Indeed, that sounds terrible. I haven't been in that (exceptionally difficult) situation, but I wonder why the laid off employees consented to this? I wouldn't be in any rush to help the company lay me off and transition to a cheaper replacement. Was their severance package dependent on this?
As long as you answer all of their questions you would certainly be meeting the good performance stipulation. There would be no way for them to know whether you are providing the whole story. Why offer up information that is not specifically requested? After all, the hardest part of engineering is knowing which questions to ask in the first place.
The one time something vaguely like this happened to me, granted my boss made it very personal although in truth he'd lost his ability to sell, I would have been much, much better off telling him to FO and leaving on the spot, instead it triggered anxiety that eventually disabled me, which I later learned I had a genetic predisposition towards.
Money isn't the end all and be all, after all.
"Please your honor, it's such an easy temptation to fall into, when the articles are so infrequently more useful than the comments section."
More likely, if they'd left immediately, many of them could have gotten the equivalent of 4 months wages at their new job, since hopping is often the best way to get a raise.
Although in this case i think most future employers would be understanding of the situation. But even so, during an interview you only have that much time to show a good image of yourself, there's not always time to explain everything and any minor hickup, suspicion or oddity could cost you the job, you don't want to leave the interviewer only remembering lots of "but" and "except that time".
And don't be an ass. Search, find, depart immediately and politely.
http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/06/01/us/visa-letter-alt...
Yes. Its financial extortion.
If someone offered me $10K extra on top of my salary to take the trash out and clean the company kitchen for 2 weeks, I would gladly do it without blinking, even if it's a little humbling. I don't know about you. Calling it extortion is a bit much.
You mean 90 days, because that's the requirement in their agreement. And its not "taking out the trash", its directly training your lower-wage foreign replacement.
Anyway, it's a financial transaction for knowledge and labor like any other, if you think you're getting a raw deal, you should not accept the deal.
Not sure how it is financial extortion though.
I guess I can see how threatening to not give them something is a threat, but if that is how expansive our definition is, how is regular employment not extortion?
Obviously you shouldn't work for the Disneys of the world if you can work somewhere else. If you're really confident that you can find good work wherever and whenever you want it then you can afford to tell a bad employer like Disney to fuck off. For various reasons, a lot of people can't do that.
Yes, that's covered in the article:
> To receive his severance bonus, he said, “I had to make sure they were doing my job correctly.”