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Comment by johngalt | Hacker News Reader

I wouldn't be surprised if that "someone" was the CEO or someone working on the CEO's behalf. What else could even make sense?

Even if some coworker had a grudge or a bone to pick with OP, they had to know that OP would return eventually and any CEO worth his salt would demand answers immediately. Specially considering the legal risks exposed here for firing someone on FMLA qualifying leave (assuming US).

Weigh that against a CEO who accepted a resignation and re-hired for the position based on a single email alone without so much as a follow up call. When OP returns seems lackadaisical about investigating. Seems fishy to me.

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The whole thing smells like fiction, and this is the very first post from a days-old Stack Exchange account.

> It could’ve been a colleague because I know there is a backdoor way to send emails using someone else’s account via some sort of a SQL database thing. We used to do it as jokes but it was never used for something like this

That in particular is setting off my troll radar.

Me too. I think it's made up. Resignation over email? SQL back door email that everyone knows about? Sure.

It's workplace.stackexchange.com, so they aren't necessarily computer literate. It's entirely possible there is a script somewhere the sets the from field, possibly user configurable. A lot of ticket management tools will do something like this, making a change to a task in the software will send out an email from you.

I mean, the "first post" thing is hardly a red flag--it could be a throwaway, or just the first time this person had felt the need to ask an SE question.

It's just not a tech guy who knows the details well?

Anyone can send email from anyone, it's how the email protocol works, that bit is not surprising.

Methods to send email purporting to be from another users account are well known.

(Admittedly, the "SQL" part seems fishy)

> Weigh that against a CEO who accepted a resignation and re-hired for the position based on a single email alone without so much as a follow up call.

That is the part that smells to me too. I don't know any CEO, manager, or person otherwise responsible for employees, that would take a single resignation email as the one and only thing to start the paperwork and rehire a replacement.

The cynic in me, say that the CEO was unhappy with performance and/or the leave. Used his posistion to gain control and send the mail to get the ball rolling.

If it wasn't him, I would fully expect him to launch an investigations right then and there when it became apperant that someone spoofed an email. IT should have all the logs necessary to figure out where the email was send from.

Not only that at most exit interviews or shortly after a company will normally request a signed statement that the company doesn't owe the former employee any further compensation (pay, unpaid holiday leave, etc).

Completely agreed. The fact that the CEO didn't call to talk to him is fishy as hell. Even to say "I'm really sorry about your mother and I'm sorry this didn't work out."

This really seems like the CEO committing fraud to free himself of a problem he felt he had no other way to solve.

I don't know how I'd fight this or if it'd be worth it. You can sue anybody for anything, of course. But if the CEO is willing to commit fraud to this extent - maybe it's best to cut the loss?

It probably is, but he can at least see some money from it. The punitive aspect of such a win is also very important.

This is exactly what I thought when reading his description of the story.

- Someone acting maliciously would have to account for the possibility of the CEO simply picking up the phone and dialing the OP to check in.

- OP specifically mentions the CEO "told/showed me a resignation email". The OP specifically mentioning it was told as well as shown felt like a message from his subconscious mind that the CEO is guilty and had rehearsed how to prove his innocence.

- The CEO gave a definitive statement that another person was already in his position, rather than treat it as a serious issue of fraud and a hostile work environment.

- The OP professing "I don’t care that much about the job" makes me imagine a scenario where the CEO gets to let an unmotivated employee go (or at least one who could be replaced within ~2 months) and keep 6 months of paid leave.

Be that as it may, the OP never mentioned where he is working from. As you probably already know, labor laws and business culture differ depending on where you live.

For instance, I live and work in Saudi Arabia right now, and there is a lot of red tape around firing Saudis in the workplace--even wages are partly determined by your country of origin.

It is the only explanation because if it was an honest mistake/impersonation, someone would have called him. HR. Even security to know where to send some box or about some device he failed to return.

The fishiness of neglecting to begin an investigation certainly casts this in a light that suggests the CEO as a suspect.

But... what's the motive? Just to be in a different legal position than firing this person (ie, avoid paying unemployment or whatever)?

> The fact is, I don’t care that much about the job. It was the fact that I had long service leave in about 6 months (I was actually coming in to negotiate whether I could take the leave early) and quitting meant I wouldn’t be paid out for it.

Forging his resignation probably saved a lot of money for the company...

Got it - I missed that on first read.

Crazy what people will do to just save a few bucks.

I had a situation once where a single (not very interesting) paragraph from a confidential document a client had "mistakenly" sent me was mysteriously leaked on a public forum. Said client then claimed I leaked that paragraph, and used that claim as part of their official legal justification as to why they didn't need to pay me.

Ask yourself who had the incentive to leak that paragraph... And it sure as hell made me wonder why I had been "accidentally" sent the document in the first place.

edit: Worth noting, that this was a situation where the amount of money involved wasn't quite high enough to make it worth suing over. So really, it was just a dumb thing to do that didn't make any real difference - I wasn't going to realistically be able to get the money anyway. My best guess is this wasn't an "official" thing the client did, but rather a dumb spiteful mistake made by an individual at the company without the permission of anyone else, and who wasn't thinking about the situation objectively.

I thought that the company still has to pay for the leaves not taken.

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