stooge /stoo͞j/

noun

1. The partner in a comedy team who feeds lines to the other comedian; a straight man.

2. One who allows oneself to be used for another's profit or advantage; a puppet.

3. A stool pigeon.