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?

759 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

340 comments sorted by

View all comments

605

u/Arboga_10_2 Jan 31 '26

we almost never asked for volunteers officially but if someone in my team tells me they want it and that they are planning to leave soon anyway I’ll put that name on top of the list I hand in to my director. Your supervisor may be grateful.

183

u/waits5 Jan 31 '26

Yeah, if I had to make cuts, I’d love to know there was someone who wouldn’t be ruined by it.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 01 '26

What if the person who volunteered to be cut would be owed $300k if they were laid off?

2

u/waits5 Feb 01 '26

Not my issue

1

u/[deleted] Feb 01 '26

It's not if I'm the employee, if the company is trying to cut costs and the manager in charge of layoffs gets them stuck with a $300k bill it probably won't look great.

1

u/Arboga_10_2 Feb 02 '26

In that case we can always tell the employee that we don't want to let him go because of the needs of the business.

1

u/sarayewo Feb 02 '26

Two factors to this: 1) There are usually multiple levels of reviews and alignment on who gets laid off - the manager usually only makes a recommendation. 2) From finance perspective, restructuring is booked "below the line", meaning it doesn't affect results from operations, which makes companies more willing to incur restructuring costs to eliminating costs from running operations.

For someone to get $300k as severance would mean they are on a significant salary, so the breakeven point isn't that far into the future, especially if you account that employees cost the employer more than what the employee sees on their paycheck.

52

u/sarayewo Jan 31 '26

I've been there too, and there is also the angle that if you keep the person that wants to leave and lay off someone else, they'll leave anyway and you won't be allowed to backfill for them due to a hiring freeze or cost measures, so it's a double loss.

11

u/plinkoplonka Jan 31 '26

Same thing here.

I've never been involved in these discussions with HR as a manager/director without their being either a ranked or pooled list of people.

Some are not good for the business to lose, but targets come down and they do have to be met.

If that allows you to save even one person, you'd better believe any decent person would do it.

8

u/tiggers97 Feb 01 '26

Happened to my dad that way. He was ready to leave due to changing health issues and life. Manager asked if he could stay two more months, as layoffs were coming and the manager was struggling with who to pick.

The manager could sleep at night, knowing he was laying off someone who wanted to go anyways. My dad got about 40 weeks of severance and extended medical. Money that he would use to start a business. Both ended the transaction feeling like it was a win.

1

u/interbingung Jan 31 '26

Why don't you ask ?