Someone walked into HR and said “I need help.”
A few weeks later, their position was eliminated.
Not fired. Eliminated. The position. Not the person. The position. Which happened to contain the person. Who happened to have just asked for help.
The lawyers will say the timing is coincidental. The restructuring was planned months ago. The elimination had nothing to do with the disclosure.
And maybe that’s true. Maybe it was already in motion. Maybe the timeline is an accident.
But the person who asked for help will spend the rest of their career wondering whether the answer to “should I tell them?” is always no.
That’s the damage. Not the firing. The lesson.