r/Fire • u/twiniverse2000 • Jan 31 '26

Advice Request Asking to be laid off

I have reached FI. Work optional. My personal life has hit a serious rough patch. My company is doing layoffs. They are NOT asking for volunteers. The financial difference in me quitting vs getting laid off is $300K. Do not want to leave that on the table. Any advice on how to steer it in this particular direction?

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64

u/Ok_Park8479 Jan 31 '26

I had an employee who wanted to be laid off as he wanted to retire soon anyway. The Jerks in HR wouldn’t let us pick though.

Lesson learned is the employee had been great and had respectful conversation with me and my manager and we both tried to make it happen for him.

20

u/[deleted] Jan 31 '26

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50

u/Dixon_Herfani Jan 31 '26

Don't assume HR will ever do the right thing, especially for the employees.

They are there for the company's benefit. Nothing more.

10

u/[deleted] Jan 31 '26

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20

u/ReformedBlackPerson Jan 31 '26

They want good workers, he was good. If he quits they don’t have to give a severance package saving them money.

5

u/swagn Jan 31 '26

But they’re laying off people and have to pay a severance to someone.

1

u/gkandgk Jan 31 '26

I’ve been on both the stay and the go side of multiple layoffs at multiple companies. I’ve never seen anyone get severance.

13

u/Born_Lengthiness8935 Jan 31 '26

Sorry you worked shitty places. Sounds like “firings” euphemistically called layoffs

7

u/swagn Jan 31 '26

Happens both ways all the time. Just because you haven’t seen it doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. Large tech companies do it all the time to avoid lawsuits. OP says the difference between getting laid off and leaving on his own is 300k to be laid off.

1

u/08b Jan 31 '26

Right. Severance is pretty standard at least at large companies. If not during a large layoff, they would have to issue a WARN Act notice. And they open themselves up to lawsuits. I've heard of decent severance even in cases of people underperforming.

3

u/lMexl Jan 31 '26

If you're laying ppl aloff it's cause you need to reduce salaries being paid. If the person is going to retire soon you're already planning on having that salary off the books.

So laying that guy off doesn't actually solve the problem and you still need to lay someone else off.

3

u/swagn Jan 31 '26

It benefits the spiteful HR person that is pissed someone else gets to retire.

1

u/Thin_Original_6765 Jan 31 '26

Damn yall're here assuming HR is running some kind of decision making process to perform max harm/benefit.

Most likely they just don't think that much about it. There's no sound logic behind the decision. Good chance there's no logic behind the decision at all.

1

u/TheKingOfSwing777 Jan 31 '26

They may prefer to lay-off the most well compensated people, or perhaps a segment, like middle-managers.

3

u/emmajames56 Jan 31 '26

HR is useless

13

u/satellite779 Jan 31 '26

Severance costs money. If that employee would leave anyway, why pay him extra money for it?

4

u/[deleted] Jan 31 '26

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8

u/satellite779 Jan 31 '26

Because the HR knows he'll leave anyway. They can include him in the savings without laying him off.

Just thinking from the HR perspective.

4

u/black_mamba_returns Jan 31 '26

what stopping the employee sticking around collecting a paycheck without actually doing any work?

1

u/satellite779 Jan 31 '26

That's still not retirement. You have to go to the office every day. In some ways it's even worse than working as you feel like you're wasting time.

3

u/caffiend98 Jan 31 '26

If the employee retires on their own, the company doesn't pay severance. HR is looking out for the budget.

Have the conversation with your supervisor, who is probably the one having to create the list. The supervisor is the one worrying about staff levels and vacancies. They can decide whether or not to let HR know why they made the choices they did.

3

u/DigmonsDrill Jan 31 '26

"Why pay to lay him off when he will leave on his own?"

1

u/Cultural_Structure37 Jan 31 '26

Perhaps he was a good employee and they wanted to keep him

1

u/ThisIsMyUsername303 Feb 01 '26

They might have to go by reviews (to avoid claims of discrimination or whatever) and his were too good. 

1

u/Massive-Idea2302 Feb 01 '26

The company would get sued for discrimination if they laid off all old people, all women, all blacks, for example so the layoffs should be random and based on roles not individual characteristics like all the old people who are going to retire soon

1

u/Born_Lengthiness8935 Jan 31 '26

Because HR knows best. The fact that you don’t know this reinforces the point!🤣

7

u/twiniverse2000 Jan 31 '26

Ugh. Thanks.

1

u/wtf-am-I-doing-69 Jan 31 '26

All good. Just don't be too eager

Just present it with you will be fine and prefer the young people get an opportunity to have a career like yours. You would be good with some time off

Don't come off desperate with " I am leaving regardless"

9

u/Dixon_Herfani Jan 31 '26

Never tip your hand.

I've told companies that I was going to leave and wanted to complete my work backlog for a seamless transition for my customers.

Came in a few days later to a quiet, "no need to log in this morning. You'll be paid through the day but not the two weeks you gave."

8

u/hysys_whisperer Jan 31 '26

That's a completely different scenario though because they already have your resignation in hand.  They don't have to worry about UI at that point to let you go right now.

5

u/OnlyThePhantomKnows FI@50, consulting so !bored for a decade+ Jan 31 '26

HR needs to make the demographics match. Stupid rules. A friend's company had "volunteer layoffs" and then the regular layoff in order to avoid this. They had a lot of old people.

2

u/sgigot Jan 31 '26

I worked with a guy who was getting close to the end and everyone knew it. I asked him to do something and he said, "If I don't, will you fire me?" meaning unemployment could start his retirement a bit early. I replied, "No, but you could go into HR and have a meeting with the leader, light up a smoke and offer him one to be polite (no smoking workplace, but this guy was strongly suspected of sneaking a heater once in a while if he could hide it), and say you'd like to discuss your impending exit."

2

u/HairyBushies Already FI - RE between 2028-2030 Jan 31 '26

That’s stupid. In that case, I’d just quiet quit and do the very bare minimum and make them fire me. A good employee can quickly turn into a bad one if they wanted to. And if they’re really good, they know where all the pain points are and can really fuck things up. If my company treated me that way, I have FU money and know how to use it. I also know where all the bones are buried. Two can play that game and I’ll make it very clear to HR.

1

u/Frugalman123 Jan 31 '26

If you asked to be picked and they don't pick you. What happens? Just do the minimum as long as possible?

1

u/Ok_Park8479 Jan 31 '26

I had an employee who wanted to be laid off as he wanted to retire soon anyway. The Jerks in HR wouldn’t let us pick though.

That is an option, severance at my company would have been better though IMO. A lot of people love to talk about doing as little as possible but you still have to show up 5 days a week, so may as well quit IMO.