He wasn't laid off, he was fired. Nobody seems to know why, and I honestly can't think of a single thing that could have caused it. He's (well, was) one of our hardest workers. Is this something we should now be scared of as well? Random firings for no good reason?
18 replies (most recent on top)
One reason for immediate termination is failing to do a random dr-g test.
@jf You are usually encourged to put Optum employees on PIP first. That way they don't collect unemployment when they quit. If you fire them they get unemployment.
@dn It is very easy to fire someone because the majority of the states are "at will employment".
Sold his meager stocks of UNH
@dn It is pretty hard to fire somone. Had an H1B who was not qualified and not able to perform the work. They got moved to a different team since HR said we could not fire them.
@e0 If what wolrd would someone lie and say they were fired to save face?
@bq No they don’t. I have a friend who they terminated and guess what her attorney got her reinstated because these id--ts are disorganized, incompetent .
This happened to us, principal engineer was put on CAP and he burned his pto then quit immediately and management said they fired him to save face
They likely quit on the spot after some disagreement or things that were building finally came to a head. Mgmt may be lying to save face
Not to speculate, but maybe something came up in his annual background check
It’s really easy to fire someone. Clearly none of you have ever been fired/done the firing :)
If he truly was a hard worker he either had a history of serious HR issues, or did something like short UNH stock on his company NetBenefits which triggered an audit and immediate termination. But even then I am not sure it would have been instant.
This company will lay you off in an instant with severance, etc. but termination for cause they document thoroughly.
The person either did something wrong or ticked off the wrong person. Right or wrong, they would have been terminated with a documented cause.
Companies do not like to fire employees. They would put them on the RIF list if there was a performance issue. Firing is usually only done if someone violates a policy outright.
@OP ZERO chance it was random. You get fired for cause. It doesn't matter what you think of Optum, if he got flat out fired he for sure did something, or over a period of time did nothing.
@OP he had to have been given warnings prior to firing unless he did something crazy and even then they would try to rehab him so they don’t get sued
Agreed. Hard to fire anyone here.
Heck we got a DUI felon as our CEO
It's pretty hard to fire someone outright. There are tons of administrative tasks for managers to do, covering bases to ensure there's not a wrongful termination suit.
If he was fired, chances are he was already on a PIP.
Or he did something REALLY nuts.