'He got a promotion... by getting fired': Programmer gets fired to caught costs, has to be rehired a month later since he coded their entire system, gets better position and pay

Author image for Elna McHilderson
Elna McHilderson • Managing Editor
Oct 15, 2023 7:00 AM EDT

You never know what you have until you lose it. This saying is usually used when talking about heartbreak, but in this case, it's about a useful employee. 

A reddit post shared an epic return on a computer programmer who got fired. This person was fired because the nefarious manager that nobody liked said he could find someone who could do his job for cheaper and he needed to cut costs. The programmer was upset, mostly because he loved the job and had put a lot of his sweat and time into it, but he also hated that manager, so he didn't fight it. He knew his worth and wasn't worried about being able to find a new job. 

While on the job hunt, he got several offers he was debating over. The most curious one being from the place he was just fired from. The manager offered his job back like he was doing him a favor, but, obviously, he refused it. Then the manager confessed that he actually got in trouble by the CEO for firing him because since he was the one who coded everything, nobody knew how to manage it. 

Funny who the tables turn in situations like this. The programmer decided to take the job back, only if it was in a better position and a much higher pay. They agreed and he came back in a much better situation. He is apparently still there till this day making even more money in the same position and the manager that had fired him many moons ago is gone. C'est la vie, baby! 

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  • 01
    Computer - DO BBB BRIDGE
    via Rawpixel via Freerange
  • 02
    Font - Posted by u/plogan56 You wanna fire me to save a buck, go right ahead M OC
    via u/plogan56
  • 03
    Font - So i recently met up with my uncle and while talking about my major, programming Computer Science, he told me a story of when he got a promotion, his current position, by getting fired.
    via u/plogan56
  • 04
    Font - several years ago my uncle(dan) had a jerk of a boss who would always flaunt his status of being a manager to the lower ranked employees and would also be critical of them for the smallest things(taking 2 or 3 minutes too long on breaks, talking to your co-worker for even a second, or even taking a sip from your water bottle at your desk); my
    via u/plogan56
  • 05
    Font - uncle and his co workers hated this guy, but they loved the job so they just put up with him for the time being. Uncle Dan told me it was so bad nobody wanted to even interact with him outside of work and he wasn't invited to any parties or get together either.
    via u/plogan56
  • 06
    Font - one day boss decides to save money for the company by firing Dan for "Poor performance" and tells him the reason why is because, they can "hire for cheaper"; now Dan is a calm and logical man, he's very skilled in programming and has years of experience under his belt by that point in his life, so he knows there would be loads of companies fighting for him.
    via u/plogan56
  • 07
    Font - Dan didn't put up a fight about it and just cleared out his desk that day and a month later, while looking for other jobs, he was called by boss telling him he can get his job back and when Dan refused, because he had a few offers, boss revealed that he was in trouble for firing him with the president. Uncle
    via u/plogan56
  • 08
    Font - Dan explained to me that he coded the system they used to distribute assignments and organize tasks which earned him the president's respect for his skill and expertise, so when he found out he was replaced with someone who, as Dan put it, "wouldn't know his ass from an array" he was
    via u/plogan56
  • 09
    Font - understandably livid especially since he didn't hear about it till just now. So boss was forced to offer Dan his position and a raise to convince him to comeback, was demoted, and was even more ostracized for the way he looked down on people in the past.
    via u/plogan56
  • 10
    Font - It was a funny story, he gets fired and then is given an even better position and pay because his boss was trying to "save the company money", he still has that position today and his pay has only gotten better due to his skills, but the boss couldn't stand being on the same level as the "lesser employees" he mocked so he's not there anymore
    via u/plogan56
  • 11
    Font - fjsventura. I think in IT there is always a manager thinking he/she can save by losing an employee and a screwed up project because they lost an absurdly valuable employee that was the only person in the company that fully understand it :D. Incredible come back. Ahah
    via u/fjsventura
  • 12
    Font - BoyzMom13. two lessons here: 1. respect the talent and compensate appropriately 2. make sure more than one person can handle the software
    via u/BoyzMom13
  • 13
    Font - TheLightingGuy. I've been working in IT for about 12 years now. I've seen so many companies try to outsource IT and come crawling back and having to give massive raises for their old employees to even consider coming back. Usually it's always the specialized places that do this. Our original software developer has been with the company almost 20 years. I
    via u/TheLightingGuy
  • 14
    Font - have already decided if he quits or gets fired, I'm getting the out of there before the fi impending dumpster fire implodes on the company since his code and database management runs about 90% of our operations.
    via u/TheLightingGuy
  • 15
    Font - super_swede. It's not just IT, it's all over the place. Once worked a big box retail store where a long time employee got offered better compensation at a different chain. So he asked for them to match it or he'd walk, upon which the boss said that he didn't think he was worth that much pay.
    via u/super_swede
  • 16
    Font - Turns out he was the one who did the orders for christmas trees and when he walked the store ended up with zero christmas trees that year, and a lot worse price the following years.
    via u/super_swede
  • 17
    Font - suckuma I built something for a company 9 years ago when I was just beginning programming. Just a basic order prediction thing. I left contact info at the top of the source code and was contacted last year about it.
    via u/suckuma
  • 18
    Font - I got paid $150 an hour to make an updated interface which only took like 3 days(first two days was going over my old code). I'm not a programmer by trade but I have fun making things.
    via u/suckuma
  • 19
    Font - ol-gormsby I once had a manager with no IT experience at all, beyond using MSOffice. No networking, no sysadmin, no understanding of access permissions, file shares, server functions, zero, nada. He was suspicious of the AS400 sitting in the corner, and the BSD server in the other corner, because they weren't Microsoft.
    via u/ol-gormsby
  • 20
    Font - He was appointed to job the because he had a business degree. He thought he could improve our workflow by implementing what he learned at university. He went ahead. with it despite my advice as to what would happen. He told me I knew nothing about business processes and proceeded to implement his plans.
    via u/ol-gormsby
  • 21
    Font - Six months later, one of the top bosses asked me why our response times had blown out. I referred him to my manager, saying (nicely) that business processes were beyond my pay grade. Which they were, but they weren't beyond my understanding.
    via u/ol-gormsby

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failblog work drama fired work story malicious compliance r-maliciouscompliance rehired getting rehired funny fired workplace Reddit satisfying hire computer programmer
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