'Ok! Everyone is fired!': Heroic manager defends his employees from layoffs after the C-level bosses try to ‘thin out' the higher-paid senior employees, ends up getting HR and the legal department involved

Author image for Jesse Kessenheimer
Jesse Kessenheimer • Writer and Editor
Apr 12, 2025 6:00 AM EDT

Bosses who have never set foot in the workplace love to set impossible goals. Driven by their urge to please faceless stockholders, and crazed by an overinflated ego, they believe that if they crack the whip on the workforce, magically, numbers will skyrocket. Just like that!

Oh, to be so delulu. 

Luckily for the workers in this next story, their manager was prepared to back them up against any attack from the higher-ups, especially when they started creating impossible goals that would threaten the entire workforce's job security. In a ploy to thin out the 'expensive' employees—you know, the ones with the experience to get the job done—the C-level bosses thought of a new and diabolical way to go about mass layoffs. But not on this manager's watch!

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  • It's rare that we see stories where managers are actually good. What a concept to have a leader in your division who really backs up the team, cares about their needs, and protects them when the hounds get released in the woods. Well, this next manager deserves a medal of honor for using malicious compliance to save his tight-knit, hardworking team. 

  • Cheezburger Image 10492908800
    via Fat Camera

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • "These are the new metrics? Ok! Everyone is fired!"

    So I work at a large company. Fortune 50 company. But, like everywhere, management comes up with one size fits none metrics.
    via Superb_Raccoon
  • The latest was revealed to us by our manager, who surprisingly is the hero of this story. It has always been the metric that if you fell below 70% of your quota on a quota eligible role, you
    via Superb_Raccoon
  • risk being put on a Performance Review Plan. It is also well known that anyone getting on a PRP is pretty much toast. Either you get fired for failing the PRP, or you are first on the next layoff list.
    via Superb_Raccoon
  • And usually, they replace you with a newbie fresh out of college, in one of the lower 2 bands. My particular team is made up of all senior people. Every one of us is in one of the top 2 skill grades.
    via Superb_Raccoon
  • So we know we are a target... which is insane, as all of us engage the C-suite at other very large fortune 500 companies and act as trusted adviors. We cannot be replaced by a new grad with intern level perforance.
    via Superb_Raccoon
  • So our intrepid hero, my boss, is pulled into a 2 day seminar about 2 months ago that goes all the way to the General Manager of Sales, Americas. Several senior HR managers are there too. It is a
    via Superb_Raccoon
  • rare in person meeting, so people are cautious, but at least they know it is not a mass layoff kind of deal, as the first day is about the path forward and how important our division is to the company strategy. They go on
    via Superb_Raccoon
  • about how our division is the front line of expanding sales in our Partner Program, to take it from 60% of revenue to 85% of revenue, with 75% of new growth expected to come from the Partner Channels. The company absolute is relying on our division and our skilled staff to deliever on that goal.
    via Superb_Raccoon
  • The second day is different, however. In the afternoon, they lay out the new plan for technical sellers: 80% attainment per year, and Backdating 2 years. It is a rare in person meeting, so people are cautious, but
    via Superb_Raccoon
  • My manager goes into "I am just asking questions mode". "So let me understand, if last year they hit 100% attainment (and 75% of the team did) but the previous year they hit 79%, then they are on a PRP?"
    via Superb_Raccoon
  • HR hems and haws... well yes, that is how it would work. "I see. And there is no exceptions?" The GM speaks up. "That's correct. Everyone must be a top performer. No Exceptions"
    via Superb_Raccoon
  • My mananger starts gathering his things up. "Would you mind if I skipped the rest of the day? I have a lot of work to do, apparently." The GM looks at him. "Well, no, we have more to cover. What is so urgent?'
    via Superb_Raccoon
  • He looks at the GM, and maliciously complies with the stated metrics. "Based on the metrics and the No Exceptions Rule, I have to prepare PRP's for my entire team. No Execeptions. I will need to start the Open Headcount to hire replacements for everyone too."
    via Superb_Raccoon
  • The GM looks confused, attempting to digest this new information. Most of the rest of the managers stick their hands up. "We need to go too, we need to write up PRP's for all our people too, and submit Open Headcounts."
    via Superb_Raccoon
  • A quick count shows that 80% of our division would be on a PRP. Given the failure rate, that means about 70% of the team will be fired, 10% will be laid off, and 20% will remain. For the growth strategy of the company... the tip of the spear in
    via Superb_Raccoon
  • Partner sales. My boss points out that retention of personel and reduced turnover is part of the Roll Up Objectives, as well as attainment of his reports. That means he will be PRPed, as will his manager, and her manager... all the way up the chain. NO EXCEPTIONS.
    via Superb_Raccoon
  • The meeting wraps up after the discussion dies down and the GM says they are not implimenting this now, but in a few months... In those two months there are more online meetings, questions asked,
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  • more data pulled from the HR systems, meetings with HR and Legal who is now very interested in this plan of theirs... culminating in a meeting this last Monday, where the revised plan is reveiled.
    via Superb_Raccoon
  • A new "Exceptions" plan has been put in place, at the insistance of the Legal Department. Gone is the informal "Put together a package to be evaluated for an optional Exception for your employee". Now,
    via Superb_Raccoon
  • there is a set of formal Exceptions that cover a number of catagories: Legal ones like taking Family Leave or Medical Short Term Disablity in the last three, and functional ones like having been moved between
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  • departments or job titles or having a non-quota designation in the last two years. If the quota plan changed singificantly or had a Metric with no previous history to set the target. There is 10 or 12 catagories,
    via Superb_Raccoon
  • depending if you count the overlaps. An exception resets the timer to the next calander year. So if someone qualifies in January, they are off the hook until NEXT January. Turns out everyone in the division now qualifies for one or more of those exceptions... Imagine that!
    via Superb_Raccoon
  • Epilogue: Turns out HR did not do an analysis of how many people would be impacted in our division as the numbers were done worldwide over 100K employees with quota, not by department. Their number said 11% of us would end up on PRPs. (Let's
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  • not get into how they are trying to reduce headcount by driving people into leaving or retiring early) Also, when Legal found out they were backdating the requirement they went ballistic. Legal also went spare
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  • when they saw no exceptions for federally protected leave like Family or Medical disablity. Gotta love my boss, he looks out for us... often by maliciously complying with stupid requirements.
    via Superb_Raccoon
  • RL_CaptainMorgan That's a bada manager. He said the quiet and part out loud and everyone else got the courage to follow up
    via RL_CaptainMorgan
  • talexbatreddit Props to your manager. That's the way to lead. I strongly suspect I was laid off from my last job because I I was the highest paid member
    via talexbatreddit
  • of the team -- "Hey, we can save a lot of money by laying this guy off!" Yeah, except this guy was in the middle of an important project that close to being done.. and he was also a key member of the
    via talexbatreddit
  • Compliance team. Oh well. (Insert obligatory comment about HR here. You know the one.)
    via talexbatreddit

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