A person has turned to Reddit for help, claiming they were fired soon after informing their boss that they had interviewed with another company. They claimed they later received an email containing false accusations and said their requests for “proof” and a “fair hearing” have gone unanswered.
Workplace toxicity at an Indian firm
“Got fired with false allegations right after telling my boss I had a job interview – what should I do?” wrote the user on Reddit’s “IndianWorkplace” community a few hours ago.
Their post, which they labelled as “workplace toxicity”, talks about how loyal they were to the company that terminated them.
“Worked at my company for years — gave them my youth, health, countless sleepless nights, and sacrificed my personal life,” said the Reddit user.
They added that they wanted to be “honest” with their boss, and hence told them that they interviewed at a company via chat and over email. “I even explained that the presentation I made was only for the interview process, not a side project.”
‘Fired over an email’
However, this didn’t go down well with the boss, who fired them over email. “A few days later, I got a termination email accusing me of: Multiple client complaints (never told about any before), unprofessional conduct, doing personal projects in office hours (completely false),” they revealed the details of the email. The Redditor shared that they worked on the project outside of their working hours.
The employee further expressed that it felt like a pure “retaliation” for working elsewhere, as their work account was blocked soon after, and the boss has ignored all their follow-ups.
The worried worker told fellow Redditors: “I’ve asked for proof and a fair hearing — no response. I’m worried they’ll spread these false allegations to future employers, damaging my career.”
Their post ended with a few questions, for which they said they “need advice”. “How do I protect myself legally? Can I send a legal notice before they damage my reputation? Has anyone else dealt with retaliation for being honest about job hunting?”
And, Redditors answered…
As expected, Reddit users did not disappoint the Indian employee who was fired by their boss just for taking the next step in their career.
One person, who is a senior SDE at a Fintech, said, “Sharing this with a confident peer is fine, but sharing it with your boss is a bold move. Your boss didn’t take it in the right spirit. They likely have many negative thoughts about you now, and you’re facing the consequences,” before adding, “Don’t worry… Once you’re gone, they just don’t care.”
The original poster, who goes by “DepartmentAway6659” online, said that their boss earlier replied to the message saying that they should take it up, but has all of a sudden laid them off via email.
“Your approach may not have been right about telling this to your boss, hope you learned from it,” commented another.
A third said, “Never ever share something like this with a manager.”
“Take legal route, file a complaint with the help of a lawyer in the labour court,” suggested yet another social media user.