A layoff guide for tweeps

<i>&quot;Preparing for a Malicious “For-Cause” Termination The new leadership has dramatically changed the expectations of workload across the organization. It is now expected that teams work evenings and weekends to ship products. Work progress is being tracked by the hour in spreadsheets to build precedent for terminating workers “for cause” to avoid paying severance. &quot;</i><p>That&#x27;s just shitty. Richest guy in the world and he doesn&#x27;t want to pay severance. CA has some pretty strong labor laws, I&#x27;d think requiring people to work evenings &amp; weekends would be a no-go.<p>From a game-theory standpoint it seems like given that Musk is going to do everything he can to keep from paying severance that the best strategy would be for everyone to just walk out the door all together and let Musk figure it all out by himself. Don&#x27;t give notice, just stop showing up for work.

Tweeps should have formed a union in April. It was obvious that Musk was really going to inflict cruelty and disrespects upon them from the beginning.

One thing I was surprised not to see here but applies to any termination for any reason (even quitting really): do not sign anything without being paid for it. Even if they are offering a severance run it by a lawyer first. Without though, just don&#x27;t, no matter how innocuous it seems. It&#x27;s for their benefit, not yours.

&gt; If you’re not in a single party consent state, get creative. Have a colleague in one of these states hop on the phone to help you record and document any layoff conversations.<p>This feels like very risky advice. If your colleague is not party to a conversation, you can’t just sneak them in to the conversation to have them record it.

<i>Move your comp letters, redacted promo packets, redacted impact docs, promo letters, and pay stubs (on Workday) to your personal laptop. It’s imperative you have access to your key employment documents.</i><p>In many cases these systems only have SSO login. So how do you get that data onto your laptop when as mentioned earlier in the article you could be fired for cause when sending data is detected.

Working at a company like that you really have to come to terms with the fact that any second you&#x27;re working there, could be your last. Act accordingly.<p>I take that to mean, that one definately should not be working evenings and weekends. Why do all that, for a company that&#x27;s not going to value your work and look for wrongful ways to terminate you. If anything it means, you should work much fewer hours.

What does “for-cause” mean in an at-will state? If you’re fired, you generally still qualify for Unemployment Insurance. Severance payment is not a law, but a per-company practice. If a company plays games with their benefits, that can’t be unexpected.

I would say that Elon Musk must know that trying to layoff half the company under the guise of &quot;for-cause&quot; would be certain to open him up to massive legal liability, but the past few months have led me to suspect Mr. Musk fundamentally misunderstands the American legal system.<p>In any event, it would be illegal, there would be plenty of lawyers ready to work on contingency, and politicians would also be eager to investigate.

Shall we call November 2022 the Mythical Musk Month?<p>I&#x27;m not a tweep, but I&#x27;d add:<p>- if you have any sort of access to your employer&#x27;s network from your personal devices (e.g. email &#x2F; calendar &#x2F; WiFi etc.) remove it and check for any MDM settings. Especially if your employer has remote wipe capability on your device, or could legally confiscate your device due to some legal policy.<p>- Get a copy of information that makes it easy to write your next resume. E.g. your job description &#x2F; leveling guide.<p>- If you&#x27;re more nefarious than I am, consider maxing out any temporary benefits that might not be withdrawn after you leave. E.g. taking home company desk &#x2F; chair &#x2F; hardware for loan use in your home office if allowed (to improve your productivity). If they want it back after you&#x27;re fired for cause, make them come get it, you don&#x27;t work for them, so why do their work?<p>- Less nefariously, it&#x27;s probably time that you accidentally &quot;lose your badge&quot; and get a replacement especially if that&#x27;s used for discounts like car rental, airlines, gym memberships, etc. Copy codes for these things especially if they&#x27;re a good discount you might use when you&#x27;re laid off.<p>- Consider the effect being laid off might have on your 401k match etc. Min&#x2F;Max it out if this makes sense for your financial situation.<p>- Go through your emails to get a list of contacts that you&#x27;ve ever worked with &#x2F; emailed. You never know who will be a good person to have in your network later (and who might not appear in linkedin)<p>- I have heard people say that there are companies with severance linked non-disparagement clauses that can be a PITA, as well as non-disclosure clauses that make it impossible to disclose severance related things like amounts etc. I&#x27;d speculate that these clauses could make it problematic to get advice from your peers &#x2F; friends.<p>- Plan something good for after the layoff if you&#x27;re not immediately in need of a new job (take a vacation).<p>- Talk with an immigration attorney about what termination and not having a job means for you and your family.<p>- Find out your employer&#x27;s policies around termination of people that have immigration issues.<p>- COBRA can be pretty expensive - find out what this might cost for you and your family (it may work out cheaper to just pay for things as they arrive or look at marketplace plans).<p>- Join blind for your employer<p>- Take care of your immediate mental health, when everything is going to shit, remember that making time to do the things that you love doing is important. Walk the dog. Play that game. Go to that happy hour.<p>Good luck

The greatest lie ever told to employees by their company is that &quot;they are all family&quot;.

If you are a highly skilled technologist you will not have any issue finding a new job. If you are greatly bothered by the changes at Twitter and the new ownership it is almost certainly for the best that you leave and do something else. I don&#x27;t see why someone skilled enough to work at Twitter would desperately hang on working for someone you can&#x27;t stand to try and get some severance. Life isn&#x27;t fair and this is the free market, and you are earning Big Buck$, dust off the resume and join a new company. Life is too short to live like that.