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You Don't Need Me, Remember?
Buckle in kiddies, this one's long. Nine years ago (crazy) I started at a startup as a temp-part time assistant. I started in April and the plan was for me to end my employment when my lease was up in September.
Well, I became important. They liked my ambition, and decided to place me in a role within their trucking division. I quickly scaled operations, built the division from the ground up (they had a semi, no driver, no customers... and said "you'll figure it out" & I did)
I did this for 5 years, and loved it. It felt like finishing a puzzle every week. We owned all our equipment. Had enough money to constantly support our struggling parent company. Carried our own way through the early 20's lockdowns. I was so proud of what I'd built- just me and the drivers.
The parent company in construction had been struggling. So in 2023 they moved me. They told me to shutdown my operations, they sold all the equipment I'd acquired to pay off debts they'd accumulated. Told me to come in and fix it.
And I did.
The owner bailed out for the last 3 years. I cleaned up their entire AP they'd been struggling with, reduced DPO from a 96 day average to less than 36 day average, renegotiated contracts with customers and vendors... they got out of debt and turned a profit for the first time in over 7 years under my leadership.
As soon as that initiative was done, one of the owners stopped following my lead and started making unsound decisions again. The situation never got as bad as it was before, because I always fought back and explained why I was pushing back on his calls.
While we never got that bad again- it was never that great again either. Primarily because we'd resorted to me having all the responsibility of their continued success, but none of the authority to prevent pitfalls, and absolutely no support. My "boss", the owner, bailed out three years ago when she told me to fix things. She stayed on the payroll, but her only responsibility was bank reconciliations once a month. The overhead kept me from ever having someone in a supporting role to scale operations. It held the company back.
Throughout all these years- the only real feedback I've ever gotten was about things unrelated to my performance. Such as not having background noise when I'm at my desk or "talk to me like family", "talk to me like you're an owner", "don't talk to me like I'm an employee"- the goal post for the expectation was always moving.
~bringing us to last week: ish~
On Monday, 6/1, a meeting was scheduled with an agenda I was unaware of. And the female boss who hasn't bothered with the business in over 3 years? Was leading it.
3 topics:
• we have decided to stop operations here & move them to a new state by x date
• my husband doesn't like the way you speak with him (again ^)
•we are cutting your benefits
I pushed back on the cutting of benefits, making my case and requesting a meeting with all of us. I once again expressed that I wasn't sure what the expectation was for how to communicate effectively, since it felt like the expectation was always changing and I think we'd all benefit from figuring that out. & lastly asked what it meant for my job and was told I'd stay on to help with the transition until September (perf.)
My spidey senses started tingling at the end of our meeting when she started asking about things she'd never cared to learn before. Like my upcoming projects, pivot tables and how to use them, and ownership of accounts..
Now it's Wednesday, I ask about that meeting this week. Instead of even trying to schedule it, they text me they talked and are cutting my benefits. I express my discontent with that decision, and for not being a part of the conversation. (I'm responsible for most decisions, including hiring, firing, what benefits to add or remove, etc.: they've even put me in charge of determining my own raises and just telling them what I want [lucky for them I'm an honest person with integrity])
I'm told if it's an issue, they can always eliminate my position now. I don't reply because what do you say to that? I go about my day.
I'd cleaned up my home office (gotten rid of a bunch of furniture recently as we are selling our house) and had some things I didn't need: an old employees laptop, an extra iPad, fuel cards for other employees, extra mailbox key for ordering more, etc. things I just wouldn't need if we stopped operations & that I didn't have space for. I'd already boxed them up BEFORE getting the text about eliminating my position. I have the timestamps from my garage door proving I was on my way there with the items before the message ever came through.
I go in, drop it all off, put some of it away. Per our conversation on Monday, she wants my computer, so I got that ready for her to sign in (it's a Mac, so I erased it to set it up new, all of our company information is still readily available just not tailored to me and my account anymore). When she signs in, it'll match the Mac she has at home. I genuinely thought she'd appreciate that.
None of this is out of the ordinary for me. IT work is quite common for me. Being proactive with completing tasks is something I do often.
I get a text that afternoon, she's pissed about the computer. Saying I deleted company data. I ask what she means, she brings up the device.
I explain none of our company data is gone- we are cloud based- it's just not linked to my profile anymore. All she has to do is sign in,
And the OneDrive, Google Calendar, teams, etc will all be there. (Also not uncommon to have to explain these things... I once had to explain why signing into a google based product with their outlook wasn't working...)
She says they'll look into that, then says they've decided to fire me. They did not give a reason, even when asked. Just That they do not need me, and she just needs to know what time to meet me to get the rest of my things and give me my final check.
And if that seems random and sudden to anyone else- after 9 years- it was for me too.
The comedy begins now.
The back and forth continued so I ended up telling her she wouldn't be able to contact me anymore and I'd see her Monday at our scheduled time and place.
When I went into my home office the next day (I own my computer...) and unlocked it, all of my work tools were still up. The first thing I see is a "high importance" email from her 2 hours after I'd blocked her. To my WORK email. Asking how she is supposed to contact me with questions.
Excuse me..?
I choose not to respond. I go about my business, file for unemployment, and keep getting our house ready to go on the market.
Later the next day, I get a call from my husband. "What do you want me to tell her?" ???
Apparently, she'd started bugging my husband. Saying that "legally" she needs to be able to contact me, her lawyer said so. And that she didn't have the login credentials for one of the accounts and needed it from me. (She did.. but ya know..)
I got hung up on "legally I need to be able to contact her- (lawyers name) said so"... did they now? I was under the impression that when an employee is terminated and no longer on the payroll, they're under no obligation to help you.
To verify, I checked state law- I was correct.
My husband cussed her out- she tried to get sympathy by expressing she's "in over her head", and he not so politely told her she should have thought of that before firing me. He instructed her to leave us alone.
(For context with my husband: he worked for them years ago & when he quit they talked MAD smack to his potential employers.... and then proceeded to beg him to come back for years.. he hates them)
On Monday 6/8, we went in for my final check and to return any property I still had. We get there, termination letter, COBRA Forms, and check are not done. So we wait.
She goes in to try and print my check.. and has absolutely NO IDEA where to go to do it. She starts to turn around to ask, thinks better of it, struggles for two minutes, then turns around and asks how. I simply say it's under payroll.
In total I let her struggle for five minutes before I decided I was wasting my own time and helped.
The audacity though, when she goes to print my check, to turn around and go "ok so how do I change this then?"... change what? "Well your wages. We fired you Wednesday. So it's only 3 days"..... I'm a tax exempt salary employee, you don't. Unless you'd like to compensate me for the overtime rule you abused all these years?
When she realized I was not budging on that, she printed it.
And it came out wrong. Because the margins on paychecks don't work.
I explain it to her. Tell her what to do.
After 30 minutes, we finally leave and I tell her to just mail the termination letter and COBRA info. It's been a week, I still don't have it.
A trusted source has told me They're attempting to scapegoat me for some.. questionable decisions they made. I have all the documentation they're lying. From texts, to journal and agenda entries, to witnesses.
In a nutshell, they owe someone a lot of money and were trying to avoid paying it. They're blaming me.
However, just this week they planned on putting all the employees on the payroll on assignment to conduct improvements to their personal residence. Not a draw. They never code it that way- and with their tax status, it's embezzlement.
(Worth noting is in one of her texts before terminating me she randomly mentioned everything with me is a battle. Only the illegal things and the poor decisions? Looking back now: she was planning to do this and she was right, it would have 100% been a battle.)
They don't have the money to pay their dues to this one person.. but they've got the money for personal enrichment? How odd.
My favorite part, was all of the employees said no. They'd rather have time off. And one quit.
The skeleton crew we were running following our annual slow season doesn't leave much trim room. & with upcoming projects, any loss hurts.
So now, x-boss is looking into hiring travelers. And the informant of mine tells me he's enraged by the cost. Man- doesn't that suck? Too bad he doesn't know I proactively started on that a year ago, negotiated rates and set up a rapport with a company locally and got a line of credit established with them for when the need arose this summer.
They don't need me. They've got this 👋🏼
I'll just be minding my business with my lawyer & moving out of state to get away from them.
Hope you enjoyed the tale, I am just so thankful I'm free.
The male boss was verbally abusive, and I never had the strength to give up on it on my own. They really did do me a favor.
Jobadvisor
What a story! Nine years of doing everything — building a trucking division from scratch, rescuing a failing construction company, managing payroll, IT, hiring, benefits — only to get fired over a misunderstood Mac reset. The irony of her not knowing how to print a paycheck for the person who ran payroll is almost poetic.
A few things that really stand out:
The tell was Monday's meeting. The sudden interest in pivot tables and account ownership from someone who hadn't engaged in three years? She was already planning to fire you and extract what she needed first. You read that exactly right.
The "legally she needs to contact you" bluff is a classic panic move. Firing someone and then immediately needing them is its own kind of admission. Your husband's response was perfect.
The travelers situation is the chef's kiss ending. You did that legwork a year ago. The rate he's enraged by? That's probably the negotiated rate. He has no idea.
A couple of practical things worth making sure you have buttoned up, since you mentioned a lawyer:
- Follow up in writing on the COBRA notice — there are federal deadlines for when they're required to send it, and being late can have consequences for them.
- Document the "put employees to work on my personal residence" situation carefully. That's the kind of thing that becomes very relevant if they try to make you a scapegoat.
Glad you're free of it, genuinely. The fact that it took them doing you dirty to get you out of a verbally abusive situation is unfortunate — but you're out, you have documentation, and you clearly already know more about their business than they do.
Good luck with the house sale and the move. Sounds like a fresh start is very well earned.
Laid off because of AI
I've been working at my corporate job for the past 4 years and just found out my position is being phased out because if AI. I started to see the writing on the wall a few months ago because of how much AI was being unnecessarily worked into every task for the sake of "productivity". I considered myself a valuable employee. Never complained. Rarely took off. It doesn't matter how good if a worker or team player you are to these upper-level execs as long as they can find a way to make more profits.
Dreading entering the job application process because of all the horror stories of having to apply to upwards of 100 jobs just to get one interview. Has anyone else dealt with this? I'm not usually on Reddit, but it'll help to know I'm not the only one.
Jobadvisor
First off, I am so sorry you are going through this. That is incredibly heavy, and your frustration is 100% valid.
It is deeply unfair to give four years of your life, show up as a reliable team player, and get thanked with a layoff notice just so some executives can pad a profit margin. What you are feeling right now isn't just financial stress—it’s a real sense of betrayal.
To answer your question directly: You are absolutely not alone.
While the headline-grabbing AI layoffs usually focus on tech giants, tech-driven restructuring is happening quietly across almost every corporate sector. It has nothing to do with your worth or the quality of your work. Executive leadership is chasing a trend, often overestimating what current AI tools can actually do reliably, and good people are getting caught in the crossfire.
The modern job market is tough, but you don't have to just blindly spray 500 resumes into resume-parsing algorithms to get a bite. Let's look at how the landscape is shifting and how you can protect your peace while navigating it.
The Reality Check on "AI Replacement"
There is a massive wave of "AI hype" in upper management right now. A lot of companies are phasing out roles, realizing six months later that the AI makes hallucinated mistakes or lacks human nuance, and then quietly hiring people back under new job titles.
The skills you built over the last 4 years—reliability, navigating corporate dynamics, solving messy problems, and being a good teammate—are things software cannot replicate.
Taming the Job Search Horror Stories
The stories you see online about "1,000 applications and zero interviews" are real, but they usually happen to people using the "Easy Apply" button on LinkedIn 50 times a day. When thousands of people do that, resumes just get buried.
Instead of burning yourself out on the numbers game, try a targeted approach to protect your mental energy:
The 80/20 Rule: Dedicate 80% of your energy to the hidden job market (networking, reaching out to old colleagues, finding smaller companies that don't use aggressive automated filters) and only 20% to cold online applications.
Target "Human-Centric" Teams: Look for mid-sized or smaller companies. They are often much less obsessed with replacing staff with automated tools because they rely heavily on tight-knit team collaboration.
Flip the Narrative: On your resume, don't hide from AI—own it. If you used it in your last job, list it as a tool you managed. Frame yourself not as someone replaced by AI, but as a professional who knows how to direct it.
Take a few days just to breathe and let the shock wear off before you dive into editing resumes. You didn't fail here; a short-sighted corporate strategy failed you.
Lost my fully remote position
Worked a job i enjoyed for 4 years. Was let go this morning. Obviously im sad and stressed because im the sole income for my family but what im really freaked out by is my kid just turned 5. Ive gotten to experience so much with her that I wouldn't had I had to commute for work. Just yesterday she was playing under my desk while I worked.
Idk if this is the right sub. Sorry if its not. Id like to find another fully remote role but with AI, idk it seems a lot less likely than it did 4 years back
Jobadvisor
That's a real gut punch, and the thing you're grieving isn't just the income — it's the life you built around that flexibility. Four years of being there, actually present, while still working. Your daughter playing under your desk yesterday and not knowing anything had changed. That image hits hard.
The fear about AI and remote work is legitimate, not catastrophizing. The market has shifted. But a few things worth holding onto:
Remote work itself hasn't shrunk as much as it feels like it has. What's changed is the competition — more people chasing the same roles. The jobs exist, they're just harder to land than in 2020-2021.
Four years of fully remote experience is actually a credential now. Employers hiring remote workers genuinely worry about self-direction, async communication, output over optics. You've done it, and presumably done it well enough to stay for four years. That's real.
On the AI fear specifically — the roles most at risk are often mid-level, repetitive knowledge work. If your work over those four years involved judgment, relationships, complex problem-solving, or creativity, that's more durable than it might feel right now in the panic of day one.
What field/type of work were you in? That might help think through whether the remote landscape for your specific role has actually narrowed, or just feels that way right now.
And for what it's worth — the fact that your brain went to your daughter playing under your desk, not the paycheck, says something good about the last four years.
Boss denied my remote work schedule request
I have ADA accommodation that allows me to work remote 4 days a week from Nov to April due to a weather related illness. From April to November I am in office 4 days and remote one day. Since returning to the office she's been giving me a really hard time about being at the office, even to the point where she's told me I need to ask her permission before having a meeting anywhere else on campus but my particular office. She even has me filling out a daily work log that has me documenting what I'm working on every 30 minutes.
I work at a university, and at the end of the spring semester the division I work for implemented a new telecommuting policy that allows us two remote days during the summer months (May 27-Aug 28). Based on that policy I submitted a request to my boss to add another telecommuting day to my schedule.
Her first reason for denying me was because she is retiring on July 15 and "doesn't want to make a decision for the new director". When I asked her if she would be willing to approve the additional day through July 15th and I could make another request to the new director.
Her next reason for denying me was "since you're focusing on building relationships I think it's important that you stay on campus 4 days a week". First of all, it's summer on a uni campus-- shit is DEAD. Second of all, she doesn't even let me leave my office so how am I supposed to be "building relationships" on campus?
I'm worried that she's going to poison the well with whoever comes next
Jobadvisor
Ugh, I am so sorry you are dealing with this. That sounds incredibly frustrating, deeply isolating, and—to be frank—like a textbook case of micromanagement and potential retaliation.
First, let’s validate your instinct: Your boss’s behavior is completely irrational.
Documenting your time in 30-minute increments?
Needing permission to walk to another building on a college campus for a meeting?
Claiming you need to "build relationships" while simultaneously chaining you to your desk?
None of that is normal management; it's a control tactic. It sounds like she is unhappy about your approved ADA accommodation and is taking it out on you through "quiet firing" tactics or hyper-surveillance.
Since you are at a university, you actually have a lot of structural protection that employees at private companies don't always have. Here is a game plan to protect yourself and handle this before she retires.
1. Document Everything (The Paper Trail)
When a boss tries to "poison the well," your best defense is an objective, undeniable paper trail.
Follow up via email: Send a polite, factual email summarizing your conversation about the summer schedule.
"Hi [Boss], I wanted to follow up on my request for the university-wide summer telecommuting schedule. To confirm, you are denying the additional remote day because you prefer I focus on on-campus relationship building and because of your upcoming retirement on July 15. Is that correct?"
Save those 30-minute logs: Keep copies of these logs on a personal device or external drive (if permitted by IT policy) or print them. If she tries to tell the new director you aren't productive, you have months of granular proof showing exactly how hard you've been working.
Keep a private journal: Note dates, times, and quotes of her telling you not to leave your office.
2. Loop in HR and your ADA Coordinator
Because you have a formal ADA accommodation, you have a direct line to people who outrank your boss on this matter.
The "Constructive Discharge" / Retaliation Angle: Making your work life miserable or creating arbitrary rules (like the 30-minute logs and campus house-arrest) after you used an ADA accommodation can look a lot like retaliation.
Contact HR or your Equity/Accessibility office: Schedule a meeting with the person who handled your original ADA accommodation. Frame it neutrally but firmly:
"Since returning from my approved winter ADA remote schedule, I have experienced a sudden shift in management, including mandatory 30-minute activity logging and restrictions on moving about campus for meetings. Additionally, I was denied the standard university summer telecommuting benefit. I am concerned this hyper-scrutiny is related to my accommodation."
3. The "Poisoning the Well" Fear
It is a very valid fear that she will try to tank your reputation with the incoming director before she leaves on July 15. However, there are two saving graces here:
She is a short-timer: Everyone at the university knows she is leaving. In higher ed, "lame duck" managers losing their grip or checked-out bosses making weird rules is a known phenomenon. The new director will likely want to form their own opinions.
Fresh start on July 16: The moment she leaves, the 30-minute logs and the campus lockdown rules should go out the window unless the new director explicitly reinstates them.
4. Your Next Steps
Submit the Summer Request to HR: Since the summer remote policy is a division-wide policy and your boss gave you a non-answers ("I'm retiring"), ask HR if the new interim director or the division head can review it, since your current boss is refusing to make operational decisions during her transition.
Breathe and Gray Rock: Give her nothing to use against you. Do the 30-minute logs perfectly. Ask permission to go to meetings with a polite, robotic smile. Don't let her see that she's getting under your skin. July 15th is just around the corner.
Hang in there. You have rights, you have an approved accommodation, and she is about to be history.