Imagine you’ve been scouring for gainful employment, experiencing rejection after rejection on a daily basis, something that many Americans, especially in the wake of 2023’s massive tech layoffs, have been experiencing as of late.
But finally, you catch a break. You get called in for a job interview. You’re nervous, but you prepare and you focus on expressing your strengths to the best of your ability and convey a sense of enthusiasm about potentially tackling the tasks that the prospective position is asking of its applicants.
You wait for days, maybe weeks, still applying to other jobs, but holding out hope that maybe this employer will reach back with an offer. Then, finally, the message you’ve been waiting for comes through: They want you for the job. Excited, you get read for your first day of work, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and looking forward to the chance to show management that they made the right choice.
Then you learn that the company that just hired you is in the process of going out of business. If there ever was an appropriate time to describe something as a “bummer,” this would be it.
This scenario is pretty much what happened to the wife of Reddit user @LedstromGW2 who posted on the site’s r/antiwork sub about her unfortunate situation with her new employer.
Their angry blurb received over 26,000 upvotes on the popular social media site, with throngs of folks sharing their own experiences where they were on the receiving end of inconsiderate or grimy practices enacted by the companies they’ve worked for.
Company hired my wife without telling her they’re shutting down.
by u/LedstromGW2 in antiwork
In the post, the redditor writes that their wife, along with two other women who accepted positions with the business did so at the expense of other job offers, and left “current positions” that they had. So it isn’t like working at this new place was their only option: They already had other gigs on lock. It wasn’t until the new hires arrived at their first day of work that their boss informed them the company was closing up shop in September (he uploaded the post this month), which means that they have to start their new job search all over again and risk being on unemployment in the near future.
They also added that the company never made any mention of the business closing in the job description, leaving everyone who was hired in the dark about its operational future.
They ended their rant by stating: “Unethical predatory crap like this is ruining our economy and our morale in this country.”
And it seemed like other redditors who saw their blurb agreed. One commenter penned: “I would aggressively look for another job, any job, take it and just ghost the place. No call no show. Do not answer texts and calls.”
Someone else thought that original poster’s (OP’s) wife was in a position to sue the company for potential damages as a result of their decision to withhold this vital piece of information: “I would be talking to a lawyer. If they hired under false terms getting OPs wife to leave her current job. It may not be a slam dunk but especially if OPs wife was under a contract it’d be worth at least talking to a lawyer about a promissory estoppel or other civil claim as: 1. She never would have accepted the role if they had told her it was temporary, 2. Their actions resulted in her losing income by severing the contractual relationship with her previous employer. “
And the aforementioned Redditor may be onto something, as a Nolo.com post on business closures states companies must inform workers within 60 days of its closure date or if there are projected “massive layoffs.” The online legal resource went on to reference the WARN act, a law that’s applicable to “larger employers” which stipulates around 2 months’ warning time must be delivered to a business’ workforce ahead of such closures/layoffs: “The federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act requires larger employers to give employees notice 60 days before an impending plant closing or mass layoff that will result in job losses for a specified number or percentage of employees. If an employer fails to give the required notice, the employees can collect wages and benefits for every day that notice is late, up to 60 days.”
Update 2:48pm CT, July 25: When reached for comment, @LedstromGW2 told the Daily Dot that “unfortunately the WARN Act doesn’t apply here, it’s also a state entity so legal action in my state is a no go.”
