‘[She] doesn’t know the new hire is actually her replacement’: CEO makes employee help hire her struggling coworker’s replacement, while that coworker has no idea she’s fired once the traveling boss returns

Author image for Etai Eshet
Etai Eshet • Editor
Aug 3, 2026 12:00 PM EDT

Startups love calling themselves "informal," right up until that informality becomes convenient cover for something a bigger company would need HR sign-off on

That's the uncomfortable position one employee found herself in, quietly recruiting her own coworker's replacement while that coworker cheerfully believed the company was just expanding.

Nothing about the underlying decision is unusual on its own. Someone in a probationary period gets feedback about missing expectations, doesn't improve, and gets let go.

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  • Woman in a white blazer stands outside a glass building with puffed cheeks, looking to the side.
    via MAYA LAB

    employee looking frustrated outside an office building

    Subject is a model

  • I've been wondering what other people think about this because I've never been in this situation before.
    via kwishler
  • I work at a very small startup. There are only a handful of us, and one coworker and I have the same role.
    via kwishler
  • I was hired about nine months before she was, so I've been here longer and have more experience with how things are run.
    via kwishler
  • She's currently still in her six-month probationary period, so she has performance goals that she needs to meet before becoming a regular employee.
    via kwishler
  • Woman in a white blazer stands outside a glass building, looking serious.
    via MAYA LAB

    serious employee outside an office building

    Subject is a model

  • Since we're such a small startup, though, things are pretty informal day- to-day, and it almost feels like those goals have been forgotten on her end.
    via kwishler
  • A few months ago, our CEO (who is also our direct manager) had a one-on-one meeting with her where he gave her detailed feedback.
    via kwishler
  • One of the biggest issues was that she wasn't taking initiative and wasn't meeting expectations. From what I've seen, there hasn't really been much improvement since then.
    via kwishler
  • Because of that, my CEO has decided that he's going to let her go. The only reason it hasn't happened yet is because he's currently overseas and wants to handle the conversation himself when he gets back.
    via kwishler
  • In the meantime, he asked me to start finding a replacement. The plan is to bring on an intern first to help temporarily while we search for a full-time. employee, since hiring a full-time person takes longer.
    via kwishler
  • We've already hired the intern, and I'm now posting for the full-time role. The part that feels strange to me is that my coworker has no idea she's being replaced.
    via kwishler
  • She thinks the intern and the future full-time hire are just additional teammates because we're "growing" or need extra help.
    via kwishler
  • She doesn't seem suspicious at all. I felt awkward because I work directly with her every day.
    via kwishler
  • I didn't think it was my place to tell her she was being replaced-that's obviously my CEO's responsibility-but I also didn't want her to find out we were hiring through other means without hearing anything from me.
    via kwishler
  • So I simply told her we were hiring someone to help out, which technically is true for the intern, but I also knew the full-time hire would ultimately be her replacement.
    via kwishler
  • For those of you who've been managers or worked in HR, is this a normal way to handle things?
    via kwishler
  • Is it standard practice to keep someone completely unaware until the termination meeting, even while their replacement is already being recruited?
    via kwishler

  • Companies plan replacement hiring before termination all the time, that’s just operational continuity. What’s harder to defend is the timeline: the CEO delayed the actual conversation purely because he was traveling, leaving weeks of active recruitment happening in plain sight of the person it directly affects.

  • Or would you have handled it differently? I'm mostly curious what the usual professional approach is here, because this is my first time being involved in something like this.
    via kwishler

  • That gap put someone else in an impossible spot. Sitting across from a coworker daily, fielding questions about why hiring is ramping up, and giving technically true but deliberately incomplete answers isn’t comfortable for anyone with a conscience. Delivering termination news genuinely isn’t a coworker’s job to hand off, so staying quiet wasn’t wrong exactly. But there’s a difference between staying out of someone else’s responsibility and getting pulled into the information gap that makes their blindside possible.

  • I have zero intention of telling her about her soon-to-be termination, I have no confidentiality issues, I just wanted to know people's opinions on how things were being handled by my CEO.
    via kwishler

  • A soon-to-be-terminated employee deserves that news from the person actually making the decision, not stretched out for weeks while intern postings and full-time job listings quietly go up around her. Delaying a hard conversation for travel convenience doesn’t soften the outcome. It just turns the eventual reveal into something that feels a lot more like a setup than a decision.


     

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