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Someone I know had to sign one of these as a prerequisite to getting a severance, but before the actual amount of severance was revealed to him. He asked my adv

by danek 9y ago

Someone I know had to sign one of these as a prerequisite to getting a severance, but before the actual amount of severance was revealed to him. He asked my advice on it and I suggested he sign bc it would be reasonable for both parties. (But basically his very new boss was very authoritarian and vindictive and didn't like him, he was doing fine for years..). So he signed it. And then he got an astonishingly tiny severance check. So much so that I nearly disparaged the company.

rstephenson2 9y ago
I'm not a lawyer, but don't contracts require consideration for both parties? Usually when employers require an employee to sign something, there is an implicit consideration "and you get to keep your job." But in this case he was already fired. I suppose it may have said "...in exchange for severance, at [employer]'s sole discretion" but it seems a bit fishy to me.
- ahlatimer 9y ago
  The non-disparagement clause may have been bilateral. The consideration, in that case, is "we won't talk negatively about you if you don't talk negatively about us." Here's an example of a former reddit employee disparaging the company and the CEO stepping in and giving his side: https://np.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2iea97/i_am_a_former_reddit_employee_ama/cl1ygat/?context=3 https://np.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2iea97/i_am_a_former_r...
  - js8 9y ago
    > The non-disparagement clause may have been bilateral. The consideration, in that case, is "we won't talk negatively about you if you don't talk negatively about us." Cannot offering of such a clause be considered a blackmail?
- danek 9y ago
  It sounds super shady but it's what this company does. It's basically a payoff: "Don't ruin our recruiting pipeline or tarnish the opinion of any existing employees and we'll make your firing a bit less painful with X months salary, just sign here. Also we will let you know what 'X' is next week, after you've signed". X ended up being 1 week of salary. Though for other people it was 1 or 2 months. Very shitty.
valuearb 9y ago
Yea, I would have told them the non-disparagement agreement looked great and I'm looking forward to signing it as soon as I receive the corresponding severance agreeement to sign.
zebraflask 9y ago
That is horrifying. How did you possibly think that was reasonable advice?
- danek 9y ago
  Yes I agree. To clarify, I was away on vacation at the time and we only spoke briefly. We discussed that the lack of details about the severance was weird but we had 10+ reports of others who had received 1-2 months of severance, and they had worked there only a year or two, whereas he had been there 4 years. So we though it was reasonable he would get at least a month of severance, based on precedence of "lesser" employees. He was told that hr had a standard formula for calculating the severance but was not told that the main factor was his manager's discretion. Also for him at this time, any money was better than no money, and he was interested in moving on with his life rather than writing a shitty Glassdoor review (he's actually doing much, much better for himself than he was at the prior company, I'm just pissed about the way he was treated). So yes, this was bad advice and I learned an important lesson. But I'm also thankful it worked out in his favor in the end.

by danek 9y ago

rstephenson2 9y ago

I'm not a lawyer, but don't contracts require consideration for both parties? Usually when employers require an employee to sign something, there is an implicit consideration "and you get to keep your job." But in this case he was already fired. I suppose it may have said "...in exchange for severance, at [employer]'s sole discretion" but it seems a bit fishy to me.

ahlatimer 9y ago
The non-disparagement clause may have been bilateral. The consideration, in that case, is "we won't talk negatively about you if you don't talk negatively about us." Here's an example of a former reddit employee disparaging the company and the CEO stepping in and giving his side: https://np.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2iea97/i_am_a_former_reddit_employee_ama/cl1ygat/?context=3 https://np.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2iea97/i_am_a_former_r...
- js8 9y ago
  > The non-disparagement clause may have been bilateral. The consideration, in that case, is "we won't talk negatively about you if you don't talk negatively about us." Cannot offering of such a clause be considered a blackmail?
danek 9y ago
It sounds super shady but it's what this company does. It's basically a payoff: "Don't ruin our recruiting pipeline or tarnish the opinion of any existing employees and we'll make your firing a bit less painful with X months salary, just sign here. Also we will let you know what 'X' is next week, after you've signed". X ended up being 1 week of salary. Though for other people it was 1 or 2 months. Very shitty.

valuearb 9y ago

Yea, I would have told them the non-disparagement agreement looked great and I'm looking forward to signing it as soon as I receive the corresponding severance agreeement to sign.

zebraflask 9y ago

That is horrifying. How did you possibly think that was reasonable advice?

danek 9y ago
Yes I agree. To clarify, I was away on vacation at the time and we only spoke briefly. We discussed that the lack of details about the severance was weird but we had 10+ reports of others who had received 1-2 months of severance, and they had worked there only a year or two, whereas he had been there 4 years. So we though it was reasonable he would get at least a month of severance, based on precedence of "lesser" employees. He was told that hr had a standard formula for calculating the severance but was not told that the main factor was his manager's discretion. Also for him at this time, any money was better than no money, and he was interested in moving on with his life rather than writing a shitty Glassdoor review (he's actually doing much, much better for himself than he was at the prior company, I'm just pissed about the way he was treated). So yes, this was bad advice and I learned an important lesson. But I'm also thankful it worked out in his favor in the end.