To feel mortified I was settled out of my job?

[SackedandDisgraced]

NC’d as I am legally prohibited from speaking to anyone about this IRL.

I have been in my role for 8 years. Last 4 years I was SLT in a very large company. It was a very public facing role so lots of presence on social media and tv. New CEO came onboard early 2024 and took an instant dislike to me. She made my life a literal hell. I pushed through it and dusted myself off so many times but it just wore me down and in the end I just couldn’t cope and ended up being signed off for 6 weeks.

The day I came back to work I was brought into a meeting with CEO and offered a protected conversation and a settlement. Basically said if I didn’t take the settlement I’d be placed on performance improvement (despite my performance being exemplary for 8 years) and made it clear she didn’t want me there.

my mental health was at an all time low when I was offered money to cut and run, which I took but now regret.

I had to clear my desk in the evening when nobody was around so never got to say goodbye but the rumours started circulating and people speculated I’d been sacked. I just feel so mortified. Business announced I’d left a week later with a pitiful thank you for my contribution. This was a public announcement because of what I do so it’s out there in the masses and I’ve been bombarded with questions and all I feel is complete shame.

can’t speak the truth to anyone IRL as I’m bound by the settlement but just feel so low. As if that wasn’t bad enough I am struggling to find another job that pays anywhere near what I was earning with the flexibility I had.

any words of wisdom?

You are feeling raw, but this goes on all the time, read the mn employment section. What about big cases, the post office scandal injustice of our time. Mn has great legal threads on the Maya Forstater case. And the Kathleen stock case.

Do you have good friends in RL? Tell them, get them to comfort you, a good cry and then dust yourself off. Be proactive, think of how to phrase it at next interview. Then go get it, a new job, as a revenge to those bastards!

My old company did this to a lot of people.

One of them got a job shortly after as a promotion at a rival company as she was genuinely super good at her job and nobody could understand why it had had happened.

It was well known that if you upset certain managers you'd be bullied out.

You are much better off getting out quickly in those circumstances as prolonged bullying can really do a number on your mental health.

Take a break.

Get some counselling or find someone to talk to about it.

It will be ok.

Yes, at the point of issuing a claim and up to 50 k….this will cost a lot more. There will be a lot more in this.

I think it's more common than people realise. It's happened to me & DH in the last year!

OP, you have no need to feel shame or embarrassment.

At a certain level and above it is like The Squid Game and you have to accept it isn’t personal.

I know someone who needed to accept a one third salary drop to be working, but because it was at a lower level they soon got that back.

My advice is to get back into work, get your confidence back and turn this into a learning rather than a failure.

Good Luck OP, it is going to get better.

You did what you needed to at the time to get through, you don't deserve to be judged for that especially by yourself. Sometimes all we can do is grab the lifeline and get out then go about fixing things. Try to remember this wasn't about your ability to do a good job and it doesn't reflect your capabilities. You can't win against bullying bosses unless they do something outrageous, you got out, that's a good thing. If this had happened to a friend how would you feel? Would you think they deserved to be judged for making a tough choice when they only had bad choices available to them? Would you think it reflected badly on them or on the bullying boss?

I had something similar, not a major company tho. I think you just need to take some time, which the settlement will allow, find a narrative and carry on. I am under an nda but I do tell people that the new ceo and I didn't see eye to eye. That's not unreasonable and no-one questions it. At this level, it happens.

It is horrible and I feel for you, but you will get through it. Good luck

Honestly OP this happens all the time at senior levels in large corporates when you get a regime change. And the more senior you are the higher the risk. Awful when it happens to you of course but not something you should take as
personally as it will will.

Lick your wounds, get your presentation of leaving together (great ideas above), onwards and upwards. Most of the people I’ve seen it happen to end up with a role as good or better than they had.

I’d bet that a lot of people have a good idea of what has really happened. You can tell when there are personal tensions.

I’ve been there (was ‘made redundant’ when the person who recruited me left and their replacement treated me really badly. I brought this up in may annual review and mysteriously was let go a couple of weeks later).

It’s too early for you to be on the interview train again. It’s a horrible shock and you need to lick your wounds for a bit.

When you do, prepare something bland to answer the ‘why did you leave your last job’ question and rehearse it until it rolls off the tongue without thinking.

Is your job suitable for interim and contract work? That’s a good way to build up your confidence again. Please don’t be ashamed. Something similar has happened to most people by now.

The point is you made a decision not to fight it and took the money and it seems signed away the right to appeal. It's hard but you need to move forward. You were treated badly but why waste mental energy dwelling on this. Look to the future.

It was a horrible experience but now you need to change your view of the whole car crash - for your sanity and in order to work again.

It wasn't you, it was her. It wasn't you, it was the crappy company. You did the job brilliantly before and will do one again elsewhere. They don't deserve you and you didn't deserve that treatment.

Right, your settlement is running out so time to stop licking your wounds, shake it all off and put yourself out there, knowing you're good at what you do.

Good luck 💐 👍

If it’s any consolation it’s highly likely that the CEO saw you as a threat to her job. They probably realised you were better than them and didn’t want other people to realise. On the plus side as long as you don’t let it dent your self esteem you are likely to find an even better paying job where you are appreciated more.

From a company where this happens regularly enough, trust me, people know exactly what has happened. They know you have been pushed out and probably feel very unhappy about it. We were always advised to let the person who has been let go do the contacting and not the other way around. Others may be shocked and waiting to see how you act. So reach out to some friends in work and be proactive about that yourself. I'd say the feedback you'll get from them will help restore your confidence.

You have not failed or done anything wrong OP.

It was completely the CEO's own issues that caused this.

Realistically you could not have stayed in a job with such a toxic management that was making you physically and mentally unwell.

A pay out was always going to be the best outcome.

This happened to my partner. New CEO, told ‘it’s not going to work’. Decades of excellent reputation and leaving under a dark cloud with the impression being he’d done something to warrant it. The injustice of it all is very hard to take. The not being able to speak out is very hard to take. He would have liked to go to an ET, but equally he wanted to work, and my understanding is that if you get a new job quickly, your likely pay out goes down, so all in all, you’re just protracting the trauma for reputational purposes only.

I really would get in touch with your colleagues though. I feel like there are ways of alluding to what has happened without breaking your agreement and giving details.

So difficult. Good luck to you.

This. If you were publicly good at your job, like you say you were, get onto recruitment agencies now.

Have been through similar and am only just starting to apply for new jobs after having a bit of time off to recover. It happens to a lot of people, and it's shit and demoralising. Just remember that you are better off out of it and you have a lot to offer. If you're asked why you left, say you were made redundant or you reached agreement for you to leave. You don't have to go into detail.

This is very common. People don't realise how common because settlement agreements contain NDAs.

As others have said, come up with a stock reason for leaving that is true but does not breach the NDA. Something like "after the takeover by X I realised the company was going to be moving in a direction that wasn't the right one for me at this time, so after eight years I felt it was time to look outside the company for new challenges. I am really interested in how firm Y is tackling [industry challenge]. Could you tell me more about that?"

OP, I'd be working my network very hard. Sounds like are v well known and connected from your first post. Lots of orgs have short term contracts/resource gaps that they haven't had the time to advertise. Set up loads of coffees, send LinkedIn messages and just tell people 'I've taken a breather, now looking for something new'. Short term contracts are low stakes and could give you a mental buffer from the horrible last role x

While I’m much more junior, I’m currently job searching after a ‘new broom sweeps clean’ restructure that swept away years of institutional memory of my successes. Similar to what is described in this thread. A new CEO. Key-higher ups move on either because they are passed over for roles or find that on an individual level the restructure is bad for their career. Eventually it is like Trigger’s broom in ‘Only Fools and Horses’. It might as well be a new organisation as you don’t recognise anyone from when you joined.

You are not disgraced.

And you aren't really sacked.

If they had reason to sack you - you wouldn't have been paid off.

You've been managed out.

Which is bullying - and not surprising your MH is in tatters.

But hold your head high and when asked in interviews why you left your last position just say it was time to explore other workplaces and roles.

I understand OP, I left my last job in the summer after unknowingly falling out of favour, they gave someone else my job while I was still in role, so I left. No pay off but they honoured bonus.

My advice to go on holiday, winter sun and find a new role, a better one, ideally with the competition. I got a better role, more money with lovely people that I worked with in the past.

I feel for you. I left my last job because the atmosphere was toxic and was treated with contempt and indifference when I did so. I start my new job today and haven't told anyone outside my family (and trusted friend from old job who did my reference, now also resigned)as I don't want anyone to spoil it for me. 20 people have left either at the same time or since I did and the number rises. Speaks volumes. They still haven't found my replacement! You will be OK and you are not alone feeling as you do. X

I'm so sorry you've been through this, op. Something similar happened to me, and it really kills your confidence in yourself. In my case, karma was the key. The culture of the organisation had become so bad that, with hindsight, I treated it as ending an abusive relationship. And I don't say that lightly. Since then, the CEO and his henchmen and women have actually been investigated for fraud offences. I got out at the right time, taking enough money with me to start again. I likewise found it hard to find another job. I became much more active on LinkedIn and was offered help by a former colleague to set myself up as a self employed contractor. My confidence is now improving day by day, my work life balance is better than ever.

Another former colleague of mine had some excellent advice in the months in between. She said that what helped her was finding a temporary job that was easy to do, and below her previous grade, but just got her back into work and rebuilding her confidence. Short term admin contracts are perfect this. As you gain confidence, your applications and interviews will improve.

Genuinely, you have to turn a deaf ear to all the gossip, hearsay and tosh and focus on yourself and the future. One day you will look back and realise you had a very lucky escape.

Same here. My boss' constant shifting of goal posts, persistent nit picking over everything I wrote, broke my confidence. I constantly felt wrong footed.

In the end I was told that if I didn't accept a new role in a location I didn't want to travel to (2 hour commute each way) then I was putting myself at risk of redundancy. I took the redundancy.

One positive I took from the experience was that my redundancy payment completely blew the payroll budget for the department. My boss hadn't checked how long I had been with the business (22 years) and how that would work out in terms of cost (large corporation with generous redundancy terms). I had the private joy of hearing my boss' boss getting very angry at him!

It did take me a while to recover.

Now it is all ancient history.