It has been a while since I got fired, and the manager who fired me seems to have left the company after his tenure of almost 20 years (voluntary or involuntary, that I do not know), so I thought I would write about it, procrastinating mowing my lawn.
TLDR; I sent the CEO an email late in the day from my work email account, and I was fired the next day. Perfectly orchestrated.
It is said that Elon Musk has an open door policy. That is, anybody who works for him can come into is office (where ever that is!) and talk to him. However, it is also said trying that tact is the fastest way to get fired from any of his companies. I surmise that getting fired is due to a chain of command issue, but I really do not know. I decided to use this strategy to my advantage. Here is my story.
Years ago I got hired by a small firm to be in their research and design group. I am fairly high powered employee, a PhD with 40 years of experience. I used to be a professor, so they got me at a good under market rate, and I worked strictly remotely. The small company got bought almost immediately by a large conglomerate that was acquiring lots of companies.
Things were good at the beginning, I was doing research and building new shit, APIs, etc. Things started to go slowly go down hill, but with acceleration. Then, it happened – no raises, internal corporate shuffles, etc. I got transferred to a product group managing some legacy software. I guess maybe I was not suited for this kind of work, but there was still some new stuff that could be done. I fixed a lot of bad stuff that I could not believe. Nobody really knew shit well, so I became the go to guy for all emergency problems, which I hated. That was not my job. People were fumbling through Agile development, but would not listen to advice. Then, I got transferred to another group to work on an even older legacy product and large code base and more people on it. I guess maybe I was not suited for this kind of group, as again nobody listened to me or took my advice. Go ahead, I am waiting for the trolls to call me narcissistic.
Good people were jumping ship all over the company, and the people who were around forever started getting defensive. Trying Agile development for several years, and getting it wrong, morning stand up meetings had 20 people in them and lasted 2 hrs! The aforementioned manager was struggling, but to his defense he was managing a bunch of unmotivated legacy people on a large software base that had more than its share of horrible problems. Stand-up meetings were like, “What did you NOT do yesterday?” Things kept going to shit, and I got “written” up, basically for my difference of opinion with the manager, but legally it was my “performance.” I was at my wit's end. It was a horrible environment. More people disappeared. You would only discover these defections or firings on LinkedIn. So, some days I would run around my house screaming. I wanted to quit so bad. During the pandemic, even with contracting Covid-19, I was still working, coughing my brains out. I was sticking it out because I was close to retirement being 62. I actually thought quitting at 60 because my 401(k) vested. I finally decided that it was enough. I would Musk this shit!
With my plan in hand, one day, the last day of the month at 4:30 pm, I sent the CEO of the conglomerate, a guy I never met nor corresponded with, an email with the subject “Sabbatical?” I did not say anything bad. All I said that I was a Computer Science PhD researcher that had worked for this company for X number of years, and was looking to “change it up” even for a period of 6 months or so. I told him that I figured that since they bought a shitload of companies, there might be a mutual need. I did this from my work email address. So, there you go, what ensued follows.
I can only surmise that the CEO never got that email in that it was intercepted during corporate email surveillance by my manager. The next morning, during the stand up that lasted 2 hrs, it was a bit weird that the manager was asking that I check in some software I was working on. Ah ha, I felt it was coming. Even though I was expecting it, I must admit, it was still a bit foreboding. In the afternoon, I was called into a private video conference. It was off the corporate video channel. When I saw the HR guy in the meeting, I tried to hide my laugh. I did not turn on the camera. The manager who fired me, told me that this would be my last day, and I could absolutely tell he thought he had one up on me. I could see him smiling, laughing under his breath, and then he left. Now, it was the first day of the month, so the HR guy said that my benefits would last until the end of the month. I, of course, knew this fact. My email, my slack channel, etc. all shut down immediately, so I could not get the word out to the rest of the company. After the call ended, butterflies in my stomach, I cracked open a beer and called a friend to “commiserate.” and laughed through a couple more beers.
My timing was perfect. I had waited until our pandemic salary reduction (20%) period was over, and due to conglomerate incredible profits, we were given the total of our pandemic salary reduction, and a sizable year end bonus. It really could have NOT gone better! Or, so I thought!
Besides not having to endure that awful meeting everyday, there were some other benefits I did not anticipate.
So, now being a large conglomerate, I ended up with a formal 20 page severance agreement, a sizable severance check, a gag order (thinly veiled as an NDA), and a commitment that they would not appeal any unemployment claim. I filed for unemployment, got the American Rescue Plan extra money, and they paid for my COBRA coverage until the ARP expired.
Now, after a year, being 63, and really not wanting to go through that kind of crap again, I filed for Social Security and I am now (semi) retired.