Inconsiderate? Your replacement wishing you "good luck at the new job."

[msmith537]

@Harriet_the_Spry

Hey, I didn’t take the fucking picture!:rolleyes: I actually agree it’s not a brilliant move for someone leaving under these circumstances, whatever they are.

But the woman in the OP doesn’t seem mad about the picture of her coworkers, she’s mad about it including the woman she sees as her replacement. It sounds like she would have liked the picture just fine if it were just the other coworkers.

I wasn’t yelling at you.

I would still take a giant deuce on the picture and leave it on my desk as I left.

That fake corporate “you’re nothing if not a player on our team” nonsense is bad enough when you are working at the company. But to be given a photo once you are terminated as if it’s part of the official “Saying Farewell to Departing Employees” HR manual is a bit over the top. What are you supposed to do? Look back fondly on when you shared a section of cubicles with ten random people right before the company decided it was no longer to their benefit to keep you on board?

[lionsaoi]

Officially she was laid off/terminated as she is eligible for rehired. As some have mentioned, when you are fired you are so with cause and are ineligible for rehire. (although, according to my payroll savvy mother, there’s no difference: you are termed and either eligible or ineligible for rehire, but that’s how HR people subtly convey your status during a reference check.)

The two companies - parent vs. child - are not technically related. The child is a wholly owned subsidiary that functions as (and is) a completely separate company. There is no way to transfer from one company to the other or to be promoted from one company to another, nor is there preferential hiring. When my friend was termed there happened to be an opening at the parent company which she got. So, she was termed at the child company and then accepted a new position at the parent company.

[lionsaoi]

@Harriet_the_Spry

If they didn’t eliminate the position, technically it was a firing, not a layoff. But lack of funding does imply a layoff. What funding are they using to pay the new person?

I think your friend may be missing some part of the picture - either they really were firing her for performance or personality conflict or something, but said the bit about funding to try to avoid hurting her feelings, or there is something different about the person who was hired in terms of how she could be funded, the work she could do, etc.

Honestly, how the heck else would they handle the picture thing? Tell the new person - you can’t be in the picture because we fired Jane to hire you? That seems considerably worse all around.

Maybe your friend will never know the truth, but I think it would be best for her mental adjustment to assume it was one of the 2 scenarios above and move on from the topic.

There’s big question as to where the funding is come from. I emailed my friend’s boss (a colleague of mine, I was higher up than my friend) about the situation and found out that she was blindsided by the termination, too. She, too, questioned why the department was letting go a loyal employee – with the same skillset – and bringing in a new person, but no one would give her an answer. Undoubtedly something political was at play, but nobody knows for sure.

Regarding the picture, I think it would have been reasonable to say to the newbie, “So-And-So is leaving and we’re taking a photo to wish her good luck. We won’t (or didn’t) ask you to be in it since you don’t know her.” Alternatively, you set up a private meeting, excluding newbie, take the photo and move on. I mean, would you go to a goodbye party/photo your first day of work for someone you don’t know? It’s weird.

[lionsaoi]

@msmith537

How about not do a fucking picture? It’s completely inappropriate for someone who is not leaving the company by their own decision. Personally, I would have chucked it in the garbage or broke in over someone’s head.

I thought the photo, in general, was inappropriate. It’s especially bad when the person you feel is taking your job is smiling back at you from the box with your desk junk it in.

My friend actually kept it, which is bizarre to me. I would have chucked it…or at least done some creative editing. That’s what photoshop is for, right?

[Eureka]

@lionsaoi

I mean, would you go to a goodbye party/photo your first day of work for someone you don’t know? It’s weird.

Party? Maybe–especially if I were promised refreshments and had nothing better to do (first day of work and all that). Photo? Not so much–I think I’d offer to be the photographer.

Yes being there might be awkward–but that’s not really the fault of the newbie, and as the newbie I’m not sure I’d be opposed to a bit of informal chitchat and meet my new co-workers (especially if food were offered), even if it was mostly a farewell party.

Now yes, the part where THIS newbie is possibly/probably replacing someone who is leaving involuntarily is awkward–but I’m still not sure that it is the newbie’s fault, nor would/should the newbie be aware of those sorts of undercurrents.