A worker on TikTok says she has only been fired from a job once—and it was because she was pregnant, she alleges.
The worker, known as Lex on TikTok (@lexiiesmiith), shared a storytime video explaining what happened at the company she used to work at. She says she was about 5-and-a-half-months pregnant at the time but hadn’t told her employer because she was scared they wouldn’t hire her if they knew she was pregnant.
One day, Lex was feeling “super sick” because of the pregnancy and called out of work. She says she played the sickness off as a Covid-19 scare and told her boss she had planned to get tested.
She then told her employer that she was 5-months pregnant, pretending that she had just found out. She says her bosses congratulated her and asked if she had plans to take maternity leave. Lex says she hadn’t decided how much maternity leave to take at the time but reassured her boss that she’d let them know soon.
The next day, Lex says she was two hours from being done with her shift when she got a call on her personal cellphone from the Chief Executive Officer of the company. She does not name the company in her video.
@lexiiesmiith Let me know if you want a part 2 because it gets juicy 🤣 #fyp #storytime #igotfired ♬ original sound – Lex
“And so [the CEO] goes, ‘Hey, so it turns out we won’t be needing you anymore. It’s your last day. When you clock out, that’s it and you can pick your paycheck up on Friday,” Lex says, recounting what the CEO allegedly told her. “And I’m sitting there on the phone like ‘Oh, OK.’ Like I was literally in shock. I didn’t say anything, and he just hung up the phone.”
In a second video, Lex says she told two of her co-workers at the time that she was just fired. One of them was shocked and apologetic, while the other said she tried to convince management not to fire Lex. The TikToker says she was crying and emotional because of her pregnancy and getting fired.
“But in my head, I was like ‘how the fuck did you know the entire day that I was getting fired, but you didn’t want to give me a heads up?’” Lex says. “I don’t know about you, but to me, that sucks as fuck. That makes me so mad just thinking about it.”
@lexiiesmiith Replying to @lelatorres part 2 #storytime #igotfired #fyp #FlexEveryAngle ♬ original sound – Lex
After that, Lex says she finished her work day, packed up her stuff, and went home. About three-and-a-half weeks later, she stopped by the office to say hello, because her brother was at the office next door for a job interview.
While talking with her friends in the office, one of Lex’s former bosses approached her and told her that she was now pregnant, too. Lex says she congratulated her former boss but internally questioned why her former boss thought she would care.
“Then it clicked in my head. This bitch got me fucking fired because I was pregnant, and then she popped up saying ‘I’m pregnant hahaha,’” Lex says in the video. “After that happened, I’m sitting in my car and I’m thinking everything makes fucking sense now. The day before I got fired, she was asking about my maternity leave. Then I got fired, and now all of a sudden she’s pregnant? The math ain’t mathing.”
Multiple viewers encouraged the TikToker to sue her former employer over the termination.
“Girl sue, sue, sue! That’s not right at all!!!” one viewer commented.
“please tell me you sued them. it’s so illegal and literally discrimination,” another viewer commented. Lex wrote in reply, “I was fortunate enough to be able to get on unemployment and got almost a ‘paid maternity leave’ from this so it wasn’t worth suing in the end.”
Some viewers offered theories for why people in the office acted the way they did during the termination.
“The CEO called you on your cellphone bc the office phones are recorded. he knew firing you could be a lawsuit and he didn’t want any evidence,” one user said.
Another user wrote, “The recruiter would’ve gotten in trouble for telling you.”
“She probably didn’t want your maternity leave to interfere with hers. smh some coworkers can be so damn shady so sorry girl,” another user said of the boss who got pregnant.
The Daily Dot reached out to Lex via TikTok comment.
