That said, it's really a story of doing the wrong thing at nearly every turn. Why date someone on your team, you admit you knew better.

HR is not your friend or there to help you, they are there to protect the company from litigation. A coworker being short is not going to raise any flags. Her claims of harassment, in a company known for it, absolutely is - regardless of whether it's actually true or not.

This is so weird. I can't imagine a company instructing their employee to delete their personal correspondence. It's such an overreach, it doesn't comprehend.

Much of the following to me just reads as extremely naive. Not just about the termination itself but about how humans operate in social environments with power dynamics. Not surprising to me that the company as an entity would be extremely careful and would want to eventually cut ties. Coworkers aren't your friends, and companies aren't your family. The office is a factory. Once you're anything that resembles what might become a liability, you're costing the company resources to deal with. If you're challenging and thin skinned on this, what are you going to be hard with next? And as a Bay Arean you are already an extremely expensive employee. And easily replaceable. And then you're requesting special treatment, switching offices, remote, this, that, the other.

To be clear I'm only commenting on what is written, not what actually happened. Which I guess brings me to the final question: what exactly is the point of writing and publishing this as an article? That we will "rise up" against that one corporate brand known for being exploitative of gig-economy workers because of some awkward shit that went down up there in one of those glass towers?

My brutal take: The moment you go out on a date, or engage in any kind of social activity, you're opening yourself to the fact that it might sour. If you're doing that at work, then you should be open to the consequences souring your workplace. This kind of shit happens in most workplaces, but most people understand it as socially correct to just deal with the spectrum of consequences. In fact most people work in places where they just get shown the door for shit like this.

This is so unbelievably naive, I'm flabbergasted. Well, great lesson for OP: Never burn anything that could help you, and if instructed to do so, make backups or lie that you did so.

People are characterizing them as though they're completely unaware of their surroundings, manipulating a system in their favor based on a petty and imagined grievance, even imagining their own depression. Empathy does not seem to abound here.

I read it as an account of contending with the system they're in, embroiled with at least a passive aggressive irritant of a co-worker after attempting a date. Communication degraded to the point where the writer seemed to feel alienated and was seemingly pressured into a situation that made it worse for them, until such a point where they were fired without just cause and rightfully took them to court in order to get the minimum they should have.

Sounds like an awful situation, and entirely plausible given the ways that big corporations tend to try and protect themselves. It's deeply unfortunate that this likely happens to many people, leaving them with no recourse, as well as potentially emotionally and financially vulnerable.

Gross reactions.