When a manager is temporarily supporting a department to cover someone’s vacation, they should know not to make any big changes.

The manager in this story, however, really hated one employee, so he took the opportunity to fire him while he was in charge.

Unfortunately, this employee was critical to a number of things, and his firing set things in motion to get him a massive raise and recognition from the CEO, completely backfiring on the manager.

Check it out.

How One Manager’s Layoff Decision Led to a $200K Mistake and an Unintended Comeback

Backstory: My manager, Sam, is extremely chill and an outstanding leader.

His manager, Murad, is a stickler for the rules.

I work as an infrastructure and configuration manager and happen to be one of the more expensive resources on the project from my domain.

This story takes place in January 2023.

The company was undergoing some restructuring, and most of our contracts included a “Last In, First Out” (LIFO) clause by default.

I bet this was a smart move on his part.

When I joined in March 2022, I took a 10% pay cut to remove the LIFO clause from my contract because I was seeking job stability.

Although I was still earning more than I did in my previous job, it was only 20% more instead of 30%.

Story: As the infrastructure manager, I am responsible for maintaining all the product licenses the project uses.

One of these product licenses requires a digital signature to function.

Typically, such tasks require the use of service accounts, which are owned by users. When someone leaves the organization, their service accounts are automatically transferred to their manager.

Unfortunately, service accounts cannot have digital signatures, so I had to use mine in this case.

This sounds very complicated.

The product activation process involves using the corresponding digital signature certificate (DSC).

Since I already had a DSC for tax purposes, I decided to reuse it instead of obtaining a separate one.

In India, DSCs are encrypted and require a one-time password (OTP) from my mobile number every time they are used.

This mobile number must be associated with my National ID (AADHAAR), as that’s how most encryption services work in India.

Sam was on vacation, his first in five years.

Apart from taking a one-day leave in 2018 when he moved from India to Europe, he had never even taken a sick day.

He recently got married, and for his honeymoon, he took a two-month vacation to travel all over Europe with his new wife.

In his absence, Murad was overseeing the project. Management asked Murad to cut 15% of his workforce.

Nobody ever wants to have this type of meeting.

So, the inevitable happened.

I was called into a meeting with Murad and HR. Murad asked me to voluntarily resign, or else I would be let go.

This is a tactic companies in India often use, as getting fired is considered a much bigger deal than simply losing a job.

It’s a cultural thing, I suppose—being fired carries a stigma that most people want to avoid.

HR usually tries to persuade people to resign voluntarily so that it doesn’t become public knowledge that they were fired.

This tactic often works well, as resigning saves the company from having to pay three months’ salary, which they would owe if they were to lay off an employee.

Always make them fire you.

However, I knew better, so I refused his request.

Murad was quite taken aback by this.

Since I had called his bluff, he had to double down to show he meant business.

By the end of the day, I received my termination email, with instructions on how to return company property I had.

I replied to the email, asking to schedule the return of the laptop promptly, as I needed to leave the city for a few days (fake excuse).

My objective was to have them pick up my laptop from my place and format it as soon as possible.

This will be important later. By the end of the week, my laptop was picked up.

I had already backed up a copy of my DSC, so there were no issues on my end.

Not a big deal, until its a big deal.

Fast forward to mid-February, and there was an issue with the product.

A support ticket was raised, and the support team wanted to upgrade to the next version as this was a known bug that had been resolved in the next version.

The product was used once a week to create a weekly report, but no one really looked at it except for Sam, who was still on vacation.

So, its absence wasn’t likely to be noticed for at least a full month. The end-of-the-month report would bring it to upper management’s attention.

Now, support SOP requires a license check. Hence it required decryption of the existing license.

Long story short, I received a call asking for the DSC & OTP, and I rejected.

Murad eventually was informed, who asked the support team to provide a new license.

The product support team informed him that they couldn’t provide a new license without the company purchasing one.

The license cost for this product was $200k.

At this point, Murad decided that they could live without the report.

He mostly handled the team side of the project, so he wasn’t really aware of the impact of this report.

Sam returned from vacation at the end of February.

By the first week of March, he noticed the missing weekly report and promptly called me.

I informed him that Murad had fired me.

Sam was quite perplexed, to say the least.

Unlike Murad, he knew that the current license needed my DSC to work, so he asked if my DSC was available.

Oh no, not the laptop that they picked up and (hopefully) formatted.

I told him that my laptop had a copy, but it was taken.

He checked the system, and sure enough, the laptop had been formatted.

He asked me if there was any way to resolve the issue. I informed him that even if there were a way, I couldn’t help him without being an employee.

He asked me to wait for a few days.

There is a quarterly meeting that takes place in the middle of every third month, attended by the CEO and top brass.

At the March meeting, everyone noticed the missing report.

The CEO asked why this important project was missing the report.

Sam informed him (there were about 90 people on the call) that a key person had been let go, and the report couldn’t be prepared without spending $200k on a new license.

Now, I heard the recording of this call after rejoining, so I’ll share the relevant conversation below:

CEO: Is this related to the layoff?

Sam: Yes.

CEO: Why wasn’t this person’s work backed up? Why was he on the LIFO list if he was so key?

Sam: He wasn’t on the LIFO list.

Murad (jumps in): He joined less than a year ago; he must be on that list.

CEO: Let’s discuss this offline after the call.

I don’t know what transpired in the offline meeting, but two days later, I received a call from the head of HR offering me my job back.

I asked for the following:

Wow, if he gets all of this, it will be amazing!

1. A 100% raise & promotion to next level.
2. Out of LIFO, obviously
3. Permanent WFH mentioned in contract
4. I keep the termination payout
5. Since it will be counted as a new job in my profile, a joining bonus (20% of annual salary)

I joined back at the 3rd week of March.

I received a brand new laptop within 30 mins of joining, hand delivered at my home by someone from IT in my city.

It took me 10 mins to decrypt the license using my backed up DSC, 30 mins to upgrade the product to next version.

By end of lunch, CEO had the report in hand.

Oh, I bet Murad was fuming.

My new (promoted) role offers a 60% increase in my medical insurance amount, a take-home company car, option to purchase company stock and lots of other upgrades.

I personally thanked Murad on my first week for the promotion (and recognition by CEO) in a team wide call (the same 90 people, minus the top brass & CEO).

I love it when things work out this perfectly. Well played.

Let’s see what the people in the comments say about it.

Yup, Murad got taken to school.

I loved it.

I was wondering this as well.

This would have been smart.

Yeah, he will be coming after him.

This manager really shot himself in the foot.

I bet the author of the story is very thankful.

Thought that was satisfying? Check out what this employee did when their manager refused to pay for their time while they were traveling for business.