[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by bluejays

I'm personally not feeling well at all. Updating from my last situation.

I was having work troubles as well as personal parent health problems. Work was giving me a hard time about performance (which were largely just opinions). On the side I hired a lawyer to intervene and negotiate an out but the day I was going to initiate it I got a call from my boss saying they were stopping the hard time, and to take the time I needed to be with my parent. They also said they'd put me in a different "role" when I came back from vacation. I suspected something was up but it seemed genuine. I called up the lawyer and put a halt to the letter being sent.

I took 3 weeks vacation and came back a few weeks ago only to find out the budget wasn't approved and contractors who were on my project were let go and I'm taking up much of that work. It's not something I've done before but I'd take it up I told them.

Yesterday I have my performance review and they gave me a terrible rating (first time in my career), and they put it in writing, skirting many of the truths. Now it's apparent they stopped what was turning out a PIP, so that my performance rating would be rated badly and I'd have one bad one on the record to cover themselves for what may come next. They wrote I'm not suited for the role and exaggerated/biased a lot of what their perception was. Further in our discussion she didn't read me all that until after. I'll have to respond today in a rebuttal.

I'm desperate to find another role in my organization. I've never seen this happen but they just want to save money by giving me a hard time to quit. I'm reaching out to my internal network but the mental state they've put me in the past few months has been terrible. I started the employee assistance program for mental health but it wasn't useful (psychotherapist late, ending sessions early to get to their next, effectively leaving 15-20 mins talk time). So I'm starting to see a psychotherapist outside of the assistance program to deal with this anxiety and frustration. I'm not sure what I can do legally but they've put me in a terrible situation. I don't want to walk away from 18 or so years of service but my confidence is a 2, and motivation daily a 3. I feel they pulled a quick one the past couple months just so they could get this into my year end review to screw me further financially.

Don't resign or they might win and not have to pay you the proper severance you're owed. Do not accept any changes from full time to part time roles or lower roles. That too can screw you over for your severance.

Pressure them with that lawyer without holding back and hope they lay you off instead. I kid you not, your company might be hoping you roll over and take whatever BS they try to pull.

You don't know the avenues you have, so spend time figuring them out. I'll give you a hint, you have more than you may realize. Get a lawyer who is an expert at employment law, do it right and don't cede ground to the company that you don't have to cede (unless you truly want to). Get a second opinion to confirm the option of the first if what you are told sounds weird. Don't be intimidated. I've heard the stories of the big company saying, "You can hire a lawyer to go over the agreement, that's your legal right. But we have a team of lawyers, lawyer connections and we don't worry about spending money because we pay them anyways." Someone I know went through not one but two underhanded situations and always walked away with a bit more than the initial offer. But they had to lay the ground work, collect information to be used as evidence as needed and also know what options they had to get a deal better for them.

Them giving you more work might be a silver lining to your advantage. Don't scale back or shirk from the duties and unrealistic expectations will be attempted to the best you can, but may not be met. Scaling back, voluntarily choosing an easier role etc. how you'll get screwed financially. Staying par for the course is the best way to succeed. Try and dig motivation that your goal is to leave the ####ty situation on your terms so that they don't have full satisfaction when you're gone. Think of it like the current Flames. Push hard to succeed, show it's obvious you're leaving everything on the ice that you can, but a lot of games will not be winnable.

Document whether your pay increased (or not), resources to do your role adequate (or not). This might give you a back up option for an attempt at "wrongful dismissal" if they try to offer a really crappy severance scenario and situation. It's not guaranteed, but at least doing so you might be able to get a revised/bumped up severance calculation or if they try to use the performance score as reasoning, You counter with your 18 years of service + being put into a situation where the chance of success was low and you were not compensation wasn't adequate etc. You're not asking for more because they're being underhanded. You're making sure you don't leave anything on the table that you shouldn't be. Better to have the ammo and not need to use it than have no ammo in a situation you could have used it.

Good luck. It'll be overwhelming, but that's literally what they might be trying to do. They may be hoping you give up vs working hard till the end to walk away without leaving anything on the table. Do it right and the satisfying feeling that they didn't get away with an underhanded approach will go a long way in brightening up your mood by overcoming the memories of the crap they pulled.

Story of some underhanded #### I've heard of pulled on another

Spoiler!

Situations are obviously different, but I've seen it before where the company tried to do something as a "voluntary layoff" that wasn't fully legal. Renegotiated a much stronger "offer" via lawyer's advice (not through the lawyer though) to a grey, but much more legal arrangement. Went as far as to recommend that the "final day" was like 60 days after the individual last walked into those offices by fiddling with the vacation (requested time in lieu vs straight pay out) to be advantageous. HR thought it didn't make much of a difference (although a higher up knew exactly what was being attempted and kept it mum as she was a friend of the individual), but it was known it would affect the severance calc positively for the individual because it technically increased their years of service by two months and retained employee benefits for longer. Individual immediately started job search once that arrangement was agreed upon as it is significantly easier for an individual to search for a job while still "technically" employed (basically a twist on time in lieu). Individual then ran all sorts of counseling sessions through HSA.

I forget what it was called, but this individual had been in a different underhanded situation where they were basically given a 60 day layoff notice, but had to work up to the 60th day. I think it might have been played off as a notice layoff, but rumors were the company would announce later that they had no ability to re-hire those employees from that "temp" layoff/furlough(?). Anyways, the HR person was hoping the individual would quit and then the company wouldn't have to pay out as much severance and she'd look like a genius while being a bitch to this person. But it was underhanded to the point where the individual was immediately put into a different role (but same pay) and basically snidely told that the role "might" be getting laid off in 60 days so that a "quit vs. Individual got head hunted and based on some advise from a friend who was involved with some employment things, ended up negotiating a start date on the "60th day" so they got full severance original co, signing bonus from new co (technically employed) etc. and wasn't backed into a corner like that ####ty HR person was trying to do. The old employer was salty AF. What was learned in this situation was used in the above scenario.

Another employee that was in the same boat at that top scenario and took a different approach. Instead of taking the underhanded voluntary layoff offer, they decided to take the second offer of being changed to part time. Several months later, the individual was laid off anyways. They made less in those few months employed part time than the reduction in severance. This is because the severance was calculated on the last role at part time vs several years full time at the time of the (underhanded) offer. The ####ty irony was that the they screwed this individual worse, but laying them off in that part time role was far more legal than the original voluntary layoff offer they had presented.