Bizarre Image of Cartoon Duck Mistakenly Attached to Mass Termination Email Baffles Fired Employees

Digital payment software giant Stripe accidentally sent a PDF image of a cartoon duck to 300 employees it was attempting to lay off as an attachment to their termination emails, resulting in some accusing the company of "adding insult to injury."

On Monday, Stripe sent out termination notices via email to 300 of its employees, making up about 3.5% of its workforce. However, some of these employees received a PDF attachment alongside their termination notices of a cartoon duck, alongside the words "US-Non-California-Duck", reported Business Insider.

Furthermore, the notices contained incorrect termination dates.

Stripe confirmed that the inclusion of the duck image occurred in error and was not intended to soften the blow of termination, as some social media users guessed, in a statement provided to Business Insider.

Employees expressed irritation at the incident, taking to an internal Stripe group on the Blind app to criticize the company. They believed the mistake was an "indication the comms to those laid off were flubbed completely."

Stripe has stated its intention to increase its headcount by 10,000 by the end of this year.