Laid off employee was forced to train his own replacement for months. But his revenge plan made the company regret their decision instantly

Being told that your job is ending is already a difficult situation for any employee. Being asked to spend the next few weeks training the person who will take your job makes it even more uncomfortable. But one Reddit user's story about his former coworker in Japan took an unexpected turn after the employee took revenge from the company in his final days.

The story was shared on Reddit by a user discussing the problems that can come with long notice periods. The poster said that he understood why employees should receive advance warning before being dismissed, but the situation can become complicated when a company tells someone months ahead that they are being replaced.

Employee was asked to train his own replacement

According to the Reddit post, the employee was informed months before his layoff and was introduced to the new worker who would take over his position. He then spent weeks teaching the replacement how the job worked, including assignments, file locations, contacts and how to handle different problems.


The Reddit user described it simply: "Basically all the knowledge he got from working there."

Things reportedly changed during one of the employee's final days. The poster said he brought a USB drive to the office and copied a large amount of information from the company computer.

The situation was apparently made easier by poor IT security. The Reddit user said employees worked on shared computers and that there was little separation between ordinary staff and internal company documents.

"If you knew where the folder was, you could just directly access it," the poster wrote.

The employee allegedly later gave some of the documents to a competing company, possibly for money. The Reddit user stressed that they were not defending what happened, saying the employee's actions had their own legal and ethical problems.

Reddit users question the company's decision

The incident sparked a wider debate about what companies should do when dismissing employees. One commenter argued that the safest option is to cut off access immediately while still giving workers enough severance to find another job.

Another commenter summed up the frustration behind training replacements: "Of course, anyone asking you to train your replacement is saying 'We still need this work done, we just want it done cheaper'."

The original poster agreed, writing: "If you are fired but someone is going to replace you, it only means that your position is still needed but you are not, and on top of that making you train the replacement is doubling down."

Others shared similar experiences. One Reddit user recalled being given around six weeks to train an offshore replacement, while another said the replacement he trained spent most of the time applying for other jobs.

There were also darker examples in the discussion. One commenter claimed a fired branch manager spent an entire weekend shredding office and HR files after being told on Friday that he would be dismissed the following Monday.

The bigger issue was the company's lack of safeguards

The original poster said he believed notice periods were necessary because suddenly losing a job can leave someone without enough time to find another one. But companies also need to think about what access a departing employee should retain.

In this case, the combination of a long handover, knowledge of an upcoming dismissal and weak access controls reportedly created the opportunity for something the company later had to deal with.

The Reddit user ended with a warning that was fairly straightforward: "maybe don't act completely surprised when something goes wrong."

The account is based on a Reddit user's post and the claims about the employee, company and alleged transfer of documents have not been independently verified.