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Company Will Lay Off This Person, Asks Them To “Remain Professional” And Train The Replacements
Change is welcomed and is beneficial if you are ready for it and were preparing for it. But when it comes in the form of being kicked out of your job, it brings more stress and anxiety than hope for a better tomorrow.
This is what a redditor is experiencing and to make matters worse, they are forced to train their replacements, making them enraged and guilty at the same time for not wanting to do it, so they turned to the internet for some consolation.
More info: Reddit
RELATED:
Person logged into a Teams meeting and was informed they only have 2 months left at their job
Image credits: NAVFAC (not the actual photo)
They also were asked to train their replacements, which is a taunting task
Image credits: rommateisadumba*s
Because they are angry and anxious, they don’t do much but still feel guilty for some reason
Image credits: waketechcc (not the actual photo)
Image credits: rommateisadumba*s
Image credits: Linking Paths (not the actual photo)
Image credits: rommateisadumba*s
The feeling is eating them inside so the redditor went online for some consolation
The Original Poster (OP) turned to the antiwork community on Reddit with a request for advice to deal with their guilt and anxiety. Having in mind the community they came to, it’s clear that the guilt and anxiety are caused by their job.
It all probably started with a morning like any other, but the Teams meeting the OP joined brought bad news. The redditor and a bunch of other people are being laid off in two months, but until then they should “remain professional”, carry on with their work and train their replacements.
People in the comments were terribly confused how this can be counted as a lay-off if the OP and their coworkers are being replaced. They also didn’t understand where the company found the audacity to ask the people they were firing to train their replacements.
Understandably, the OP was not in a mood to train their replacements or work at all, allowing the company to deal with angry clients and piles of work increasing in a geometric progression. At this point the only thing they should care about is looking for new jobs while getting paid to do nothing for the last weeks at their work.
However, the OP can’t help but feel guilty for doing nothing and being away from their laptop despite how horribly their employer is treating them. At the same time, when they do open their laptop and see all the tasks that need to be done, they get overwhelmed with anxiety.
Bored Panda reached out to Kori Burkholder, a purpose driven career coach for young corporate professionals, and she told us that it is very possible to feel guilty after not performing your best even if a company treats you poorly because it mostly depends on the worker’s personality and work ethic, “By nature, some professionals want to do a good job and deliver, feel purposeful, and contribute. So, slacking off might go against their nature, so it is normal to feel a sense of guilt.”
Also, according to certified career and life coach Allison Task, the OP’s situation is a very confusing one so no wonder their feelings are mixed up, “It’s unusual to be fired and expected to work. That’s not firing. So it’s confusing, and if you have a decent work ethic, you want to do a good job. So it’s odd to be asked to work and told you are fired at the same time. So you feel like you’re doing something wrong, when in fact the employer has set you up to be confused.”
Actually, Allison has never heard of a situation like this. She explains that “Being fired implies you’ve done something wrong and there’s an immediate consequence. Being laid off indicates that the organization has a mistake, there’s some bloat, and they wish you a gentle landing usually with a package.” But in OP’s case they are not getting any severance or benefits, nor they are let go the same day, so her best advise would be consult an employment attorney.
Many people in the comments thought that there is no point in putting effort into working after being betrayed by your company like that but even though Kori understands that “when the company tells them 2 months in advance of their layoff, with no severance, and they have to train their replacements, it gives them zero incentive to do good work,” she would still advise to do your best even in the last months, weeks or days of your work days because you don’t need to burn that bridge.
The Career Coach elaborated, “Doing your best to finish strong will be a good look for you and make you feel proud, leaving your head high. You’ll be able to use this time to network, get referrals from managers and others within the company, and be proactive in your job search. So that you know, people will notice and be more likely to make referrals for you.”
Allison agrees that it is important to leave keeping a good image as an employee. Despite not knowing of anyone who needed to stick around after being told they’re laid off or fired, she does see a lot of people sharing their experienced of being terminated on social media and she would suggest to leave gracefully, thank the people who worked with you and let you grow and also “Remember, your future employer will check this page, it’s not a place to air drama.”
Image credits: Joseph Echeverria (not the actual photo)
“This kind of scenario is a tough one,” Kori acknowledges, but there is always a solution and since the OP can’t really work productively, they can take that time and look for new opportunities that will lead to an even better job.
Commenters on Reddit seconded the career coaches advice and many of them encouraged to not waste time in bed but look up job listings instead. They also tried convincing the redditor that there is no reason to feel guilty and tried to show their situation in different perspectives to make them see that.
Most likely a lot of them have experienced something similar too as according to Layoffs.fyi, in 2023, over 230k tech employees were fired, compared to 165k employees in 2022. And 40 percent of Americans have been laid off or terminated in any way at least once. From those, 28 percent were laid off in the past two years. It’s so common that almost half of Americans have layoff anxiety.
The part that bothered the readers the most was that the company framed the termination as a layoff, reasons for which may be “when companies aim to cut costs, due to a decline in demand for their products or services, seasonal closure, or during an economic downturn,” according to Investopedia.
If a company is hiring people to replace the workers they terminated because of costs, that doesn’t make sense, so commenters came to the conclusion that the company is paying the new workers less as the company most likely is moving the jobs overseas where labor costs are lower.
The New York Times states that OP’s situation is quite common: “In an effort to cut costs, many companies are shifting to cheaper labor sources: freelancers, temporary workers, even computer programs that automate tasks altogether.”
So if the company is only looking out for what’s best for it, the OP can relax and not beat themselves up for not having motivation to work knowing their end date. How would you have felt in their situation? Do you understand where the guilt is coming from? What would be your advice to calm down? Let us know in the comments!
People in the comments were not entirely sure why would they feel guilty for slacking but advised them to start searching for a new job
What do you think ?
moggie63 1 year ago
I once wrote a training manual for a job I was doing, in my own time, at home. I was then fired. They insisted I give them the manual. I told them to f**k off and there was nothing they could do about it.
zak 1 year ago
Depending on your location and the documents you signed when you were hired, that could legally be their property (whether it was done off-the-clock or not). Either way, "f**k off" is still the proper response is you ask me 😁👍
Load More Replies...
InfiniteZeek 1 year ago
What blows my mind is how unafraid the 1% are of the masses. You can only push people so far before something breaks, and I have a feeling when it finally does break, it will be a spectacle to behold.
Rachel Ainsworth 1 year ago
History says that it will either go that way (think French revolution, American revolution) or there is something that changes the power dynamic in favor of workers (black death, unions etc). History also says that a lot of the 99% suffer down the revolution path.
Load More Replies...
Thor Haugen 1 year ago
Honestly, some companies are too stupid to survive. Why would you do this to someone? And expect it to work out?
Aubrie Allen 1 year ago
I got laid off at a company my boyfriend and I worked at. Right after, they asked me to train my boyfriend on the job I left over the phone from home. Haha! No.
Super Beast 1 year ago
i wanna know more about what happened with your bf
Load More Replies...
Cara G 1 year ago
If this is happening in the United States, the employer is breaking federal labor law. Assuming that the company has more than 100 employees, they are statutorily obligated to give 90 days advanced notice of any reduction in force. This is exactly the kind of thing that the Department of Labor loves to hear about. Also, it's pretty clear that the employer is not being truthful about the situation. A layoff implies that the position(s) is/are being eliminated. There are no replacements in a mass RIF. They are firing these employees and using the term layoff as pretense. Again, the DOL needs to be made aware of this. There are so few legal protections offered to workers in the U.S. but this is one of them. Not only are they flagrantly violating federal laws but they are exploiting the employees who, it seems, don't realize that they are in the position to make demands. Like severance, for example.
Matthew 1 year ago
WARN notices are public but they go to the states, not to the affected workers. Unless workers make a habit of looking they still don't know - and some states make it hard to look by making you ask for the notices submitted on a single day rather than get all of them for an entire month.
Load More Replies...
Joe Average 1 year ago
I had a job that slowly over time I streamlined. Got got evals. Very efficient. Promises of more money and interesting tasks and none of it materialized. So I landed a better job outside of the company. They made more promises if I'd only stay on. No. No bonuses on years where us engineers went the extra mile and work huge hours. Bonus? A frozen turkey at the holiday. Even came in for a few days to train my replacement. Did not feel inclined to share my streamlined processes and software automation. False promises, no bonuses when the company was raking in huge money and they were telling me I needed to work huge hours? Nah. My replacement lasted a month or two and bailed. Same problem. False promises, repetitive tasks, mediocre pay.
Raphapablap 1 year ago
I remember years back our entire office was made redundant to be replaced by cheaper workers elsewhere. Everyone out in 3 months. I was one of the last out and trained my replacement because he was a nice guy and it wasn't his fault but mainly we just did nothing and let our replacements do all the work, only assisting if they had questions.
Super Beast 1 year ago
i was in a similar position about 5 yrs ago and i just left. they made me so angry. they called after i left, of course. i was left broke and homeless, but honestly i would do it again. later, i was hired by a company who would outsource work to my old company. i wasted no time and told my new boss about the company, and my old company's president acted like s**t. my new company dropped them. the company i work for now is a global company with presence in 160+ countries. losing this account must have hurt
LooseSeal's $10 Banana 1 year ago (edited)
2 words, 6 letters FU*K 'EM...Or, put all your effort into training them to do things incorrectly.
Holy Shimmering Sheeps541t 1 year ago
You should spend your last few months "redeveloping" any scripts or code you have, I'm not saying break it just maybe break each line down into a function or procedure you know just to make it easier to read. You could in theory nest each of those to make it far, far easier to read you know just so it isn't like an indecipherable maze where it's impossible to trace what's going on.
ॐBoyGanesh 1 year ago (edited)
I don’t want to generalize too much, but this is a problem I’ve seen particularly in younger tech. The same people who are socially fighting for justice & equity for others in a cancel culture way are being indoctrinated into believing they have no value or agency in their employment & even being brainwashed to think working less than 60 hours a week is having a poor work ethic. They’re calling out working partners for not valuing their stay at home partners who do the mental & emotional labor in the relationship & home, pointing out they have skills, value and worth in what they do which even translates to a financial worth. Yet they’re willing to feel ashamed, guilty, embarrassed that they’re not a team player or healthy member of work culture when they don’t give more of themselves for less incentive. Somehow we’ve let these notions get out of hand and have normalized a form of servitude. Not blaming the employee or even to mega corp, but this type of guilt/anxiety has to stop.
Michael Largey 1 year ago
You should thoroughly train your replacements. Just don't tell them anything that's true.
Mad McQueen 1 year ago
That's some guilt and ptsd losing a job but still having to slave away at it and train someone to be the new you. If you aren't getting anything out of the firing aka severance-just look for another job and don't do anything but log in and log out for the day. Shows you made an effort. But cease communications. Your army getting anything but a weekly paycheck and nothing after that. Look for work while currently employed is nicer than quit and looking. Screw them til they fire you officially and if you don't get written up go collect unemployment.
Ashtray 1 year ago
I work for a major hospital who has decided that they can move all our calls to an oversea market. They had some of my coworkers train them under the guise that they were there to help us. They took all our jobs and they literally have no idea what they are doing. Patients are angry, our providers are angry. I honestly hope it cost them dearly.
Kraneia The Dancing Dryad 1 year ago (edited)
Used to work manufacturing. They decided to send the jobs to Mexico.... and thought we'd train our replacements. Uhm no. In the first place, you have people you specifically pay to train people, they get paid a lot more than you're paying me, secondly, do you really want your new employees getting trained by the people you're replacing? Think about it..... 😉
Alex Martin 1 year ago
In Caiifornia they are required to notify public school teachers and administrators by March 15 if their contract for the following year will not be renewed. I.e. finish out the year, you're fired. That's a rough three months of running out the clock. My favorite was an assistant principal who had been noticed. Each day he would walk in the front door, hang out for an hour and be seen by everyone and then quietly sneak out the back gate where his wife was waiting. She'd bring him back just before dismissal. Notice periods are great, but being in the middle of one is such a test of your integrity.
DKH 1 year ago
Yes, absolute d*ck move by the company and yes, about 12 years back I was put in a very similar situation and it really s*cks. Yes, depending on the details they could be violating labor laws. BUT based on my experience with employers in the US, this is far from the worst. First, the up-to-2-month window doesn't square with "Zero notice." I've been told at 2 PM on a Friday (after 5 years at a company) that there was a re-org and it was my last day, AFTER I'd trained newer people on the essentials of my job function. Or the time a company left a position un-fillled for over a year so they could call it a layoff while I was doing twice the work, BEFORE hiring underqualified replacements they hoped I would train. This seems better than those. Of course OP doesn't owe the company anything and shouldn't feel guilty about not giving 100% or taking another offer, but MAYBE the employer understands that, and is giving notice to allow OP time to work towards transition. Downvote me if you will but that's my take on it.
OneHappyPuppy 1 year ago
I'm expecting this to happen to me too, soon. Like hell I'll train someone when I didn't get the training myself... I've only trained my coworker (that has supported me and taught me all she knew, she herself didn't get any training either) in the things that only I know as to not sink the boat and get her to lose her job too. If I even get a whiff of a replacement for me (and that's quite easy at my job, I'm the only one there with those specific qualifications) I'm out the door
nanofarad 1 year ago
It isn't brain washed to want to be good at your job. you took pride in that job for years and they through you away. now you have to deal the 5 stages of grief. Disney did this to there park employees as well. they held over severance pay to make sure they trained them. this guy has no incentive at all so screw them.
JayWantsACat 1 year ago
F**k them. They demand you remain 'professional' yet didn't offer you any professional courtesy on their end, especially without any severance. If they offered that I think an argument can be made that youre essentially being paid to train and that the money extends the time you get to look for another job. It's their mistake for expecting you to train for two months. I'd be using that two months to look for another job and interview.
moggie63 1 year ago
I once wrote a training manual for a job I was doing, in my own time, at home. I was then fired. They insisted I give them the manual. I told them to f**k off and there was nothing they could do about it.
zak 1 year ago
Depending on your location and the documents you signed when you were hired, that could legally be their property (whether it was done off-the-clock or not). Either way, "f**k off" is still the proper response is you ask me 😁👍
Load More Replies... InfiniteZeek 1 year ago
What blows my mind is how unafraid the 1% are of the masses. You can only push people so far before something breaks, and I have a feeling when it finally does break, it will be a spectacle to behold.
Rachel Ainsworth 1 year ago
History says that it will either go that way (think French revolution, American revolution) or there is something that changes the power dynamic in favor of workers (black death, unions etc). History also says that a lot of the 99% suffer down the revolution path.
Load More Replies... Thor Haugen 1 year ago
Honestly, some companies are too stupid to survive. Why would you do this to someone? And expect it to work out?
Aubrie Allen 1 year ago
I got laid off at a company my boyfriend and I worked at. Right after, they asked me to train my boyfriend on the job I left over the phone from home. Haha! No.
Super Beast 1 year ago
i wanna know more about what happened with your bf
Load More Replies... Cara G 1 year ago
If this is happening in the United States, the employer is breaking federal labor law. Assuming that the company has more than 100 employees, they are statutorily obligated to give 90 days advanced notice of any reduction in force. This is exactly the kind of thing that the Department of Labor loves to hear about. Also, it's pretty clear that the employer is not being truthful about the situation. A layoff implies that the position(s) is/are being eliminated. There are no replacements in a mass RIF. They are firing these employees and using the term layoff as pretense. Again, the DOL needs to be made aware of this. There are so few legal protections offered to workers in the U.S. but this is one of them. Not only are they flagrantly violating federal laws but they are exploiting the employees who, it seems, don't realize that they are in the position to make demands. Like severance, for example.
Matthew 1 year ago
WARN notices are public but they go to the states, not to the affected workers. Unless workers make a habit of looking they still don't know - and some states make it hard to look by making you ask for the notices submitted on a single day rather than get all of them for an entire month.
Load More Replies... Joe Average 1 year ago
I had a job that slowly over time I streamlined. Got got evals. Very efficient. Promises of more money and interesting tasks and none of it materialized. So I landed a better job outside of the company. They made more promises if I'd only stay on. No. No bonuses on years where us engineers went the extra mile and work huge hours. Bonus? A frozen turkey at the holiday. Even came in for a few days to train my replacement. Did not feel inclined to share my streamlined processes and software automation. False promises, no bonuses when the company was raking in huge money and they were telling me I needed to work huge hours? Nah. My replacement lasted a month or two and bailed. Same problem. False promises, repetitive tasks, mediocre pay.
Raphapablap 1 year ago
I remember years back our entire office was made redundant to be replaced by cheaper workers elsewhere. Everyone out in 3 months. I was one of the last out and trained my replacement because he was a nice guy and it wasn't his fault but mainly we just did nothing and let our replacements do all the work, only assisting if they had questions.
Super Beast 1 year ago
i was in a similar position about 5 yrs ago and i just left. they made me so angry. they called after i left, of course. i was left broke and homeless, but honestly i would do it again. later, i was hired by a company who would outsource work to my old company. i wasted no time and told my new boss about the company, and my old company's president acted like s**t. my new company dropped them. the company i work for now is a global company with presence in 160+ countries. losing this account must have hurt
LooseSeal's $10 Banana 1 year ago (edited)
2 words, 6 letters FU*K 'EM...Or, put all your effort into training them to do things incorrectly.
Holy Shimmering Sheeps541t 1 year ago
You should spend your last few months "redeveloping" any scripts or code you have, I'm not saying break it just maybe break each line down into a function or procedure you know just to make it easier to read. You could in theory nest each of those to make it far, far easier to read you know just so it isn't like an indecipherable maze where it's impossible to trace what's going on.
ॐBoyGanesh 1 year ago (edited)
I don’t want to generalize too much, but this is a problem I’ve seen particularly in younger tech. The same people who are socially fighting for justice & equity for others in a cancel culture way are being indoctrinated into believing they have no value or agency in their employment & even being brainwashed to think working less than 60 hours a week is having a poor work ethic. They’re calling out working partners for not valuing their stay at home partners who do the mental & emotional labor in the relationship & home, pointing out they have skills, value and worth in what they do which even translates to a financial worth. Yet they’re willing to feel ashamed, guilty, embarrassed that they’re not a team player or healthy member of work culture when they don’t give more of themselves for less incentive. Somehow we’ve let these notions get out of hand and have normalized a form of servitude. Not blaming the employee or even to mega corp, but this type of guilt/anxiety has to stop.
Michael Largey 1 year ago
You should thoroughly train your replacements. Just don't tell them anything that's true.
Mad McQueen 1 year ago
That's some guilt and ptsd losing a job but still having to slave away at it and train someone to be the new you. If you aren't getting anything out of the firing aka severance-just look for another job and don't do anything but log in and log out for the day. Shows you made an effort. But cease communications. Your army getting anything but a weekly paycheck and nothing after that. Look for work while currently employed is nicer than quit and looking. Screw them til they fire you officially and if you don't get written up go collect unemployment.
Ashtray 1 year ago
I work for a major hospital who has decided that they can move all our calls to an oversea market. They had some of my coworkers train them under the guise that they were there to help us. They took all our jobs and they literally have no idea what they are doing. Patients are angry, our providers are angry. I honestly hope it cost them dearly.
Kraneia The Dancing Dryad 1 year ago (edited)
Used to work manufacturing. They decided to send the jobs to Mexico.... and thought we'd train our replacements. Uhm no. In the first place, you have people you specifically pay to train people, they get paid a lot more than you're paying me, secondly, do you really want your new employees getting trained by the people you're replacing? Think about it..... 😉
Alex Martin 1 year ago
In Caiifornia they are required to notify public school teachers and administrators by March 15 if their contract for the following year will not be renewed. I.e. finish out the year, you're fired. That's a rough three months of running out the clock. My favorite was an assistant principal who had been noticed. Each day he would walk in the front door, hang out for an hour and be seen by everyone and then quietly sneak out the back gate where his wife was waiting. She'd bring him back just before dismissal. Notice periods are great, but being in the middle of one is such a test of your integrity.
DKH 1 year ago
Yes, absolute d*ck move by the company and yes, about 12 years back I was put in a very similar situation and it really s*cks. Yes, depending on the details they could be violating labor laws. BUT based on my experience with employers in the US, this is far from the worst. First, the up-to-2-month window doesn't square with "Zero notice." I've been told at 2 PM on a Friday (after 5 years at a company) that there was a re-org and it was my last day, AFTER I'd trained newer people on the essentials of my job function. Or the time a company left a position un-fillled for over a year so they could call it a layoff while I was doing twice the work, BEFORE hiring underqualified replacements they hoped I would train. This seems better than those. Of course OP doesn't owe the company anything and shouldn't feel guilty about not giving 100% or taking another offer, but MAYBE the employer understands that, and is giving notice to allow OP time to work towards transition. Downvote me if you will but that's my take on it.
OneHappyPuppy 1 year ago
I'm expecting this to happen to me too, soon. Like hell I'll train someone when I didn't get the training myself... I've only trained my coworker (that has supported me and taught me all she knew, she herself didn't get any training either) in the things that only I know as to not sink the boat and get her to lose her job too. If I even get a whiff of a replacement for me (and that's quite easy at my job, I'm the only one there with those specific qualifications) I'm out the door
nanofarad 1 year ago
It isn't brain washed to want to be good at your job. you took pride in that job for years and they through you away. now you have to deal the 5 stages of grief. Disney did this to there park employees as well. they held over severance pay to make sure they trained them. this guy has no incentive at all so screw them.
JayWantsACat 1 year ago
F**k them. They demand you remain 'professional' yet didn't offer you any professional courtesy on their end, especially without any severance. If they offered that I think an argument can be made that youre essentially being paid to train and that the money extends the time you get to look for another job. It's their mistake for expecting you to train for two months. I'd be using that two months to look for another job and interview.
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