Edit: To be clear I didn’t say this to shame the OP. I said this to highlight that the company didn’t offer up much. I say this because I have been in a similar position in the past where their “generous” offer was two months severance (same ballpark) which imo was insulting. Didn’t sign it either and told them to F off.
40k is a lot of money.
The 40k isn't a gift, it's a payment in order to take on a liability. I'd have a lot more success not talking about why I was let go, as opposed to not saying the word "are", but I'd still have to weigh the consequences of messing up one drunken or tired evening.
It highlights just how out of control the wealth gap is becoming.
Taking a public company vs average employee as a wealth gap example is probably not showing what you want to show.
One day I hope to see giving up 40 grand as a viable option
1. International Speak Like a Pirate Day.
2. Passing by John Cook without an R-R-R-R me hearties!
IR, matey
Ahhh me mateys !
k
Rsu is the largest part of comp for a senior person so more that half. So add another 300 k on top of that.
That’s a comp of close to 600k a year or 50k a month when averaged out.
FAANG pays that to new grads. (500k stock over 4 years and 140k salary is pretty standard).
I've worked at places also where 105b-1 plans were generally available (sell all shares at vest even outside trading windows), in which case employees were absolutely receiving 40k+ liquid cash a month. Many senior engineers were receiving substantial more than that.
Even with 20k bring home salary (which means you have been around a bit, possibly having family, mortgage, other investments, have hobbies that are a bit above just breathing air costs, teavel etc) you are saving just a fraction of that.
For some the fraction is really tiny, for some a bit bigger. 40k (just raw amount, untaxed) can be a year's worth of actual savings easily, even with good job.
Kudos to OP, bits like this keep my faith in humanity.
I mean, I just joined joined a new job two months ago in a full remote position for 50k Eur/year, working in France. It's already almost 10k more than my previous job.
I read that the median annual wage in 2021 in the US was $45,760. In France, it was 22,184 euros in 2018.
So I guess, $40k is a joke for some, but would make a large difference for most people out there.
I have seen it tried in a situation where a manager called an employee a racial slur. The employee sued and the company settled. Too bad for the company the employee had an email where the racial slur was used. You may not hear about it because it is kept hush hush in Silicon Valley.
Something similar happened to me. A manager said that a certain gender wasn't liked around here. When they laid me off, they gave me an unusually generous package and asked for a signature.
The discussion can start from the point of view of wanting the laid off employees to have a soft landing, and the lawyers push for especially non-disparagement and tightening up NDA.
That's an option I definitely considered, even discussed. But for reasons I mentioned elsewhere I decided to not sign, and have instead since mainly worked for non-for-profits at lower rates. So if we can count the salary difference as giving to charity, I've already given far more than that.