Depends if it is an "at will" company.

Just make sure you get Harvey Specter

You can still file for wrongful termination even if it is an at will workplace. It's just harder to win.

Win or lose it's still a lose-lose situation. If you win many bosses will watch you very closely and fire you with cause the next time you do /anything/ wrong. If you lose you're 'That Dude' who files wrongful termination suits. And that can negatively impact your future employment possibilities. They say there's no blacklists anymore. But what a couple bosses say over scotches at the bar might as well be.

Surely working for 24 hours straight is illegal?

Nope. Plenty of jobs can require 24 hour stints on the clock, or there could be emergency situations and stuff like that. I have a normally 40 hour a week desk job and have had to pull a 24 hour stretch a few times fighting fires at work a few times in the last year.

Time to go Die Hard 4 on them...

Get a lawyer, and also file a complaint with the labor board. Since you worked so many hours straight and they didn't do anything to make sure you could rest it is a huge safety risk. If you would have driven home and fallen a sleep on the way and killed someone they would be liable. Now file a complaint and get a lawyer, get your shithead boss canned- I'm a fellow Texan and an IT worker

Or you could always accidently hit ctrl-z ....

Too bad he can't rewire his boss's dick

Uhm.... What?

I think his brain shorted out.

52- He got f*%ked over by his boss not f*%ked by him

Well you know what they say, you are what you eat.

Stop eating stupid

Actually... I ran in to three unicorns on the way to OP.

Hopefully there is security cameras that can prove that OP was actually working extremely hard and not sleeping.

there is mitigating circumstances plus the fact that working for 24hrs straight is almoat certainly illegal unless OP signed some sort of paperwork with regards to emergency proceedures.

A wrongful termination suit in Texas won't get you anywhere. I don't see why Welshite is getting buried for the comment. Circumstances or not, in the state of Texas you can get fired at whim, with no reason at all.

maybe not wrongful termination then but some sort of class action suit.

#55, one person can't file a class-action suit. Unless they are really, really fat.

#66, or really, really loud (with a megaphone).

Cause Texas fucking sucks. Now watch me get down voted all to hell by every Texan on the planet. What a shame it's not like racism where I can say I'm not racist no matter what because I have a black friend.

Proof is better known to most advisors as details.

And sometimes it is a matter of fix or be fired. From the sounds of things OP would have been screwed either way.

He could have just gone home or at least walked out sleep in his car. I agree he shouldn't have been fired but I don't think sleeping at work is something you should do

i agree with you but it was maybe not a concious decision to go to sleep. sometimes you are just to tired to care.

Having been in the same situation (up 24+hrs fixing servers), sometimes your exhaustion level is to high to safely drive anywhere. I've been pulled over for driving to work with an insane schedule where I barely could sleep between shifts. Officer said "next time, call in late..."

Sabatoge may seem appropriate in some cases but never a good idea. Talking jail time and hefty fines.

#54, sabotage is often a good idea -- getting caught at it is always a bad idea. Let's keep that straight. :D

From the way the fml is worded I don't think the OP had a choice in whether they fell asleep or not. I think it just happened. I go through that sometimes where I'll be sitting at my computer doing something and then all the sudden I'm waking up, half an hour or more has gone by and I don't even remember feeling that tired. The Op worked for 24 hours straight and was awake for who knows how long before that, he/she may have gone through a similar experience.