I haven't seen the series, but I have watched the movie "The Office" a couple of times. I was quite amused by the employee who had been fired but still showed up for work every day. I have some real life experience with that.
At my last real job, at a private college that taught automotive mechanics, I started out in accounts payable which, unhappily for me, also included being in charge of personnel, which I did not have an aptitude for. Later, being the controller and in charge of financial aid was added to my responsibilities, but I still couldn't get the Director or owner to ever agree to turn personnel over to someone else. So, I signed up new employees, kept track of who was on the insurance plan and how much to charge each payroll, etc. etc. I was the one who handled all the payroll for 40+ employees. I was also the one who did Exit Interviews, and so I sometimes had crying, terminated employees in my office, and sometimes ones who appeared to be silently smouldering in anger.
Because most employment law in Colorado was very pro-employee, and therefore lawsuits from a departing employee -- even when they resigned of there own free will -- were common, our Director got some legal advice about doing "layoffs due to reorganization" of a department. So, when he wanted to get rid of someone, rather than fire them, he would lay off all the employees in that office, due to "reorganization of the department", and then hire back all but the one he wanted to get rid of. In other words, where there were previously four positions in that department, after the "reorganization" there were now only three, and the four terminated employee were invited to apply for those three positions. Of course, the Director already knew which three he was going to hire back.
So, during one of these reorganizations, with the four or five people in one department all being laid off, my friend Peggy was crying in my office as we went through her Exit Interview. I reminded her that the Director was taking applications for the new positions that would be opening under the new "reorganized" department that was replacing the old one. So, she showed up the next day, and sat in line while the Director called each one of them in for an interview. She wasn't re-hired.
She showed up the next day for work, anyay. I remember me and her immediate supervisor, who was also a friend of mine, chuckling about it, and admiring Peggy's gumption. So, she continued to show up and do the same job she'd done before. When it came time to process payroll, I asked the Director, "So, Peggy gets a paycheck, right? Because she's been working, like she never left." He sort of grinned sheepishly, like he'd been "had", and agreed that she had to get a paycheck.
So, while the Exit Interview remained in Peggy's file, she actually never missed a paycheck. Simply because she decided to show up, even though she'd been told not to. And that ended the Director's attempts to bypass firing people by doing convoluted "layoffs due to reorganization".
Comments