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[quote=Anonymous]My 24 year old cousin is working her first job at a publishing company, except...she was fired last month.  I'm working overseas, and she only told me over the weekend over Facetime: she said she was in shock, and too ashamed and scared to tell me earlier.  I have been a maternal/big sister figure to my cousin because her mom, my aunt, left the family ten years ago, and I feel so bad that she has been fretting about this alone.  Anyway, apparently her supervisor told her that she was being let go, and my cousin was (understandably) upset.  She says that she had great performance reviews, and that the only thing she can think of that has been going wrong is that she doesn't get along with a pair of older colleagues who she feels were bullying her, but that she had simply distanced herself from them and remained cool and polite; one of those women is very close with the supervisor (she had discussed the behavior of the two women with me multiple times over the past year, and it seemed so immature; I never imagined that it was this serious?).  When my cousin asked her supervisor why she was being let go, he told her that "sometimes a face doesn't fit", and she asked him what this meant, and why her performance reviews were so good if things weren't working out.  She said she was crying really hard and asked to go home early, and the supervisor agreed to this, but he told her that Friday would be her last day (I think it was a Monday when he told her about being let go, but not sure).  The next day (not Friday), she was asked to a meeting again, and there was a lawyer there, as well as her supervisor: they wanted her to leave that day instead of the Friday that had been decided, and--I don't understand this part at all--they wanted her to sign a contract agreeing not to speak of the employer or situation, except to immediate family, or to take any kind of legal action, and also specifying that she would be paid for another two months even though she wasn't working there anymore.  I had her scan the document and email it to me, and I've never heard of anything like this (but haven't been fired, so maybe this is standard in some industries?).  My cousin asked her supervisor again why she was being let go and--this part enrages me--he told her, in front of the lawyer, "I don't want to talk about it", even though she kept pressing him.  And she signed the contract and left.

The whole scenario seems so strange to me.  She really is a very responsible young women.  She has always been a responsible student and a hard worker, and has loved this job.  I don't think she's lying to me about not knowing why she was fired: she was crying really hard, and saying that she wished she hadn't signed the contract, but she has student loans and was afraid of losing her paycheck and apartment, and really needed the two months salary (does this all affect her chance at unemployment?).  And I don't know what to do.  I'm thinking of flying her here for a week to relax and calm down, but I can't help but think that this whole situation sounds as if there is something wrong, and that she could/should do something about it.  I wish she hadn't signed that document...but if they were going to present her with such a thing at all, why didn't they do it on the day they told her they were going to let her go?  Isn't it standard to lay someone off and have them leave the same day you tell them?

Any advice would be much appreciated.[/quote]

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