The fourth person I called started crying before I finished the question. She said she had never given negative feedback about me and had actually been asked to sign a statement saying I was “difficult to replace.” Then she told me the team had been called into a meeting two weeks earlier and instructed not to discuss it afterward. One manager had asked each person individually whether they believed I was “keeping up with the changing demands of the role.” She said everyone was confused because nobody had complained about my work. Then she whispered, “They weren’t asking us for feedback—they were trying to get us to give them some.”
I called the other eight people again, this time asking specifically about that meeting. Six of them confirmed it had happened, and none had provided the feedback mentioned in my termination packet. One employee had refused to participate entirely and still had the email requesting her comments. The email came from HR, but the instructions said the responses would be anonymous. My attorney requested the original submissions, and HR suddenly claimed they couldn’t locate them. Then one team member found a copy in her sent folder showing that every response had been attributed to the same anonymous form. The form contained several phrases that appeared word-for-word in my termination letter.
We demanded the full investigation file, and the company eventually admitted that the “team feedback” had been summarized by one manager rather than collected anonymously. That manager had been trying to move into my position for nearly a year. The company withdrew the cognitive-fitness language and offered me a settlement, but I refused to sign anything until the false feedback was removed from my personnel record. I stayed long enough to train the person who eventually took over my work, then left on my own terms. The fourth coworker who had cried on the phone later became my closest friend outside the office. They told me nine people had questioned whether I was capable of doing my job, but when I asked those nine people myself, not one of them had said it.
