So here’s the story…. I work for a startup SaaS company (up until a few hours ago at least I did) with about 100 employees. Yesterday (Thursday) my manager put a meeting on my calendar for 8:30am on Friday titled "HOLD". This morning I saw the CEO was added to it, which I knew was not a good sign even though I had been killing it from a performance standpoint. I've been let go before, and it's always first thing in the morning on a Friday.
I slacked my manager to see if he had a second to chat prior to the meeting, and he didn't respond so I knew what was coming, I just had no idea why. Obviously it wasn't a performance issue, so I knew one of my coworker(s) had made some type of compliant against me. I was hoping it might just be a warning, but no such luck. I had just closed two huge deals a few weeks prior that put us over goal and was the best quarter in our history.
The CEO sent out a company wide email last week congratulating everyone, which I replied to letting him know how much I appreciated the opportunity and how much I enjoyed working for the company (all of which is true, I sincerely loved this job which makes this suck even worse.) he replied back to me saying how the feeling was mutual and that they loved having me and wanted me to be around for the long haul.
Fast forward to the meeting… the CEO lets me know of some troubling allegations against me that he investigated himself, and as CEO he had no other choice but to let me go. To make a long story short they offered me 20k to keep my mouth shut about the company and agree to not contact anyone who works there. He made it sound really bad, like the person was afraid of retaliation from me.
To make it worse, he said this was multiple situations of “inappropriate and even threatening behavior” that was confirmed by at least 5-6 people. I was truly shocked because I work from home and when I did see my coworkers at events, we typically got along.
I am an enterprise seller and we have an AE team who handles the same territory, just with smaller deals. A few weeks ago I found out the AE who shares my same territory was working an opportunity that was out of his range, so I spoke with my manager and he forwarded this guy an email where I stated how he was hiding certain things from me in order to keep it for himself. Honest mistake by my manager, but this is what in my opinion spiraled everything out of control.
The BDR who worked for me, got the job from the AE whose opportunity I had taken away, and the AE was also buddy buddy with a few younger guys who I went to a trade show with this year in May, which is where I think they are making the claims of inappropriate behavior. I think they all got together and made up a bunch of stuff about me to get me fired. The CEO told me he had firsthand accounts from multiple people, but there was nothing I did or said in writing, which makes all of it conjecture. I initial tried to fight back for my job but it was obvious they had made up their minds.
I asked why this was just now being brought to light, and why I was not given an opportunity to either defend myself during this "investigation", or correct my behavior. He did not have an answer for this and just said he wished he had found out about this sooner because maybe something could have been done, but from what he had learned, had no other choice but to part ways with me. Keep in mind this is taking place two weeks after I close two of the biggest deals in the companies history, and helping them achieve their best quarter in history... So basically you let me close these deals, complete all the handoff work to customer success, complete the intro to customer success meetings, AND THEN fire me. What a crazy coincidence!!
This is a crazy situation and I am still processing it and need some guidance/feedback. Any insight or info you all could provide would be greatly appreciated. I’m devastated, but taking the weekend to recharge and relax while I figure out my next move. Let me know if you have any questions I can clear up for you and thanks in advance!
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