A man shared a screen-recording of himself getting fired from his job just a week after telling his boss that his girlfriend is pregnant, he said.
In a TikTok video, content creator Tommy (@inothungry) showed a recording of a Zoom meeting featuring himself, his boss (identified as Taylor), and another coworker (identified as Cass).
“We’re here to talk about something completely unrelated to what you brought up to me last week while you were on PTO,” Taylor began.
Tommy clarified for viewers what Taylor was referring to with a caption on the screen: “I just told her my girlfriend was pregnant.”
“That said, the team has undergone a restructuring, and unfortunately your role has been eliminated, and that is effective today,” she said flatly.
Taylor assured Tommy that his termination wasn’t an easy decision to come to.
“I want you to know that this was an extremely difficult decision to make, and we took a lot of care in making it — a lot of care in making it,” she stated.
Taylor then left the call to allow Cass to discuss Tommy’s offboarding as Tommy speaks for the first time in the video.
“I got fired?” He asks.
“Yes, the role is terminated,” Cass said.
Tommy asked if the termination was “based on performance” to which Cass replied, “No, it wasn’t based on performance, it was the overall structure of the team.”
When she apologizes for the timing, Tommy responded, “Yeah, especially when I just told Taylor last week that my girlfriend’s pregnant. It’s not great timing.”
Cass wished Tommy the “best of luck,” as the pair ended the Zoom call. Tommy’s video garnered over 350,000 views as of Tuesday morning.
In the comments, some users were less than surprised at a termination following a pregnancy announcement.
“Pregnancy and firings go hand in hand,” user Sydney (@xsydvicious_) commented.
“This happened to me when I was pregnant too,” @slothslipnslide added.
“I just got fired, two weeks before my due date,” a third user, Kat (@theswitch_witch) commented.
Other viewers were taken aback by the blunt delivery of the termination.
“I really do hope you got unemployment. They looked so cold and careless,” user @benten7656 shared.
“Wow, the lack of empathy,” @bigtittygothxo wrote.
One commenter, @liked_by_creatorr, asked which company/industry the job was in, to which Tommy replied, “biggest media agency in the country.”
@inothungry I got fired after telling my boss my girlfriend was pregnant. #fired
♬ original sound – Tommy
According to Forbes, a recent report by Challenger, Gray & Christmas shows a 198% increase from last year in layoffs in the first nine months of 2023, accounting for the worst first three quarters of job trimming since 2020 and the second-worst stretch since the Great Recession in 2009. The report suggests that the tech industry has been hit the hardest.
“This is literally how it goes in tech. 99% of the time, you’ll lose access to your Slack/Gmail DURING the meeting,” one viewer, @allenlongstreetbooks, reacted to Tommy’s video.
It’s against federal law to discriminate against someone because of their pregnancy. It’s not immediately clear what protections, if any, Tommy would have in this situation. In a 2017 case, a man’s lawsuit — accusing his former employer of firing him because of his wife’s pregnancy — was dismissed in federal district court.
For Tommy, the search for a new job continues. Sharing an update in the comments, he said, “I’ve been out of work for 7 months now and have no health insurance. Baby was born happy and healthy in August.”
In a follow-up statement to The Daily Dot, Tommy shared the following:
“My girlfriend and I had only been dating for a few months when she got pregnant so it was very unexpected. I felt uncomfortable telling people about it for fear of judgement but I finally built up the courage to tell my boss. At that time we were required to work in the office one time per week but there were a bunch of people at the agency who were fully remote. I had a conversation with her while I was on [paid-time off]. In the conversation where I told her my girlfriend was pregnant, I told her I would have to move out of [New York] and work fully remote. She assured me it would be fine and I left the call feeling like my job was safe. The Monday morning when I got back from PTO is when I got fired.”
