It finally happened. I was laid off. The company I worked for went bankrupt & every single employee was let go that same day. No warnings or anything. I had been searching for a new job because at this one, I was overworked (due to layoffs in previous months) and underpaid (due to budget concerns), so I’m not that upset, although I do feel for everyone who needed the job to put food on their tables.
It was a remote job so we were issued company laptops. I got a really nice 2 Terabyte, 16-in 2019 MacBook Pro. I edited for this company so they gave me a computer that could handle pretty heavy editing. The problem is, when the company went bankrupt / everyone was laid off, all of our company emails were shut off almost immediately. It’s been a while now, and nobody has contacted me (or my coworkers for that matter) about our gear. The company execs just went ghost. The last email we got was essentially:
“Sorry everybody. You all did great but the company is going bankrupt. Reach out to HR for any questions about remaining pay for days worked. Also, your work emails will be shutting down in a few hours. Thank you and good luck to you all on your future ventures.”
I factory reset the computer and it’s as good as new. If nobody reaches out to me (which is highly likely, considering how unorganized this company was), could I just keep it? We had about 300 employees and I doubt they’ll contact all 300 of us individually with instructions on returning gear, especially now that our company emails are shut off.
Funny enough, this isn’t the first time this has happened to me. I worked for a previous company that went through something similar when COVID first hit (just my luck lol), and they too never emailed or called me or sent any instructions about returning the computer (a 2016 MacBook Air), so I kept it. It’s been about 2 years since this incident happened lol.
If either company does email me one day with instructions for where to send it, I would, but until they ask, I’m not doing it. If they need it, they’ll reach out. Has this happened to anybody else?