Company tried to fire employee without severance. He used their own AI against them and pulled off the ultimate holiday coup
'I'll moonwalk my way to the HR office...'
A company fired one of its workers (u/shot_wrap_7656) without reason, but later reversed the decision after the employee used their AI against them and pulled off the ultimate holiday coup. They posted the story on Reddit on December 24. The person had opted to work from home for a few days, after informing their team and the whole of management. However, the HR raised an escalation immediately after realizing that the person had been working remotely on days they were expected to be at the office. Soon after, the company announced a massive layoff, firing most of the employees to reduce costs or restructure the organization.
They received an official disciplinary notice along with multiple documents accusing them of being an unfaithful employee. "So naturally, the only option was to ask for my immediate (and free) dismissal," they wrote. The person had about two days to submit their defense, while the company had been planning for their layoff for weeks. They read the accusations carefully and realized the company had clearly blown things out of proportion, only to terminate them.
In response, the employee wrote a very detailed defense using the AI system that the company promotes, and surprisingly, it worked in their favor. "Expecting to be fired any moment for months, I took all my annual leave for the winter holidays and waited for my fate," they explained. However, just before Christmas, they received an email stating that the company wouldn't take any further action against them. "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," they concluded.
Sadly, terminating employees without a proper reason or for an unfair reason has become more common than we imagine. A nationwide survey of nearly 2,000 U.S. adults by the National Employment Law Project (NELP) and YouGov found that more than 2 out of 3 employees who have been fired received either no reason or a very vague and incorrect reason for termination. In fact, they also found that 3 out of 4 received no warnings before their termination. What's more shocking is that companies often try to terminate employees without compensation. The same study revealed that only 1 in every 3 workers received severance pay. In the story, too, the company had initially planned to fire the employee for free, but thankfully, they couldn't stand by their decision because of the employee's smart play.
Meanwhile, reacting to the Reddit story, u/commercial-brother14 commented, "How HR manages to mentally gymnastic themselves into thinking they're the good guys is apparently beyond my meager intellect. Congrats on your victory!" u/easy_ad4437, quite happy for the author who made their company regret its decision, wrote, "[I am] doing the happy dance for you!" u/dedbirdgonnaputitonu shared, "Something similar happened to my wife. She worked for a company and eventually ended up in their 'debt recovery' department. She was REALLY good at finding people and calling them for bills owed, and even got some years-old debt paid. The company owner wanted her to switch from a full-time employee to a contractor, where she'd earn a percentage of every dollar brought back. The problem was that they never gave her a written contract. It was a whole bunch of verbal 'trust me, bro.' So she eventually left. About six months later, we received a letter from an 'attorney' that was basically a notice of intent to sue. They claimed she'd broken her contract, and as proof, they attached the contract: her W-2! They tried to claim the W-2 was proof she owed them money lol. We ignored the letter and never heard anything else from them."
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