Imagine working at the same company for decades. You know your job really well, and you’re good at it.

If you knew that a new boss was going to fire you just so he could hire his friends, would you fight for your job, or would you play along since you know better than the boss how this is going to play out?

In today’s story, one longtime employee plays along.

Let’s see what happens.

Hand over all my tasks so you can get rid of me? ok!

A few years back I was the IT Contracts and Supplier manager at a large company, been there 25+ years and had a LOT of corporate knowledge, having worked in multiple roles over that time.

Also was very well paid due to length of tenure and experience at the company.

A new boss gets hired and proceeds to get rid of people he doesn’t like and hires his buddies into various roles.

The workplace culture took a nosedive pretty quickly.

I knew my time was limited as I wasn’t in his inner circle.

Time to look for a new job.

Seeing the writing on the wall, I started looking for and applying for other roles.

The boss gets me in their sights and decides to get rid of me, looking to move one of his recently hired buddies to my specialized role (he doesn’t even understand what I do, needing a lot of technical knowledge combined with contract and legal).

He tells me he wants to move me onto an upcoming project and to finish off what I am currently working on and not take on any new work.

Through all my contacts across the company, I knew there was no new project or even significant budget for one, but I’ll do what I’m told.

I wrap up my work and tell him I’m ready for the project.

This was perfect timing.

He says sit tight, it’s not far away, and ‘don’t start anything else’.

So I sit at my desk, applying for other jobs and waiting.

One of the jobs I applied for comes through and get an offer on a Friday morning.

That same afternoon the boss comes around and says, the project isn’t happening, and as you have nothing else on your plate, we will have to let you go.

Yahtzee!

He knew the situation better than the boss did.

I know there is heaps of work backed up and the **** is going to hit the fan soon when contracts aren’t renewed, services cancelled, etc.

I also know my employment contract and they will have to pay a generous redundancy – because the boss told HR my role isn’t required anymore.

I say, ok, I guess you will have to pay me a redundancy too?

Sure he says, not knowing what he has agreed to.

It worked out really well for them but not for the boss.

So I go through the redundancy process and at the same time accept the offer of the new job.

Come my last day, I happily accept the $200k payout (his face goes pale when he hears of the amount, because it comes out of the teams budget), walk out the door and into the new job the day after.

Love my new job, less stress, great culture, a great team, wish I’d left earlier, but then I wouldn’t have got the payout if I resigned.

4 weeks later, I hear the **** is hitting the fan, and they advertise for a new person for my old role as noone knows what to do, because apparently my job was ‘easy’. He didn’t even ask me document what I did to hand over to anyone else.

That’s great! A big payout and a better job! It doesn’t get better than that!

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This person’s wife left a similar work situation.

This person shares a story about their father-in-law.

This is true.

Just because it looks easy doesn’t mean it is!

I’m sure the coworkers cared!

This person shares their experience being fired and rehired.

Bad managers fire good employees.

It’s an all-too-common tale.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.