Woman abruptly fired after being pressured to stay up until 2 am to finish a project, she withholds company passwords in retaliation: “No two weeks, no severance pay”

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    AITAH For Withholding Passwords After Being Laid Off?

    YOU'RE FIRED
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    So I'm at work on a Thursday, and the CTO comes in and tells me that a software feature I'd been working on needed to be finished before tomorrow morning. OK fine, I don't have an issue working late, but it was a strange request given that they'd postponed the project for several months to have me working
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    on other stuff. Still, I stayed up until about 2 AM and finished the project.
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    The next morning when I arrived at work, the CEO and CTO called me into a meeting to let me know that I was being laid off, and that it would be my last day. No two weeks, no severance pay. "We'll need to you to finish out today, working with [name redacted] to log all your logins and passwords and show him the rest of your code.
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    To say I was angry was an understatement. "So you knew you were going to can me today, that's why you made me work late yesterday? Does that seem wrong to you?"
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    They just stared at me, no apology, no acknowledgment. So I played my final card.
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    "Alright. If you're gonna play it this way, then it's both personal and business. I need a job, so it's to my benefit to quit right now and walk away, and start looking for work, rather than helping a company that clearly doesn't care about me. If you want me to sit here and generate a list of passwords and
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    train my replacement, then I want a two-week severance package, or I walk right now."
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    They declined, and I walked out the door. I called one of their vendors and let them know I was open to work, and had a new job within a week. They were still emailing me to beg for "help" weeks later. Was I in the wrong?
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    Cheezburger Image 10468690688
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    Careful-Natural-5217 10h ago • NTA: They knew and decided to use you. So what you do, is email them back, as a consultant, you have the right to set your rate of pay for your time. Make sure to get it in writing. Also a good
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    contract with a nonrefundable deposit would also be a good thing to include.
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    Santeeoldman • 10h ago NTA. They are supreme ah_les. If you stayed the last day and helped them you would be the king of a_h_les.
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    jaymooreco 10h ago Companies love to talk about professionalism, but they never want to practice it when it comes to employees. Good on you for standing your ground.
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    • RichardKopf ⚫ 10h ago NTA, What they did was beyond dirty. If they still need help, tell them to hire you as a consultant on your terms.
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    NoIndividual5987 • 10h ago Become a contractor for them. You can charge them a fortune
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    Jayhawker_Pilot • 9h ago NTA. The second they said you were fired, you had no duty to provide anything. You were no longer an employee.
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    Park Simple 10h ago Nta you gave them the same respect they gave you. If they want they can pay you for your time.
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    Nolongeranalpha 7h ago. Absolutely NTA. My old employer terminated me 4 days after I secured their ISO 9001 cert. 2 weeks later, they called me about passwords, and I said, "My consultation rate is $500 per hour with a 4
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    hour minimum. " Then they actually tried to get me to sign an NDA and non- compete agreement AFTER firing me. ⑦ clowns.
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    Square-Ebb1846 • 10h ago The CTO of all people should know that no one should give away passwords.
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    fiestafan73 ⚫9h ago I am surprised they are still in business given how stupid they clearly are. Why would you off the person with all the passwords to your systems? NTA. They are lucky you didn't log in pretending
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    to set up all the passwords for them just to delete all the work you had done and really screw them.

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