So, your overboss just fired a hero. What do you do?

In My Humble Opinion
1

You are at work one morning and all is far from normal: your department is being visited by a company bigwig. You have no prior knowledge of the bigwig. Your immediate boss is in a meeting. Then a colleague stumbles in, somewhat dishevelled and very late. The bigwig immediately fires the colleague who then leaves quietly. It’s an at-will place so she’s within her rights and it’s in accordance with company policy. A little while later you’re in the reception area and they have CNN on one of the TVs for visitors. They are covering an incident where someone heroically saved some children from something terrible and then left the scene without giving their name. The TV coverage clearly shows that it’s your colleague.

What do you do?

2

You tell the boss.

3

Well, if my co-worker wouldn’t even say “Well, yes, I’m late, but in my defense it was because I was saving a busload of small children from certain death”, then they probably really don’t want to work there anyway. I’d guess maybe the life and death situation gave them the perspective to want to do something else. So I probably point it out to my boss in a 'Hey, look who we’re not going to be working with anymore" way.

4

I wander by, smirk, ask the bigwig is he’s prepared for the PR nightmare he just created, flash the great big wolf smile and walk out of the room.

5

It’s your hypothetical, but I can’t rationalize these two concepts. If the hero isn’t willing to speak up for him or herself at least minimally, then I wouldn’t feel inclined to do so either. Clearly, staying anonymous is more important to them than saving their job.

6

You inform the media that the hero was fired so that they’ll report that story and he’ll get tons of job offers from companies that don’t fire people without reasonable consideration. Then ask him if he can get you a job there.

7

I would say something, because my first impression was that the coworker had walked out because they were in shock due to the sudden firing and the traumatic thing they’d prevented. I wouldn’t have thought they’d left in order to preserve their privacy.

8

Ask to be his agent. He’ll need someone to handle the TV interviews and book and movie offers.

9

Tell my immediate boss about the situation so he has advance knowledge of the storm of bad publicity the company is likely to suffer. Let my immediate boss figure out how to tell the big boss.

10

If this happened, the story about the firing would get out, one way or another. He’d (the Hero) get job offers and the boss who fired him would (if he’s not a partner/ owner) probably get fired.
Q: Why would you ever want to link your name to that whole mess? Do you want him to fire You as his last revenge act before cleaning out his desk? Do you want your name linked to the bosses in the media story? (they won’t be kind to you).

I vote for say nothing & email out your resume that day, because that department/company is about to have a very bad year.

11

Thread winner!

12

A lot of the above suggestions work best if CNN has posted that news clip on their web site (that’s pretty much routine now I suppose?) so it can be viewed afterward by Big Boss and everyone else.

13

Rhythmically pound my coffee mug on the desk while chanting, “ATTICA, ATTICA”.

(My response to pretty much anything that happens at work)

14

Get the story to go viral. Fired worker is a hero. See the PR effect that has.

15

In this theoretical situation do I need to keep my job? Do I like the company? Is it just BigBoss who is an asshole.

Cause if you need your job, tucking your head down and trying really hard not to snicker as the shit hits the fan is your best bet.

If its a good company in general, and there is just an asshole in the chain of command, you make sure that the right ethical people in the company know what’s coming. Asshole is very likely to get fired for overreacting - and there is some chance that a phone call can be made, apologies given, and coworker rehired without the company feeling too much backlash.

If its a bad company and I don’t need my job, I’m going to the press.

16

I used to work at Attica prison. We strongly discouraged this practice there.

17

Why would the boss who fired the hero be let go? If the hero wasn’t willing to come up with an explanation the boss deserves no blame. Granted, the publicity might be tough to deal with but the story, as related here, doesn’t reflect badly on the boss or the company. If the guy left the office quietly and never explained his situation then I’m not sure where he would be upset with his firing.

18

I update my resume and quietly go find a job at a company that is not dysfunctional while snickering as the big boss deals with the PR nightmare. I am happy if the big boss has a mess on his hands since he’s clearly a power-tripping jackass, and I don’t care if it hurts the company in the long run because I’m jumping ship.

The boss fired a guy in front of a roomful of people without any clue what was going on and without asking the guy questions or consulting HR. That’s a completely asinine thing to do, and in addition shows both horrible judgement on his part and that the company is going to get badly sued because they aren’t doing CYA when firing people. Clearing the boss of blame because the guy didn’t argue when he was already fired and took his only legal course of action (leaving to avoid trespassing charges) is just insane. Note that the OP says the boss fired him immediately, so he was told he was fired without any questions being asked.

19

In the scenario described in the OP the boss just fired him without even asking for an explanation.

What would happen to the boss would depend on what kind of business it is. If it depends a great deal on public perception and good will the boss could be fired for not doing due diligence.

20

Does it depend much on the corporate structure of this company?

Is it a small company? More specifically, is it, say, a single proprietorship, and is this Big Boss the top-dog CEO, President, owner of the company? Is it his company, to fire and hire at will on-the-spot like that?

Is there even a HR department at all at this company?

If it’s a large enough company to have a HR department, then probably no boss of any level can just, at his own initiative, fire anybody on-the-spot like that. It would necessarily have to follow some process, go through HR, paperwork, the works. There would be checks and balances.

What does it mean for the bigwig to fire him on the spot? Does he just say “you’re fired”, Trump style, and that’s it? Is such a summary, verbal firing even effective? What if the hero employee just quietly shows up for work the following day?

ETA: Re-reading the OP: His hypothesis, “your department is being visited by a company bigwig”, implies that this is, in fact, a large enough company to have departments, and bigwigs who aren’t always there (i.e., there’s a “corporate headquarters” somewhere else in the building, or not even in the same building), so there’s certainly going to be a HR department to work through. I don’t think even a bigwig can fire anybody on the spot like that. He might be able to demand that the employee be fired, but it still has to go through some HR process, and there would be more eyes than just Mr. Bigwig’s reviewing the proceedings.