Last year, I was fired by email.

No notice, nothing. They didn’t even revoke my email access. So I kept pretending I still worked there. Joined video meetings, occasionally showed up at the office, posted on LinkedIn. One day, the CEO messaged me, asking:

“Hey Reyan, who told you to lead the Jakarta project?”

I just stared at my screen. Jakarta project? That wasn’t even in my department. I was in ops. Whatever that project was, it had to be some kind of mix-up. But I wasn’t about to let a lifeline slip through my fingers.

So I typed back:
“Oh, I thought you assigned it. I was looped in by Arjun on Slack.”

That bought me time. He just replied with a thumbs up emoji and, “Let’s touch base Monday.” I had three days to figure out what the hell the Jakarta project even was.

That weekend, I combed through old Slack channels, documents, and project folders. Turns out, it was a cross-functional initiative between operations, expansion, and procurement. No one seemed to be fully owning it. It was a mess—scattered files, half-done spreadsheets, vague status updates from six different team leads.

So I did something I hadn’t done in months. I rolled up my sleeves and actually worked.

I compiled everything into a clean Notion dashboard. Created a task tracker. Assigned fake deadlines (that no one questioned). Then I emailed the team a link to the new dashboard and wrote, “Let’s sync Tuesday. Just cleaning up a bit for visibility.”

And people responded like I was their manager. Like nothing had happened.

Which made sense. Because in their world, nothing had happened. No one was told I’d been let go. Because legally, I hadn’t. Turns out, HR sent that email by mistake—meant for someone else entirely. But once they realized, instead of apologizing or walking it back, they ghosted me.

Literally ghosted. No one from HR ever responded. It was like they hoped I’d just… fade away quietly.

So instead, I made myself unavoidable.

I led the Jakarta project like it was mine. Weekly stand-ups. Status reports. Even late-night calls with the Singapore office. The team was thriving—way more than before.

A few months in, I got invited to the leadership offsite in Goa.

At that point, I figured somebody had to know the truth. But if they did, they weren’t acting like it.

So I packed my bag and went.

The offsite was at this resort by the sea. Palm trees, open bar, those little paper tags with your name and title. Mine still said “Senior Ops Manager.” I watched the CEO glance at it during check-in. He smiled like everything was normal.

Over mojitos that night, he leaned in and said, “Hey, I was skeptical about Jakarta. But you’ve really turned it around. Impressive stuff.”

I smiled, nodding like I belonged there. “Thanks. The team’s been great.”

And then he hit me with it.

“Reyan, have you thought about leading ops for the Asia region full-time? After Q4, we’ll need someone full-time in Singapore.”

I froze.

Because here’s the thing—I had been fired. I didn’t even have a salary anymore. My severance had stopped after the first month. I was living off savings, couch surfing, borrowing cash from my cousin without telling her why.

But now… now they were offering me a promotion?

I mumbled something vague like, “Would love to talk more after the offsite.” And then I didn’t sleep all night.

I had a decision to make.

Option one: Come clean. Explain everything. Risk legal trouble, a reputation hit, maybe worse.

Option two: Ride the wave. Hope no one double-checks.

I chose a third path.

I made myself indispensable.

Over the next two months, I delivered results like a man on fire. Optimized shipping times in Vietnam by 30%. Closed a long-stuck deal with a tricky customs vendor in Malaysia. Cut unnecessary inventory costs in Manila. I basically lived in airports.

And every time, I sent updates. Detailed, timestamped, results-heavy. My inbox turned into a stream of thank-yous from other departments.

By December, the CEO sent a calendar invite titled: “Next Steps – APAC Ops Lead.”

I walked into that call ready for anything.

But he didn’t bring up the weird firing. Didn’t even blink.

He just said, “Let’s make this official. We’ll revise your comp, get legal to draft a regional contract, move you to Singapore by March.”

And that’s when I told him.

“Well… there’s something I should probably explain first.”

I walked him through the whole thing. The email. HR ghosting me. My decision to just keep working because I wasn’t sure what else to do.

I expected him to explode.

But instead, he rubbed his face, then burst out laughing.

“You’re telling me… we accidentally fired you… and instead of suing us, you fixed our worst-performing region?”

I just nodded.

He shook his head. “Honestly? That’s the most loyal thing I’ve seen in ten years. I should be apologizing to you.”

He called Legal right then and there. Put me on speaker. Said, “Draft Reyan a new contract. Retroactive pay from the date of that HR mistake. Bonus him. Then fire whoever let this fall through the cracks.”

I was stunned.

By the end of the week, I had a signed regional director contract, a six-figure backpay transfer, and a new apartment waiting in Singapore.

But that’s not where the story ends.

Two months into my new role, HR finally got a new VP—Nayeli, a no-nonsense woman from a fintech startup in São Paulo. During our first meeting, she asked, “How many other HR disasters like yours do you think are buried here?”

That conversation sparked a full audit.

We uncovered dozens of mishandled terminations, unpaid contractors, and ignored harassment complaints that had gone nowhere. It was a mess.

So I offered to help. Not because it was my job, but because I knew what it felt like to be invisible in a system that should’ve protected you.

Together, we built new reporting structures, fixed contractor pay cycles, and reinstated three junior employees who’d been wrongly let go.

It turned into the proudest part of my career.

Now, a year later, I look back and still can’t believe it happened.

But here’s what I learned: Sometimes, the system spits you out by mistake. And when it does, you can either walk away quietly… or make enough noise doing good work that they have no choice but to bring you back in.

Not because you guilted them into it. But because you proved they were wrong to ever let you go.

So if you’re feeling overlooked, sidelined, discarded—don’t stop showing up. Even if the door feels closed, you never know which window might still be cracked open.

Thanks for reading.
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