u/Dapper_Use3256

I genuinely love this company and the role, so if there's a way to bring up the topic professionally without putting my job at risk, that would be the best outcome.

I live very far from the office, and going in every day would be difficult for me. The commute would take a lot of time and cost me more money than I can comfortably afford.

What's the best way to talk to them about having some kind of work-from-home option, or at least negotiating a hybrid setup?

During the interview process, they told me the role could be fully remote, and we agreed on a start date some time later.

As soon as I signed the written offer, the future manager called me and put a lot of pressure on me to talk to my current manager and try to reduce my notice period so I could start within three weeks if possible. The original agreement was that I would start after a few months. I told him that probably wouldn't work, but the future manager kept pushing and said something like: "We already have a backlog waiting for you, and if you don't start early, it'll pile up even more."

In the interviews, the future manager had also said that it didn't matter where I worked from, and that fully remote was fine. But in the call after the offer was signed, they told me they strongly prefer that I be in the office four days a week, which means I would need to relocate.

So now I'm thinking about withdrawing my acceptance, but I'm not sure how it works legally. This isn't exactly an employment contract; it's just a written offer. It only includes basic things like pay, health coverage, and benefits. There's nothing in it about a trial period or ending the agreement.

I imagine the smartest thing to do is to ask a lawyer, but I'd like to know if anyone here has dealt with a similar situation.

A very competent employee at our office was fired at the beginning of this week. People were shocked. Mark had been there for a long time, was known for working hard, understood the technical side very well, delivered results, and was easy to deal with. He worked in Procurement, was a college-educated professional, and was making around 100K a year at a large organization.

The part that has everyone worried is how fast it happened. The new manager didn't seem especially friendly toward Mark, but at the same time, he had never told him before that there was a problem with his work. Then Mark was called into an office with the manager and HR and was fired. They told him it wasn't working out. No written warnings, no bad reviews that anyone knows about, and no misconduct was mentioned in the meeting. This wasn't a layoff or a department cut. No severance, no heads-up, no apology. And Security walked Mark out.

Mark sent a short email to a few of us saying goodbye. He said he was completely surprised and that there had been no warning at all. According to him, the whole meeting was short and vague, basically just a general explanation along the lines of "not a fit."

Could this actually be true? Is it normal for managers to fire someone who's been with the company for around seven years without warning or a clear reason? Or is Mark hiding something in how he's telling us what happened?

(Yes, I know employment at will is legal and that people can be fired without a reason. But what does something like this do to morale and turnover? A group of Mark's coworkers are now assuming they could be next, so they've started updating their resumes and quietly looking around.)

Have you ever seen someone suddenly end at your workplace without warning and without any real explanation?

😑😑