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Layoffs are going to suck regardless, but this is one of the best severance packages I've seen in this wave: * 15 weeks base pay + 1 week per year of employmen
by jackson1442 4y ago
Layoffs are going to suck regardless, but this is one of the best severance packages I've seen in this wave:
* 15 weeks base pay + 1 week per year of employment
* 6 months COBRA + $300 mental health
* no 1-yr cliff, options can be exercised thru next year
* you can keep all your equipment
- robofanatic 4y agojust curious, can one collect unemployment during severance?
- jcadam 4y agoI would think not. The one time I was on UE (back in 2008), you had to report any income you received. edit: apparently in some states you can - at least in Colorado in 2008, you could not. Generally your unemployment would be reduced by the amount of income you brought in. So, in any case, severance payments from a typical tech job would far exceed UE anyway...
- hn_throwaway_99 4y agoHmm, I thought this was a good question so I looked it up. At least in my state you cannot.
- cmh89 4y agoIt's state by state. I know you can collect unemployment while receiving severance in Washington.
- jrib 4y agonot an expert, but my understanding is it depends on how the severance is paid off. If the company keeps you on payroll and pays you weekly, then you cannot collect unemployment. If the company gives you a lump sum then you may be able to. If a condition of the severance is that you sign a document saying you are quitting instead of being fired, then you cannot collect unemployment. My understanding comes from recent googling because of similar layoffs that happened at my company. I'd welcome more informed thoughts on the matter.
- UncleOxidant 4y ago> If the company gives you a lump sum then you may be able to. Yep, in the case of the lump sum you're not being paid after you're given the lump sum. I was laid off in 2014. Got 4 months in a lump sum when I went out the door. There were no problems applying for unemployment.
- gamblor956 4y agoIf a condition of the severance is that you sign a document saying you are quitting instead of being fired, then you cannot collect unemployment. This is false. If a company makes you sign a statement that you are quitting instead of being fired as a condition of getting severance, they are committing unemployment insurance fraud and are subject to civil and criminal sanction in most states. (The point of trying to make employees do this is to avoid claims against the company's unemployment insurance account in the state. How UI works differs from state to state, but in all instances claims against UI increases the company's ongoing UI expense.)
- bombcar 4y agoAnd a key giveaway is that companies rarely pay severance to people who actually quit.
- bastardoperator 4y agoThis is how people get caught for fraud in quite a few cases too. They create a one sided contract that outlines their fraud and then they distribute it to people who run straight to lawyers, as they should.
- johnvanommen 4y agoI had a layoff like that, they gave me the option of choosing. Lump sum or "stay on the payroll but have no access." I went with the latter because it paid better. For a while I was always stressed out about background checks, because it showed that I was working two jobs. (I got a job to replace it almost immediately, but continued to get paid by the old place.)
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- DevX101 4y agoThat's a fantastic deal.
- jcadam 4y agoCrazy. Usually it's just "Pay stops today, benefits at the end of the month. Hand in your badge - off you go."
- datalopers 4y agoNo it's not. Severance is extremely common, while this package is quite generous.
- VWWHFSfQ 4y agoSeverance is definitely not common in startups. They'll usually burn the cash right up until the very last investor says 'no more' and then call it quits. They might have one more pay period (or two) in the bank.
- fnimick 4y agoOr worse: they go right up to the edge, convince people to work for back pay for "a month or two", then shut down afterward. I've seen that happen.
- johnvanommen 4y agoI got hired by a place, and my first paycheck bounced. The owners are now billionaires. (They sold the company to a Fortune 100 about 18 months later.)
- wahnfrieden 4y agoEmployers are by dollar amount the biggest actual thieves by far in the US. Business owners ought to generally receive more scorn and critical evaluation than common property thieves who represent a thin fragment, if we really care about theft
- xedrac 4y agoWhy don't you go start a business and become one of these rich employers you speak of? If taking such risks wasn't rewarded accordingly, then I don't think people would be nearly as eager to start a business.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- lfittl 4y agoThe "$300 mental health" seems odd - for any kind of counseling/therapy/etc sessions this is a drop in the bucket in terms of cost. It will easily cost 10x to work with a mental health professional (and insurance companies sadly pay a very small amount of it). So why add this to an otherwise reasonable package?
- nbar1 4y ago$300 is incredibly reasonable since it's more than $0.
- jamesliudotcc 4y agoThey are paying the COBRA. So this goes toward copays and hitting deductible. Assuming their health coverage is good (why wouldn't it be, it's a San Fran tech company?), this gets you pretty far.
- brookst 4y agoI think this is a case of small help coming across as worse than no help, even though rationally that's not true. Like if I ask you to write a quick script that'll take a half hour... offering you $5 may be worse than just asking it as a favor. I'm sure their heart is in the right place and offering mental health coverage is a good thing, it's just the number causes a double-take.
- lfittl 4y agoTo clarify why it bothers me: It tries to tell a story of "we as a company care about you", but at least in my experience, health care plans cover less than $100 per session, and in the SF Bay Area you easily pay $200+ per session for mental health professionals (as they are often out of network). Maybe Apollo's health care plan has much better out of network coverage than what I'm familiar with, in which case I stand corrected (and agreed that its good to help cover copays, if this is what this actually does).
- rdtwo 4y agoIt’s like one private pay visit at a really good clinic. They can then help guide you somewhere that’s covered by insurance. Mental health is full of quackery so best start at a top notch place
- userbinator 4y agoyou can keep all your equipment Including laptops with likely the customary IT spyware as well as confidential company data? If I were in this situation, I would at the very least wipe the drive completely, and probably reflash the BIOS too before actually considering it safe for personal use.