After 4 years working with them as a contractor, my manager told the agency they’re letting me go without saying a word to me. And now he wants me to train the new team.

Look, here’s the deal. I’ve been working as a contractor with this company for about 4 years. I’ve always been remote. we were supposed to return to the office, but my car was totalled in an accident, so my manager was understanding and agreed to let me continue working remotely. My performance has never been an issue, I never received a single complaint or was told to ‘step it up,’ and no one ever asked me to come into the office.

Over these four years, I brought up the topic of being hired as a permanent employee several times, but the excuse was always ‘the budget doesn’t allow for it.’ Then, suddenly and without any warning, they hired a new person, and two weeks later, they hired two more for my team (one temporary and one permanent, for a total of 3 new people).

Last Tuesday, my manager Sarah messaged me asking if I would be training the new employee, which immediately made me anxious, but I replied and told her that no one had told me anything about it. The very next day, Wednesday, I received a meeting invite from my teammates for the following Tuesday to train them on all my work.

Then, last Thursday, I got a call. It was from my recruiter at the staffing agency. She told me that my manager, Mark, had called her and said they were ‘going in a different direction’ and gave her no feedback at all, neither good nor bad.

Today is Tuesday (the training day), and my manager Mark still hasn’t said a single word to me about any of this. I spoke to my manager Sarah, and she played dumb, saying she didn’t know anything about what was happening. I was suspicious, so I called my colleague who created the training meeting and asked her if Mark knew about it. She hesitated for a second but then told me everything. Yes, he knew. The whole team had a meeting about it beforehand, and he was the one who told them what was happening. They even had a second meeting with him to discuss it further.

Honestly, I’m not upset about losing the job. What really bothers me is that after 4 years, Mark didn’t even bother to talk to me and show me some respect. He went straight to the agency and still expects me to train his new people. I like my colleagues, but now I have a strange feeling towards them, especially Sarah, because I found out she knew everything all along.

Would I be wrong if I refuse to do the training? I’ve postponed the meeting for two days, but I feel the way this was handled is completely unprofessional, especially since I thought we had a very good working relationship.