‘I’m the guy you just laid off’: Boss accidentally messages laid off employee about new hire. He was told ‘staff reduction’ was necessary
A worker received a Slack message after being laid off which gave details—meant for someone else at the company—about their alleged replacement.
The story about the inopportune heads-up came from Redditor u/not_a_AIchatbot, posting to the r/antiwork subreddit. Going up on Thursday, it was headlined, "They told me the staff reduction was necessary," sharing a tale of what appeared to be a switch-out disguised as a layoff.
The post came with the caption, "Just got [laid] off without even being given 2 weeks notice and then I got this sent to me accidentally from one of my bosses."
The post showed a Slack exchange in which the now-former boss started, "Did you happen to reach out to Heather and let her know Chris will be transitioning to full time on 3/5?"
It continued, "Also, plan to add him to Slack on 3/5, his first day."
The newly laid-off worker, still on Slack, responded, "Yeah, wrong person. I'm the guy you just [laid] off. Good for Chris, though, at least he's got a full-time job." The poster added a clapping emoji to finish off the message.
Commenters lent their support to the laid-off worker, dunking on the boss in the process.
One snarked, "I bet 'attention to detail' is at the top of their resume."
Another suggested, "Bill them for time. Reply with your consultant fees and minimum."
When someone else suggested that wasn't enforceable, another pointed out, "He's not serious. It's more about being an asshole back."
Someone else suggested that this worker should be concerned about burning this bridge, noting, "I don't know why so many people are averse to being 'nice' in such situations. I behave in the manner which has the highest likelihood of a positive result on my life even if its only a 0.001% chance. You don't really gain anything by being snide/witty/clever. Why risk a chance at making your life incrementally better?"
But given that layoffs are happening despite the purported health of the economy, it's understandable that people are cynical in the face of people losing their jobs.
A CNBC article looking at recent tech industry layoffs quoted Jeff Shulman, professor at the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business, who said, "The layoffs to the start of 2024 signal a dramatic shift in the tech industry. We’re going to continue to see layoffs happen as the future of work has changed, as the future of technology has changed and as investors’ appetite for risk and growth versus profitability has dramatically changed as well.”
The article's author observed, "There are several factors behind the churn. AI is at the forefront. Companies need to free up cash to invest in the chips and servers that power the AI models behind these new technologies. There’s also the stock market effect. Companies that conducted layoffs haven’t been punished, either by investors or on their bottom lines. In fact, they’ve been rewarded with rising stock prices."
The Daily Dot has reached out to the Redditor via Reddit direct message.
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