Being terminated in Corporate America

I lost a job last week because it was too stressful. I took some time off and never went back, so on the 4th day they terminated me. It was a relief.

My email account was closed and I was told that I could not go back to retrieve my personal belongings. The latter particularly bothers me since I work in several different rooms and there is no one who will know what is my property and what is not. I had to bring tools from home because the company did not supply them for me. Now I have to trust strangers to return my property.

I do not understand why corporations insist on treating an employee as an adversary after termination. It does so much more harm than good. I could not handle the stress but I wish the next person no ill will and would have been happy to help that person take over the reins.

It really brings the values of the corporation to the forefront: I feel like human garbage.

But, its all abut money and lawyers. Isn't there a song about that?

In some states you are also entitled to see your personnel file, and it might be a good idea to find out what's in it.

are protecting themselves.

If you had wanted your personal property it would have been best if you had taken it with you.

I understand that you feel bad about this, but they may feel that you betrayed them.

Their point of view might be interesting to know.

Corporate America 4 weeks ago.

My supervisor found a new position doing what this corporation had been promising for six months. He put in his two weeks and was walked out by security.

It's all about humiliation.

I knocked myself out for this job for 3 months, working tons of weekends and evenings, skipping lunch. The last day I worked I was there for 11 hours and I left feeling absolutely as low as a human being can feel. I did not feel or express anger towards anyone.

This is a way of making a normal person look like a raving lunatic and feel like a piece of shit.

I have considered myself lucky that in the several times when I was subjected to "reduction in force" I was given time to gather my belonging and to close and transfer files to others.

However, there have been too many cases of former employees "going postal." At worst - going back and shooting former supervisors and co-workers, at least - sabotaging the computer system, stealing confidential information, etc.

Even with a former employer that treated me decently, the ones who lost their jobs after me found out when they came to work and could not access their computer files and were given four hours to collect their personal belonging and, yes, were accompanied outside by security guards.

(which is one reason why one should never never keep anything personal on company computer. If one uses it during the day, use it on a disk and take it home every night.)

But your are correct in the bottom line: we all are interchangeable peons to be stressed and used and than tossed when we can no longer operate at 120% of our capacity.

so I think about it from that point of view and I know that there is no expectation of privacy. I did not get a chance to copy personal things from the computer, but I don't really care as there wasn't much there.
There's nothing to hide.

Its just that being treated like a crazy person or a criminal when you have shown nothing but good faith and effort is really harsh. I don't buy the bullcrap that they have to do it. My building has zero security so there is nothing to stop me from going back- its just that I don't want to be humiliated by being told to leave. I worked myself into exhaustion for this company, and not only was I not thanked, I was treated like garbage. It makes you realize how phony and fragile business friendships really are.

Our co-workers are allies, for the duration. That's all.

This is why in an ideal situation we should have three distinct circles of family, friends and co-workers.

This is hard because on a 24/7 mode that is required of us we do not have time and energy to develop and nourish friendship. And it is so much easier to look at our co-workers as a substitute family. Many of the TV programs also show us friendship that develop in the work place.

But once you are out, your former co-workers are scared, for one thing and they'd rather not associate with you. At least most of them. On occasion you will find an honest person who will. As with crimes, we try to blame the victim to assure ourselves that this would not happen to us. But in the work force it could, so ignoring you, forgetting that they've ever known you is an act of self-preservation.

I am really really sorry. As you can see from many of the posts, many of us have been there.

But there are good suggestions.

Take a few days to calm yourself and write a courteous professional letter or an email to the HR and ask for an opportunity to come and collect your things. Do mention that they are in several offices and that you brought tools from home.

Right now they are on the spot. They are afraid of being sued, so working with you is for their benefit.

Also, do apply for unemployment. Let them challenge it.

You may want to contact your state office of revenue, of finance, of franchise - whatever it is called. Or the office of the state attorney general, consumer protection division. Most of them have one.

Tell them about the lack of pay stubs and ask if they can help, perhaps quote a law that makes it mandatory for them to do so.

The IRS may be able to help you with these, too http://www.irs.gov/contact/index.html

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

but don't let the bastards get you down! :hug:

You are not human garbage, they are corporate garbage, please remember that. Their goal is to make you feel like that so don't let them get the best of you!!!

I have worked my way out of the corporate world over the last several years, and I am now working for a great nonprofit. Whether corporate or not, take some time to think about what you really want to do and who you really want work for/with. And then take your time to figure out how to do it. It took me about 3 years from making the decision to getting the right job, but it was worth it.

I wish you the best!

Complaining will not be TOLERATED in Republi-AmeriCo, UnLtd.

Back to the corn fields and uranium mines with all of you.

What is good for PROFITS is good for AmeriCo.

You are all so Totally EXPENDABLE.

Please return to your designated Media Outlet and quietly appreciate how the BushCo Corporate Oil Upperclass is enjoying Massive Profits from WAR and Staggering Gas prices.

Grovel before the Magnificent Wealth and Splendor and Grandiosity and Corruption that is BushCo-Republicanism.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

:-(

I went through the same thing three years ago. Ask me anything.

I showed the HR person how to log in to their management software from a modem and cripple the fortune 500 Real Estate Corporation with seven keystrokes.
I typed six and said... the company's refusal to fix this and my complaints should be in my file. It is why I quit.

And I cut the modem link.

Later, they hired me as a consultant to design the fix.

But that is why HR tends to be a bit freaky.

Esp. if you're a techie, I'm sure. Some of the managers think that techies work some sort of magic.

A female manager! LOL. HR had a stroke and she was fired shortly thereafter...

My fave exit interview, when I took an offer in Houston, was when the Sr Corp VP (female) told me that the ChairMAN wanted to make me Division Prez when they bought us but could not, due to my pregnancy! I already had one child and a stay at home househusband...

arrange for someone to accompany you while you retrieve your personal things.

Some Companies are very paranoid about terminated employees stealing, or deliberately doing or causing damage to the Company.

I've been where you are now, and I really do understand what it like. Get mad! Go for a walk in the woods or somewhere you can be alone, and just yell at the people you'd like to, tell them everything you're feeling! It helps get it off your chest and nobody will know!

Talk to somebody. This is the most important! I went through a couple of years of depression because I gave that Co. most of my life for 13 years, and was tossed out like the trash! Don't do that to yourself! Just talking to friends, or a sympathetic co-worker will help a lot!

Good luck. If I can help you in any way, just let me know.

HR sent me a termination letter this morning and I emailed a response telling them all the things that they needed to do for me- like provide paystubs for all my checks and information on benefits etc. I also wrote specific details on what property was mine and where it was, as best as I can remember. The office was closed today but I'd better get a response tomorrow.

Still, it seems like the sensible thing to do would be to allow me to walk in there during business hours and pack up my own things. Total value is about $400 for tools, books, and CDs.

I have been taking long walks but its still hard to shake the feelings. I feel humiliated, and that's what they want me to feel. Absolutely zero human concern.

I oversee payroll, but have never had a request like that. Just wondering.

I have no record at all of what has been deducted for taxes, health insurance, flex spending, or anything at all. Every other place I have ever had direct deposit has mailed me a paystub on payday for my records. I have worked overtime and that should be reflected on a paystub too. I know the amount deposited into the bank but I was only there 3 months and there were a lot of variables with each pay period. I think I deserve to know so that I can correct it if there is an error- to me it seems weird that I even have to ask.

I've never heard of anyplace that didn't give a facsimile check on payday. Hmmm. In that case, absolutely.

Ask for your paystubs to be mailed to you, and try to document the postmark before you open them. Photograph them or something. It would be good to talk to a lawyer at this point.

They are required by law to give you your W-2 by the end of January 2006.

my receptionist WATCH me pack.

I got my severance pay, but I'm still owed for the comp time for the Saturday I had to work before the layoff. At least you were spared the frog march under escort.

On the bright side, while us old timers feel obliged to give two week's notice and all (if we're disloyal enough to even be looking for another job), Generations X and Y are giving Corporate America conniptions. The kids look out only for themselves and if they see a better opportunity they leap for it without a backward glance. I can't imagine where they learned to put profit ahead of loyalty like that!

I'm putting a hex on it. :applause:

I won because I left an abusive boss - The referee said "any reasonable individual would have felt their physical safety was at risk" Took a while, but I got it.

of the department and they will not contest it. I essentially abandoned the job, so they could have made it harder on me.

before they change their minds.

by two cops, which seems to be becoming the norm in retail...Later on, I found out they even took things out of my coat pocket when I wasn't in the room...(it was only the latest company newsletter, showing I had placed 2nd out of 1500 in profits for the quarter...)

I left because I didn't want to transfer again...

There is no purpose to that charade other than employee intimidation. Only cowardly managers would think it's appropriate.

I quit a retail job and went back a month or so later to buy something and the manager asked me, "What are YOU doing here?!" I told her I WAS a customer but nevermind, left, and left a message about it on the district manager's voice-mail.

do whatever it takes to get your stuff back.

I know you probably feel bad right now, but look at it this way.....this company is obviously not the best place to be working, and if you had stayed you would be unhappy still working there. You will get a better job.

I've been laid off a few times because the industry I work in is quite shaky. The last time it happened, the group of us in the lay off (all support staff) were told that there was a mandatory meeting. We went to the meeting and were given the news. Then we were told we had ten minutes to retrieve our belongings and vacate the premises. There were about thirty of us. When we returned to our areas, all of our coworkers had been whisked away by management to a nearby hotel for coffee and doughnuts. We gathered up our belongings. Anyone who couldn't get their things at that time were to make an appointment and come back after hours, under cover of darkness I suppose. We left the building but we stood around on the parking lot and commiserated with each other about what we were going to do and made plans to meet at a local bar and grill to talk. The HR manager came out to the group and told us that we had to leave or else she would call the police. WELL, they didn't own the frigging parking lot so we told her to get lost. When we were ready to leave, we would leave.

A few days later I called the HR-bot and told her I thought the way they treated everyone was extreme. We didn't even get to say goodbye to our coworkers. She said they do it that way because studies show that it hurts morale when those who are left behind see their coworkers packing up their things.

Ms.HR-bot was terminated a few months later in another round of layoffs. Bitch.

be here long after he's gone! This was in a union grievance hearing.. Three months later he was gone!

The rationale is to keep you from coming back, where you might do something that would cost them money or a lawsuit by you, or others.

What if ...? What if you claim you slipped? What if you attack someone? What if someone attacks you?

So they take the safe path, they get your stuff and send it to you. This allows them to go through your stuff to inventory it, which means they can sneak around anything you thought was personal. Forget your email or voicemail. That belongs to them.

America is in lockdown, and if we don't stop the juggernaut in '06, we're not going to be able to. This is all part of the chilling effect of the top of our society allowing torture, holding Americans without charges, without trials, without attorneys, while we abuse and torture in the name of liberty. It's all part of the result of protesters and their signs being moved to free speech zones.

Law enforcement believes it has the right to suppress speech it doesn't like.

you wouldnt be in the spot you're in if you were the right person's friend. From this administration down to corporate America, cronyism is the name of the game.

I am going to lose my job at the end of December, but they told me I have to stick around until then or they will not pay me my severance.

I found out in mid-August - at which time they pulled all my work from me. So I have not done much of anything since then.

coming back to work after you have lunch at the local bar everyday..

It must be hard to keep going to work. At least mine was over quickly and I can get on with my life now.

There are no 8 hour days by any stretch of the imagination, but I have been told that I HAVE to show up every day.

I worked out of my house for a major corporation.

I quit and went to a competitor, but in order to do the things I wanted to do, I had to fulfill my contract which meant send away all my files and company equipment (over $ 350 UPS) and give two weeks notice.

That set up the weird situation where for two weeks customers would call me and I would tell them that unfortiunately I was unable to help them, and no I could not tell them why, but I would be able to tell them in ten days.

I kept all the terms of my contract meticulously. To the company's credit, so did they.

As soon as the two week period was over, I set up my new office and I've brought my customers over to my new employer.

It was a rough experience, but actually both sides handled it about as well as it could be handled I think.

I was fired once in my life -- and that was on Christmas Eve, but that is another story

Hell it's October now anyway--but get the resumes out NOW. Budgets for 11/30 & 12/20 FY are being firmed up. Job openings follow.

GET THE RES OUT WHILE YOU ARE EMPLOYED!

Thx & Xmas are travel times and tend to slow hiring the process...Now is the time to get the res out.

I understand you and the way you feel. Its temporary and by no means will predict the rest of your life. Its a hurdle and if you hated it you did the right thing. Ive always found that after such a hurdle a good thing will take its place.

Dont obsess over the loser job. You did yourself a favor and better things are ahead. Try to find a job you enjoy. Take chances, experiment. Dont be shy, be bold. Get out there and find your calling, its waiting.

I've been through it before, and it doesn't get any easier, but at least you get some perspective with time. Its only a job, and its a lot better to get out early when something isn't working than it is to stick around and beat your head against the wall....

Thank you DUers for so much support and perspective.

as adversaries while they're still employed. Or as children (who hasn't experienced paternalistic management?)

Why can't they just realize we're there to do an honest day's work, and to leave us the hell alone otherwise? We're there to help their business thrive--they had better appreciate that contribution! (if not, fuck 'em)

The ones that survive, the HR people, the managers - are all yes people who do not rock the boat. Who are constantly in a CYA mode. They do not think they just do the minimum to survive. And, of course, they have no idea how to handle innovative, creative people who think outside the box.

When you have CEOs with compensation 500 times that of the average worker - what can you expect?

This is why so many unemployed and under employed started their own consulting business and this is why so many corporation outsource and use consultants. This way they can shift the responsibility and, of course, can save on salaries and benefits and payroll tax on in house work force, showing a better income statement so the stock can increase in value.

A couple thousand DHS Texas workers were notified via email this week that they're fired due to Privatization. So Guvmint ain't doing such a hot job of releasing people either lately...

This feeling you describe, what are its origins in life? You've been
paid to be a professional, to execute a competence by goodwill for a
pay, and the goodwill has been abused, and along with it, the person's
most intimate feelings. It is violating, worse than breaking up a
relationship, as careers are more personal and longer term even.

By paying a person to perform a service, the employer's ego, its legal
identity enslaves your body and mind, granted for pay, but things are
irrevocably traded away, goodwill and the expectation that the person
will, depending on the managment, not have the companys best interests
in mind. Then a professional reationship becomes adversarial, friends
suddenly distrust and very competent people doubt their abilities,
cut off from the source of their competence, the only recent reflection
in their professional lives of being respected for competence.

To dissuade employees from associating with previous employees, there
is the psychology of the cult, that the "fired" person be branded as a
failure, an excuse and expunged, a weak and killed thing, while the
living agency moves on uncaring, thanks for all the good work.

It can also be the illusion of permanence, that one can continue to
develop in one company, better pay, more vacation and promotions
are dangled as a sweetener, and when yer sacked, its like all those
things you realize are lies, and its better to demand 3 times cash
on the barrel from stinking companys so you can walk away free of any
obligation to care what happens to the cult.

Were corporations to have existed in any other time of man, we would
have called them cults, driven by ideology and influencial CEO's
who brainwave worker ants in to a hive, making honey. Possibly as
well, the society will turn in to corporate caste system, with
people in worldwide trade bodies, like worldwide construction workers
union. And these trades are entirely global, across borders with
labour equallized across borders, with the labour taking advantage
of price arbtrage by their feet. For if you go to canada to work for
a while, will they trust that one is competent? And each country has
its own qualifications and university competence, but to test
across borders is difficult, and when they outsource a job, the
replacement is not the same. It disenfranchises a unit of labour,
that must then arbitrage the market for the most pay, travelling to
wherever that sort of labour must work in the class system.

And it wouldn't be so rude if we took care of our own. A little
safety net would let anyone know that were their neigbor to fall on
such a circumstance, that the person would be healthy, and taken
care of. That you are lucky to have so much good fortune, and
you are free from that company. You never know when an apparent
accident of fate has saved your life. I feel blessings in what
has happened, that your life is to be blessed, and that that job
was totally blocking it, and your spirit could not stay.

I actually contacted a supervisor via email today just to make a good will gesture. His big concern was getting the company cell phone back. I don't know why I would have expected anything different... concern for me as a stressed out human being... zero.

The corporate mentality destroys everything and everyone it touches. People are used in service of things; having is more important than being. Once people are enslaved by it they are no longer aware of even having made the choice. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ is all that matters.

I've been doing contract work for 4 years so the big draw for this job was that it was a "permanent" employee position. But the reality is they can let you go in a heartbeat, no matter what the circumstances. The contract positions I had lasted much longer than this, so I was no worse off. I wish I didn't have to work.

Thank you sweetheart for touching on the deeper dimensions of what this means.

They treat you like a criminal because they are criminals and we judge others by ourselves.
Best of luck in your future endeavors. :toast: