A work-from-home employee revealed in a viral TikTok how she can tell from her company’s Outlook directory whether or not a fellow worker has been fired.
“When you suddenly can’t find someone in the Outlook directory and their name shows up as random letters and numbers in Teams,” user Karen (@stuffkarensays), who runs an account dedicated to corporate workplace humor, wrote in the video’s text overlay. The video has been viewed more than 255,000 times as of Sunday.
@stuffkarensays Never a good sign when they disappear from the system overnight. #corporate #worklife #wfhlife #workhumor #corporatemillennial #layoffs ♬ UH OHHH – Killa
Users shared the telltale signs of someone’s firing within their own companies. “It’s the ‘presence unknown’ for my company,” user Kinjal S (@kinjalsh) said.
“Presence Unknown and Unknown User here,” another confirmed.
“It’s ‘DEACTIVATED ACCOUNT’ at my company,” a third revealed.
Other users shared what the other side of an employee firing looks like. “I work in IT so I’m the one disabling them all,” user Ryan Elliot (@ryanelliot06) wrote.
“IT knows the real tea,” Karen joked in a reply.
“This one girl I worked with was presence unknown for a year and a day. When I quit I was presence unknown for three days then deleted lol,” user Jason (@mr.awwsome) said.
Some users revealed this was the exact way they discovered they had been terminated from their jobs. “They removed me from the directory and I was trying to find my own cost center,” user Ash (@ash.catch3m) shared.
“Had a heart attack the other day when my direct coworker’s email was no longer registered and his name didn’t pop up in the company,” user Andi (@andromesta) wrote.
The Daily Dot reached out to Karen via TikTok comment.
