Confused, I looked through the system and discovered all kinds of activity from the user, just like they would generate if they were doing their normal job. I found no record of my deletion, nor of the confirmation email I sent to the HR director to confirm they had been locked out of the system, nor of the initial email I got from the HR director asking me to lock them out of the system.

Now I was panicking. This database is full of sensitive information of the sort a disgruntled ex-employee could sell to identity thieves for tens of thousands of dollars. I sent a worried email to the HR director, informing her I may have screwed up and "Adam" was never deleted out of the system.

I got a worried email back from her, even though it was late at night. "Why would Adam be deleted out of the system? He needs it to do his job!"

But I could have sworn. . . no I KNOW. . . maybe I meant a different employee and just got confused. Maybe it was Andrew, not Adam I deleted and I got their names mixed up in my head.

Perplexed, I start digging through my own database history. There's no record of me locking out ANYONE. Search through email again, thinking maybe it wasn't email, it was text messages. Search through my messages. Search through my Skype conversations. No account lock requests, no confirmations of lockout.

So I email the director of HR. "If you didn't fire Adam last month, who the heck was it you fired that I was supposed to lock out?" I get a perplexed, early morning email back from her. "We haven't fired anyone since we let Nancy and Tim go in March. You locked them out, right?"

I had. That was a really long time ago.

It can't be a prank, me and one other person know how to access the database backend and she doesn't know how to do anything other than hand the keys to whoever they hire to replace me in the event I get hit by a bus.

I'm so confused right now.

tl;dr: Fired employee was not actually fired, I apparently never did the things I remember doing to the database to lock him out after his non-existant termination.