Did I accidentally delete Proofpoint from my work laptop, or is something fishy going on?

Ask IT for logs or timestamps of when Proofpoint was supposedly uninstalled. It's likely a misconfiguration on their part. Additionally, if you're not an admin, getting rid of such a program usually doesn't happen without significant glitches or IT intervention. It's a good idea to document everything in case this escalates.

Proofpoint usually manages email security remotely, not as a standalone application installed on your laptop. If IT says it’s not there, they might be misinformed. Honestly, it sounds like a sketchy excuse to let you go over the social media blow-up.

It feels like there's more to the story here, especially with your recent social media scare. Sounds like IT cooked up this 'Proofpoint' thing as a justification for firing you. Just make sure to protect yourself and keep records of everything—they might try to pin this on you unfairly.

Usually, only users with admin permissions can uninstall programs like Proofpoint. If you didn't have those rights, it's odd that they would blame you. Also, IT could have messed up—if it was installed as a user-based program, it might be possible to accidentally remove it, but it seems unlikely in this case.

Most companies restrict software installations and removals to IT only. If you're not an admin, you shouldn't be able to uninstall anything like Proofpoint. It sounds more like IT is using this as a cover-up for their real reason to let you go, especially since they didn't provide solid evidence you deleted it.