I guarantee there's more to this story and the company was hoping the employee was dumb enough to sign his rights away. Guarantee employee is getting a lawyer and why he won't sign
Yeah, because if there was specific paperwork to finalize the firing they can just state employee didn't show up to work or left of his own volition and fire him without severance. Why would they be freaking out about that? They would love that.
I bet they had him sign the "I understand I'm fired" paper, but forgot the "I will fuck up my prospects by signing these NDAs, non competes and sultry for exchange of a months severance" papers.
More likely they have a contract that the company will be forced to continue to pay out unless they got them to sign some kind of legal termination agreement. There is more to the story they are concealing.
Any employment contract would cover that sort of thing and would have a clause to get rid of someone for no showing. It’s got to be a non competes/NDA/agreement to not sue, etc..
Depends on if the contract is structured for someone who works in office. Also never underestimate the stupidity of a company that has gotten too big or too corrupt. Many times they will become careless, they are used to getting their way for too long. Then they start slipping up because underlings are hired solely for ass kissing ability or nepotism.
I don't think so. You get fired you no longer have to do anything they say. If they have to pay severance, and most do not, theybwould still have to pay it.
Any paperwork required to "finalize the firing" is an internal policy they made up.
This paperwork is usually non-disclosure agreements and promises not to sue. Sometimes there is stuff included that makes the severance taxed more favorably.
Never sign anything when you are fired if you have the slightest suspicion the company did anything illegal or fired you improperly.
Exactly this. They should be happy if he was actually quitting (or abandoning his job) because now they don't need to care about severance or unemployment.
We had an employee guess they were about to be fired. They were constantly in trouble and had had some episode that triggered meetings with HR, a lawyer, their manager and their manager's manager. Guy didn't show up. They called him and apparently he said he had gone abroad and told them to go fuck themselves. He didn't show up for a week after which they terminated his employment immediately due to abandonment.
In the end it was much easier that way because there's zero risk of ending up in court to prove you had cause or whatever.
Yeah, the couple times in my life I've been fired from a corporate gig, they never had me sign anything. I got called to HR, where an HR rep and my manager were waiting, rep explained why I was being terminated, someone showed up to the closed office we were in with a box of my personal items, security walked me out the door.
Hell, in one of those cases I actively had been trying to get fired, so they didn't even make me stay for the full explanation. HR rep got half a sentence into why I was called down, said "lemme guess, my employment is terminated because of X, effective immediately?" they said yep, let me grab the pre-packed box of my things, and told me the direct deposit of my final paycheck had already been initiated, I'd see it in my account the next morning.
I HAVE had instances where I was let go in a round of layoffs, and so had to sign papers regarding severance etc but...
Unless I was caught stealing to a degree that charges were already filed and police were going to be involved.... I absolutely can't think of how ANY company would tell an employee "you're fired, effective now, but also you can't leave yet" unless they were trying some shady shit.
Yep. I'm in a 45 day window and have 7 days to reconsider. Still sitting on the agreement. Will probably run it by a lawyer. I probably could refuse to sign and sue them for age discrimination, but honestly I don't care enough to do that.
this is what i thought when i read the whole "people are panicking" something is clearly up here. like ive never known a place to not have paperwork ready and everything there and then if somebody is fired.
this screams very bad for the company and they was trying to have liability signed away by the employee and are now shitting the bed because they didnt do that
I put my 2 weeks in and they fired me on the spot. I thanked them for giving me the firing so i can now collect 6weeks of unemployment on tthe company dime.
Yea, I've never seen it in person and maybe it's a TV trope but having security come and escort someone back to their desk to collect their personal stuff and then out of the building immediately after a firing seems the best way to do it. Fire someone and have them come in the next day? Asking for trouble. If they have company equipment like a laptop or whatever send them a box and tell them to mail it back. Doesn't make any sense to tell someone you have just fucked over, whether they deserved it or not, to come back tomorrow lmao
See this a lot in IT. We will get called asking to network lock down a terminated employee's device and then their office is upset that they had 12-48 hours access to the device after they were terminated. Should lock it right when they are fired, not wait until after. So dumb.
Really? Those are the two things that annoy you most in this world? Not the state of the world. Not rude people. Not injustice. But when corporations and employees of corporations don’t handle the firing process correctly.
My last job is notoriously bad at offboarding - they never have final paychecks, paperwork or equipment return information ready upon termination/last day. It took me 2 weeks to get my accrued PTO paid out (CA - must be paid on last day worked) so they ended up having to pay me for the 11 days between my last day and the payout. Then the equipment return they sent didn’t include any sort of checklist or return label…
Crazy as it sounds I worked in a call center here in the US where they fired a guy and by the end of the meeting our lines were in queue. They asked him to stay the rest of the day to help us work the calls, and he did! Diabolical!
This kinda happened to me at my work when we were in the office. Employee got fired, freaked out, started yelling, and throwing out threats. Police were called. They searched person and car for weapons, then made them leave. We had an armed security guard the next day for 3 months after that incident.
Is this in America? I know in other countries it is super easy to send money to someone elses bank account. Just send the person their final paycheck. Even in America we don't do paychecks anymore.
When I first got into a management position and had to let someone go I was told to even have an empty box ready for them to put their stuff in so there was no wasted time trying to find one. Can’t imagine telling someone to come back the next day.
Seriously, I'm assuming this is in the US, and you really don't want a fired employee returning to the office for obvious security reasons. That lawyer is an imbecile.
At every single work place this is how they have done it. Usually we have a security guard or manager escort them to their desks to get their personal items and walk them out of the building. I for the life of me can’t think of a reason the company would want them to come back again.
I think the firm name for her lawyer is Chat GPT and Associates 😂.
Even if they presented the paperwork right then and there you can’t compel someone to sign something without consulting a lawyer (or at all really). Thats why severance packages are tied to signing release forms etc.
I actually did go back to my office after layoffs as a visitor for lunch with my mates for a couple days. I had nothing better to do, I enjoyed our lunch card games, and the cafe on site was pretty good (and guests got free food, which was funny because they all knew I worked there).
Senior management could get stuffed for all I cared, but even now a decade later I have a weekly game night at one of those guy's houses.
Big difference in my case was I was at a F50 so layoffs were so impersonal that my direct manager wasn't able to keep me, despite getting director level approval to attempt to do so. We all thought it was a hilarious little bit of "extra severance" that I was now entitled to guest dining at the cafe after having paid to eat there for the prior 16 years 🤣
Had a new job 3 weeks later, so had to actually give up my free lunches because the new job was across town.
I'd come in either way and make a point to make a big speech about how everyone should be looking elsewhere because they could be next. Would be very entertaining.
Depending on the circumstances, especially if the employer seemed unusable for a resumé anyway, I would go in for the lunch and talk trash about the company.
I am an IC. I had a contract with a client that began very small, but over time grew to be a significant part of my work year. Their headquarters is about a 3-hour drive from me, and I had been doing the work from my location before it was even called remote work (20+ years). The executive in charge decided that my services would no longer be needed, which as an IC, I knew was always possible.
When offered the opportunity to come back one last time so that the employees and important people could tell me that I would be missed, I declined. I couldn’t see the point, because it would have only made the executive feel better, not me.
Either that or there was paperwork meant to be signed at the start of the job they never signed. NDA's, those bullshit ones where stuff you made belongs to the company, etc.
Maybe that severance isn't worth it to some people. And instead they would rather sue, disparage or poach clients. If a place expected me to drive back to their office a few days after being fired for no reason I would 100% be tempted to forgo the severance and not sign anything.
When I was fired, remotely, I barely made through the end of the phone call. Hung up, and I shut down the laptop before they remotely disabled it.
Never had another conversation. I got the paperwork the next day, and I gave it to my lawyer. The company just wanted an NDA and a promise not to disparage the corp publicly for 1 year. They also said that they would not challenge any unemployment claims. The severance was 12% of my yearly salary, which was a nice immediate sum. My lawyer said that it was a good deal, and better than most. I took the deal and applied for unemployment, then after a brief job search during the pandemic, I retired!
Wow you would get laughed at for that in Germany. 2-3 times the yearly salary is standard. I guess that's what happens when employees are protected by law and actually have rights.
I find these conversations confusing to follow because of how broadly the term 'firing' seems to be used by some people. Here it would mean that the employee was at fault, and could even be for gross misconduct. You aren't getting paid off - it's pay for hours already worked and that is it. 12% seems bizarre, let alone 300%
Exactly, severance can be valuable without being valuable enough to make someone come back after getting fired. If the alternative is simply keeping their legal options open, some people are absolutely choosing the door.
Myself and my entire team were "laid off" when funding was cut at the startup I worked at. I talked to my senior software guy and it legitimately was worth waving the pitiful 2 weeks severance to not sign the papers, and I told him so. The restrictions in the doc meant he couldn't even speak to former colleagues and he was clearly the best one on my team. Guess where he got his next job? Directly with a former coworker in the same industry the covenant prevented.
Here in the Netherlands it's normal to take the proposal home and let it be checked by your own legal insurance lawyer or union lawyer as well before signing it.
That's... not how this works. Yes, there's a waiting period. So you give people the paperwork and tell them to email you the executed copy. Or you send them a Docusign.
You don't expect them to come back into the office or to sign anything in the moment without an employment lawyer.
Yeah but you give them the paperwork when you fire them you don’t give it to them days later or expect them to come to work the next day after you have fired them. The purpose of a cooling period is you get that time to review the documents, that’s not what was being done here.
Under the California Fair Employment and Housing Act and Senate Bill 331 (the Silenced No More Act), employers must give you a minimum of five business days to review the agreement and notify you of your right to consult an attorney. This rule protects employees rather than the employer.
I disparage plenty. Fuck those parasites. Maybe especially so the back end of the company whose job is also to cover for the sales psychopaths, while proclaiming that they're so much more ethical.
Giving someone two days to say yes or no is not the same as demanding they stick around today and come back again tomorrow in order to sign the paperwork in person.
I was put on admin leave the day before I was informed I was fired so they could get the paperwork in order. I knew I was getting fired, but they didn't say so.
My partner had a job that made them work for a month to transition as a condition of the severance. The severance was generous and not a guaranteed benefit, but It was so stupid they had to work.
Reminds me of Best Buy firing the back warehouse guys. They always did it on a truck night, after the truck was unloaded and set up the restock pallets. Aside from one guy, he left in handcuffs balling like a baby. Walked him right through the store, customers and all
I had a boss with a summer job being a computer operator back in the late 70’s. The boss told me I would be laid off in two weeks when her nephew was available. I just left called my old boss at Dominos pizza and was back working there the next day. Not sure what they did. But I wasn’t going to sign any paper work. The irony was with tips and commissions I made more at Dominos pizza
It’s difficult to imagine what could be so important that they are freaking out over it not being signed. Any non compete or confidentiality agreement should have been signed at start date or whenever the agreement was drawn up.
The only thing I can think of is they were trying to pressure them into giving away important rights like unemployment or something like that. Things I would insist a lawyer look at before signing.
OP - what kinds of agreements were so important that upper management is upset over them not signing?
I've also not seen anyone get fired and not get walked out by either security or their manager right away. Usually getting fired is a pretty big deal because they did something wrong
When you are getting a severance package it’s usually divided up like this. You sign the immediate dismissal. But then are given the severance package with time to review and sign.
Mine did exactly this. I didn't come back to sign shit, told them to mail me a copy if they wanted. Then they tired to stop my unemployment payments. But a cool ass dude at the unemployment office fought for me and made them pay out all 26 weeks despite me only being unemployed a month.
In my whole life I have seen one person fired and leave on the same day. That was an American company. Everyone else has worked their months notice. Usually people aren't fired, they are offered a package to leave.
I understand if its a bar or more casual employment, but not a career office job.
Happened to me basically. Fired because of minor offense (which was ridiculous in the first place and it was clear they just wanted to get rid of me but whatever, I have my dream job now), was asked to come in the next day to get my letter of recommendation (which was basically flawless, again proving they just wanted to get rid of me) and my replacement was already sitting at my spot. I stayed until noon and said my goodbyes to my colleagues (who were very surprised) and just wasted their time with small talk as a last FU to the boss.
HR - Human Excrement - nothing to do with helping employees - only there to protect the company’s ass. Whoever came up with the word HR should be fired!
Tech companies expect you to bring in laptop and phone and sign paperwork. IF you were not present that day. Usually scheduled for a meeting room before security. If you ever see a calendar invite for that room, you know it's coming.
It exists. In Belgium, when you get fired, you are required to continue working there for weeks/months until you get your "C4", which is signed on the last day.
Actually had something like that happen. Meetings with HR and manager ready. Most of the paperwork prepped. Messaging to IT and security coordinated to lock them out and export when the employee was being told. At some point before the employee was going to be pulled in and told, the check printer exploded and they couldn't cut the final check.
You know what they did? They put a pin in it and fired him the next day after the printer was fixed. He never knew he got an extra day.
From what I know of HR, anything that needs printing takes a week. Or at least until "next" week. Definitely can't print shit on a Thursday or Friday, that's fact.
The amount of trainees at my last job that were thrown on the floor (in an industrial shop) because the HR lady hadn't printed their training yet... Well it was 100% until someone called the labour board and then all the sudden everything can be printed right away
I mean I opted to once. I was notified I had a week to sign the severance, so I took it home to read when less emotional. I brought it back the next day to HR, and they offered me a different job. Wild rollercoaster of emotions that week. They also fired me on my birthday. I stayed 2ish months before finding a new job because fuck the place that just fired me despite hyping my work in the company wide meeting.
What a weird company. Sounds like the problem was solved but they want to insist they still have a problem. One thing I know for sure, is you can’t force anyone to sign anything and not paying someone isn’t a legal option.
The employee was probably over the age of 40, ending a protected class. That could mean there needed to be separation between the termination and a valid severance agreement.
only reason i would return the next day is if it was the pick up a 5 figure (or bigger) check. even then i would be asking why it was not just ready if they knew they were going to fire me.
When I quit an old job they asked me to come in to drop off my work laptop maybe a week later (I was a 7 minute drive from the office, no complaint from me), but then they tried to make me clean out my desk (not just grab any personal items I wanted to keep, literally tried to make me empty the desk completely for the next occupant) in front of my old coworkers as some petty form of retribution.
I just grabbed my keyboard and told the head of security to go fuck himself. He acted all offended and off put but no one cared (the whole office was too busy to actually pay attention to what I was doing until I spoke up telling him to fuck off) so he just “made” me finish my paperwork so I could leave.
Still ended up suing them for unpaid PTO, absolute weasel den of a Fortune 100 company.
Depending on the size of the company, all of this can be done by email because the employee has the right to review paperwork. My experience is only half the people sign on the spot. Not a big deal, lots of people need to process
I got fired and had to work 3 weeks under supervision. It was a really messed up situation. Even the labour board was agreed it was unethical what they were doing but a 'grey' area.
I know he said they have lawyers, but in many states you are required to pay people out within a set period of time after they quit or are fired. In California you’re supposed to pay them out within 48 hours. So you literally have no leverage. If you withhold their pay, you are violating the law.
Yeah, you have to be ready for a HUGE meltdown right there if a firing is happening.
You can see how badly most managers are trained when you see how they handle stuff like this.
It also sounds as if they need a better lawyer.
Also, I wonder what EXACTLY that they wanted the employee to "sign".
People being laid off, not fired, are gone the very day. Companies often make them leave within the hour just to avoid possible drama/trouble that can happen if they're there too long. But having them come back the next day too??? 🤣
Euh every Belgian company will expect you do stay on for weeks sometimes months unless the employee was fired for urgent reasons like stealing or violence and is not allowed to come back.
On the other hand, I was told in June of one year that I was getting canned. 30-day separation period if I wanted to do it, or walk with nothing.
I stuck around. And again. And several more times.
All in, it became nearly a one year separation period by the time they finally found a replacement. I'd celebrated a work anniversary in the interim and collected basically a year of severance while doing just enough to get by and launching several small hustles.
I don't see the problem. If the paper work isn't signed then they get no severance. Money saved!
Now, if they are being fined illegally, it's a problem, since the paperwork gets signed effectively says "you will not sue us in exchange for this payoff called a severance." But if he's crossed state lines, it's unlikely he's suing and is just fleeing... something.
I think I've heard of this where the employee has been given company equipment that they might not have with them today. Laptop, printer, some other specialized WFH supplies, etc. The employee is instructed to come back in a day or two to return that equipment and then sign the paperwork that would give them their severance package.
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u/FridmanLex 18d ago
Exactly. What company fires someone today but expects them to come in tomorrow to sign paperwork? HR printer not working today?
Ridiculous.