In a bizarre turn of events that is going viral online, a company’s HR department accidentally sent out “termination” emails to its entire staff, including senior leadership and the CEO. The incident came to light after an employee shared it on Reddit.
According to the post titled “HR accidentally sent everyone a ‘termination notice’ – including the CEO”, the HR team had been testing a new offboarding automation system that sends out templated exit emails to employees leaving the company. However, someone forgot to switch the system from ‘test mode’ to ‘live mode’. The result? 300 employees woke up to an email that began with the line, “Your last working day is effective immediately”.
“The Slack went nuclear. One manager replied, ‘Should I start packing?,’” the original poster wrote. Eventually, the IT department had to post an all-caps message saying, “‘NO ONE IS FIRED. PLEASE DO NOT TURN IN YOUR BADGES,’” he shared.
The Redditor also shared a screenshot of the follow-up message from the HR team on Slack. “Urgent – DO NOT PANIC. The automation tool just sent the test ‘termination’ email to everyone. You are NOT being fired. Please ignore the message,” it read.
“I don’t think anyone’s getting actual work done today,” the Redditor concluded.
(Also Read: Man laid off after 14 years says recruiter offered him same job months later: ‘He thought I’d be perfect’)
Social media reactions
The blunder quickly spread across social media, with several users joking about the incident.
“If you live in a country with decent worker’s rights, it can be a blessing. 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!” one user wrote.
“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,” commented another.
“Extremely unprofessional reaction to the incident. I would absolutely be panicking because a real wave of layoffs is likely just around the corner,” said a third user.
(Disclaimer: This report is based on user-generated content from social media. HT.com has not independently verified the claims and does not endorse them.)
