Has this happened to you?

Three times now. At this point I'm used to it and expecting it and have a pre-printed letter with questions to ask.

"What kind of compensation package am I receiving and what are the terms?"
"How long will I stay on company benefits after today?"
"Will there be any opposition on this company's part in my filing for unemployment insurance?"
"Do I have any legal restrictions in seeking employment in the same industry?"
"I have ordered several tons of fresh steer manure on the company card, to be delivered to the lobby by later this afternoon, do you fucking like that?"-

"Ah I'm finally getting a promotion"

Charlie Kirk was a made guy, and we weren't. And there was nothing we could do about it.

Yep. The invite was sent at nighttime the previous day so I didn't even show up for it. Manager had to ping me on slack to get me into the meeting to get laid off while I was still in bed slowly waking up that morning.

And I was so completely done with that company that I just broke out in laughter as soon as the call ended. Couldn't have worked out better for me.

My (small) company got acquired by a massive West coast tech giant and six months later all the employees (but not the executives and managers) of the original small company were laid off. This was not even remotely surprising to me, and would not have been even if any of us had been given any work to do during that six months. When my boss told me I was being laid off, I laughed and said "of course I am" which surprised him as apparently everybody else was massively shocked and upset. Which surprised me as I don't see how anybody could have possibly not seen it coming.
All things considered, this company was actually slightly decent about it, as they gave us two months' notice and severance equal to about what we would have been able to get from unemployment. The severance disqualified us from unemployment, but at least we got the amount up front and we didn't have to spend six months pretending to look for work.
- The severance disqualified us from unemployment
  That's false, you should have gotten both. I got severance AND unemployment.

It needs to be illegal to fire people who aren't doing a bad job in the US like they do in civilized countries

Except everyone is doing a bad job, because the standard corporate holds you to is the work of 10 people for 3% of your current wage.
That doesn't sound very shareholder-minded of you. /s
- "not a team player"
Montana is cool at least, in this regard. Only state that does not have At Will employment.
My friend, who works as a license renewal and hiring manager at a large tech security firm, once shared something interesting with me. He said that when hiring under his company’s DEI standards, he sometimes had to bring on someone who wasn’t the strongest candidate for the role. The goal was to meet diversity requirements, but the tradeoff was that it occasionally meant hiring someone less qualified.
According to him, if a hire brought in under those standards didn’t perform well, it could be harder for the company to let that person go. The emphasis on maintaining diversity created extra pressure to hold on, even when performance wasn’t where it needed to be. That situation, understandably, can affect the rest of the team.
Personally, I don’t have anything against DEI. In fact, I think it helps reduce nepotism, which is a positive. But I also don’t think DEI always works out the way people imagine it will. Like many policies, it has both benefits and downsides.
The reason I bring this up is because I think it’s a slippery slope when governments start drawing hard lines about who can and cannot be fired. At the end of the day, what tends to matter most is whether someone makes the company money.
Take my friend as an example again: he’s only required to bring in $250,000 each quarter, but he actually brings in around $4 million. Because of that, he has survived multiple layoffs and has even been moved to different departments, simply because his performance makes him too valuable to lose.
- That's not how DEI policies are supposed to be applied. You're not supposed to just reverse who's being discriminated against. DEI means that you consider equivalent factors and ensure that your hiring pipeline and methodology doesn't improperly harm certain classes.
  For example, you have two new hires coming straight out of the same college with the same degree.
  One of them grew up in a rather wealthy household. Everything was paid for them. They could spend their entire time at college focusing on schoolwork and socializing. They graduated with a 3.5 GPA.
  The other grew up rather poor. They had to work multiple jobs during college just to afford food and rent. They really couldn't study except late at night and during the occasional lull at work. They graduated with a 2.8.
  If you just look at the GPA, it's clear that the first candidate is better. But if you consider the factors behind it, well, then it's the second. That's an impressive work ethic. It's rather common for people like that to drop out because they struggle too much making ends meet and can't afford to stay.
  A proper DEI policy should be fighting back against misapplied policies like hiring quotas. It should be recognizing additional qualitative and quantitative factors.
- Probation period is commonly 6 months during which time it's basically at will employment. This is the time to figure out your hire and deal with it.

Happened to my partner, she worked from home 4 out of 5 days a week.

The company also had a lawyer there. All her accounts were locked by the end of the call, so she couldn't exchange contacts with colleagues she liked. They sent a box and shipping label for her notebook, but never mentioned the two 27" Dell monitors and the height adjustable table.

Sucked at the time, but the gear they left us is pretty nice.

¯_(ツ)/¯

Among other things, I was in charge of on and offboarding and buying IT gear. HR basically told me if the employee won't return the laptop we just have to suck it up. I may be misremembering, but legally speaking, we gave them the gear, no matter what paperwork they signed. And in no case would it pay to so much as begin legal action.
And no, we don't want the monitors. Just not worse the hassle and shipping.
- And in no case would it pay to so much as begin legal action.
  Unless it's very new equipment, financially its not worth the hassle.
  Same reason they dont want the monitors or adjustable desk back, shipping would cost as much as they are worth and they've already deprecated away most if not all of the value which the court would take into account.
- Most competent companies lock down laptops so that even if they didn't return them, it would be a useless brick
Lol got caught with her hand in the cookie jar?
- Do you mean she got caught stealing? No. Just stupid startup bosses having to fire half their staff because they had to fly Europe to New York like every two weeks and buy new macbooks when they left theirs at the airport, among other things.
- Or she was one of 500,000+ tech workers that lost their job between 2022-2024.
  https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilsayegh/2024/08/19/the-great-tech-reset-unpacking-the-layoff-surge-of-2024/

Nope, just got an email in my personal inbox and immediately cut off from everything

I'm usually early to work meetings, so this is usually how it feels till people drag themselves through the door 10 minutes later.

If a department is dragging and gets better once someone is replaced, then you had an employee issue. If a department is dragging and you keep replacing employees, you've got a management/company issue.
- Its a state facility. They don't have turnover - they have churn. 200-300% churn annually. Good benefits though.
  I rationed that in order for me to come back I'd need $70/hr to do that job again (100k annual after tax) and obviously they wont approve that lol

Most recent one was a little lol because I had gotten a ~15 minute heads up from another terminated coworker about what was going down – HR was late to mine, so there was around 10 minutes of empty small talk with the boss.

Mine was just a zoom invite texted to me with just my boss, but I figured the jig was up when I couldn't log into my work laptop.

Your eyes and ears are deceiving you, the economy is in a new golden era commi.

It's when you completely dismantle their issues, and they carry on repeating said point. Time to go then

Flashed your penis to ladies again?

All I said are that Nazis were bad and that killing people is wrong
"hey look, the news has gotten around, the head of HR and my line manager want to see my elephant impression too!"

Twice.

I've been the boss...

Not by choice.

Ohhhhhh Nooooooo .... (POWWWWW)!!!!!