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‘How do you go a year without these files??’: Compliance offer gets laid off. A year later, the boss asks for entire company directory

‘extort the sh*t out of them’

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Jack Alban

business man holding cardboard box with office items (l) calendar pages scattered in sky behind clock on notepad time passing concept (c) business man holding organized papers (r)

A laid-off compliance officer highlighted how dangerously incompetent management allegedly was at their former employer in a r/antiwork blog post that vent viral on Reddit. User @mits66‘s piece accrued over 13,000 upvotes on the popular sub where folks regularly air their grievances with the businesses they work for and the folks who run them.

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The original poster (OP) begins their story by sharing that they had a grudge against their former employer for laying them off with only a 30-minute heads up before the end of their shift.

It’s unclear as to whether or not the WARN act applied to the aforementioned redditor’s position with the company, because if it did, they could be in serious trouble—the act states that large businesses must give workers 60 days’ notice ahead of their final work date that they are being laid off.

a year after laying me off with 30 minutes notice, my old boss asked if I might have a copy of their entire company’s directory on hand
by u/mits66 in antiwork
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@mits66 said they were miffed by the way in which management handled their layoff, but they immediately committed themselves to finding another job because, as they said, “rent” was due.

Fast forward to about a year after their layoff, and the OP receives a text from their former boss asking if they wanted to make some extra money. Although they peeved about the way in which they were summarily let go from their job, they said that they could’ve used the cash, so asked their ex-manager what they were asking them to do.

As it turns out, the business didn’t update their directory when they moved offices, which contained valuable information that proves the company is in compliance with state regulations.

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The OP expressed how baffled they were by this revelation, especially since the company was operating for an entire year without the directory, nor did anyone think of saving these files.

“I just… how? how? How do you go a year without these files?? How do you not make a backup of your entire company’s directory?” they wrote.

One commenter who saw @mits66’s post quipped that they should charge the business a million dollars for the request, and in their reply to this user, the OP shed some more light on the situation.

As it turns out, the OP gave the business admin privileges to their account after they were laid off so that they could access the directory files. However, they accidentally “deleted the new admin account” when they moved offices.

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This leaves @mits66 in an interesting position: They’re going to attempt to “salvage” the old files at 10x their previous hourly rate to do so. If they can’t, then they’re going to rebuild the old directory from the bottom up, which would take about 6 months of work… at the same 10x hourly rate.

One user said that the redditor should express caution in how they approach giving them the directory, and that they shouldn’t have over any of the work that they perform for them until they are paid in full. Their reasoning is based off of evidence: If the company previously had zero issue in firing them on just 30 minutes’ notice, then they’d have no problem screwing them over again: “Get everything in writing/part of a contract and have a lawyer who does contract law have a look at it. Give them absolutely nothing until you have either been paid in full or have a legally binding agreement in place.”

The commenter continued, “If they are happy to f*ck you off with 30 minutes notice, they WILL happily f*ck you over again. Do NOT allow them to do this. Also extort the sh*t out of them in terms of how much you charge for this…”

Judging by the quoted 10x hourly rate, it seems like @mits66 is way ahead of them when it comes to payment.

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The Daily Dot has reached out to @mits66 via Reddit DM for further information.

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