Opinions on April Fool's Day tend to vary pretty wildly. Some love it, thinking of it as a light-hearted day full of silly goofs to spread joy. Others despise it, as it leaves them on edge and unable to trust anyone.
To me, it all depends on the jokes being made. For example, the 'joke' that sets off this story? Terrible. An employee walked into work on April Fool's Day only to be told they were 'fired', so they played along, leaving their boss infuriated.
They took that firing to heart. They spent their morning shutting down their station, packing up their things, even destroying the digital copy of their client list, of which theirs was the largest in the branch.
He asked where they were, to which they replied, "You fired me. Why the hell would I be at work?"
Turns out, the firing was meant to be an April Fool's day joke. When the boss explained this, the employee replied, "No. You clearly said I am fired. I'll be taking unemployment for a few months and filing a complaint with HR."
As for why the employee reacted so strongly to an April Fool's day joke? They wrote, "It's not [expletive] funny, and I'm taking a vacation/riding the wrongful termination train."
They went on to receive 72 text messages and 13 voice mails from their boss. They also heard that he got put on leave as that night, he had yelled at a bunch of their coworkers, who subsequentially walked out.
Not just HR, actually, but a few other team leads as well as a lawyer regarding what happened and how to move forward. In the end, the boss lost his position. Apparently, this wasn't his first offense, and he had a history of issues with this being the final straw.
They were offered another position in a different team with a substantial raise and increase in vacation time, which they decided to use immediately to take that break they'd been wanting.
HR seemed desperate to hold on to as many people as they could after all of this, which seems to have worked as the author didn't mention anyone permanently quitting.
All in all, it worked out for nearly everyone in the end save for the boss himself, but let's be honest, he kinda had this coming.
There were many who came to say that jokes of any kind regarding someone being fired were not okay. On that basis alone, people would have agreed with him being terminated, but hearing he had a rocky history sealed that deal entirely.
As the top comment wrote, "Lies, especially related to finance and health, aren’t jokes, they’re just mean."
