Someone I know is about to leave for FMLA in December for his paternity leave. (It’s ridiculous you have to use FMLA for that, but ‘Merica.) He’s in a Director position that requires a decent amount of travel, which obviously he will not be able to do for a couple months. He notified them months in advance. Right around the time he told his friends and family that his wife was pregnant.
The region he oversees has consistently been at the top of the list for performance month after month. The managers under him respect him. He doesn’t micromanage. He properly addresses his employees’ concerns. He’s a really good guy to everyone. It’s clear he’s doing something right and getting better performance from his employees as a result. (Corporate America HATES this!)
He recently witnessed a peer doing drugs on the job, who subsequently passed out in their car for hours. As far as I’ve been told, he didn’t say anything to anyone, but it was known that he was a witness somehow. A lot of his peers seem like the “bro” party type, whereas he’s more of the classic gamer / tech geek who’s a bit socially awkward at times. They never quite see eye-to-eye with each other.
All of these thing lumped together, seems obvious to me why he was let go. They gave the whole bullshit reason of “going in another direction,” but it seems awfully convenient and sketch to me.
I know most of you probably aren’t lawyers, but have you witnessed or experienced anything similar? I wonder what recourse he may ultimately have. He’s in an at-will state, so I know generally there isn’t much that can be done, but this just seems bananas to me. My heart breaks for him.
Edit: Apologies for the title gore. I could have used a complete sentence haha