HR tries to fire employee without severance after claiming employee took unapproved work-from-home days, employee proves them wrong: ‘My case is closed’

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Bar Mor Hazut • Senior Editor
Dec 27, 2025 2:00 AM EST

What is the longest you've ever stayed in one workplace?

We all know that younger generations tend to leave their jobs a lot quicker than, say, their parents. While many workplaces have a few employees who have been there for decades, these types of workers are slowly going extinct. These days, young employees either lose interest or leave to find bigger challenges after only a few years, and companies struggle with maintaining a solid and trustworthy workforce that simply sticks around.

That is how some workplaces might find themselves saying goodbye to a whole cluster of employees at once, and how one might find themselves the most senior employee overnight.

Imagine that–a whole department of employees either quits or gets fired, and you're the only one left. Instead of hiring new people to replace all those who left, the company decides to just hire one, and suddenly, it is your responsibility to get them up to date with the entire company history. It doesn't matter that you yourself have only been working in the company for a few months longer than they do; you are now the senior employee. 

The only question is – will they trust you and follow your lead, or will they decide to follow the beat of their own drum, even if it goes against you?

In this story, an employee took a few work-from-home days that were approved by their management, until one day, that same management was all let go. Suddenly, everything that was once approved was no longer on the record, and this employee remained all alone, facing one new manager who had no clue about anything that had happened in the past.

When HR accused the employee of taking those few work-from-home days without authorization, the employee had no one to back them up that those days were actually approved. But when HR tried to get the employee fired without offering severance, the employee knew they had to fight back. They used every single tool the company had to offer to prove that they did nothing wrong, and just a few days before Christmas, they managed to get their case all cleared.

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  • Cheezburger Image 10591172608
    via fizkes

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • Company tried to fire me for free, and failed miserably

    End of August / early September, my lovely HR informed me they had noticed a few days this year when I worked from home, while I was supposed to be at the office.
    via Shot_Wrap_7656
  • My whole team and management at the time knew about it and were totally fine with it, before they all got retrenched (like a big part of the company) and replaced by a one man team.
    via Shot_Wrap_7656
  • A few HR meetings later, I received an official disciplinary notice, plus 10 pages listing my whereabouts, card logs, company policies, emails, canteen meals, testimonies, accusing me of all sorts of things and concluding that I'm a terrible human being and the company can't trust me anymore.
    via Shot_Wrap_7656
  • So naturally, the only option was to ask for my immediate (and free) dismissal. I had 48 hours to write my defense (they had probably been preparing this for weeks), trying not to shit myself, at least until I read everything carefully and realized it was just a long pile of corporate bullshit.
    via Shot_Wrap_7656
  • So I did it, leveraging the immense Al power the company is so proud of, using their very own licensed LLM (otherwise it wouldn't be fun!) Expecting to be fired any moment for months, I took all my annual leave for the winter holidays and waited for my fate.
    via Shot_Wrap_7656
  • And today, just in time for Christmas, I received an email : my case is finally closed and no action will be taken.
    via Shot_Wrap_7656
  • Victory royale! The next day at the office is going to be a good one I'll moonwalk my way to the HR office, wish them all the best for 2026, reassure them I remain fully committed to the company, and also let them know I'm open to discussing the terms of a mutual separation agreement) Merry Christmas antiworkers!
    via Shot_Wrap_7656
  • Cheezburger Image 10591172864
    via fizkes

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • Commercial-Brother14 How HR manage to mentally gymnastic themselves into thinking they're the good guys is apparently beyond my meager intellect. Congrats on your victory!
    via Commercial-Brother14
  • OP Shot Wrap_7656 Thanks, it almost worked. When you realize how deep you've fallen, and how hard it seems to climb back, you just ask yourself: is this worth it? All for a job you hate and that hates you in return? To everyone who finds themselves in the hot seat one day, just remember to keep calm and stand your ground no matter what. If those people think you're expendable, so be it! But at least fight, and make it expensive
    via Shot_Wrap_7656
  • DeepBlue321 Fired for free? I don't get it
    via DeepBlue321
  • OP Shot Wrap_7656 In many countries, companies can't just fire people arbitrarily, there are generally 3 options: retrenchment (not free), mutual agreement (also not free), and dismissal for serious misconduct (free) For me, they tried to build a "case" to grab the third one. Turns out it didn't work. Soon, we'll see what they think about the other 2.. --> rubbing hands <--
    via Shot_Wrap_7656
  • ForexGuy93 Where did this allegedly happen? Cause the US is an at will employment country, pretty much in every state (with one lone exception). They don't need at case against you. They just need to let you know you're fired.
    via ForexGuy93
  • OP Shot_Wrap_7656 Not the US :)
    via Shot_Wrap_7656
  • JustSome Goon_ He's referring to the company trying to fire him for cause which would nullify any severance.
    via JustSome
  • bdfariello Some companies give severance when they fire people, except when they're fired For Cause. A long history of documented Disciplinary or Performance reasons, for example.
    via bdfariello
  • pabloflleras My wife had a big position change and her boss agreed on the new pay and they walked over to HR to get them to add it all into the system. HR, in front of my wife, argued with their own boss about how that was too much money and how she didnt deserve that money. Her boss finally had to tell HR that it was not a request but a command that they set her pay to the agreed upon amount, which happens to be 15k under what the previous person at that role got. So yeah, Fuck HR.
    via pabloflleras

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boss work from home severance workplace-stories employee fired hr manager job tales-from-the-workplace ceo overworked-employees workplace company
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