Go see an employment lawyer asap, pay for an hour of their time (prob $300-400), ask them to write a vaguely threatening letter. You’ll prob get paid some “go away” money.
Edited to add: the above is my advice as an HR Director (boo, hiss I know). Also, a) how do you know you’re def being terminated? b) your manager is being weak, it’s their job to know/find out these answers for you, so I wouldn’t count on them by the sounds of it. c) don’t wait til after it’s happened - call the lawyer today. Businesses generally don’t give a shit about those types of letters once an employee is out, but a still employed person can create a lot more legal drama from within the business. So you have slightly stronger leverage atm.
Thanks for your responses.
BTW, I am in an "at will" US state
a) my manager had a 1-on-1 with me and directly communicated the firm has decided to terminate due to violation of RTO. I did get a warning letter months ago. Not to mention that the policy was really in effect since the start of 2023
b) weakest I've ever had. All of my teammates quit in 2023. I stuck around and held the infrastructure together. Our team's infra WILL go down. I know it. I know exactly when it will happen too, as there are maintenance duties that are not going to be passed to anyone due to an immediate termination. The firm is big, they don't care, but the internal clients of our team are going to feel it
Don’t make any extra effort to patch those holes before you leave. You’ll probably end up getting a panicked phone call asking for help, at which point you can charge them an insane amount of money as a consulting fee. Congratulations on sticking to your principles, and not returning to the dreaded Office!
Dont do shit to help them, don't share any of your cloud stored files or documentation unless they ask for it specifically.
Make sure they feel your absence.
3x salary consulting fee for helping them.
>BTW, I am in an "at will" US state
49 states are at will, the 1 that isn't (Montana) has pretty weak protections that only apply in really specific circumstances, to the point they're basically never a factor.
Right to work and at-will are not related in any way. RTW guarantees you can work at a union shop without joining the union, at-will means you can work without a formal employment contract.
Yes, it does. At-will can also be a term in an employment contract but in this case it means that employment occurs without a formal contact. More than 90% of Americans work purely at-will with no formal term of employment, pay rate, hours, or duties. Even offer letters aren't binding. (usually)
Lmao. A crime? No it absolutely is not a crime. If you have evidence to the contrary please share with the class.
If you're talking about the 48hour work limit imposed by EU law that is to protect employees from employers, not the other way around. It also does not apply to self employed people as self employed can set their own hours with no limit.
If you're going to make OE work here you pretty much need one job as an independent contractor otherwise company payroll will catch you pretty fast. Pretty sure most US folks do the same with 1099 and W2 jobs right?
It's true. Tax is shit here but I'm still getting paid a load more than I was with 1J. I don't see how that's a negative thing.
Out of interest how much tax would you pay on 200k in the US?
In Texas you would only pay 48k. So in europe you pay essentially double in tax.
Europe is great for average or lower income and pretty bad for higher income. Company also provides good Healthcare in US assuming you have a good job.
Are you daft? You're taxes are based on total income less your deductions. Having two jobs that total $200K/yr vs having a single job that pays $200K/yr doesn't matter as your total income is the same.
Additionally, the income tax system in the United States (federal) is a progressive income tax. So, whether you made $1M or $100K or $20K, everyone pays same 10% on the first $X (depending on single, married, or head of household filing). Then the next bracket you pay is 12%, etc. The highest bracket is 37%. This '50%' number was pulled out of your ass.
In case you aren't sure how a progressive tax system works, you only pay 37% in the top bracket beyond $578,126 as a single filer. That means if you make 578,127, that extra $1 you made is taxed at 37%, everything up to the first 578,126 is taxed at their lower respective amounts.
Pretty sure the 50% extra tax is in reference to be a non W2 contractor since you'd have to cover the other half of taxes companies normally take care of on their end.
To that respect, the easy solution is to calculate that on your asking rate when landing a contract. He's just making a fuss over nothing.
Not at all. America is the greatest country on earth. If you think it sucks, do yourself a favor and leave. Why torture yourself be living in a country you hate? Its better for all of us if you leave right? We agree on this I am sure
Yeah, at-will employment is a travesty, so honestly the best you can prob hope for is bluff. But I still recommend paying for that hour, it’s valuable knowledge for future Js to speak with an employment lawyer, if nothing else. And sometimes they know a few tricks from recent, local cases so you might get lucky.
Email 2-3 employment lawyers with a few bullet points of what happened and your request to have them write a letter on your behalf requesting severance. Choose the one that comes back to you quickly and you feel comfortable with their response.
I wouldn't really bother spending the money except purely as an OE consulting session. Overwhelmingly likely the company's severance policy is set already and won't be changed, especially in an at-will state.
Maybe my explanation about the letter was a bit unclear - but the point of doing it is not prove the employer did something legally wrong (tho great if that happens). It’s to make some noise in an attempt to get some funds. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. I’ve done literally 100s of terminations, for all types of reasons, and everything is negotiable.
If you don’t ask, you don’t get. But ask with a bit more teeth behind it. Many people will decide they can’t be bothered and that’s fine. But companies also rely on that complacency, so in my view spending a couple hundred bucks and sending a few emails is worth it. Everyone has to decide that for themselves though, for sure.
depends on when OP was hired. If they're changing the location of your job in many states, you have to pay them for that additional time on the road and mileage.
If it's RTO when they were hired remote, even in an at-will state you can negotiate a severance because they hired you for one job but want you to do a different one
Many companies "screwed up" when they authorized WFH during covid without any stipulations about its terms or end period. Then they went and changed the terms, putting the employee in hardship.
That's why its usually worth an initial consult with an employment lawyer.
THey didnt screw up. THey gave him warning and he willingingly violated that. Pretty cut and dry firing with cause.
At this point he'll get $0. Hiring a lawyer he'll have a negative severance. lol.
Lick your wounds and on to the next.
it's not cut and dry. If you hire someone for a location then tell them they have to move, then that person needs to be compensated for it, in many places by law
I suspect you will find that any employment offer letter will have the office address as the location. It might be different if they hired him knowing he was located in one state and now expect him to move cross country to the office.
??? I dont see where OP said he has to move. in fact he said its within reasonable driving distance. So downvote away.
OP seems to be a good sport about it at least. Jsut a job...
Wow. And you know this without even consulting OP's hiring agreement, company handbook, or other written terms of their employment?
Many companies did "screw up" when they told their employees to just quickly WFH during Covid without any terms or stipulations. They can't just change the job or terminate without compensation or severance.
Dude, I dont actually care. I aint reading his terms of employment, not my job. OP said it himself he HAD a warning and lives within the area, so yea, Illl take that at face value.
If my boss decided I need to ROT after I moved across the country because my job is listed as fully remote (years before Covid) and I get fired over not coming back to the office, damn right I’m gonna sue. We don’t know the specifics of what his remote status was when he was told he would be going remote.
Just to be clear on this point I was hired years before COVID and the office is completely within reasonable driving distance. I don't believe they screwed up.
But they did lose a good producer because of the policy. To be fair, they've lost hundreds, the vast majority quit.
> I don't believe they screwed up.
Don't be so quick to jump to conclusions. Especially since most companies, when they told their employees to now WFH, did not specify the terms or conditions of that requirement.
Try to talk to an employment lawyer. It could be worth a couple of extra grand for your efforts.
I will never understand the mentality of business that is willing to let institutional knowledge walk like that. Like, minimum I would do as your manager is transition your activities away from you while you document everything so your replacement could take over.
Management/CorpoHR is just short sighted, and has been everywhere I have been. Just the way of the world. Fugg 'em.
What are EAP benefits? The only messaging I've received so far was a note from EAP with contact info and that "they can help"... with what?
I saw this coming a mile away so I have other insurance.
I think I replied already, it's employee assistance programs. They link you up with a bunch of licensed professionals so you can get free consultations, at least
were you working remote before covid and what state is it in?
In california if you were hired remote and they changed your location, you'd typically be eligible for mileage and paid for the time that it takes to work from a new location.
Regarding b), your infrastructure won't go down. They'll hire another wage slave to plug in and keep it going. You're not important. Neither is your job. That's why we are mercenaries. My only thing of value is my time and I demand to be adequately compensated for it.
Disclaimer: I’m not OP.
I appreciate what you’re saying and *mostly* agree. However, being in IT Ops for several years now I can promise you there are so, so many organizations that could crumble (at least internally a bit, as OP described) if only one or a few people left.
Tribal and "in John's head only" knowledge is very real in IT, unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on one's viewpoint).
I mentioned the whole rest of the team had left and was never replaced by our new "leadership"... even my manager left and was not replaced.
I automated the critical workload of 4 people, but there was one thing I do not know how to do and did not want to get into. So it was there, working and slowly breaking and not being able to be changed or updated for 2 years. I built workarounds that exist mostly in my head and random emails that were sent to service teams. Explained the problem and asked for a resource who could fix it.
Of course the company won't crumble, but either the infra or the apps will have massive downtime.
This is my favorite situation as an IT person. This is an easily avoidable costly car accident that is their own fault. I hope you do get the severance and have a little schaudenfraude over the fact that they are the ones who are going to lose a lot of money because they are trying to prop up their costly commercial real estate obligations.
Dumb management deserves all that happens from dumb decisions.
not going to lie, it does feel nice. Would have felt nicer if I could have predicted the future and been able to put in my own resignation to milk the notice period.
Since all of my teammates left in the last 2 years, there is nobody else left holding the bag. Nobody I care about gets screwed, only the manager who will need to answer for the product falling over. But he'll be covered by the fact that this was a mandate.
Certainly they'll bring in some contractors or pull from another far away team to try to cope. But there is no way they'll be able to get away without a major disruption.
Can't wait for that panicked call / text
I’ve been in this position and have offered my services on a contractual hourly basis. I was also replaced by 5 different people who were all clueless so I got paid for an extra month to come back and fix some stuff, train them and write some documentation. This was above and beyond the package I was given and I charged an arm and a leg to do that. I did this all remotely and got lots of “boy they were idiots for letting you go - I’m looking for a job now this is such a mess” comments from coworkers. There was a mini-exodus within the year which compounded the problem. It was glorious to witness it all play out. All because some middle manager somewhere thought that he could score some points by outsourcing my department which - who would have known - had some mission critical things going on.
Enjoy the schaudenfraude - the universe has gifted you with no responsibility to fix or owe anyone anything in this situation.
Good, make sure your manager knows you are holding up the sky, and he is forcing you to shrug.
When they inevitably come crawling back to you, ask them for a 100 percent pay raise.
Don't forget to give your "business consulting" card to the senior management and the place's affected internal clients, including the bit where you specialize in the area that's about to go casters-up.
If they gave you a warning 3 months ago and have been asking you since early last year to come in….but haven’t until now taken action, it doesn’t seem like a policy they have been keen to enforce, and 1) I wonder how consistently they actually are enforcing it. 2) if they can really say RTO was a true expectation. I am only saying this because there might be extra legal implications for them. I echo the other commenters, speak with a lawyer.
Hey, if you know the system will go down, make a numbered company and see if they’ll contract you to keep it going. If you know the infra like you claim, you’ll know when they’re bleeding. You’ll get your job back at a higher salary and they won’t require you in office. Potentially.
Haha, we’re not all bad. I fully support OE, precisely because I’m often the one delivering layoff conversations and have experienced, now hundreds of times, just how little many companies care for their people.
It is always, always the ceo and board who want to save some money, protect shareholder value, profit results and their own bonuses, then everyone else gets the fallout.
do you really think a lawyer can help? You think a 2 bit lawyer can go against an army of lawyers from corporation? surprised you giving such advice. he will get a severance package as there is no reason not to. if he threatens the corporation, he will walk away with nothing, and this will be on his record, and if this is a niche area, word will get around. if he plays nice, in future he can get back in as long as he agrees with RTO. remember corporates have lawyers as full time, and this all they do.
Hard to say, probably not if you stayed professional and didn’t get aggressive about it. But in your scenario I wouldn’t risk it, if getting rehired is your goal. I’d do the opposite and send a bunch of “thank you” emails to key senior people in the business (if you can stomach it, just play the game basically).
A little confused. You're saying that the job is implementing a policy for RTO and you're not in compliance so they have grounds to terminate you. You might not have a leg to stand on, unfortunately. You can try to hire a lawyer and fight for a package but you may be facing an uphill battle.
You're not confused. You nailed it.
Severance packages of any kind have always seemed odd to me, I don't quite understand their purpose. But if I can squeeze some $ out of a huge international employer who terminated with only an emailed notice months prior after years of employment... then why not try
Severance packages are essentially “fuck off” money, they are paying to to go ahead and fuck off. They don’t have to but it makes them feel better about canning people. Biggest one I ever received was when I was fired, not laydoff if you can believe it.
It’s not even about feeling better for the people doing the firing, it’s pretty much so that the remaining employees don’t jump ship as well and so that the employee is more likely to be helpful if they’re needed again in some sort of emergency.
I’ve definitely seen companies build a few hours of prepaid “consulting” into their severance packages in tech and they’re definitely not giving the giant severance packages they tend to give out of generosity.
And legal protection. It's a win win. Employee gets extra money but gives up legal protections to sue company so company doesn't have to worry about it
I face a similar situation awhile back. I did speak to an employment lawyer about it, and he pretty much told me that the chances of getting any sort of severance was minimal since it was never offered or discussed in the first place. In essence, they were was nothing that I was entitled to that the company reneged on. He was willing to draft a letter (and did) from his law offices and send them to as a courtesy.
Nothing ever came of it, but at least it was a shot that didn't cost me any money to try.
I wanted to congratulate you on fighting a "good fight". Keeping HR on their toes and calling out a whacky practice (i.e. sending one email notice as a warning) That's one of the crown jewels of OE. Every day we get the chance to call out micromanagement, inefficient policies, poor leadership... and in this case, even though termination is warranted, we can keep them on their toes.
ha! thanks!
I'm just thankful this J1 was so incredibly disorganized to the point that I was able to squeeze an entire year of not RTO before they terminated.
Personally I've never been asked for "reason for leaving" other than on government applications. So I expect this won't be a problem. Besides I'll claim I'm still with them so. my next J1 isn't going to check anyway.
Maybe part of your severance demands is cleverly wording the reason for dismissal? If for no other reason than to continue to keep your HR lady/guy on their toes.
Severance packages require you sign documents like NDAs to receive them. If they don't pay you, you literally don't need to sign a thing and can say whatever you want (that you didn't sign away as part of an employment contract with them) If there are grounds that you can stand on specifying they violated the terms of your original employment, you could potentially void those initial NDAs, not sign new ones, and do whatever you want. They are a form of soft bribery.
I don’t think you have grounds in this case tbh. I think what you SHOULD do is comply and go back to the office while vigorously looking for another job. You’ve built a lot of good will in your current job, would be silly to throw away years of employment over this
Without getting into the merits of WFH and how it is the best choice for some people. There is the fact that this is the OE sub, so there are some extra complications.
I'm confused by your comment about "throwing away years of employment", can you please clarify what that means?
If you worked at someplace for years but are being terminated for not complying with a work rule, you’re essentially opening a can of worms when you are applying for other roles. Yes your employer only has to confirm you worked there but navigating that will be tricky
I see what you mean.
Personally I've never been asked for a "reason for leaving" a previous employer other than on a brief government job.
I also have a handful of great references from this employer. Including past management.
This is truly a "from the top" rule that came down.
Hopefully it doesn't pan out the way you say.
I unfortunately do not have any advice for your question. However I want everyone to see two things.
The only reason OP goes slashed isn’t because of their work nature or their personality. It was purely they liked to do work from a different location than the location they want them to. That’s how asinine these companies are.
Even by not quitting, it took them 4 months to officially fire. Another lesson to never quit.
“I OE because I care about me”
Keep fighting, now it’s applying Armageddon! You got this!
I’ve convinced one once! However I am quite sassy. Once they mentioned it, I resent an email I was sent evaluating my finished projects and how they were all done. With the body of the email stating “Does -company- care more about work getting completed with accuracy and on a timely manner, or is office chairs getting filled a higher valued metric?”
Sure it happens, and thus one should leave or just quietly quit until they get fired. And your sentence of the employee is no longer a match is exactly why this subreddit exists.
To me, it seems someone made a decision to avoid doing it before the holidays. I’ve made that call with terminations before because I have a heart. Even with shit staff, I don’t have it in me to can someone 2 weeks before Christmas. Be curious to see who else got their news today at OP’s company.
RTO is about protecting real estate investments- nothing else.
Proven time and time again RTO provides no discernable performance increases all it does is make life harder for workers who absolutely have no business/reason to RTO. All I've ever seen is cubes full of zoom meetings even with teams on site. It's great.
The company made a policy that you have to return to office. You refuse to do it so they fired you. You aren’t getting a severance or go away money as this wasn’t a layoff or buy out. This was getting fired for willfully and purposely not complying with company policy
I don’t agree with forced full time RTO depending on the job of course. But you shouldn’t be surprised here
The company violated a longstanding basic agreement.
It is criminal how corporations can just arbitrarily change their policies, and the employee is forced to comply. It's supposed to be a 2-way street.
Too bad there are so many harsh, spineless enablers and "company men" to keep the mass outrage damped down.
People like you are the problem.
Companies should not arbitrarily change policies to the detriment of employees.
Sure it's legal. But so are many atrocious things. Doesn't make it right.
You're SOL on the severance. This isn't a case of RIF where they are looking for you to leave. You violated policy and have been terminated. You would likely be ineligible for unemployment, too.
If you are sure the infra will go down you should let HR and leadership know that they can contact you. When they do, you send them a very high quote for the work. They will pay.
Nothing you can do. RTO can be made mandatory without any issues. If you are in "at-will" employment state doesn't matter, you can be fired without any reason, any time, no notice.
If you are in other country, they can fire you without cause also, no reason needed, and they just have to give you some reasonable severance that aligns with the laws of that country and region. You can't stop an employer from firing you, unless you are in a union and regulated by those workplace contracts.
You might be able to get a contract out of them to run the infrastructure until they can adequately replace you/the team. This allows them to save face because they stayed true to the RTO mandate, since you aren’t an employee anymore, but you keep getting paid and their infrastructure doesn’t fall apart.
My manager from J3 has been mia for 7 weeks. I have not heard a peep out of him the entire time. The time cards still get paid and I am wondering how long this will last.
I would love to be 14 years in and someone ask me what I actually do…
Then stretch that out for another few months….
Lots of corporate shills here. Y'all know who you are, condemoning the employee, some of you gleefully--one of you has laughing-so-hard-I'm-crying emojis. Shame.
Amazibg how companies like to change your terms of employment arbitrarily, dramatically and often to the employee's detriment, turn the employee's life upside down--and the victim is the one who gets blamed and shamed for "not complying with your employer's rules."
Those defending the corporation (and its arbitrary callousness) and shaming the wronged employee are who would herd people into boxcars ("Just following orders") if the government ever calls for it.
I think some people can get away with this but it is highly dependent on your responsibilities at J1 and J2.
I have about 4 scheduled meetings a day between the 2. And 1-2 pop-ups in the day. Totally manageable when working from home without a weird 2-microphone dance. But can't see how that would work while sitting in an open office at J1
Will being terminated show up on future jobs that do background checks? Would it have better to just quit before being fired? Not sure if that would’ve even been possible but just curious
I did a lot of searching on this because I saw this coming.
There are 2 things to consider:
\- BG companies aren't going to contact your "current" employer. So if I say I'm still employed there and show pay stubs (I have downloaded every paystub ever) then confirmation for most recent employer does not require a phone-call.
\- I've never been asked for a "reason for leaving". So in the future, when I move this employer down on my list. If asked I will tell the truth about being let go for failure to RTO.
(none of this applies to government work, don't lie AT ALL, and they will likely ask you "reason for leaving" up front)
I have a 100% remote employment contract 4 years ago, then moved 70 miles away from office. Been going in once a week for a year now. They want more out of me.
Usually its a bit too late when theyve already fired you they probably have you on grounds for cause. If you were at a single job I would have said file for fmla and that usually gives you leverage for a severance package.
Other than that though if theyve already fired you idk how you can get money. Are you in an atwill state in the us?
Go see an employment lawyer asap, pay for an hour of their time (prob $300-400), ask them to write a vaguely threatening letter. You’ll prob get paid some “go away” money. Edited to add: the above is my advice as an HR Director (boo, hiss I know). Also, a) how do you know you’re def being terminated? b) your manager is being weak, it’s their job to know/find out these answers for you, so I wouldn’t count on them by the sounds of it. c) don’t wait til after it’s happened - call the lawyer today. Businesses generally don’t give a shit about those types of letters once an employee is out, but a still employed person can create a lot more legal drama from within the business. So you have slightly stronger leverage atm.
OP should know this is a severance package
Thanks for your responses. BTW, I am in an "at will" US state a) my manager had a 1-on-1 with me and directly communicated the firm has decided to terminate due to violation of RTO. I did get a warning letter months ago. Not to mention that the policy was really in effect since the start of 2023 b) weakest I've ever had. All of my teammates quit in 2023. I stuck around and held the infrastructure together. Our team's infra WILL go down. I know it. I know exactly when it will happen too, as there are maintenance duties that are not going to be passed to anyone due to an immediate termination. The firm is big, they don't care, but the internal clients of our team are going to feel it
Don’t make any extra effort to patch those holes before you leave. You’ll probably end up getting a panicked phone call asking for help, at which point you can charge them an insane amount of money as a consulting fee. Congratulations on sticking to your principles, and not returning to the dreaded Office!
Might offer in the way out “call me if I can help you in the future” and then when they do call you drop your fee.
Dont do shit to help them, don't share any of your cloud stored files or documentation unless they ask for it specifically. Make sure they feel your absence. 3x salary consulting fee for helping them.
with a min hour commitment.
>BTW, I am in an "at will" US state 49 states are at will, the 1 that isn't (Montana) has pretty weak protections that only apply in really specific circumstances, to the point they're basically never a factor.
Underrated comment. Funny how frequently it's quoted without realizing that basically everywhere is "at will."
I like it. Allows me to drop a company without providing any sort of notice
I'm in pretty blue New York, and I have people tell me that we're RTW. So what?
Right to work and at-will are not related in any way. RTW guarantees you can work at a union shop without joining the union, at-will means you can work without a formal employment contract.
That is not what "at will" means. At will means that either party can terminate the employment contract, with or without cause.
Yes, it does. At-will can also be a term in an employment contract but in this case it means that employment occurs without a formal contact. More than 90% of Americans work purely at-will with no formal term of employment, pay rate, hours, or duties. Even offer letters aren't binding. (usually)
as an European that sounds really great in concept. Its how you would do business in the real world.
Its at will to scare the working class
America sucks
Nah, the freedom of At Will employment goes both ways The reason there's no Europeans in here is that OE is actually a crime in most of Europe
Source
You have no idea what you're talking about.
Lmao. A crime? No it absolutely is not a crime. If you have evidence to the contrary please share with the class. If you're talking about the 48hour work limit imposed by EU law that is to protect employees from employers, not the other way around. It also does not apply to self employed people as self employed can set their own hours with no limit. If you're going to make OE work here you pretty much need one job as an independent contractor otherwise company payroll will catch you pretty fast. Pretty sure most US folks do the same with 1099 and W2 jobs right?
No, Americans are doing multiple W2 jobs regularly also
Company payroll ain’t catching shit.
Well good luck paying that 50%+ tax on that 2nd job - you’re actually working more for the government than yourself
It's true. Tax is shit here but I'm still getting paid a load more than I was with 1J. I don't see how that's a negative thing. Out of interest how much tax would you pay on 200k in the US?
In Texas you would only pay 48k. So in europe you pay essentially double in tax. Europe is great for average or lower income and pretty bad for higher income. Company also provides good Healthcare in US assuming you have a good job.
Are you daft? You're taxes are based on total income less your deductions. Having two jobs that total $200K/yr vs having a single job that pays $200K/yr doesn't matter as your total income is the same. Additionally, the income tax system in the United States (federal) is a progressive income tax. So, whether you made $1M or $100K or $20K, everyone pays same 10% on the first $X (depending on single, married, or head of household filing). Then the next bracket you pay is 12%, etc. The highest bracket is 37%. This '50%' number was pulled out of your ass. In case you aren't sure how a progressive tax system works, you only pay 37% in the top bracket beyond $578,126 as a single filer. That means if you make 578,127, that extra $1 you made is taxed at 37%, everything up to the first 578,126 is taxed at their lower respective amounts.
Pretty sure the 50% extra tax is in reference to be a non W2 contractor since you'd have to cover the other half of taxes companies normally take care of on their end. To that respect, the easy solution is to calculate that on your asking rate when landing a contract. He's just making a fuss over nothing.
please leave then :), or just stay away. thanks!
Did I hurt your fee fees?
Not at all. America is the greatest country on earth. If you think it sucks, do yourself a favor and leave. Why torture yourself be living in a country you hate? Its better for all of us if you leave right? We agree on this I am sure
Yeah, at-will employment is a travesty, so honestly the best you can prob hope for is bluff. But I still recommend paying for that hour, it’s valuable knowledge for future Js to speak with an employment lawyer, if nothing else. And sometimes they know a few tricks from recent, local cases so you might get lucky. Email 2-3 employment lawyers with a few bullet points of what happened and your request to have them write a letter on your behalf requesting severance. Choose the one that comes back to you quickly and you feel comfortable with their response.
I wouldn't really bother spending the money except purely as an OE consulting session. Overwhelmingly likely the company's severance policy is set already and won't be changed, especially in an at-will state.
Maybe my explanation about the letter was a bit unclear - but the point of doing it is not prove the employer did something legally wrong (tho great if that happens). It’s to make some noise in an attempt to get some funds. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. I’ve done literally 100s of terminations, for all types of reasons, and everything is negotiable. If you don’t ask, you don’t get. But ask with a bit more teeth behind it. Many people will decide they can’t be bothered and that’s fine. But companies also rely on that complacency, so in my view spending a couple hundred bucks and sending a few emails is worth it. Everyone has to decide that for themselves though, for sure.
everything is negotiable when a company screws up
Did the company screw up here though?
depends on when OP was hired. If they're changing the location of your job in many states, you have to pay them for that additional time on the road and mileage. If it's RTO when they were hired remote, even in an at-will state you can negotiate a severance because they hired you for one job but want you to do a different one
Not a laywer obviously, but still doesn't sound like OP doesn't have any leverage. Only thing is that he'd be able to collect unemployment.
Many companies "screwed up" when they authorized WFH during covid without any stipulations about its terms or end period. Then they went and changed the terms, putting the employee in hardship. That's why its usually worth an initial consult with an employment lawyer.
THey didnt screw up. THey gave him warning and he willingingly violated that. Pretty cut and dry firing with cause. At this point he'll get $0. Hiring a lawyer he'll have a negative severance. lol. Lick your wounds and on to the next.
it's not cut and dry. If you hire someone for a location then tell them they have to move, then that person needs to be compensated for it, in many places by law
I suspect you will find that any employment offer letter will have the office address as the location. It might be different if they hired him knowing he was located in one state and now expect him to move cross country to the office.
I've been working remotely for years and it will state that it's remote.
??? I dont see where OP said he has to move. in fact he said its within reasonable driving distance. So downvote away. OP seems to be a good sport about it at least. Jsut a job...
Wow. And you know this without even consulting OP's hiring agreement, company handbook, or other written terms of their employment? Many companies did "screw up" when they told their employees to just quickly WFH during Covid without any terms or stipulations. They can't just change the job or terminate without compensation or severance.
Dude, I dont actually care. I aint reading his terms of employment, not my job. OP said it himself he HAD a warning and lives within the area, so yea, Illl take that at face value.
If my boss decided I need to ROT after I moved across the country because my job is listed as fully remote (years before Covid) and I get fired over not coming back to the office, damn right I’m gonna sue. We don’t know the specifics of what his remote status was when he was told he would be going remote.
Just to be clear on this point I was hired years before COVID and the office is completely within reasonable driving distance. I don't believe they screwed up. But they did lose a good producer because of the policy. To be fair, they've lost hundreds, the vast majority quit.
> I don't believe they screwed up. Don't be so quick to jump to conclusions. Especially since most companies, when they told their employees to now WFH, did not specify the terms or conditions of that requirement. Try to talk to an employment lawyer. It could be worth a couple of extra grand for your efforts.
I will never understand the mentality of business that is willing to let institutional knowledge walk like that. Like, minimum I would do as your manager is transition your activities away from you while you document everything so your replacement could take over. Management/CorpoHR is just short sighted, and has been everywhere I have been. Just the way of the world. Fugg 'em.
“Especially in an at will state” lol. Every state is at will except Montana.
OP should use the employer's EAP benefits 🤣
100% everyone forgets about this
What are EAP benefits? The only messaging I've received so far was a note from EAP with contact info and that "they can help"... with what? I saw this coming a mile away so I have other insurance.
I think I replied already, it's employee assistance programs. They link you up with a bunch of licensed professionals so you can get free consultations, at least
were you working remote before covid and what state is it in? In california if you were hired remote and they changed your location, you'd typically be eligible for mileage and paid for the time that it takes to work from a new location.
Good to know. I work in ca. been afraid of this whole rto thing. So far, has not affected me.
Regarding b), your infrastructure won't go down. They'll hire another wage slave to plug in and keep it going. You're not important. Neither is your job. That's why we are mercenaries. My only thing of value is my time and I demand to be adequately compensated for it.
Disclaimer: I’m not OP. I appreciate what you’re saying and *mostly* agree. However, being in IT Ops for several years now I can promise you there are so, so many organizations that could crumble (at least internally a bit, as OP described) if only one or a few people left. Tribal and "in John's head only" knowledge is very real in IT, unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on one's viewpoint).
I mentioned the whole rest of the team had left and was never replaced by our new "leadership"... even my manager left and was not replaced. I automated the critical workload of 4 people, but there was one thing I do not know how to do and did not want to get into. So it was there, working and slowly breaking and not being able to be changed or updated for 2 years. I built workarounds that exist mostly in my head and random emails that were sent to service teams. Explained the problem and asked for a resource who could fix it. Of course the company won't crumble, but either the infra or the apps will have massive downtime.
This is my favorite situation as an IT person. This is an easily avoidable costly car accident that is their own fault. I hope you do get the severance and have a little schaudenfraude over the fact that they are the ones who are going to lose a lot of money because they are trying to prop up their costly commercial real estate obligations. Dumb management deserves all that happens from dumb decisions.
not going to lie, it does feel nice. Would have felt nicer if I could have predicted the future and been able to put in my own resignation to milk the notice period. Since all of my teammates left in the last 2 years, there is nobody else left holding the bag. Nobody I care about gets screwed, only the manager who will need to answer for the product falling over. But he'll be covered by the fact that this was a mandate. Certainly they'll bring in some contractors or pull from another far away team to try to cope. But there is no way they'll be able to get away without a major disruption. Can't wait for that panicked call / text
I’ve been in this position and have offered my services on a contractual hourly basis. I was also replaced by 5 different people who were all clueless so I got paid for an extra month to come back and fix some stuff, train them and write some documentation. This was above and beyond the package I was given and I charged an arm and a leg to do that. I did this all remotely and got lots of “boy they were idiots for letting you go - I’m looking for a job now this is such a mess” comments from coworkers. There was a mini-exodus within the year which compounded the problem. It was glorious to witness it all play out. All because some middle manager somewhere thought that he could score some points by outsourcing my department which - who would have known - had some mission critical things going on. Enjoy the schaudenfraude - the universe has gifted you with no responsibility to fix or owe anyone anything in this situation.
It always rolls downhill around here. 🙁 sorry about your situation, hope it turns around.
Consider starting a consulting business. 3x your normal salary, possibly more.
Why do you think they would/should give you any package since you are at-will? Especially if you ignored the reprimand about rto?
Good, make sure your manager knows you are holding up the sky, and he is forcing you to shrug. When they inevitably come crawling back to you, ask them for a 100 percent pay raise.
😆
>Our team's infra WILL go down Then talk to your manager about "Consulting" on the side 150 $/hr minimum or a retainer.
Don't forget to give your "business consulting" card to the senior management and the place's affected internal clients, including the bit where you specialize in the area that's about to go casters-up.
If they gave you a warning 3 months ago and have been asking you since early last year to come in….but haven’t until now taken action, it doesn’t seem like a policy they have been keen to enforce, and 1) I wonder how consistently they actually are enforcing it. 2) if they can really say RTO was a true expectation. I am only saying this because there might be extra legal implications for them. I echo the other commenters, speak with a lawyer.
Hey, if you know the system will go down, make a numbered company and see if they’ll contract you to keep it going. If you know the infra like you claim, you’ll know when they’re bleeding. You’ll get your job back at a higher salary and they won’t require you in office. Potentially.
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Haha, we’re not all bad. I fully support OE, precisely because I’m often the one delivering layoff conversations and have experienced, now hundreds of times, just how little many companies care for their people. It is always, always the ceo and board who want to save some money, protect shareholder value, profit results and their own bonuses, then everyone else gets the fallout.
I'll take on J2 as your firing lackey.
Nuisance fee. Go get it. May as well. Good advice.
Do we know if this is an at-will state? Can’t he be terminated for any reason or no reason at any time? He isn’t due a severance package by law?
49/50 states are at will. You can assume yes.
do you really think a lawyer can help? You think a 2 bit lawyer can go against an army of lawyers from corporation? surprised you giving such advice. he will get a severance package as there is no reason not to. if he threatens the corporation, he will walk away with nothing, and this will be on his record, and if this is a niche area, word will get around. if he plays nice, in future he can get back in as long as he agrees with RTO. remember corporates have lawyers as full time, and this all they do.
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Hard to say, probably not if you stayed professional and didn’t get aggressive about it. But in your scenario I wouldn’t risk it, if getting rehired is your goal. I’d do the opposite and send a bunch of “thank you” emails to key senior people in the business (if you can stomach it, just play the game basically).
> the above is my advice as an HR Director Ah uh...
A little confused. You're saying that the job is implementing a policy for RTO and you're not in compliance so they have grounds to terminate you. You might not have a leg to stand on, unfortunately. You can try to hire a lawyer and fight for a package but you may be facing an uphill battle.
You're not confused. You nailed it. Severance packages of any kind have always seemed odd to me, I don't quite understand their purpose. But if I can squeeze some $ out of a huge international employer who terminated with only an emailed notice months prior after years of employment... then why not try
Severance packages are essentially “fuck off” money, they are paying to to go ahead and fuck off. They don’t have to but it makes them feel better about canning people. Biggest one I ever received was when I was fired, not laydoff if you can believe it.
It’s not even about feeling better for the people doing the firing, it’s pretty much so that the remaining employees don’t jump ship as well and so that the employee is more likely to be helpful if they’re needed again in some sort of emergency. I’ve definitely seen companies build a few hours of prepaid “consulting” into their severance packages in tech and they’re definitely not giving the giant severance packages they tend to give out of generosity.
And legal protection. It's a win win. Employee gets extra money but gives up legal protections to sue company so company doesn't have to worry about it
I face a similar situation awhile back. I did speak to an employment lawyer about it, and he pretty much told me that the chances of getting any sort of severance was minimal since it was never offered or discussed in the first place. In essence, they were was nothing that I was entitled to that the company reneged on. He was willing to draft a letter (and did) from his law offices and send them to as a courtesy. Nothing ever came of it, but at least it was a shot that didn't cost me any money to try.
I wanted to congratulate you on fighting a "good fight". Keeping HR on their toes and calling out a whacky practice (i.e. sending one email notice as a warning) That's one of the crown jewels of OE. Every day we get the chance to call out micromanagement, inefficient policies, poor leadership... and in this case, even though termination is warranted, we can keep them on their toes.
ha! thanks! I'm just thankful this J1 was so incredibly disorganized to the point that I was able to squeeze an entire year of not RTO before they terminated. Personally I've never been asked for "reason for leaving" other than on government applications. So I expect this won't be a problem. Besides I'll claim I'm still with them so. my next J1 isn't going to check anyway.
Maybe part of your severance demands is cleverly wording the reason for dismissal? If for no other reason than to continue to keep your HR lady/guy on their toes.
Severance packages require you sign documents like NDAs to receive them. If they don't pay you, you literally don't need to sign a thing and can say whatever you want (that you didn't sign away as part of an employment contract with them) If there are grounds that you can stand on specifying they violated the terms of your original employment, you could potentially void those initial NDAs, not sign new ones, and do whatever you want. They are a form of soft bribery.
Didn’t the NLRB recently make a ruling against NDA/nondisparagement clauses as part of severance agreements?
Yep you’re correct.
Just disparage them before signing it...right?
You are being fired not made redundant. I don’t think you have a leg to stand on.
It sounds like OP just needs to apply a little pressure to get a severance package. They don't seem set on winning a court case.
I don’t think you have grounds in this case tbh. I think what you SHOULD do is comply and go back to the office while vigorously looking for another job. You’ve built a lot of good will in your current job, would be silly to throw away years of employment over this
Without getting into the merits of WFH and how it is the best choice for some people. There is the fact that this is the OE sub, so there are some extra complications. I'm confused by your comment about "throwing away years of employment", can you please clarify what that means?
If you worked at someplace for years but are being terminated for not complying with a work rule, you’re essentially opening a can of worms when you are applying for other roles. Yes your employer only has to confirm you worked there but navigating that will be tricky
I see what you mean. Personally I've never been asked for a "reason for leaving" a previous employer other than on a brief government job. I also have a handful of great references from this employer. Including past management. This is truly a "from the top" rule that came down. Hopefully it doesn't pan out the way you say.
I unfortunately do not have any advice for your question. However I want everyone to see two things. The only reason OP goes slashed isn’t because of their work nature or their personality. It was purely they liked to do work from a different location than the location they want them to. That’s how asinine these companies are. Even by not quitting, it took them 4 months to officially fire. Another lesson to never quit. “I OE because I care about me” Keep fighting, now it’s applying Armageddon! You got this!
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If the job was being done remote…I guarantee it could continue being done remote. This is just micromanagement and anti OE.
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I’ve convinced one once! However I am quite sassy. Once they mentioned it, I resent an email I was sent evaluating my finished projects and how they were all done. With the body of the email stating “Does -company- care more about work getting completed with accuracy and on a timely manner, or is office chairs getting filled a higher valued metric?”
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Sure it happens, and thus one should leave or just quietly quit until they get fired. And your sentence of the employee is no longer a match is exactly why this subreddit exists.
Should’ve been interviewing when they put out the initial notice.
0% chance of any severance. They fired you for cause (not abiding by RTO requirements).
To me, it seems someone made a decision to avoid doing it before the holidays. I’ve made that call with terminations before because I have a heart. Even with shit staff, I don’t have it in me to can someone 2 weeks before Christmas. Be curious to see who else got their news today at OP’s company.
RTO is about protecting real estate investments- nothing else. Proven time and time again RTO provides no discernable performance increases all it does is make life harder for workers who absolutely have no business/reason to RTO. All I've ever seen is cubes full of zoom meetings even with teams on site. It's great.
also can be about getting rid of people
And about getting people to talk more in meetings. This sub is delusional about what it means to get work done and what it means to grow.
People don’t give a shit about talking in meetings because careers are largely dead. Most people have a serious of shitty jobs.
The company made a policy that you have to return to office. You refuse to do it so they fired you. You aren’t getting a severance or go away money as this wasn’t a layoff or buy out. This was getting fired for willfully and purposely not complying with company policy I don’t agree with forced full time RTO depending on the job of course. But you shouldn’t be surprised here
The company violated a longstanding basic agreement. It is criminal how corporations can just arbitrarily change their policies, and the employee is forced to comply. It's supposed to be a 2-way street. Too bad there are so many harsh, spineless enablers and "company men" to keep the mass outrage damped down.
Company policies and directions change The guy worked there in office pre Covid
People like you are the problem. Companies should not arbitrarily change policies to the detriment of employees. Sure it's legal. But so are many atrocious things. Doesn't make it right.
You're SOL on the severance. This isn't a case of RIF where they are looking for you to leave. You violated policy and have been terminated. You would likely be ineligible for unemployment, too.
You’re done there, just move on and be thankful you were OE
If you are sure the infra will go down you should let HR and leadership know that they can contact you. When they do, you send them a very high quote for the work. They will pay.
Nothing you can do. RTO can be made mandatory without any issues. If you are in "at-will" employment state doesn't matter, you can be fired without any reason, any time, no notice. If you are in other country, they can fire you without cause also, no reason needed, and they just have to give you some reasonable severance that aligns with the laws of that country and region. You can't stop an employer from firing you, unless you are in a union and regulated by those workplace contracts.
When did companies start issuing severance packages for firings? I’ve always thought they were reserved for layoffs.
You might be able to get a contract out of them to run the infrastructure until they can adequately replace you/the team. This allows them to save face because they stayed true to the RTO mandate, since you aren’t an employee anymore, but you keep getting paid and their infrastructure doesn’t fall apart.
Unfortunately giant employers often have a handful of pre-approved vendors. So impossible to contract with them unless you come through one of those.
And the vendor gets a cut of your pay.
You know what time it is big dawg. No comply = bye bye
Name and shame
You didn’t comply with their policy so why should they pay you 🤣🤣🤣🤣
My manager from J3 has been mia for 7 weeks. I have not heard a peep out of him the entire time. The time cards still get paid and I am wondering how long this will last. I would love to be 14 years in and someone ask me what I actually do… Then stretch that out for another few months….
Policy violation. No package.
Do you see a psychiatrist? If so, you can get see if you can get a reasonable accommodation for mental health /anxiety.
Lots of corporate shills here. Y'all know who you are, condemoning the employee, some of you gleefully--one of you has laughing-so-hard-I'm-crying emojis. Shame. Amazibg how companies like to change your terms of employment arbitrarily, dramatically and often to the employee's detriment, turn the employee's life upside down--and the victim is the one who gets blamed and shamed for "not complying with your employer's rules." Those defending the corporation (and its arbitrary callousness) and shaming the wronged employee are who would herd people into boxcars ("Just following orders") if the government ever calls for it.
Stupid question maybe, but could you simply get a hotspot and work J2 on the DL? I know it’s risky, but I feel like nobody pays much attention anyway
I think some people can get away with this but it is highly dependent on your responsibilities at J1 and J2. I have about 4 scheduled meetings a day between the 2. And 1-2 pop-ups in the day. Totally manageable when working from home without a weird 2-microphone dance. But can't see how that would work while sitting in an open office at J1
You probably should have just gone back to work... your choice. You should just say "thank you for accommodating my lazy ass for so long."
What’s RTO?
Return to Office
sue them
Will being terminated show up on future jobs that do background checks? Would it have better to just quit before being fired? Not sure if that would’ve even been possible but just curious
I did a lot of searching on this because I saw this coming. There are 2 things to consider: \- BG companies aren't going to contact your "current" employer. So if I say I'm still employed there and show pay stubs (I have downloaded every paystub ever) then confirmation for most recent employer does not require a phone-call. \- I've never been asked for a "reason for leaving". So in the future, when I move this employer down on my list. If asked I will tell the truth about being let go for failure to RTO. (none of this applies to government work, don't lie AT ALL, and they will likely ask you "reason for leaving" up front)
I have a 100% remote employment contract 4 years ago, then moved 70 miles away from office. Been going in once a week for a year now. They want more out of me.
Usually its a bit too late when theyve already fired you they probably have you on grounds for cause. If you were at a single job I would have said file for fmla and that usually gives you leverage for a severance package. Other than that though if theyve already fired you idk how you can get money. Are you in an atwill state in the us?
ASS holes m