That seems to happen a lot. Logic would indicate perhaps we should be downsizing management instead of ramping up micromanagers.
this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2026
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I still keep touch with some old coworkers. They give me all the dirt on how bad its been since i left.
-It took 3 positions to replace me when i was "let go".
-They have gone through dozens of people in the couple years since ive left.
-They lost a couple BIG contracts because of how many mistakes and mis-shipments there were (warehouse job).
-Their ratings have gone from 4.5+ to a solid 3.
Just for fun, i applied to their indeed listing last year because i know it costs them money, and it would set off my old boss. I got a phone call from my old coworker almost instantly laughing hysterically at how the boss was screaming and yelling with her mom over the phone and in tears.
I'm so happy for you that you get to enjoy this schadenfreude. It would be better if you had been respected by management before you were let go, but failing that, I'm glad you get some entertainment from the debacle
We had company wide layoffs in 2008, every department had to nominate x number of employees to terminate so the company could get below a spending level. I worked with a guy who was let go, excellent employee. I called his manager and questioned why he was let go because he did so much vital work. The manager said I was over reacting, the stats proved this guy doesn't do a lot of work so the manager will easily cover for him. 2 weeks later I followed up with the manager for some work which he was late on. He was panicking and admitted the work load was overwhelming. A month later the manager quit. The guy who was laid off was a great worker but terrible at recording service tickets. He was amazing at doing customizations for this specific software, so good that he was hired by that software company. Which meant my employer still had to contact him for help.
Being fired is even better, that means you can ask for a higher pay when they inevitably ask you to return
They never do that. Instead they hire a team each of which is paid more than they paid you. Then they hire consultants to optimize the team because the team isn't performing well.
I worked at Dollar general for years. They couldn't keep decent employees at my local store, so I was commonly considered by employees and customers to be the favorite employee. Eventually, my manager quit. This resulted in them moving my assistant manager to being manager. Issue being, my assistant manager hated me. I knew that my days of working there were over because I'm not going to deal with harassment, so I left.
A year later the regional manager reached out to me asking if I want to take over as manager. They fired the entire crew, including the assistant manager. This could have to do with his embezzling of funds, tampering with the security system, his inability to leave even a single customer anything less than pissed off, or any number of other issues.
I told the regional manager to fuck off, she had her chance a year ago when I told her this would happen and why I was leaving.
My first layoff they hired 3 people to replace me. They all quit in less than a year. This is after they ignored me when I told them that their job requirements were impossible and couldn't be done.
Oh and it cost the company millions because a ton of critical information was only in my head.
Depending on how long it is (and usually that depends on company policy) you can ask for more money when they call you back. I did exactly that. I never would have gotten to that pay level otherwise. So that layoff ended up being quite profitable for me, even though I had to wait over a year. (Was working somewhere else in the mean time and making way less money.)
And a paid vacation if you claim the unemployment. Not your regular rate but better than nothing.
You can claim unemployment whether you are fired or laid off.
And I thought actually “fired with cause” meant you couldn’t claim unemployment. But you can always claim the company is making up the cause, so no one ever challenges this.
There are even circumstances you can claim unemployment after you quit.
Not many circumstances. But they exist.
Yep, my wife argued and won for unemployment after quitting. Ended up being extended for 2 years because of the 2009 crash.
Reason, employer supported her to work from home for 6 months. Then management turnover happened and the new one mandated she return to the office. Since she stayed home the daycare situation had gone to shit and we couldn't find reasonable care that didn't cost her entire paycheck. She was forced to quit. Judge ruled it was a creative firing and she got unemployment.
Good to know.
I actually knew a guy who negotiated a severance package when he quit.
Everybody can be replaced. There pricey of the replacement might be much higher than expected. Not the first time they end up hiring 3 juniors to do the job of one senior.
There are few things so great as hearing that your previous company had to do hilariously wasteful and expensive things due to you leaving.
This happened to me. I got laid off and a few months later they called back asking me to return as a contractor. They eventually went out of business - maybe they shouldn't have laid off all the people actually keeping the business functioning.
My brother has also had the same thing happen. We both worked in the same company and at different locations, and the company had been performing successive rounds of layoffs. On the 5th round he and I were let go about 5 mins apart, but in less than a month they had to rehire him as a contractor and higher pay than they were paying him before. Mostly I think because his prior boss would claim stuff my brother did as his own accomplishments and I don't think my brother cared. He was able to contract til he got a better job.
This is when you get rehired as a contractor
I got injured at work in 2019 where I was a mid-level retail manager. The injury left a scar that was gonna need minor cosmetic surgery, but I needed to wait a year for the scar to fully develop and stabilize before the surgery, which made sense.
In 2020 I left the job because one of the upper-level managers was toxic and I was tired of losing my staff because of her. But I was still covered for the injury and was gonna get my surgery a few weeks after leaving, even though the scar ended up being very minor and was hidden by my mustache anyway.
Then Covid hit right before my surgery and lockdowns closed the cosmetic surgery offices the insurance company used for a year. The thing is - the insurance required the operation to be done within 2 years of the injury, and that wasn't going to be possible.
Since the insurance wasn't gonna pay out, the company offered me a pretty generous settlement to make the issue go away. The scar was mostly healed, so I took it.
Then the store opened back up following lockdowns, and they begged me to come back because my department was floundering. Before I took over the department, it had the 3rd worst performance in the corporation for thay department (out of about 200 locations), and within 18 months of me taking over we'd jumped to number 2 in the company. When I left they dropped down to dead-last.
I pointed out that the corporation only agreed to the settlement if it had a condition that I could never work with the corporation again.
Within a few months the entire department was dissolved in that store.
And they will blame the one's left not themselves.
That also means you can't be promoted.
I don't want to be promoted, since I really don't want to manage people, so I instead went on linkedin, waited for headhunters to contact me, got some job offers, and took them to my manager asking for a raise to match their offers. Since my job is a necessary part of the process, one of the other companies was desperate to fill the spot, and offered me 50% more than I'd been making at the time, but my manager knew he couldn't afford to let me go, so I managed to keep my nice remote job, but now with much better pay.
It's been 5 years since then, and my manager still understands that I'm one of the only people in my department who can actually do the work correctly every time, so I've got plenty of job security. I'm still somewhat worried that they'll get rid of me when he retires and gets replaced with someone else in the next year or two, but I'm still getting plenty of headhunters, so all that would really mean is that I need to get used to working for a different company that probably has better surveillance to make sure I'm actually working during the entirety of my shift.
Let me introduce you to be Peter principal: As long as you do your job well, you get promoted. On the flip side this means that eventually you arrive at a job you don't do well and that's where you stick because you can't return to your old position but neither will you get fired because you work for the company too long. That's why there are many people in middle management who did their job well until they had to manage others which isn't part of their skill set.
I've been in exactly the situation that the previous commenter was likely referring to. Every attempt to get promoted was either just danged further and further or outright sabotaged when I tried to move to other departments. The large, and completely self-inflicted, fallout they had from me eventually leaving for a different company continues to warm my ice cold heart to this very day.
That’s not necessarily true or bad.
I don’t want to manage, and they can promote me to work on new stuff, while still maintaining critical services.
Even better, wait for them to fire you watch the place crash and burn eat popcorn, only come back with significant pay raise.