‘Last Working Day’: HR Accidentally Fires Entire Staff, Including CEO; What Happened Next

Receiving a termination mail can be scary, but what if the whole office gets a notice, including the CEO of the company? An employee shared a bizarre incident that took place after the human resources

(HR) department sent a “termination” letter to everyone.

The Reddit user stated that the mail was sent as the HE team was testing a new offboarding automation tool meant to send templated exit emails to departing staff. Someone forgot to switch the system from “test mode” to “live mode”, triggering a company-wide email announcing that everyone’s “last working day is effective immediately”.

The post by the Reddit user, r/Wellthatsucks, quickly went viral, receiving more than 36,000 upvotes and hundreds of comments.

According to the user, the unexpected message sent the company into panic mode. “This morning, 300 employees (including leadership) got an email that started with: ‘Your last working day is effective immediately,’” the employee wrote. Slack channels, they said, “went nuclear”, as one manager jokingly asked, “Should I start packing?”

The situation escalated until the IT department had to step in with an urgent, all-caps message: “NO ONE IS FIRED. PLEASE DO NOT TURN IN YOUR BADGES.”

Posts from the wellthatsucks
community on Reddit

What Did The Internet Say?

Several social media users found the story funny and relatable. They also shared their own experiences of workplace chaos.

“If you live in a country with decent worker’s rights, it can be a blessing,” one commenter said. “I wanted to quit my company and then right at the right time they let me know I was going to be made redundant, so I’d get 3 months of pay and could stop working straight away. It was great!”

A second netizen said, “Honestly, I’ve worked some jobs where my energy was like ‘If you’re actually stupid enough to fire me, then I don’t want to work for you anyway.’ I’ve had some jobs where I would have just thumbs upped this message and then started packing my shit.”

Another commented, “Any company that feels the need to have a tool like this in the first place I’d imagine is doomed to fail.”