Ex employer keeps contacting me

[northchesterforest]

I was made redundant in January after 5 years in a role. They asked me to leave the same day. It wasn't personal as a lot of others in the company got the same treatment. The thing is, for the last two weeks I've been getting emails from my old boss asking where certain files are. Most of them were saved on my personal work g drive, which they are saying they can no longer access.

I must admit I wasn't great at organising my files for other people but I always knew where to access them, and honestly I was great at my job and a lot of what you would need to know was stored in my head, from working in the role for so long. I feel like they are accusing me of withholding information but do they even have a leg to stand on? Should I start ignoring them? I'm politely responding for now and trying to help them find things but I don't have access to anything anymore so there is only so much I can do?

Why are you surprised she didn't copy them over before she left when she was asked to leave the day she was made redundant? When could she realistically have done that?

The people made redundant had to leave same day. People not having files organised was a risk the company took when they made that decision, this is on them not the OP. Offering to come back on consultancy rates to fix it seems a sensible way forward as it shows OP values her own time.

I find it really weird that they've contacted you at all. IT can always access stuff, to pretend they can't is nuts. I suspect the person who has contacted you has dropped the ball and is covering up their own incompetence instead of just contacting IT and getting access to your old files.

At work we all have our own folders and then each function has it's own way of keeping files in some sort of shared drive. There's no rule about where you have to save things, it's more departmental convention.

Anyone who thinks things are private in a work situation is deluded. The key thing is that usually no one has the time to track what someone is doing unless there are suspicions about poor work behaviour and they're looking for evidence. And there has to be given and take. Allowing employees to use work equipment, e.g. a laptop, for personal stuff such as surfing the web outside work hours is completely normal and what a reasonable employer does as payback for the work you do for them.

It’s their problem now, leave them to it. You don’t work for them anymore and they dismissed you without notice. I’m sure if they’d given you more time you would have moved files over.

I wouldn’t even rely to the emails, ignore them. What a shame their inappropriate requests to a non-employee ended up in the spam folder.

When she was made redundant and asked to leave that day? Come off it. Making sure files are accessible and project information is up-to-date are notice period tasks. If you make someone redundant and tell them not to work their notice, it’s not reasonable to expect to go back to them with questions!

Typical twats. Want to have their cake and eat it.

If they can’t manage to run things without getting you to help them, you were clearly not ‘redundant’. Tell them very clearly that as the company a) decided you weren’t necessary and b) made you leave the office that same day with no opportunity for a proper handover, that this stuff is very much not your problem and that you will absolutely not be answering any more calls about tiresome admin matters that they should have thought of before they got rid of you.

What they’re doing would be out of order even if you’d left of your own accord. It’s fucking outrageous when they made you redundant.

It was part of her job, but she is no longer in that job and therefore the time for fixing it has passed.

Correct but that's why we are saying check any enhanced package you signed as it may cover stuff like this

@northchesterforest do you have files that are truly personal and private to you, personally, on that G: drive?

If not, then perhaps the easiest way to be cooperative would be to authorise them in writing to have one f their staff reset your password, log in as you, and copy all of your files from your individual drive to a shared location that they can access.

If they are literally unable to do that then I genuinely don’t see how you could help them because it would mean they have lost IT access to their own company’s files (since everything on that individual drive still belongs to the company and is on the company’s drive).

And if, after doing that, they want your help going through those files and showing them what is what, you are happy to come in to help them on a day rate, and your day rate is X per day (make it a day rate not hourly so you don’t schlep to the office for a couple of hours), and X should probably be around double what you were getting paid per day if you divide your salary by about 200 (ie giving your daily salary full credit for holidays etc). That may sound high but for a one-off consulting gig it’s fair - not taking the piss at all - and it would still be a bargain for the company.

this is however a good point: if you got a good severance package, do read the fine print and make sure they have no right to claw it back. Although, I am not sure whether any such right would be enforceable or legal, so take whatever you may find with a grain of salt as well.

The company should have asked you to help whilst you were on garden leave. It's too late now and they shouldn't really be contacting you - there's no obligation for you to reply.

During garden leave.

But the employer should have been more on the ball and requested it then, rather than months later.

I was just going to say this, offer to help if you can but for a day rate.

Don't do it by the hour or else it won't be worth your while, I was made redundant years ago, and then, similarly, through no fault of my own my employer needed help to finalise some things.

I explained as I was no longer employed I would need payment, as I remember I charged £500 per day, did 3 days and invoiced them for my time.

Make sure you charge it up, because you will have to pay and declare tax on it yourself if that applies as it won't be PAYE, which is extra admin your end (don't think that applies if your total non PAYE income is less than £1000)

"I'm afraid I cant recall where [file they are asking for] is, as you are aware some files are saved [personal drive] but as I'm no longer accessing them daily its not something I keep track of anymore.

Due to the swift nature of my departure I was left with limited time to hand over, I have been reasonable in assisting with these queries but after nearly 3 months I don't feel its appropriate to continue."

Does that mean you didnt store files on a shared drive when you were supposed to? Which than means they keep going for files and they are not where they are ment to be, ie on that shared drive?

As pp said if you had more notice you could have moved them/ done a handover ( or destroyed them😆)

This is what it comes down to really. The business took a calculated risk when it made your redundant. Management had to decide which risk was worse - that of you trying to delete everything or make deliberate fuck-ups in revenge for being made redundant, or that of not being able to immediately access your files once you were no longer available. They chose the latter. If they’re now worried they made the wrong choice, that’s their problem.

I had a manager who actually did delete all his files before he left, because he was pissed off that they’d made him work his notice when he’d been hoping for three months of paid leave. IT retrieved the files with no problems, and the management he’d thought were devastated to see him go just thought he’d been a twat.

As your gardening leave is over and the redundancy has been paid you are under now obligation to now help them.

Their IT department will have access to the relevant drive so they can find what they are looking for.

They're somewhat taking the p*ss to make you redundant then ask for your help AFTER your contract has been terminated. If they ask for further help, then politely thank them for their interest in help, inform them that as a professional your hourly rate is £50/hour, so could they please let you know if they'd like to go ahead and hire you to help!

I'd just keep going back to them saying it's on my personal drive but I'm sure IT can access them and I don't work for you anymore.

Usually part of the point of garden leave is to immediately remove the employee's access to systems.

There is ALWAYS someone in the IT dept with a higher access/admin level to access your old directory. Unless of course IT have deleted it without archiving it (which should be a sackable offence)

This was one of the issues with the postmaster scandal.

This is not your problem.

IT probably can access it but it doesn't mean your manager can find what she's looking for.
I have full access to our SharePoint but often can't find things immediately.
They should have used your garden leave for handover (or given you a proper handover period, but they might have worried people would delete files, etc.).
It also probably wasn't the manager's decision to make you leave immediately, she's just having to deal with the repercussions of that decision.
As others said - check your redundancy agreement. If you aren't obliged to keep helping then don't.

How would a former employee even have access to the corporate intranet months later? Surely IT would have deactivated the profile by now, or at the very least OP's password would have timed out so IT might just as well go in themselves as get her to do it. Calling it her "personal" drive doesn't mean it actually belongs to her! I'm sure the day I leave my current employment, hopefully under happier circumstances, my ability to access stuff will be removed, as it should be.

or girl !

In a grown up company that would be no big deal - it's the processes that are important, not the people.

I'm guessing is they are using something like Google workspace or an O365 tenancy where there are communal shared drives, and then each employee has their own linked "private" drive in the cloud. Ideally with a properly setup sync profile so the employee isn't even aware of it.

When a user leaves their account is deleted. However there is a default step in account deletion where the system (a) warns you of permanent data loss and (b) asks if you want to assign any shared data to another user (usually the line manager). And then in Google workspace you get 28 days to undelete the account before it's final (been a while since I did it in O365).

So even without a bespoke leaver process, the technology protects you from idiocy to a certain degree. Why didn't they undelete the account before 28 days ?

Having lived the life I have, I have no sympathy for incompetent and stingy "business" people getting their fingers burnt in IT.

I'm getting a bit worried now. I'm being made redundant later this year and I don't want to be contacted by the company in the future! What happens if I change my mobile number or email address, do I have to let them know? I have no idea what I'll be asked to sign yet but at least I have an idea what to look out for