Fired for standing up for another employee

simplyfiredstories submitted 595 days ago

This is an absolutely true story.

I was hired for a contract position with a major US computer/printer manufacturer. The outfit that hired me was a small technology company that was nearly out of business until they got this little peach dropped in their laps.

So as time goes on, we get more and more contracts with this company because we were doing good work.

So about three years later I end up as the on-site contract manager for this company. Once there I found out that nearly 2/3 of what we were billing our customer was going directly to profit.

One of my best employees gets diagnosed with a brain tumor and takes a couple of months off. She gave birth to a son a few months earlier. So while she's in the hospital, the boss sends her a little email about how he wishes her well, and if there is anything he can do to help her or her family.

Not more than TWO WEEKS after that, while she's at home recovering from BRAIN SURGERY, I get a teary call from this woman saying that she received notice from the company that she had been fired. I called the president of the company and asked if this was true.
He said it was.

The next day I went into see him and asked him why he had fired her and he replied that she had used up all her family medical leave act time and that they didn't want to set a precedent about extending employment and insurance after FMLA. I told him it was a bad idea and that this little stunt could cost him the contract. He had only been on-site (in the same town) about 10 times in the last 3 years and had no clue what we actually did and how well liked this employee was. I tried to tell him that this was NOT the way to conduct business and she would be back in less than two weeks.
He dismissed my comments and actually became angry that anyone would question his decisions.

Later that week, he had one of his little lackeys fire me (apparently he didn't have the GUTS to do it himself).

Well, it only took about two months for his company to lose the contract and another 4 months for his business to go under. Way under. Last I heard, he was moving whatever assets he could under his wife's name and basically ducking any bill collectors. I went to the offices after he had vacated them and talked to the building people and they said that everyone who worked in the office didn't get their last checks and they got at least a couple of requests a week from creditors for his whereabouts. I gave them his home address and phone number.

This guy is complete scum and from what I hear, he blames ME for his losing the contract and his business.