sometimes an old job isn’t done with you … even when you’re done with it

by Alison Green on May 20, 2024

When you quit a job, you typically assume you’re finished with that work — once you’re gone, your former colleagues will find a way to move on without you. But sometimes an old job isn’t done with you … even when you’re done with it.

Bizarrely, I hear all the time from people who still regularly receive work questions from jobs they’re no longer employed by. A minor question or two in the first few weeks after you leave might not be odd — where’s the key to file room? which vendor did you use for X? But some offices send a steady stream of questions to previous employees, sometimes even asking them to perform substantive work long after their final paycheck hits the mail.

At Slate today, I wrote about this weird phenomenon. You can read it here.

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{ 164 comments }

{ 164 comments… read them below }

  1. Carol*

    I just got a request, at my personal email, to do a 360 review on a colleague. From a job I left over a year ago.

    They have also been contacting me to ask about how to do different technical things – they had a bunch of departures around the same thing and even though I tried would not transfer over things properly.

    1. Anon for This*

      The 360 review might be a desperation move by someone who needs a certain number of them for a stated purpose. For a recent promotion I needed between 3-5 former supervisors to do a review. I didn’t have that many still working for us, and had to go to people who left – in one case it was a lot longer than a year ago. (Though I did contact them, explain the situation and ask if they were willing.) But contacting you about actual work a year later? That’s ridiculous.

      1. Ellie*

        I would be way more willing to answer a work related question than I would be to respond to a 360 review. I might if I’d had major issues with the person and felt like venting though.

    2. Slow Gin Lizz*

      I left a job two weeks ago. One of the new c-level staff was a nightmare and I said so before I left, to other c-level staff (very politely, with an emphasis on how concerned I was), to the one board member I knew, and in my exit interview. The CEO was supposed to do my exit interview (very small place) but he canceled an hour before and my grandboss did it instead. So the CEO was the only c-level who I never spoke to about the nightmare person.

      The day before I left the nightmare person emailed all staff saying she was so pleased that my position would now be a senior level position and that she would be the supervisor. So on my last day I replied with a scorched earth email to all staff and the Board telling them how concerned I was that this nightmare person would be supervising the role (among other things). Board responded by asking the CEO to ask me if I would do a 2nd exit interview with all c-level staff except the nightmare person. I was like, hahahahahaha, no. (In a polite way, of course.) What would I possibly have to gain from such a thing??

  2. Volunteer Enforcer*

    I am bracing myself for that. Working my notice, leaving my charity job next week. Hopefully I’m overthinking as I haven’t heard of any resigning colleagues who have had this issue. Plenty of turnover on my team too.

    1. djx*

      One or two small questions in the first month you’re gone, and another over the course of the following year seems reasonable for a healthy nonprofit when someone chooses to leave.

      But if the the person was fired or individually let go: nothing. Don’t ask someone who that was done to and don’t feel the need to answer if it happened to you.

      1. Person from the Resume*

        It depends, too, on if the person asking the question has done reasonable due diligence to solve the problem on their own or if they are being lazy. Any questions about information left in a continuity file, transition file, etc that was clearly not checked before the asker reached out should just be met with “you should check the continuity file I left.”

        The same goes for repeated questions about the same thing from different people. I already told X, ask them.

        1. Kevin Sours*

          I think due diligence and quantity of requests are key. Much more so than length of time since departure. A request like “We saw this cryptic remark you made in an email that seems important but nothing explaining it turned up in any documentation, do you recall what you meant by it?” wouldn’t phase me even a year or two after leaving a job. I’d answer if I could (but wouldn’t spend appreciable time on it), assuming I left the job on good terms and it wasn’t the latest in a string of weekly requests.

  3. Stuart Foote*

    One more pleasant example of this is when colleagues from old jobs keep in touch…I recently left my old job but I wasn’t removed from my team’s very unofficial group text. For me, it’s nice to see that they consider me a friend and not just a co-worker. Obviously this would not be the case for those leaving toxic co-workers, but since I am leaving a role where I liked and respected the folks on my team, I am happy they’re still thinking about me.

  4. Are you certain*

    I was let go suddenly from a job, they were letting lots go to try and balance their budgets.

    I was the only one who did a specific job duty, they let me go assuming my manager knew how to do so (she didn’t). I was called 3 days later, as this specific duty was done every Friday.

    I told them I’d be happy to discuss a short term consultant position if they liked. (They didn’t)
    They declined my offer and I declined to be of assistance except to say that partial instructions were in the blue binder on my former desk.

    They ended the call abruptly and I never heard another word from them.

    3. Cat Tree*

      Way back during the Great Recession I was laid off. My former grandboss called me to request don’t help, and the very first thing he stated is that it would be paid, with minimum weekly hours to pay more than my unemployment benefit. I was Ok with that because it allowed me to shorten the gap on my resume too.

    5. sofar*

      I LOVE this. My company JUST laid off 50 people. One of my coworkers was also the Only Person Who Did a Monthly Important Thing. She’d the process (just in case she OOO when The Thing needed to be done), and it is in the shared drive for all to access. The file name is literally “Everything you need to know about Monthly Important Thing.” It is in a folder shared to the entire company called “Monthly Thing: Processes and documentation.”

      My manager and upwards are freaking out about how nobody is trained on The Thing, that The Thing is not documented, and asking around to see if anyone “has documentation.” I’m just cackling and staying quiet, knowing the instructions are in the shared folder, but not saying anything, so that perhaps they reach out to my coworker and perhaps hire her on a contract basis.

  5. Raine*

    My mother retired from her job a year ago. She wasn’t quite ready to retire, but the newly hired director had it out for her and was clearly fabricating a paper trail against her, so she just decided to retire and be done with all of it. The last thing she did was warn the board before leaving.

    Six months later and we’re on a family vacation, sitting around a gorgeous mountain cabin for lunch. Mom gets a phone call from the board – the new director was such a disaster (potential money laundering, ignoring contracts, nepotism, etc…) that they let her go, and were begging my mother to come back and fix everything for them. She went back as a contractor and after months of boggling at the complete ineptitude from the departed director, managed to clean things up enough to help hire a new director, as well as her own replacement, and just last week finally retired (for real). (We hope.)

    1. Sara without an H*

      At least your mother made them pay her for her services, rather than just expecting her to do it out of the goodness of her heart. I’m sure the Schadenfreude was nice, but we work for money, after all.

      1. Raine*

        She wanted to go back as a contractor at her old pay rate, but thankfully my father (a freelancer for the last 30 years) talked her into charging more so she wouldn’t be getting underpaid for her work. It was a close one, though (sigh).

    2. Slow Gin Lizz*

      I just did the same at the job I just left, warned the board about a nightmare c-level person. Whether or not the board will do anything about it is yet to be determined but boy, I hope so. Both because that person (and her boss) are going to drive the place into the ground, which would be very sad for the population it serves, and also a tiny bit for my own professional satisfaction. But I’m not holding my breath.

  6. Mehitabel*

    Oh, yeah. I got fired from a job a number of years ago for absolutely no good reason. About a year later the person who was hired to replace me emailed me asking for my help with some situation she didn’t know how to handle – I no longer remember exactly what. But I do remember firing back a just-barely-civil ‘I cannot help you, please do not contact me again’ reply. Never heard from them again. The absolute cheek of some people.

    1. Zona the Great*

      Do you think they were put up to that by the boss or someone? Seems pretty nervy to try this otherwise.

      1. MisterForkbeard*

        Would the replacement even know that she was fired? It might have just been a “hey, you had this job before me – did you ever run into X?” which is weird but not totally unreasonable.

        But if they knew this person was fired and they were hired to replace them specifically, it’s super weird and nervy

        1. Ellie*

          How would they even have their contact details though? It sounds to me like their boss probably put them up to it.

      2. Miette*

        I’d bet they were told to reach out by the boss, “Oh yeah, here’s Mehitabel’s email–they used to do this and will help you out.” With like ZERO thought for what M. was put through or that they might not be in a cooperative state of mind.

        1. Antilles*

          Yeah, it has to be something the boss suggested, because “the person who was hired to replace me” may or may not even know who M. was. Certainly not well enough that they’d feel comfortable with a cold-email a year later.
          And it makes sense that the Boss wouldn’t remember the particulars of it, in a Street Fighter “for me it was Tuesday” kind of way: For you, the day you got fired was a defining item of the entire year, for the Boss it was a business decision that that they sort of forgot the particulars of a few weeks later at most.

  7. Zona the Great*

    Yes I have been called about a month after leaving a Bank Teller job where they needed me to remember the combination to the Diebold safe assigned to my widget. I believe this is why I still have nightmares about not remembering my locker combo.

    1. KaciHall*

      weirdly, I do not remember any of the vault combos for banks I worked at, but I do still remember my high school locker combo from twenty years ago.

      then again, the only vault combos that didn’t rotate were old school vaults and I memorized those more by feel than actual number. I do still have ATM passcodes memorized lol.

      1. gwennian*

        Yes, I moved on to another branch when they closed the tiny one I was at. Probably a year later (after maternity leave, even), they called to ask if I still new the combo, as their lease was up and they needed to move the small safe. I didn’t remember it, but I still happened to have it written down at home.

        Same bank called me a month or two after I finally left, because the alarm hadn’t been set. I told them that not only did I no longer have keys to the branch, but that my security code shouldn’t be valid any longer, and no, I didn’t have any contact numbers for any other employees.

        1. Another academic librarian*

          oh , yeah. That reminded me that I got a call that the security alarm on the bookstore had gone off. I hadn’t worked there in over a year and I was still on the alarm code list.

          1. Avi!*

            I’ve been the one making that call. A previous job involved monitoring the access systems for the company’s locations nationwide and calling the emergency contacts for a site if anything weird happened during the off-hours. One day, both me and the former employee found out at 3 AM that a particular location hadn’t bothered send us an updated contact list in the six months since the (very annoyed) employee had left the company…

    2. Anne of Green Gables*

      I also still have nightmares about not remembering my locker combo!! I always thought it was just me! (I have never worked anywhere I would need to know a combination to a safe.)

      1. Zona the Great*

        And I went to a school district (very near Columbine high school and around the same time) where we didn’t have lockers or locks so this is my only reason for having such a nightmare!

        1. Tiger Snake*

          I taught myself have to pick the school padlocks because of how anxious the idea of forgetting my locker combination made me.

          (It’s easy by the way; you literally just put a shive down the shackle dig around until you move the locking bar by hand. Some padlocks resist that, but they’re too expensive for school budgets)

      2. Slow Gin Lizz*

        Me too! But weirdly, only for the combination to my gym locker. Brains are so weird.

  8. Alan*

    Yep. My employer encountered a significant problem several months before I retired, adjacent to my area, but waited until I retired to start calling me. It is extremely urgent and yet reportedly not worth paying me to address. I shut it down politely but firmly. Pay me or leave me alone.

  9. Jennifer Strange*

    A former co-worker who I’m still friends with left our company after applying for (and not getting) the vacant position one step up from her. She had been doing the work for the position for 7 months while they tried to find a replacement, and even after she left she graciously agreed to meet with the person who had gotten the position (let’s call him “Mark”) to talk him through some of the specifics (the position was institutional fundraising, including grant writing).

    About a year after she had left (and her position had been filled) Mark reached out to her, copying her replacement, saying he had hurt his leg and would be out of commission for a bit, so he was putting my friend’s replacement in touch with her so she could help him (the replacement) with anything while Mark was in recovery. That’s not how it works, my man.

    1. Rainy*

      Holy cow, Mark has some nerve! Please tell me your friend replied with “hahahahahaha” and nothing else…

      1. Jennifer Strange*

        Sadly, no, but she and I (and another co-worker friend) all had a hearty laugh about it in our text thread. This same guy also reached out to me to ask me to hook him up with comp tickets to a show at my new job (I left three weeks after he started) complete with his preferred dates. Like…no….

    2. Curious*

      That would have been significant chutzpah in any event, but is exacerbated by the fact that Mark had an injury to his leg — nothing that would disable his mind.

      1. Pastor Petty Labelle*

        pretty sure you don’t write grants with your knees.

        Even if in person fundraising was required, explaining its not possible due to injury is going to be understood by most people.

      2. Carol the happy elf*

        How high up on the leg? It might be close enough to the mind onsome people who store their brain in a well-padded lication….

      4. Ellie*

        Yep, call Mark up on the phone and have him talk you through it. Seriously, how lazy is Mark.

  10. TracyXP*

    This is the first time I’ve had this happen. Started a new job about 3 months ago and was happy to leave a stressful job behind for one with much better pay and less stress. I got a call last week from a former project manager about a submittal of ours that they wanted to us to revise and resubmit because the client kept changing what they wanted. It would have taken me hours to do if I even remembered which files I needed to get back to it. Sorry guys!

    A part of me is a little sad that soon I won’t be able to use my non-compete contract to stop them asking for contract work…

    1. Pastor Petty Labelle*

      You can just say no. Or if you need a polite fiction — sorry too busy right now to take on anything else.

      1. Antilles*

        Agreed. A few other polite fictions that also work in these situations:
        -I don’t really remember that project, it’s been a while but it should be covered in the files.
        -(After intentionally waiting several days to reply to their email). Oh hey, I must have missed your email, been super busy. Hope you got what you needed.
        -(If they call you on the phone). Oh good to hear from you, but I don’t have time to talk now, running to a meeting.

  11. Bob*

    People and companies will take advantage of anyone who cannot say No. If the company is desperate enough to reach out to someone who doesn’t work there, they should be desperate enough to pay for your time. They will always frame it as “the team” and try to get you to help for that reason, but Henry Hill’s quote from Goodfellas when he’s discussing being a partner with Paulie always works a a reply – albeit not a polite one.

    1. Wolf*

      Well, it’s not me who left the team hanging, it’s the managagement’s poor planning.

  12. MisterForkbeard*

    My previous job was performing QA/Admin work on a number of (now-defunct) live internet services.

    I got a bunch of questions after I left, but they gradually tapered down. THREE YEARS after I left I got a bunch of questions about passwords and access management to one of the systems. I replied that I didn’t remember at that point, but I’m wondering if no one did any admin logins or service management in that entire three years.

  13. HotSauce*

    I was let go from a position some years ago, I never really received an explanation other than, “we just don’t feel it’s a good fit.” Less than a week later I got a call from the office asking if I could step in for a day or two, it seems the person they had hired to replace me quit after two days. I declined to assist.

    1. Rainy*

      I left a job once and my replacement quit in the middle of the afternoon by putting all the phones on hold and sticking a post-it to the middle of her desk that said “I QUIT”. I’d lasted 3.5 increasingly stressful years, the average time someone stayed in that role was just under 8 months, but 6 weeks, which is how long my replacement could handle the incredibly toxic environment, was a bit shocking.

      I had left (with plenty of notice) to go back to school and finish my degree, and it took two weeks for the facial twitches I’d developed in my final six months there to stop twitching. I don’t blame her at all for quitting; if I’d had any sense I would have left long before I did.

    3. AnonORama*

      I was laid off years ago and asked to come back as a contractor (the layoff included 10 other folks and was related to finances, not performance). I thought, but didn’t say, “wow, the same shitty job you just let me go from, now with no healthcare! Thanks!” I respectfully declined…and got “what’s the password” and “where’s this document” emails for a good 2 years. Bizarre!

    4. I Have RBF*

      LOL!

      “Uh, they didn’t work out? Too bad, so sad. But you told me that I wasn’t a ‘good fit’. That means I’m not your backstop when you make another hire that doesn’t work out. Bye.”

      They already burned the bridge. You just knocked down the ruins.

    5. Dragon_Dreamer*

      I was getting calls and texts and emails for a MONTH after the bent metal fastener let me go. I kept telling them to look at the documentation I’d left behind. “Oh, management deleted that.”

      Not my problem, then!

  14. Selectively Forgetful*

    If you can’t be direct, be forgetful. You no longer remember the details about how to do that thing. You might remember writing it down in the handover docs/the instruction manual/telling person X/etc. This can work if you’ve moved to another division in the same company (where it’s easier for your old team to contact you)

  15. Employee of the Bearimy*

    About a decade ago I was let go from a job during my probationary period – it wasn’t unexpected, since it was clear to both sides that it was a bad fit and I was already job-searching. Nearly a year later I got a call on my personal cell from one of the community partners I had been working with because he couldn’t reach my replacement. He apparently didn’t realize that I didn’t work there anymore. It felt great to tell him I was so sorry but there was nothing I could do to help him.

  16. The Cosmic Avenger*

    Maybe this is overly complicated, or maybe I’m feeling ornery, but after reading about people who pester the ex-employee anyway even when the answer can be found in the documentation, I’m thinking that if I had to do this, I’d insert a random numeric code on some random page. Then I’d set an autoresponse email to anyone from that company domain to say “If you have a question about my work at [company], and you have checked through the documentation I left, please resend your request with the numeric code labeled ‘Response code’ in the documentation as part of the subject line.” At least then they’ll have to flip through it!

    2. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain*

      This is funny, but relies on the person contacting you via email to your personal account. In my experience that’s the contact method of last resort, and least effectiveness for most people these days. I check my personal email once a week, at most, just to mass delete the spam.

      I’ve always been strict about who at work has my personal email, cell phone, address and social media. If I ever get to retire, or get fired, all but one coworker will be hard-pressed to find me at all.

  17. Peon*

    I left my first post-college job for what I thought were greener pastures, but I trained my replacement before I left, answered questions, and once or twice a month went back to fill in so I was still on the payroll. Less than a year later, my replacement had quit and the greener pastures had withered so I called up my former boss and offered her a deal – I’d come back FT, get the office and processes and such back into shape and give her time to find another replacement, then train that person, while I continued job hunting.

    I ended up working there another six years at their headquarters because she helped me network and gave me a glowing reference.

  18. Some People’s Children*

    I gave 6 weeks notice when I retired. Doesn’t sound like much but it was 5 weeks and 3 days longer than anyone else gave. I met with my boss and gave him a 6 page list of what I did all day organized by types, in priority order, with the things that were really urgent highlighted. There was maybe a page worth of those with notes including times of standing meetings. Six months later I stopped responding to inquiries. The kicker was someone didn’t like how I labeled file drawers so tore down my notes and tossed them. Now when the finally assigned someone to cover meeting x I was supposed to remember where the notes were

  19. Heffalump*

    Some years ago I was laid off from a job by a bananacrackers manager–long, lurid story. I stayed in touch with my former coworkers, and a few weeks later one of them told me the manager had wanted him to call me for some piece of technical information. He straight up refused to do it. If he’d called me, I would have assumed the manager had leaned on him to do it, and I would have said, “I’m sorry, I’m no longer a [name of company] employee.” If the manager had called me, I would have been much less polite.

  20. BellyButton*

    When I was leaving my last company they were annoyed and probably somewhat relieved I was leaving. I tried on multiple occasions to meet with my boss to talk to her about things I had going and commitments that had been made to leadership, but she either wouldn’t respond or wouldn’t show up. So on my last day I wiped my computer and email (aware that IT could recover anything if needed), set my OOO message to say I no longer was employed there and to contact my manager, and left. A few months later when they replaced me with 2 very junior people (first job out of college people) I had them contacting me on LinkedIn asking me where things were or what things meant. I never responded, until about the 10th message. I said “This is completely inappropriate. I am not employed there and it is not my responsibility to train you.”

    I felt a little bad for them on a personal level, because I know the manager is completely clueless and has absolutely no idea what I did, how I did it, or why I did it. They were fresh out of college and on the surface it looked like a good opportunity for them, but that manager was useless. But as bad as I felt for them being young and inexperienced it wasn’t my job to continue making that manager look good.

      1. BellyButton*

        All files/documents/videos were saved in shared file. My manager had access to it. AND because I was being petty to make a point that when someone offers to transfer knowledge before they leave, you should take it. Not one of my finest moments, but it was really bad in the last 6 months there.

  21. BBB*

    I work for the same company, just different departments, so sadly I had to be polite and civil about questions and assistance after I left. I did get a sick glee out of responding with a lot of ‘this is all written up in the procedures, you morons.’ the moron bit was of course, just heavily implied lol

  22. Seal*

    My now-former employer hired a new director for my division and chaos ensued. Long term projects were abandoned, popular services and initiatives were ended for no reason, and all sorts of small things that kept the place running fell through the cracks. In just over a year half the staff (including me) either left in disgust or were forced out because the new director didn’t like them. The whole thing was very ugly and unnecessary.

    Over a year after I left, I got a phone call on a weekend from the local police department about a security issue with one of my former employer’s buildings. It seems that the new director never thought to update the emergency contact list and the police had called at least one other person who left after I did. I could hear the dispatcher’s eyes rolling when I said that I no longer worked there and didn’t know who they should call next.

  23. Scarlet ribbons in her hair*

    After I gave two weeks notice at a previous job, I tried to explain to numerous co-workers how to do various aspects of my job. They all said that it wasn’t their job to do those tasks – it was the job of my replacement, who hadn’t been hired yet. On my last day, I told the office manager that I was willing to come back the following day to do any necessary training about how to do my job. She said that it wasn’t necessary, that she had hired my replacement, and she had everything under control, and that my assistance wasn’t needed.

    I said to myself, “Oh my goodness! She thinks that I’ve told people how to do my job.” So I tried and tried to tell her that no one at the company had wanted to listen to me when I tried to explain how to do my job, but she kept interrupting me over and over again, insisting that she had everything under control and that my assistance wasn’t needed, and she was getting angrier and angrier, so I gave up.

    Of course, I was quickly bombarded with calls asking, “How do I do this? How do I do that? How do I do that other thing?” My response to everyone was that I didn’t have a computer (this was true), that I was unable to picture a keyboard in my mind (this was true), and without that knowledge, I was unable to come up with the directions for doing this, that, and that other thing. I also said that I had offered to come in to show everyone what I did and how I did it, but the office manager said not to, and I said that if they didn’t believe me, they could ask the office manager.

    Eventually the office manager called me and said that she knew that my former supervisor had been bugging me about how to do this and that. I said, “He’s not the only one! Everyone’s been calling me. If you remember, I offered to come in and explain everything, and you specifically told me not to.” She said, “Yes, but that’s because I thought that you had already explained everything to everyone.” I said, “Yeah, that’s what I figured! So I tried and tried to tell you that that hadn’t happened, but you kept interrupting me and telling me that you didn’t need me, so I finally gave up.” She then acknowledged that I had tried to talk to her and that she kept shutting me down. At least she didn’t say that I should have tried harder. She remembered how hard I had tried.

    Before I left the company, I offered to compose my COBRA letter. The office manager said no, that someone would do it and mail it to me. When I got it in the mail, I saw that it was full of mistakes. A giant mistake was that the amount I owed each month was shown twice in the letter, but a different amount was shown each time. I had no idea which amount was the correct one.

    So I went back to the office and showed the letter to the office manager and pointed out all the mistakes, including some incorrect dates in the letter. The new secretary to the president told me that the receptionist had run out of there one day, and the office manager had decided that instead of hiring a new receptionist, she (the new secretary to the president) and my replacement would be co-receptionists, in addition to their other duties. The new secretary to the president said that she was very unhappy with this situation, and she said that she had never worked in an office with such an arrangement.

    When I talked to the office manager, I said that I heard that the previous receptionist ran out the door one day. The office manager said, “She didn’t quit. I fired her.” To this day, I wonder if what led up to this was the postage meter suddenly running out of money, and no one knew what to do. They didn’t know that I had set up postage-by-phone, and all they had to do was press some buttons on the postage meter, and $500.00 would magically appear in the postage meter. (The controller should have known, because I regularly asked him for checks in the amount of $500.00 to mail to Pitney Bowes, but I am 99% certain that he had forgotten all about it. And he wasn’t the type of person to volunteer information that would help a co-worker. And who knows, maybe he wasn’t in that day.) They could have taken the postage meter to the post office, but that would have taken a good amount of time, and they would have needed a check, and the mail was run through the postage meter at the end of the day, so I don’t know if they could have gotten to the post office before it closed.

    A few months later, the office manager called to tell me that the new secretary to the president had quit, and she asked me if I could fill the job until they hired a replacement. I said, “I can’t do that! I have a job! I’m surprised that you didn’t know that. Haven’t people been calling you to get a reference for me?” She said that she remembered one call. I said that sometimes one call is all you need. I never heard from them again. Yay!

    2. I Have RBF*

      Wow, that office manager was an excellent shot for nailing herself and the company right in the foot. Completely bananas.

  24. Bird Lady*

    I left copious amounts of documentation, calendars, vendor files, etc… when I left my last job. There was a month-long gap between my departure and his arrival, so I was asked to come back for free and meet with him to see if there were any questions he had about my exit notes. We met, he was rude, and I was very distracted because my aunt was dying in the hospital, so didn’t really process the fact that he had not read anything I left him.

    For over a year, he would call me and berate me for things not completed that were ongoing projects in my exit notes with their status. I even volunteered to help my former staff complete their organizational audit while he refused to take part in it. We found he had shredded most of the documentation, and deleted my exit notes off the server. Luckily, I had printed them off and handed them his assistant who promptly found them in a filing cabinet that he had marked to be thrown out.

    I was just kind of thrown that he would place important documentation in a cabinet marked for disposal, shredded all documentation, and deleted the exit notes all to call me for a year to scream at me and defame my work ethic in the community for over a year.

    1. Dave from Detroit*

      Once he was rude why did you keep taking his calls? You’re way nicer than I would have been!

      1. Bird Lady*

        It was fairly complicated. I had become very close to the board of the organization during my time there, and after I left, many wanted to maintain friendships with me. There was even talk about bringing me onto the board. But the other reason was that he would throw my former staff under the bus, and their professional reputation was being dramatically harmed. At least one person was turned down for a job elsewhere because of what he was saying about her. I thought that by being a resource, I could provide some support for my staff while they looked elsewhere. I had left the sector, so the defamation only hurt my feelings. What he was saying about people who wanted to remain in the field was hurting them professionally. He failed upward and became the ED of another organization, that he has since ran into the ground. I got all my people out before he left.

  25. Scarlet ribbons in her hair*

    After I gave two weeks notice at a previous job, I tried to explain to numerous co-workers how to do various aspects of my job. They all said that it wasn’t their job to do those tasks – it was the job of my replacement, who hadn’t been hired yet. On my last day, I told the office manager that I was willing to come back the following day to do any necessary training about how to do my job. She said that it wasn’t necessary, that she had hired my replacement, and she had everything under control, and that my assistance wasn’t needed.

    I said to myself, “Oh my goodness! She thinks that I’ve told people how to do my job.” So I tried and tried to tell her that no one at the company had wanted to listen to me when I tried to explain how to do my job, but she kept interrupting me over and over again, insisting that she had everything under control and that my assistance wasn’t needed, and she was getting angrier and angrier, so I gave up.

    Of course, I was quickly bombarded with calls asking, “How do I do this? How do I do that? How do I do that other thing?” My response to everyone was that I didn’t have a computer (this was true), that I was unable to picture a keyboard in my mind (this was true), and without that knowledge, I was unable to come up with the directions for doing this, that, and that other thing. I also said that I had offered to come in to show everyone what I did and how I did it, but the office manager said not to, and I said that if they didn’t believe me, they could ask the office manager.

    Eventually the office manager called me and said that she knew that my former supervisor had been bugging me about how to do this and that. I said, “He’s not the only one! Everyone’s been calling me. If you remember, I offered to come in and explain everything, and you specifically told me not to.” She said, “Yes, but that’s because I thought that you had already explained everything to everyone.” I said, “Yeah, that’s what I figured! So I tried and tried to tell you that that hadn’t happened, but you kept interrupting me and telling me that you didn’t need me, so I finally gave up.” She then acknowledged that I had tried to talk to her and that she kept shutting me down. At least she didn’t say that I should have tried harder. She remembered how hard I had tried.

    Before I left the company, I offered to compose my COBRA letter. The office manager said no, that someone would do it and mail it to me. When I got it in the mail, I saw that it was full of mistakes. A giant mistake was that the amount I owed each month was shown twice in the letter, but a different amount was shown each time. I had no idea which amount was the correct one.

    So I went back to the office and showed the letter to the office manager and pointed out all the mistakes, including some incorrect dates in the letter. The new secretary to the president told me that the receptionist had run out of there one day, and the office manager had decided that instead of hiring a new receptionist, she (the new secretary to the president) and my replacement would be co-receptionists, in addition to their other duties. The new secretary to the president said that she was very unhappy with this situation, and she said that she had never worked in an office with such an arrangement.

    When I talked to the office manager, I said that I heard that the previous receptionist ran out the door one day. The office manager said, “She didn’t quit. I fired her.” To this day, I wonder if what led up to this was the postage meter suddenly running out of money, and no one knew what to do. They didn’t know that I had set up postage-by-phone, and all they had to do was press some buttons on the postage meter, and $500.00 would magically appear in the postage meter. (The controller should have known, because I regularly asked him for checks in the amount of $500.00 to mail to Pitney Bowes, but I am 99% certain that he had forgotten all about it. And he wasn’t the type of person to volunteer information that would help a co-worker. And who knows, maybe he wasn’t in that day.) They could have taken the postage meter to the post office, but that would have taken a good amount of time, and they would have needed a check, and the mail was run through the postage meter at the end of the day, so I don’t know if they could have gotten to the post office before it closed.

    A few months later, the office manager called to tell me that the new secretary to the president had quit, and she asked me if I could fill the job until they hired a replacement. I said, “U can’t do that! I have a job! I’m surprised that you didn’t know that. Haven’t people been calling you to get a reference for me.” She said that she remembered one call. I said that sometimes one call is all you need. I never heard from them again. Yay!

  26. Justme, The OG*

    I left a job five years ago and still occasionally get emails about my old job. I work in HIED so the email stays with me as I cycle through positions. With the most recent email, I realized that I had no idea who could help them since the department had almost complete turnover in that time.

  27. I'm great at doing stuff*

    My last job had major work life boundaries to begin with, and I was doing a very specific task that no one else was trained or had the knowledge to do. I gave them a month’s notice and even overlapped with my new job to finish up a major project.

    About two months into my new job and working full time there, one of my former colleagues contacted me asking me to do an entire project for them. I said I was busy with my new job and could no longer do projects for them, besides an hour or two paid phone consultation. He said we don’t need a consultation, we need someone to do the project.

    And then he said I can do it on the weekends when I am not doing my other job, like that is a totally normal thing to do. Because it was for that company.

    2. Wolf*

      > He said we don’t need a consultation, we need someone to do the project.

      I’d be tempted to ask if they considered hiring someone to do it.

  28. Judge Judy and Executioner*

    When I left a role where I was the only person with my skillset, I offered to consult for them for double my hourly rate. I probably could have charged more, but I didn’t know that at the time. They agreed and I worked 40 hours over 4 months while they found and hired my replacement. It worked well on both sides, I was grateful for the extra money and it helped them keep moving forward on projects for their customers. It’s the only time I did more than answer a couple minor questions for a previous employer after I left, and I was even sent a Starbucks gift card for my time.

    1. NotAnotherManager!*

      I was in this position once. I don’t think it was double my rate nor full-time, but it was a great bridge from that job to my next one, when I was taking a month off to relax. I made some really good money, didn’t have the pressure of being the only competent one in the room or working on their schedule, and they got a soft landing to my replacement starting.

  29. ADD hoc*

    At my first job out of college, I had a toxic boss, but because my “spine” wasn’t fully developed, I agreed to train my replacement for an hourly rate. I didn’t think the person they hired as my replacement was going to be capable to do the job, and said so after interviewing her. They hired her anyway. I trained her. She didn’t work out. They asked me to fill in while they hired someone else and train that person. Having somewhat more spine at that point, I said, “No. I said I would train my replacement, and I did. You’re on your own now.” I think they got the person who had been my predecessor to do it.

  30. sara.bellum*

    I left a consulting pseudo-partnership about a year ago. Despite my spending countless hours on documentation, my former partner (FP) is staunchly opposed to learning to fish. Even a little. I fielded countless questions about things that are addressed in Loom videos or written documents. The number of *basic* business practices that were not known was shocking (e.g. – we have a shared folder called [design files] – that’s where design files were saved). How can you just… not notice your business’ file structure?!?!?

    The steady stream of questions has slowed to a trickle – but NOW former clients are contacting me directly. Apparently, they have been told things like “we didn’t set up the things that we clearly set up” and “the work files for the annual thing you have hired this consulting firm to do for the last 8 years do not exist”. (Spoiler alert: they are in that tricky [design files] folder, in a [client name]/[annual thing name] subfolder.)

    Ugh.

  31. Orange You Glad*

    I recently had a newer coworker come to me about how we had to reach out to a previous employee who left last October and did I have her number. I quickly shut that down. The thing he needed to ask about was easily remedied with a little more research into the topic.

  32. shamwow*

    Was laid off from a job (where incidentally I had to lay myself off in our HR system because no one else knew how to do it), got an email from the CEO letting me know the company had been acquired, and could I please promote his post about the news on LinkedIn?

    I would email him back and tell him where to shove it, but I kind of want to see where the limits of his audacity might lead.

  33. Dread Pirate Roberts*

    Somewhat related, years ago I quit my customer service job, written notice, handed in my uniform, etc. About six weeks later I got a call from the supervisor asking why I hadn’t shown up for my shift. She expressed surprise that I quit and said she thought I just wanted the last month’s schedule off.

  34. Shopgirl*

    I quit my last job in May of 2022 and received a question via text last week. It was a yes or no procedure question so I quickly answered it but two years might be my record for continued questions from a job.

  35. NotAnotherManager!*

    This wild to me. I had to call a former colleague who left on good terms (was relocating to a state we don’t do business in) to get some very specific historical information that was not in his project notes, email, nor those of the other person he’d worked with who’d also left – one of those things that definitely didn’t seem critical at the time but ended up being huge later on. I was so embarrassed to have to bother him, but we had exhausted all other options and he was my last resort. We sent a gift basket as a thank you.

    The idea that some people think it’s normal to keep calling people who’ve left (particularly if they were laid off or let go) about work-related things and expecting them to help in perpetuity blows my mind.

  36. Nicki Name*

    My company had layoffs recently. One long-time member of my team who did things well beyond his job description and had some absolutely critical institutional knowledge that he hadn’t had time to fully train anyone else up on got cut because someone in HR decided that two people with that same job title were too many for one team.

    He was laid off on a Friday. Over the following weekend, one of our systems had a problem that tech support decided it needed to pull him into a call about, completely ignoring our on-call rotation, let alone the fact that he wasn’t an employee anymore. I was happy to see that he’d declined.

    1. anon for this - long story why*

      Reminded on a very complex work call among four or five teams in at least three countries about an project for a major client (think national global communications technology) a friend was on. No one could figure out a major problem with the system being built and was trying to pass the buck to other teams.

      The big boss who was the manager of the head of each of these teams seemed really frustrated.

      My friend didn’t say much, but after awhile threw out the idea of a latency issue causing problems etc etc.

      The big boss said “That sounds plausible. What does anyone else think?” Silence.

      Big boss then said “OK, I think we know the problem. How do we fix it?”

      One said “Well, so-and-so could do it” and then another person said “Yeah, but he was laid off yesterday.”

      I almost burst out laughing.

      Big boss then said “Get them back. Whatever it takes. Meeting over.”

      Hahahahaha.

  37. Trying not to be bitter*

    Here is my success story on handling those “post-job” questions. I was being pushed out by my old job. My job at the time was with a North American, NA, company that was bought by a European company. The European C-level management decided to make some changes and I warned them this would cause some issues with NA sales and operations. During the next re-organization of the NA staff structure, C-level had eliminated my position and offered me a lower-level position with a 25% pay cut with the expectation of doing the same role. I served in a high-level technical position that knew the ins and outs of every piece of equipment and product in NA. Thus, I was respected by NA management but not by the C-level management of the company. I soon found a position with a new company. When I gave notice, I knew they had no one in NA to replace me. I knew I would be asked questions after I left so I offered to be a consultant. If they agreed, I would stay on for 6 weeks to finish up some projects. If not, I would leave after my two weeks so I can start sooner at my new position. During my time at this NA company, the number of requests and questions was never constant. One month there would be many requests and the next month there could be just one or none. I offered a flat rate monthly consultancy for up to 30 hours a month. In the first few months, the number of hours sometimes exceeded the 30 hours. However, after 6 months, it dropped to significantly below. Now several years later, it never exceeds more than 10 hours with some months being less than 1. I am still receiving the same monthly rate. Now, the questions I receive are highly technical. I can spend 15 minutes answering a question that they cannot answer without requiring a person to spend months full-time researching and performing experiments. Thus, it is a win-win for both of us. The other “entertainment” was maintaining communication within the company and finding out what was happening while “enjoying the popcorn”. All of those changes by C-level management helped erode the company’s position in the NA market. Nearly all of those who had a hand in pushing me out were eventually pushed out as well. Sometimes the bottom line hits those at the top as well. I am trying not to be bitter about it. I keep trying to view each dollar I receive from my old company as an “apology note” for the way they treated me.

    1. Name (Required)*

      Why would you still be working for the same rate though? I would have thought your rate should have gone up if it’s been years?

      1. Sharpie*

        several years later, it never exceeds more than 10 hours with some months being less than 1.

        Still getting paid for 30 hours/month when the actual work has decreased significantly = the equivalent of an increase in pay in actuality. Swings and roundabouts.

        1. linger*

          Especially because (reading between the lines) the work seems to have decreased largely as a direct result of management failings having tanked the volume of relevant business.

        2. Trying not to be bitter*

          If the number of real hours had stayed at 30+, I would have raised my rates. But, I wanted my old company to focus on easy access to me and not my hourly rates. I rather have the two quick five minute questions where I answer in 15 minutes or less than a mult-hour paper work calculation project.

          The other reason is to “stay under the radar.” While a good number of the c-level suite was turned over, the same CEO that approved those changes remain. However, his management style focuses changes from the previous year in terms of growth and/or costs. With no change in my “costs” to the company, it is not picked up on the growth/cost reports he requests but only on the “big lists”.

  38. It's Gonna Be May*

    About a year and a half after I left a job I had been with for over two decades, I was approached by the head guy at said job asking if I would be willing to clean up the mess left by my former boss (who spent the year after my departure mucking things up and then disappeared). I stated I was happy to do so on nights and weekends for a standard fee. Head guy declined…then went to my new boss and together they decided I would do the cleanup during business hours as part of my new job. Like, ON TOP of my new job. (Which, btw, I had taken a $20k pay cut to accept just to get out of the chaos that my former boss created). There would be no extra pay. It was to be a “gesture of goodwill between community partners”. I basically said, “Make me” (which, granted, is not super professional, but I was prepared to go to the mats over this). I thought they’d dropped it, when the two of them then informed me that they just needed me to ‘mentor’ the guy who replaced me at my old job, for no more than two hours a week, so that HE could clean it up. I wasn’t thrilled but agreed. Then I found out that he had half my experience and was hired at a starting salary that was $20k MORE than what I was making when I left there after TWO DECADES. I am a minority woman over the age of 50. He was a white male under the age of 30. Fuck that. I noped out of BOTH jobs and left them to their own devices.

    1. Lady Danbury*

      I’m sorry, what??? That’s absolutely wild. What was new boss’ motivation for agreeing to such ridiculousness??? I’m so glad you were able to escape both toxic environments!

      1. It's Gonna Be May*

        Thank you, Lady Danbury! All I can come up with is that Head Guy at old job is very well known and respected in our small-ish community – a big dog, so to speak. New Boss very much wanted to run with the big dogs (in a way that was almost cringey), so was willing to agree to pretty much anything. To be fair, she was new to a very public role, and probably still trying to figure out how to play in the sandbox. But she showed me then and there that when push came to shove she wouldn’t have my back, and I can’t get behind someone in a leadership role who puts their own success ahead of that of their team.

        1. Bird names*

          Bold moves on both their parts. I am really glad that you are rid of them now!
          The payment disparity unfortunately does not surprise me as I have seen too many young white men been treated as the most special boys without any skill on their part to back that up.
          At least in some cases the shine wore off and they were fired or strongly encouraged to find something else. For the sake of my health I try not to think about how much more money they made until they were gone.

    3. Hrodvitnir*

      Holy crap. That story gave me heartburn. I really hope you have an employer that respects you now!

  39. College Career Counselor*

    Longer comment got eaten. The TLDR version is that my replacement got hired 2 hours before I left on my last day, then emailed me incessantly for a year asking for assistance, never getting the hang of the job. For *her* replacement*, they asked if I would come do some training. So I proposed a consulting gig, which they accepted. That’s the way to do it.

    *I also told the new hire (one of my former advisees), that working with students was the best part of the job, which was something that everyone she’d interacted with over the last month said was the worst aspect and objectively awful. Former new hire has been a teacher for 20 years and is now principal of a school, so I guess she actually likes working with students.

  40. Lou's Girl*

    Left a toxic job over 3 years ago. I just received a call (on my personal cell) and an email (my personal email) from 2 different employees of that company. I called/ emailed them back to let them know that I hadn’t worked there in over 3 years. They both thanked me for reaching out, that I was the only one who ever returned calls. They had both been trying to get a hold of HR regarding paychecks, taxes, etc., but no one would ever respond back to them. This wasn’t the first time, I’ve received many calls/ emails from employees at that company in the last 3 years. I feel bad for them, but there’s literally nothing I can do.
    I did ask how they got my personal info, apparently it is listed online for that company on some random site when googled. How can I get it scrubbed?

    1. Wolf*

      Depends on your local law – many countries have some “improper use of personal data” law, so you can make a complaint and refer to that. Then they’re obliged to remove it.

  41. Panicked*

    I worked for Child Protection years ago and moved out of the area. In preparation to turn my cases over to another person, I made sure the case files were up to date, wrote summaries, and tried to get the new worker to meet with me so I could go over finer details. They refused. I turned everything over to my supervisor so at least someone would know what was going on. (I was not going to let those kids down; they didn’t deserve an uninformed new worker!)

    Cut to a few weeks later when the new worker called me BEGGING me to return and testify in court for her. Apparently, she got a verbal thrashing from the judge and several attorneys when she knew nothing and couldn’t provide any information on the cases from before her time. I told her that I would A) not be coming back to save her from the judge and B) She needed to speak with the supervisor who actually attended the handover meetings. She hung up on me and ended up washing out of the job entirely a few weeks later.

    2. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain*

      Side question… could the attorneys or even judge subpoena you since you would be the first-hand source for the information they were asking? I know you left files/notes but if they were seeking testimony, they wouldn’t rely on notes…right? This feels like a special circumstance that wouldn’t follow normal “leaving a job” standards.

  42. Girasol*

    After a downsizing that was posed as “early retirement” to some of us long-term employees, I had enough time to document everything I could think of that anyone might ever want to know. I moved on and no one called about anything. Until about six years later when I got a desperate-sounding email: “Do you know the password to this file?” This wasn’t something from my last position with my old company but two promotions back, more than ten years before. I didn’t even remember why I had ever made that file. I felt bad turning them down though.

  43. Chirpy*

    Yup, I was asked to *come back* and do a task only I knew how to do (and which I had pointed this out several times) the week after I was fired “because they didn’t need my position”.

    I did the task (and got to work from home for a week writing up documentation) because it involved kids/visitors, and because was in my 20s and pretty traumatized/ had no idea what to do after suddenly losing my first “good” job. I should have demanded double pay as a “contractor” though, as literally no one else could do this task, I was the only one with a degree in the subject and had developed the entire program – which was a huge parte of our public facing mission…

  44. Knittercubed*

    I left a 10 year job fifteen years ago when the position was eliminated from state government. I was a licensed policy and public education subject matter expert. I was the only one who covered the material and the press questions when issues arose.

    I kept getting calls related to the subject matter for 10 years. I had to alter my home answering machine to indicate I could not help with this subject matter. When I left I had gone up the chain of command asking what to do with the materials I had created. I had been told to delete them. I made a copy for my personal records and deleted them.

    5 years later I get a call from the manager who orchestrated the elimination of my job. He wanted to know where my speech notes were. I forwarded him back his own e-mail telling me to delete everything. He was then fired.

  45. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain*

    Three years into my first “real” job out of college, a new manager decided to hire a man to take my spot on first shift because he didn’t think I should have been hired on first shift right out of school (this was a business that ran 24/6). I wasn’t performing poorly at all and there was never a graphic designer on any other shift except first, ever. In a department meeting without any warning to me, he announced that I was moving to third shift on X date (I think it was about 2 weeks in advance). Third shift was 12:00 – 8:00 am.

    I was young, had moved back in with my parents after college for a bit, felt confident that I could find another job quickly, and didn’t have many bills to pay, so I announced in return that my last day was the day before X. He didn’t seem surprised or upset so I assume that was his plan.

    I had been in the process of creating some marketing brochures for the business at the time, so I made sure the files were saved on the computer… just several folders deep on the HD and named something generic like “project” and left a printed proof on the desk. I let the handful of calls go to VM and responded to only one… after business hours on their VM…”The files are on my old computer.”

  46. Overit*

    After a long andnstressful period when my boss (pastor) went from wonderful to toxic, I handed in my notice. Shortly thereafter, I was fired by boss in a publicly humiliating way designed (he admitted to this) to ruin my reputation and relationahips with everyone in the church.
    I subsequently received a certified letter telling me that they were withholding my last paycheck for 2 months to ensure I would answer any questions they had for me. The accountant informed them that was illegal.
    About 3 months later, I started to get increasingly frantic communications feom them about their domain name, the license for which had expited. Funny story. I personally owned the domain name bec TPTB refused to use the church’s credit card for the purchase and I had used my own cc. They hounded me and even called me at my new job. At which point, my new boss told them to pound sand. They ended up having to get a new domain name.

    1. Dinwar*

      Only tangentially related, but: I remember once talking to a guy that once ran IT for an adult website (he was in a completely different job when we met). We were discussing site security, by which I mean I said something stupid about viruses and the like, and he told me (I later found corroborating evidence) that church websites tend to be more prone to that sort of thing than the big names in adult websites. Adult websites have IT budgets and real IT departments and understand that getting a reputation for being a haven for viruses is a surefire way to get shut down. Churches, on the other hand, tend to operate on shoestring budgets, with people volunteering time, who often don’t really understand cybersecurity, and since the website is only tangential to the real function of a church cybersecurity hasn’t historically been a major concern for them.

      No clue if it’s still true or not, but this story seems to support what the guy said!

      1. Synaptically Unique*

        Absolutely. Most people would be shocked if they knew how many technology enhancements we use daily were developed by the adult entertainment industry.

        1. allathian*

          I wouldn’t be shocked because there’s so much money in adult entertainment that it only makes sense they’d invest in cybersecurity.

    2. Put the Blame on Edamame*

      This is so satisfying to read but I’m sorry you were treated so shabbily.

  47. NonprofitNightmares*

    I worked for a medium-sized non-profit and gave two-weeks’ notice, which resulted in my last day being in early December. I wrote a guidebook for all the things I was responsible for, left a list of passwords, and (too) politely told them I’d be happy to answer minimal questions upon my departure. The COO kept texting me fairly frequently and just under 3 weeks after I left that job, over Christmas weekend, the COO texted me asking for a password that was definitely on the list. I lost it. I very directly told her that this totally crossed the line, I don’t work for her, and it was wildly inappropriate for her to even text me over the weekend in the first place, regardless of the holiday. I then blocked her number and never heard from her again.

  48. Rory*

    Many years ago, I worked for a company where I ended up covering more and more tasks without any increase in pay and with a boss who was convinced he was the most amazing person to ever exist and we should all be so thankful to be in his presence. He was shocked when I gave notice. He was also convinced that they didn’t need to rehire my position and could just divide my tasks among the other, overworked coworkers. Most of whom were also job hunting.

    For the first three months after I left, I was getting non stop questions. I only answered ones that could be explained in 30 seconds and refused to pick up calls from the old manager. I also declined to do any work as a contractor. The old manager ended up using someone else’s phone to call me and then tried to guilt trip me for failing the company. I only didn’t hang up on him for so long because I was that shocked. Oh, and HR called me six weeks after I gave notice to ask where I was and that they were getting ready to proceed with firing me if I didn’t start showing up to the office.

    The manager was let go 9 months later, possibly for related reasons, possibly not.

    But over a year later, I get a call from a vendor politely asking me to assist a client having problems with a software. I very politely explained that I hadn’t worked for the company in over a year and even when I did, this should not have been my job. The vendor was shocked into silence, because apparently my name and personal number had been updated as the contact for the account. I was the only contact for the account. The vendor removed my information per my request, which did result in the company getting locked out. They didn’t notice for another several months.

    Three years after that, I found out that the company was finally offering 401K accounts to employees when they created an account for me with the same company that I already had an account with from my actual employer of 4 years.

    1. Bird names*

      I may have gotten a bit lost with the last paragraph:
      Did your previous employer try to get their employees to add you to their client accounts with a 401K as incentive?

      1. Rory*

        It was in fact a mess.

        Awful job never removed me from employee lists, so when they finally started offering 401K plans, they created one for me as well. Except I had already been with a new company for 4 years, and by coincidence both companies used the same service to manage 401K plans.

        1. Bird names*

          Thanks for the explanation! Wow, that is indeed an impressive level of mismanagement. I’m very glad that they are very much a former employer.

  49. Forrest Rhodes*

    I was fired from a small company, ~30 people, because another employee (OE) wanted my job and thought, “Forrest is so stupid that if she can do it, it must be easy!” OE invented some pretty nasty accusations, which our 1-week-new office manager bought, and that Friday afternoon, hey, surprise! I was gone.

    The execs I worked for were as startled as I was when I told them I’d just been fired—they’d all shown nothing but appreciation for my work—but none of them spoke up. So I left.

    Three months later one of the execs phoned me. (I think the overlords chose him to make the call because he was close to my 30-ish age, single-het-M to my single-het-F, and attractive.)

    In a few short weeks OE had made a complete mess of the job—it was work that had to be completed in 24 hours for the business to keep functioning—and nobody knew what to do, and would I please come back at a much higher pay rate to rescue them?

    I’d really enjoyed that job, but had no reluctance in telling the exec that no, I would not be returning in any capacity, “because you guys all knew my work, you’d all continuously given me nothing but compliments about it, you saw what was happening to me, and none of you bothered to back me up. Do you honestly think I’m now going to back you up?” He had no response.

    Hated losing that job, but in retrospect, it was one of the more satisfying breakups I’ve ever had.

      1. Forrest Rhodes*

        Thanks, BellyButton. It’s probably the only time in my life I’ve ever come up with the right response at the right time. I must’ve been in some kind of deranged state … but I’ll take it!

  50. Name (Required)*

    I used to work with a guy that wanted me to call a coworker the afternoon after she was laid off to ask her how to do something. I absolutely refused – it is a complete asshole move and I wasn’t going to do it.

    He did it himself and yes, he was – and I’m sure still is – an asshole.

  51. Generic Name*

    I left my job about 9 months ago, and I’m still getting calls from clients asking why I haven’t responded to their email. It’s somewhat amusing to tell them that I moved on months ago and they should reach out to someone else. Their policy is that departing employee’s inboxes seem to never get deactivated, and a busy upper manager apparently looks through all the departed employee’s inboxes periodically for anything “important”. Clearly they miss emails. The last call I got was from a client perplexed why the company wasn’t getting back to them about a signed contract. It’s so weird to me that they don’t just shut off an employee’s email immediately so that anyone who emails that address gets a message about a nonexistent address immediately rather than letting their emails languish.

  52. Part-time Poet*

    I resigned from a property management position, (homeowner’s and condo associations). It was a local company, privately owned and extremely toxic along with way too much work and very low pay. I routinely got evening and weekend calls with emergencies. I never felt like I had any down time whatsoever. They subscribed to the “we are family” b.s. Gag! I didn’t have another job lined up but had been job-hunting because it was just so, so bad. As was typical, they didn’t bother to send out an email to the properties I managed to let them know a new person would be taking my place. I have been gone over a year and I still get calls from homeowners asking me to solve problems for them because they can’t get any response from the company. If I get a call from someone I like, I will give them the number to the front desk. If not, I tell them to look it up because I can’t remember anymore because it has been over a year. One entitled person who owned a short-term rental at one of my former properties, had the gall, after I told her I didn’t work there anymore to ask if I could refer her to a management company for her rental. I told her I didn’t remember any companies because it had been so long, (I lied), and then she asked me for the phone number to the office and I lied again and told her I didn’t know and that she could look both things up on Google. I recently got a call from an elderly woman I did like and so I chose to help her and told her so. I also get calls from the contractors I used to work with. I can only give them the office number.

    I was so nervous about resigning, but I felt so happy and relieved after I did. I totally freaked them out as it was completely unexpected. I had three months off to recuperate and found a job that is perfectly suited to my education and experience, (which the former job was not), in a very nice organization with kind, caring people and support. Much more pay, better benefits and no weekends and evenings, unless I volunteer to help at an event.

  53. Might Be Spam*

    In my old mainframe days, there was a major database format change debacle. Four months of 80 hour weeks and when it was put into actual production, it absolutely did not do what the vendor promised us that it would absolutely be able to do.
    As part of the technical staff, and having absolutely no decision making power, I was part of the discussion with the vendor when they promised what it could do and I was very clear about our needs. I am very literal and there was no ambiguity. There was talk of a lawsuit. This led to our IT department being outsourced and disbanded. I was able to start a new job before the disbanding was completed.
    When various vendors were picking up peripherals attached to the mainframe, they just disconnected them without first shutting down the mainframe. This caused major panic because suddenly there were error messages and looping and freezing going on.
    The computer operators tracked me down at my new job for help. There was nothing I could do over the phone and the only other person who could have helped also had a new job. Turning it off and back on didn’t work, because there was a two page list of commands for the shutdown and startup processes, that depended on the peripherals actually being attached. I could have figured it out in person, but since I wasn’t going to get paid, I passed.

  54. AnonyNurse*

    I worked a state job where my role was the only one to do certain life-critical tasks routinely. I had good contingency plans for when I was on vacation. Extensive documentation in a “what to do if” designed to be ctrl-F searchable for all kinds of scenarios. Etc. When I left, knowing my email and share drive would be preserved as was standard, I organized every important contact in ways that were easy to find. I contacted IT on my way out to emphasize the retention.

    My boss forgot to reply to the IT email verifying preserving all my stuff. The searchable docs I emailed to others (and myself) were preserved and yet no one wanted to use them, because they all panic when something is different. Ive been gone almost 5 years now. It has been maybe 6 months since the last question I fielded.

  55. Mouseketeer*

    I’ve been getting calls like this for several months. After being laid off back in September 2023, suddenly one of the other managers just HAS to talk to me about some client issue or team problem. I know he’s calling me at the request of the glass bowl director who was instrumental in me losing my job, as well as several other people. I am taking great satisfaction in having total professional amnesia when it comes to this particular previous employer.

    “Sorry, can’t help you!”

  56. POALTZ*

    I’m amazed at how agreeable people seem to be with this. If I got such a call the wall of expletives would make R. Lee Ermey blush.

  57. Aggretsuko*

    On a related note, I took great pains to bring back ALL the computer equipment–it was a lot and I brought an eyewitness–and now they are claiming I still have a power cord and to bring it back.

    (a) I do not have any extra cords lying about.
    (b) I now work out of town 8-5 and cannot come to bring it back.

    I’m legit afraid they are going to somehow prosecute me for this as some kind of last straw. I thought I was out, dammit.

    1. Wolf*

      Think about the time they spend on hunting down that cable – the wages wasted here must be so much higher than the cost of a cable! That’s such a petty thing to do.

    2. EvilQueenRegina*

      That, or contact your husband, father in law and all their clients, as per that previous letter?

  58. Paralegal Part Deux*

    I left my toxic job almost 1.5 years ago, and it was a ptsd inducing departure. I just got put on medication for it due to the attorneys I worked for being so out of touch with how to get me to stay. If compliments didn’t work, let’s try threats! Anyway, during my notice period, I left a manual of things I did and left it with the firm manager for the next person that was to take my place. Funny thing. They decided to not hire anyone for my role and put the office manager in my place and train her to do my job as a paralegal as well. A year and a half in, I am still getting calls on how to do stuff, and I keep directing them to the manual.

  59. Wolf*

    It was a job in academia. They were building a new lab, so we had to store samples (like rocks, so nothing dangerous) in the office space. The database was also a work-in-progress, so we had a huge excel file tracking where all samples were.

    Two years(!) after I left that job, someone I never met emailed me. “Hey, can you help me find this set of soil samples, the Excel file says they’re in Wolf’s office?”

    Reader, I hadn’t even had an office. I had been hot-desking. And the samples he asked about were not anything I ever worked with.

    I sure hope he found them, because I couldn’t help him. And I hope they finally set up a proper database.

    1. alle*

      I’m in academia too. This reminds me that I still have a paper under revision from my precious lab that I left 2.5 years ago.

  60. Blue Pen*

    I left my old (internal) job months ago, and I’m still receiving emails from there I shouldn’t. Nothing I would consider confidential or sensitive information, but they’re around updates or matters people outside the org don’t need to know about. I’ve requested multiple times to be removed, too, and yet they still trickle in.

    1. EvilQueenRegina*

      Something like that happened to my friend, only some of hers were confidential information. She’d been let go from one team, later on started working in a different department, IT reactivated her old account and her address had never been taken off Old Team’s distribution list. I know she kept going back to Old Manager about getting removed.

  61. Teacher Ready for Break*

    I’m leaving a school after 17 years. I was the dept head, unofficial IT fixit person, the only one who could reprogram the PA system after storms, and bunch of other things that were definitely Not My Job.

    I decided to leave two months ago. Terrible upper management, extra work, and a principal that straight up ignores her dept heads and teachers were the reasons. I was very open about the fact that I was leaving; I wasn’t going to pull a Summer Surprise like some teachers will do. A month ago, I sent the principal an email asking if she wanted me to show her or someone how to do All of the Things that are Not My Job. She did not reply.

    Yesterday, with two days left, she calls me in a panic asking me to write down everything because the PA was down again and obviously I had fixed it, again.

    I told her I did not have time to “write down” 17 years of industrial knowledge but I’d be glad to give some crash courses in between exam periods. She said no, it needed to be before or after school (off contract time).

    Nope. Figure it out yourself. I’m out. And, I’m blocking your number.

  62. Nica*

    Just out of college, I worked for a dumpster fire of a company with a woman who had been there long enough to basically have Stockholm Syndrome. Anyway, I lasted about nine months and then found another position and never looked back. My former co-worker “Penny” asked for my home and work numbers (this was before cell phones were widespread). I figured it was because she wanted to stay in touch as friends, so I gave it to her.

    NOPE – she called me no fewer than TEN times at my first three days at work asking questions about my various projects (though I had left thorough notes in the wake of my departure). Of course, I wasn’t taking her calls because I was in training and not in my office. I’d give her a call at the end of the day each day to help her. At the end of the third day, I said, “Penny, I’m no longer employed at [company] and I need to concentrate on my new job. I left extensive notes for you and you should be able to figure things out on your own. Please stop calling me.” She apologized, explained she was “stressed” by my leaving and promised not to call again.

    Yeah, phone started ringing at 9:30am the next morning. We had caller ID on our phone system so I knew it was her. I was DONE. I took a look at the manual for our desktop phones and realized we could block specific numbers, so that’s exactly what I did with my former employer’s number. I never heard from Penny again. THANK GOD!

  63. Juicebox Hero*

    This is going to be me getting panicked phone calls someday. I’m almost 16 years into a job that requires meticulous attention to detail, mental flexibility, and the hide of a walrus because you work with the public. Factor in abstruse reporting, three sets of auditors who will call you out for a missed comma, and a vast number of things that can and do go wrong – for as long as I’ve been here, each year throws new curveballs at me. I’ve got a headful of institutional knowledge and I think I know everyone in town. I’m basically untouchable because no one else wants this job XD

    I’ve documented all my regular processes and reporting, as well as the more common kind of situations, but there’s no way to account for everything. So, yes, I see phone calls in my future.

  64. RagingADHD*

    I am still getting texts from the Shipt account at my former workplace telling me that my personal shopper is almost done with my order for kitchen supplies.

    I have told my predecessor, replied to the texts, even given the shopper the new person’s cell number. Blocking the incoming number reduces the quantity, but sometimes it shows up under the individual shopper’s number, so it’s like playing wack a mole.

  65. Christine*

    My late mil was a high level computer security expert back when that was a newish concept. When her company was bought out, she was laid off – at age 79.
    A short time later, the new company begged her to return, for significantly more money, as they found it required three people to cover her tasks. She was done, however. Pity.

  66. Yellow*

    I left Old Job 8+ years ago and recently got an email asking if I remembered the password to my old voicemail. And since I was an admin there, it wasn’t even my personal email. It was the general mailbox for the company. Safe to say I did not remember the password. Although I was happy to hear from my old Office Manager. He was one of the better parts of that job.

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