I called the HR firm again and asked whether they could tell me the exact date those performance discussions were submitted. She said all four dates came from a document my manager uploaded in February. My father was still alive in February, and two of the supposed discussions were dated after his death. I checked my diary and found something even stranger: on one of those dates, I was at my father’s funeral, and on the other, I was driving home from it. I had the funeral program, travel receipts, and approved leave request to prove it. Then the HR representative quietly told me the company had already been preparing my termination before those “discussions” ever happened.
I requested the original records instead of copies, including the metadata and the emails attached to them. The four performance notes had been created on the same afternoon in February, but three were supposedly documenting conversations that hadn’t happened yet. My manager had written them in advance and later changed the dates to make them appear genuine. One email instructed HR to “build sufficient documentation” before my position was eliminated. I had worked there for thirty-one years and had never received a written warning before that packet appeared. My attorney said the dates weren’t just suspicious—they were evidence that the company had manufactured a performance history.
The company offered me a settlement before my attorney could file a formal complaint. I refused until they agreed to remove every false note from my personnel file and correct the official reason for my termination. They eventually admitted the records had been improperly created and paid me additional severance. My manager resigned shortly afterward, and HR told me they were reviewing similar files for other older employees. I still keep the diary I started in 1994, although now I understand why it mattered so much. They thought they could rewrite thirty-one years of my work in four paragraphs, but they forgot I had been writing down my life long before they started writing lies about it.
