This happened about 15 years ago. A little bit of background… I worked for an AE firm based out another state. Traditional AE firms tend to have an abusive relationship with employees, a lot of hiring and firing for specific projects, long hours, etc. A lot of that is phasing out but our office hired a horrible old-school office manager that viewed everyone as pawns and clearly had it out for certain people from early on.
Our particular office was in the suburbs and had about 20 people and everyone lived within a 10 min drive, then this manager pushed to relocate the office downtown, which resulted in a 1.5 hr commute each way for just about everyone. Using the relocation as an excuse this office manager also pushed really hard to fire everyone then force everyone to re-apply for their jobs because he thought there would be better talent in the city. Luckily the other senior people at the head office had a semblance of humanity and shut him down but shortly afterwards there was a bit of a downturn in the economy and he got his way anyway.
Fast forward to that Christmas and the friday before the Christmas party, several people from the head office show up and start to call folks into an empty office and we find out they're all being let go. Just before lunch, they call an office meeting and explain what happened then they include my friend's name, and mention that since he was out of the office he was going to be told on Monday and they forbade us from saying anything to him. My friend was out of the office but was planning on being at the Christmas party that Sunday. I felt like Tiny Tim raising my hand and asking if they were really REALLY going to let that person go to the party and spend the whole time there without letting anyone tell him he was let go…. asshole manager said yes but luckily the others had a quick conference and overruled him. Sheesh.
We're still friends and enough time has passed that we can joke about it but it still would have been horrible for everyone involved.
Bonus: That asshole manager was himself let go about a month later and he passed away during the pandemic last year.