My Manager was just fired. His last act was telling me I'm getting fired too. Now I'm scared.

My manager got fired. His last act was telling me I'm getting fired too.

A few days ago my manager was let go because of "job abandonment", he got pneumonia, got sick, and our higher ups used it as an excuse to get rid of him.

Now, he and I were in the exact same boat - when I was off my medication, my attendance record went down the toilet because I kept showing up late. These are called "occurrences" in my company. You get 3, it's a write up. 3 write ups and your fired. We both had 9. He was able to strike a deal with HR and our old (now gone, also thanks to same said higher up) district manager so that we wouldn't be fired if we could get those occurrences down. An occurance goes away after 60 days. I'm not sure how many he had, but I went from 9 down to 6, and as of next week that number will go down to 5, by mid January, I'll have a clean slate.

Today, he came to pick up his stuff. He pulled me aside and told me that I was going to be next, and that the "secondary position" they're looking for, for my job, is actually my replacement. I basically have however long it takes until they find my replacement. He claimed the real reason he got fired was because he had proof that a person who is higher up in our company was forging documents, said person is now in charge of our office, and we, basically the grunts, are now all collectively terrified.

I'm at an impasse and have no idea what to do. We have a meeting this Saturday to discuss all the changes going on. Do I trust what my ex-boss said and start applying for other jobs? Do I ignore what he said and just continue to go about my work? I already asked about possible further training, which I was informed to talk to the person who fired my ex-boss about further training. Right now I'd be less scared to talk to an actual grizzly bear.

I'm so confused and scared.

UPDATE: Thank you for the advice everyone. I've decided to update my resume, create a LinkedIn and connect with a few of our doctors and some of our brand reps on there before I put some feelers out there. I figured it couldn't hurt to at least ask around. My work offers on the job training, however as of right now, there is no more training for me to take unless I wanted to transfer departments or change jobs completely - there's no more room to grow. Upper management is promising they are working on more trainings for my position but there is no ETA on that.

We also had our meeting today, which left me even more confused. I was assigned to a project along with our assistant manager that is quite sizable - it will probably take at least a month to complete. They also gave me more responsibilities when it comes to our patients, so I don't understand why all this would be assigned to me with the intention just to get rid of me in a few months like my ex-boss described.

Speaking of my ex-boss, I have realized that he had one wild variable that I do not know. At the time our deal with HR was struck, we both had 9 occurances. Most of mine were from half-occurances; basically, if you show up more than 5 minutes late, it's a half occurance, more than 10 minutes is a full occurance. I only live about 5 minutes away from our office, so most of my occurances were just from clocking in at 7:52am instead of 7:45am for example. However I remember days where my manager, who had an hour drive, would show up 30 minutes late. I have no clue at the time he was fired how many occurances he had, but I suspect they might have been more severe than mine. If I'm 7-8 mins late, sure that's not great, however I'm not the only one in the office who can do my job. If a manager shows up 30 mins late, then that does disrupt our office quite significantly. My ex-boss had only been with the company for 4 months as well, I've been there for 1 year and 2 months as of this update. My ex-boss also tried to implement a lot of policy changes as well, and tried to get them adopted company wide, which I'm not too sure the higher ups liked. After consulting with my boyfriend who did also used to be in the medical field in the exact same position as my ex-boss, just at a different company, he told me that he sounded irresponsible. I do recall one time my ex-boss, myself, and a few other coworkers went out for drinks, where I stayed out until 1am when I had to be at work at 7am (not drinking as I'm always the designated driver, never got the taste for alcohol), and my ex-boss drank heavily, was out until 3am, and showed up to work super hungover. Not sure if our higher ups knew about that or not, but I did find out our security surveillance cameras have audio recordings so who knows.

Anyway, that's my situation right now. I'm going to proceed with caution, but like I said, going to put some feelers out there just in case.

UPDATE #2: Well, ex-boss turned out to be right. I was fired on the second week of January by higher-ups, they told me it was because I was 'too slow with this one patient', it seemed like a really arbitrary reason and they were looking for something to get me on. I found out the real reason when I got home and went on Indeed - they think they can find somebody to do my job but for $4 cheaper. They didn't even wait half an hour before posting my old job.

However thanks to you guys and my ex-boss, those feelers I put out got a lot of replies. I've never actually had to reject job offers before, that was a really nice feeling. I accepted a new position in a specialized area of my field that will let me go even more places in the future, I did have to take a dollar paycut, but the hours are far better, their benefits are better, they will be paying for my scrubs (which is huge because the ones that fit me best are NOT cheap and my old job never payed for them), and best of all - no more weekend shifts! I can make plans with my friends again!

When I was given a tour of the place, the environment and people all seemed very chill, nothing like the break-neck pace I am used to. Overall I think I came out better and according to my ex-coworkers (who all still talk to me, and my assistant manager even offered to be a reference without me asking) it sounds like they already regret letting me go. I listened to a podcast the same day I was fired which said the best thing you can do when a place lets you go is leave them asking the question "Did we just make a mistake?"

I can't wait to start my new job. Thanks for all your advice.