Worker contacted by shocked HR months after being told they'd been laid off in case of mistaken identity: 'It took them almost TWO months to realize'

The nature of something serious lends you to believe that that thing will be handled seriously, with calculated, methodical decision-making in its orchestration. Company-wide layoffs are a bit like that; the wide-sweeping impact made on people's lives means you'd expect each and every decision to be made with careful thought. Well, that's not always the case. At the end of the day, there's some administrator somewhere handling the clerical work through some management system, and both people and systems are prone to mistakes, especially when two things are closely related or similar to a level that isn't discernable at a glance.

One such mistake is exactly what led to this worker thinking that they had been laid off for two whole months while their employer still thought that they were working for them. The mistake only came to light when an HR manager got in touch with them to ask them why they hadn't been keeping up with their annual training requirements. The confused worker responded that they had been chopped along with 50 other of the company's employees during a recent round of layoffs. After a few minutes to calculate, the HR manager left in a panic before revealing that their inclusion in the layoffs had been an unfortunate case of mistaken identity. Fortunately for the worker, they were prepared before the "layoff" occurred and had already secured another job that would put them in a more secure role with better pay.

Commenters were quick to point out that the worker should have played dumb and should have acted like they had been working for the entire duration in order to secure payment for the period before giving their notice. See the original post and responses below.

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Posted by Brad Dickson