Employee refuses a suspicious demand to re-sign a “lost” contract to receive bonus they owe him: 'They let me go a week later'

Author image for Etai Eshet
Etai Eshet • Editor
Oct 28, 2026 1:00 PM EDT

This story has the feel of a questionable car sale: sign here, everyone is busy, and somehow the missing paperwork is now your problem.

This employee already swallowed a substantial pay cut and kept working through conditions management kept promising to fix. Then the company misplaced the contract and decided another signature was needed to release an overdue bonus

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  • They Lost My Contract And Wanted Me To Re-Sign Months Later

    Concerned man looks toward an employment contract being held up and pointed to with a pen.
    via Tim van der Kuip/SeventyFour

    That innocent re-sign request is as shady as they come.

    Picture does not depict real parties.

  • After months of concessions, the employee made the modest request of seeing the agreement before signing another one. Management expected another favor from someone who spent months accommodating their failures. By then, the job basically came with an unofficial duty to absorb whatever went wrong and help the company feel comfortable about it before heading home.

  • Got let go. Using my burner because I signed an NDA. I signed a 3 year contract at my place of business.
    via ughfiddlesticks
  • Good salary. I way over-performed given what they paid me for. (One thing I did for them far outside of my scope made them more than my salary yearly)
    via ughfiddlesticks
  • When contract time came, it was a hefty 20+% paycut. I was blown away by the disrespect but I didn't have many options.
    via ughfiddlesticks
  • I got it in writing from the then GM that I could talk to other businesses and find a job elsewhere regardless of what the contract said, I'd just
    via ughfiddlesticks
  • have to respect the non-compete. Cool. Not a month later the company sold our offices and we were rapidly forced to move to new facilities that were
    via ughfiddlesticks
  • Woman holds an employment contract and points to it with a pen while seated beside a laptop.
    via SeventyFour

    woman presenting an employment contract

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

  • beyond the pale bad. No security doors, non- functional equipment, gaslighting corporate saying they're on it but not
    via ughfiddlesticks
  • Staff morale at an all time low. That GM was later fired for a myriad of HR issues he caused.
    via ughfiddlesticks
  • 7 months after the new contract was signed by me, I get a call from new GM saying he is trying to get me paid on a performance bonus and he needed to
    via ughfiddlesticks
  • know how much it was for. I told him, and said it should be in the contract.
    via ughfiddlesticks
  • He said "do you have a signed copy of that?" I never got one. The next day he asks "what's your salary again?" I said "after the paycut?
    via ughfiddlesticks
  • Concerned man sits beside a large employment contract being held and pointed to with a pen.
    via Tim van der Kuip

    Employee looking wary

    Representative only.

  • It is this". At this point it is clear they lost the contract. The next day he said corporate has sent me something to e- sign and to sign it and send
    via ughfiddlesticks
  • it back SO HE CAN PAY ME MY BONUS. I refuse. Say that I need the company to provide evidence they have the executed deal.
    via ughfiddlesticks
  • I get called into an office. Essentially told not to make trouble and I said I have no problem continuing to work under the pay change, but I am
    via ughfiddlesticks
  • effectively out of contract and won't sign anything until the haphazard conditions were fixed and that there's at least a chance they could owe me
    via ughfiddlesticks
  • back pay and what they were attempting to do was get me to sign under duress.
    via ughfiddlesticks
  • Continued to work. They let me go a week later (mind you they were really interested in keeping me there a week prior).
    via ughfiddlesticks
  • They go to pay severance which is 3 months of the salary on the contract. They try to pay on the NEW contract that they have no evidence of being
    via ughfiddlesticks
  • executed. Had to file a complaint with the state and they folded immediately. Would have pursued more but ended up getting a much better
    via ughfiddlesticks
  • with a much better business. Never in my life have I worked for a company so unprofessional.
    via ughfiddlesticks
  • TL;DR: Company owed me a bonus, realized they lost my contract, wanted me to Re- Sign the contract in order to get the bonus.
    via ughfiddlesticks

  • Within a week, the employee was gone, and the company calculated severance using the elusive agreement’s cheaper terms. Its filing problems hid excellent financial instincts. A state complaint finally prompted a correction, suggesting outside attention accomplished more than previous conversations. The employee eventually found a better job, leaving management to continue its paperwork adventures.

  • Withholding an already-earned bonus until the employee signed a new contract made the arrangement look less like administration and more like leverage. A reasonable request became troublemaking. Anyone who has tried canceling a gym membership knows that sudden shift in tone, when a friendly conversation becomes a hostage negotiation beside a motivational poster about personal growth.

  • A company asking for a fresh signature before releasing money it already owes has the sales technique of a man selling concert tickets outside a closed stadium. Everything is legitimate, and asking questions is ruining the transaction. The people who misplaced the agreement decided the employee should resolve their embarrassment by signing another one.

  • Isn’t it convenient is how the missing paperwork becomes available in spirit whenever the company calculates what to pay? They cannot produce the document, yet remain deeply confident about whichever terms save them money. It is like splitting dinner with someone who lost the receipt but vividly remembers that you ordered lobster and volunteered to cover the wine.

  • Needing your wages makes all this harder to challenge. You have bills, they control the transfer, and someone keeps suggesting your signature would help things move along. Asking for proof earns you a conversation about cooperation. Every delay pushed toward the same outcome: the employee accepted the risk, and the company called it cooperation.

  • Keeping records exceeded their capabilities, while their “applying pressure” department remained a fully staffed. Somewhere in that office, a haunted printer probably displayed “document missing” and received a promotion for understanding the cultur

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management workplace discussion employment issues boss workplace-stories hr contract Horrible Bosses
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