What kind of place was this? I have never seen such a thing.
The worst of seen in software specifically was a guy that had some visa requirements for permanent citizenship coming up and probably wasn't dealing with pressure well already, he had a mental breakdown and cat5 was being ripped out of the walls during the meeting.
The second is an older guy in tears because he'd been struggling with long term unemployment due to ageism (I can vouch for his code at least) before that gig.
If you're not in a region and industry with a lot of opportunity it's a much bigger deal and even reasonable people won't necessarily act rationally.
After it, they may worry want to pay next week’s groceries from.
I've never seen it happen myself. When an employee leaves us, the only thing I like to do is immediately suspend access to all the equipment. I tell them before I do it, and it isn't to deny them the ability to damage anything. It's to give us two weeks of opportunity to catch anything that they were responsible for which was sliding under the radar, so we can correct the process while they are still around to explain it.
And, by the way, “leaves angrily, and may steal or destroy company property“ isn’t the only, and sometimes not even a reason for getting people out of the office as soon as possible after firing them. Certainly during mass firings, it also is about morale for those who are allowed to stay.
It’s no fun hearing that, from now on, you’ll have to do with 20% less head count for the same amount of work, but it’s even less fun when there are people sitting around for a few weeks who say “it’s not my problem. I’m fired”.