People Are Sharing What HR Told Them When They Were Fired — The Stories Include Wrong Dates, Wrong Names, and Wrong Pronouns

A Reddit thread asked people who had been fired to share what HR told them during termination meetings. The r/AskReddit post had over 2,000 upvotes and 578 comments as of publication.

One commenter said HR cited a serious mistake on their watch as the reason for termination. The commenter said the incident cited by HR had never occurred and that HR had altered dates while attempting to support the claim. According to the poster, the termination notice itself contradicted HR's account.

"The termination notice was two pages. Both pages had different dates of service," they wrote, adding that HR had edited one page but forgot to update the second.

They said the mismatch left them feeling relieved rather than upset about losing the job. The poster wrote that coworkers "couldn't even be bothered to keep a very short and simple series of lies straight."

Another commenter described a colleague's performance improvement plan that appeared to reuse a document written for someone else. The plan referred to their coworker, a man named Michael, using the name Natalie and she/her pronouns in multiple places.

The commenter said the company had put a woman named Natalie on a PIP months earlier, and she had since left for a higher-paying job. They wrote that HR and the coworker's boss had "clearly took [sic] Natalie's PIP and replaced a few of the instances of her name with Michael, didn't even bother to do it completely."

Some performance issues listed in the document referred to a vehicle project Michael had not worked on, the commenter said, adding that the pair worked for an automaker. Michael then pushed back with HR and threatened to sue before eventually leaving for a better-paying job elsewhere.

A separate reply focused on Ontario employment law rather than a personal story. The commenter explained that employers there can dismiss workers without cause as long as they pay severance or termination pay. They said the timing of a rehire could matter legally. "If they tell you they're eliminating your role and then post the same job for cheaper... you can likely sue for improved severance," they wrote.

A commenter who said they served in the Navy described a dispute over a broken foot. They said urgent care staff initially told them they were malingering because they weren't reacting dramatically enough to the injury.

The poster said they were later diagnosed with double pneumonia and migraines while the Navy overlooked the foot injury. The discharge paperwork claimed their foot was "already broken" before enlistment, despite having passed medical inspections beforehand. "It took 3 years of fighting with the help of a VA advocate before they finally admitted it was their fault," they wrote.

A commenter identifying as a head of HR described their own approach to termination paperwork. They said their documents include a box for employees to note disagreement along with space for written comments.

The commenter said the practice protected the company legally while giving employees an opportunity to respond. "90% of the time you don't have to have them agree, you just have to prove you delivered the message," they wrote.

The Daily Dot was unable to independently verify the employment disputes, termination details, or legal outcomes described in the Reddit comments. The details above reflect accounts shared by individual users on r/AskReddit.