I had never been fired or laid off in my 30 year career until yesterday. On the day that I successfully brought in a high profile project on time, my manager called me into a meeting to brainstorm ideas on how we could complete another project faster. The meeting was friendly and I had several ideas that he seemed agreeable to. Literally,.as soon as the meeting ended, my manager sent out an email that said the project was late, and that it was my fault. The email stated that I would agree to work the first eight hours of each day on the project and then do any managerial work outside of normal working hours. I managed five people, and my boss also sent a message to my reports to not bother me as I was expected to dedicate my work days to working on the project. I was completely blindsided by the email and told HR that I was upset about it since my manager had not mentioned any of this to me
A week later (yesterday), HR called me into a meeting and told me that my manager didn't feel that he had done anything wrong and had decided he wanted to separate.
I'm devastated to have been terminated for the first time in my career.
The separation agreement I received does not list any reason for the termination and has some strange things in it, such as requiring me to never apply for a job at the company again, and refusing to accept employment with the company should they try to rehire me, which I found strange. They won't have to worry about my complying.
Many of my former coworkers, including my reports, contacted me and said that they were sorry that I quit. They had been told in a meeting that I was a great worker but decided to leave the company. I corrected them and said that I had been terminated, which was a bit shocking to them.
I've been employed full time since two days after I graduated from college in 1996, and I feel lost and anxious. I'm also kicking myself for staying at the company and giving so much of my life to them when I saw the warning signs.