Recently, a Twitter user who goes by the handle @Itkeekz shared a post telling how his boss screwed up big time. “My boss deactivated my coworker’s email who just quit too quickly and didn't realize it controls our company calendar,” he wrote, adding that “now all of those events for the next 3 years are gone.”
As you try to picture the sheer regret on this boss's face, I have to tell you this happens more often than you’d think. Blame it on rash light-headedness or plain impulsiveness, but the truth is that employers are not immune to messing up.
The story was reshared by one Redditor on the Antiwork subreddit, an online community with 1.8m members, where it quickly blew up. More people chimed in to share their own experiences, telling how their bosses blew things after their worker got fired or decided to quit. Scroll down below for some of the most interesting and telling stories.
Image credits: itkeekz
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Bored Panda reached out to Dawn Moss, the founder of “Your Interview Coach” set up in 2013 to help both candidates and hiring managers through the complexities of the recruitment and selection process. Throughout her career, Dawn has screened about 1 million CVs and interviewed over 10k candidates, and she was happy to share some insights into the procedure of firing an employee and what happens afterwards.
“It’s a less than easy process to fire someone in the U.K., both legally and ethically,” Dawn said. “In terms of the process, there are lots of factors to take into consideration; reason for dismissal, performance, capability, gross misconduct, and length of service, etc.” Although Dawn reminded us that she’s not an employment lawyer, she said that these situations can get complex.
“For a manager, it’s tough as they were the person to hire them in the first place and I can imagine there are a number of emotions attached to letting someone go. In my experience, most managers didn’t like getting to the point of firing someone and most have probably supported the person to get up to speed prior to starting the dismissal process,” Dawn explained and added that this is why the hiring process is absolutely essential to get right the first time. She also noted that the amount of management and HR time it takes managing a poor performer is draining.
I’m starting to feel like these are about the same person just from the perspective of different people in the company
Having said that, it’s important to note that there’s definitely a right and a wrong way to fire an employee. “There are companies that don’t follow any process and unfortunately, if an employee has served less than 24 months they cannot usually file for unfair dismissal. There are some exceptions, if an employee feels they are being dismissed because of a protected characteristic, for example,” Dawn explained.
“However, if it’s performance-related or a personality clash, it can be fairly easy to dismiss someone without any warning. Most reputable companies will want to follow a structured process. As mentioned previously, most managers I’ve worked with want to support the individual first and dismissal is a last resort,” the career coach concluded.
What kind of "computing security group" gives no thought to information retention and continuity?
It was nice of you to try to explain to the coworker, but my petty ass would have been out the door with no words at all except, "BYEEE!"
I don't even get it, what is these companies' obsession with deleting email accounts immediatelly? What for?
This is how managers and bosses justify their position and paycheck. "So-and-so left, which caused major chaos. But don't worry! I'm working diligently to fix the problems they caused!" Then when the workers eventually fix the problem, they take the credit for it. It's a smokescreen that's worked since the dawn of managers.
It's called "The Peters Principal: Everyone gets promoted to their own level of incompetence." Which means that people who seek promotion eventually reach a level above where they're good at. I was a very good professional cook but learned the hard way that I'm not a good manager.
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I used to drive a School Bus. I had gone to my Boss, Transportation Director, about a rowdy High School Student. He was causing a lot of problems, and some were really unsafe. The HS Principal wouldn't do anything, The Parent of this Kid, was a pain too. Those oh so special, people learn very quickly, that all they need to do, it to threaten a law suit. And the Principals back off their kids. So that teaches the Student, that they can get away with anything. So the only reason that my Boss took the Transportation Director job, was so he could put on his resume, that he had been a Supervisor. I had talked to the Student, send notes home, talked to the Principal. The next step was My Boss. He blew me off. A couple of weeks later I broke my ankle. It wasn't a full week, and My Boss is Calling Me, about this Student and asking ME how to deal with him. I LOL and told him, that I had asked him to help me, get him under control. And YOU did Nothing. Now He's Your Problem.
But when they're deciding whether to re-carpet their offices for the third time this year, or to buy infrastructure for critical data, the carpet always wins.
Hummm... sorry, but I totally disagree. One thing is when the company cancels accounts and destroy your previous work... a different thing is when you hide important information and documents that your company is asking for and that was part of your job.
Since the company bought the devices, they have the serial numbers and information necessary to have them reset even if their IT department are complete idiots. This is either just not true or absolutely ridiculous. You should NEVER need someone’s passcode or passwords to reset or access a company owned device in the first place.
Note: this post originally had 70 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
All of these examples are proof, in my mind at least, that labour protection laws are to the benefit of everyone. When you can fire someone at will you lose sight of how much of your IP they hold or control. When you have to give a month's notice or more, plus compensation, it makes business owners and managers stop and consider their actions carefully. I know this from personal experience as a manager and a business owner.
I don't feel bad at all. This happens way too often and its sick. I once worked for a man who in my opinion was not stable. He rarely showed up and when he did he's be on these mega idea benders. One day he has all of us managers in the conference room and was asking all of us the impossible and getting increasingly angry and showing it. Our IT manager said something (can't remember) and our boss got so angry that he flipped our conference table, threw things at the IT guy, screamed obscenities and our IT guy said; I quit and just left. Except he was the only IT guy and had everything and refused to cooperate. I do not blame him.
In my country, one needs reference from old jobs and any sabotage would be criminal and prosecuted. Noone gets 'walked out' of regular becuse noone would crash or sabotage anything. We all need each other; the bosses the staff and vice versa. The US work ethics seem toxic and incredibly inefficient at the same time - quite the feat, really.
Nobody should be invisibly indispensable. Withholding company information that hides or damages assets is illegal I had a boss who managed several teams of about a dozen people each. Each team had identical structures in their network drives, intranet, etc. Every few months he would shuffle the teams so people had experience with multiple projects. Retention was high, stress was low, vacations were granted because a backup person was always available. It takes planning, knowing your people, and accepting the extra effort needed to make this work.
Blows me away that bosses can be so arrogant, they fire employees without realizing how valuable they are. I don't know if it's ego, or spite that employees quit but maybe they should use a system that runs with or without that person. Even after being told that it's going to be a problem, they ignore the warnings.
These incidents will only increase because the systems are developed thinking that people work systematically. No, they don't. For example, people share important documents from their personal OneDrive, and if they quit quickly or just forget to transfer the files to Teams etc. where they SHOULD be, poof, there go the files!
That really depends on the type of work, anything confidential cannot be stored where others have access that would breach confidentiality. 90% of my work is kept in one place only accessible to me because it is other people's confidential information that no one else needs or is allowed to have access to. That being said we have a default password that everything gets set back to when someone leaves and is replaced and our IT company can do that if we forget. Accounts dont get closed they just get renamed to the new staff member taking over that position and set of participants.
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I cant help but stop n wonder as to comment(s) or votes on any if not most of these stories here considering how they are pretty one sided with nothing (compliance or not) from the other party (the bosses)... 🤔
Dont get me wrong, I do hv my own fair shares of such during my years long career, not once but twice (but thats, for another time n another story 😜)... ✌️
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I agree. If data gets lost, that's one thing, but intentionally withholding docs and passwords is illegal.
Load More Replies... You clearly didn't read all of these. Most of the time the bosses deleted the important stuff before checking to see what it was. It's the responsibility of the business to have a system that isn't tied to one person. Many of the employees even warned the employers about it but they wouldn't listen. You must be one of those arrogant bosses.
Load More Replies... All of these examples are proof, in my mind at least, that labour protection laws are to the benefit of everyone. When you can fire someone at will you lose sight of how much of your IP they hold or control. When you have to give a month's notice or more, plus compensation, it makes business owners and managers stop and consider their actions carefully. I know this from personal experience as a manager and a business owner.
I don't feel bad at all. This happens way too often and its sick. I once worked for a man who in my opinion was not stable. He rarely showed up and when he did he's be on these mega idea benders. One day he has all of us managers in the conference room and was asking all of us the impossible and getting increasingly angry and showing it. Our IT manager said something (can't remember) and our boss got so angry that he flipped our conference table, threw things at the IT guy, screamed obscenities and our IT guy said; I quit and just left. Except he was the only IT guy and had everything and refused to cooperate. I do not blame him.
In my country, one needs reference from old jobs and any sabotage would be criminal and prosecuted. Noone gets 'walked out' of regular becuse noone would crash or sabotage anything. We all need each other; the bosses the staff and vice versa. The US work ethics seem toxic and incredibly inefficient at the same time - quite the feat, really.
Nobody should be invisibly indispensable. Withholding company information that hides or damages assets is illegal I had a boss who managed several teams of about a dozen people each. Each team had identical structures in their network drives, intranet, etc. Every few months he would shuffle the teams so people had experience with multiple projects. Retention was high, stress was low, vacations were granted because a backup person was always available. It takes planning, knowing your people, and accepting the extra effort needed to make this work.
Blows me away that bosses can be so arrogant, they fire employees without realizing how valuable they are. I don't know if it's ego, or spite that employees quit but maybe they should use a system that runs with or without that person. Even after being told that it's going to be a problem, they ignore the warnings.
These incidents will only increase because the systems are developed thinking that people work systematically. No, they don't. For example, people share important documents from their personal OneDrive, and if they quit quickly or just forget to transfer the files to Teams etc. where they SHOULD be, poof, there go the files!
That really depends on the type of work, anything confidential cannot be stored where others have access that would breach confidentiality. 90% of my work is kept in one place only accessible to me because it is other people's confidential information that no one else needs or is allowed to have access to. That being said we have a default password that everything gets set back to when someone leaves and is replaced and our IT company can do that if we forget. Accounts dont get closed they just get renamed to the new staff member taking over that position and set of participants.
Load More Replies... I cant help but stop n wonder as to comment(s) or votes on any if not most of these stories here considering how they are pretty one sided with nothing (compliance or not) from the other party (the bosses)... 🤔
Dont get me wrong, I do hv my own fair shares of such during my years long career, not once but twice (but thats, for another time n another story 😜)... ✌️
Load More Replies... I agree. If data gets lost, that's one thing, but intentionally withholding docs and passwords is illegal.
Load More Replies... You clearly didn't read all of these. Most of the time the bosses deleted the important stuff before checking to see what it was. It's the responsibility of the business to have a system that isn't tied to one person. Many of the employees even warned the employers about it but they wouldn't listen. You must be one of those arrogant bosses.
Load More Replies...