Years ago, I was laid off without any notice or severance pay from a small software company. To add insult to injury, my final paycheck was held up for months.

Years ago, I was laid off without any notice or severance pay from a small software company. To add insult to injury, my final paycheck was held up for months. In the years since, I've had scores of opportunities to refer business to them, and in every case I've steered customers to their competitors. No one is happy about getting laid off, but if you give fair notice and severance, you can at least avoid a situation where you've burned ex-employees so badly that they'll actually go out of their way to cost you sales. In the end, two of my co-workers from that company (also laid off in the same unceremonious fashion) started a competitive company that eventually put my former employer out of business.