Company fires an employee after making them train their replacement, and instantly regrets it

A senior employee quit almost immediately after they learned they had been training their replacement at work. An individual (u/lavafalcon45), working in a marketing agency, helped an intern learn almost everything they'd been responsible for and later realized that they were being fired when the boss insisted that they must finish training their replacement before leaving. The story was shared on Reddit in September 2025.

The ex-employee had been working at the company for about three years before the incident happened. Once, their manager, Sarah, informed them that the company was hiring a new intern, Jessica, and that she wanted them to train her. At first, everything seemed genuinely normal, as the company had hired interns before. However, the suspicion grew when they were asked to document every work-related detail. "When I asked why, she said, 'Oh, you know, just in case,' with this weird smile," they recalled. Another red flag in the situation was that the intern was someone with 5 years of experience, and was making $10k more than the ex-worker. "The final straw was yesterday when Sarah called me into her office and said, 'So we've decided to go in a different direction with your position.' I was like, wait, what? And she goes, 'But don't worry, we'd love to have you stay another 2 weeks to finish training Jessica,'" they wrote.

The ex-employee lost their cool and immediately walked out of the office. However, everything backfired because the company couldn't function without the individual. "Maybe you should have thought about that before firing the only person who knew how everything worked, lol. I already have two interviews lined up for next week. Thankfully, I had some money saved up, so I don't have to panic about rent while I find something better," they wrote. The incident is way more outrageous than it seems because the worker wasn't given a proper explanation for why they were fired. As shocking as it may sound, many working professionals have faced this at some point in their careers. In fact, a survey by the National Employment Law Project (NELP), researchers found that more than 2 out of every 3 workers who have been fired were given no reason or an unfair justification for the termination, showing the toxicity of the modern-day job scenario.

Reacting to the story, u/nthelegend commented, "I had this happen a few years ago, but it was a blessing in disguise because I absolutely hated that job. I would cry on the way in more than a few times. After fruitlessly searching for work while I was there, I managed to land a better job (for slightly better pay) immediately after I was fired, lol." 

u/atfla10 shared, "The same thing happened to me. I was already looking for another job when I saw my job posted online, which included my office address. The pay rate was much lower than mine, and someone new eventually showed up. A few weeks later, I was let go, and a few weeks after that, my replacement left. My old job was reposted 9 times. It looks like my boss who cut me is also gone; I found his LinkedIn page, and it has the 'open to work' banner." On the other hand,  u/traindonutbbq said, "Personally, I would have taken the training material I created out the door with me or destroyed it and left it in the office. The monetary value of a step-by-step guide would not warrant any type of legal retaliation."

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