Company fires longtime employee, only to hire a whole team to cover the job, fired employee refuses to help team figure it out: 'If they want my knowledge, they can hire me back'

It was at that moment that the company realized… they messed up.

The longer you stay at a certain workplace, the more responsibilities you accumulate. Your job rarely stays the same as the years go by, and even though you started with doing one thing, you might find yourself doing a whole lot more down the line.

This is accurate for employees who have stayed at the same job for a few years, and even more accurate for those who have been there for decades. My mom, for example, has been working at the same workplace for 30 years, and she is now nearing retirement. She has climbed the corporate ladder and has reached a status that is basically irreplaceable. There is no chance in the world that her company will find someone who would be able to properly take over her job, mostly because of how much she already knows about the work and the company. It would take a whole team of people and months of work to even get close to covering everything my mom does for them, and even then, it would probably never be as good as it was when she was in charge.

The same can be said about the employee in the story below, except they didn't retire as my mom will; they were abruptly fired with no explanation. 

Getting fired from a company you have dedicatedly worked for for over a decade cannot be easy, but at least this employee can find consolation by knowing the company probably regrets the decision already. Not only did they have to hire four employees to do the job of the one fired employee, but even then, the new team still struggled to take over all the work and tasks the fired employee accumulated over the years.

At first, when these teammates called the fired employee to ask for clarifications or advice, the employee did their best to help. However, when it became a daily practice, one that was in their way of finding a new job, this employee decided to stop helping altogether. Why should they help the company that fired them, for free, while sitting at home and applying for a new job? Why should they waste any more of their time for a workplace that clearly did not appreciate all their hard work?