Hi community,
Would be great to get your insights on this.
The management at the company I currently work for (an international travel one that taunts being good to its employees and the environment)<- greenwashing
though not for much longer, decided to blindside me a few days before my 6 month probation period was up.
They offered the standard 1 month severance in lieu of 30 days. I didn’t sign it and tried talking with them to understand their reasoning. Long story short it doesn’t actually have to do with getting the actual work getting done (which I have been doing to the best of my ability and trying to make improvements wherever I can), but basically they were trying to make the argument that I don’t have the common sense base/knowledge of what it means to work at/for a company. But this doesn’t sound like objective reasoning to me and I don’t feel that they communicated this or kept any kind of record of telling me the issues when they arose and then trying to address the problems before making this decision.
I told them that I would get back to them with a decision and made a counter offer for them to extend my probation period for another 3 months so that I could wrap up my current projects and help my team get through the busy season.
They came back with an offer for me to take “garden leave” for those three months instead, but in their rush to print the contract made it look like they were giving me 3 months “garden leave” in addition to 3 months severance. When I clarified about this, they quickly backpedaled and said they only meant the 3 months garden leave and gave me a new document without any severance.
I still haven’t signed any papers and had a few meetings with other managers to understand their reasoning and some have stated that I’m “a risk” to the company and look like I’m playing around at work, but it feels like just different interpretations of company culture to me.
Since then they’ve not allowed me to attend company events and it feels like they’re trying to socially isolate me and haven’t been properly listening to my requests. It doesn’t really seem like a negotiation to me and they certainly didn’t paint it that way to begin with.
So my questions are to those who have experience with this are:
1. Does the probation period play a big role in this if the 6 months have passed?
2. What’s typically a fare settlement in a case like this?
3. Any other advice/info you’d like to share on the topic would be appreciated too.
I’m really sad about all this because the company often uses jargon like family and claims to support idealistic goals.
Other than some of these managers that have said really hurtful things and seem to be trying to gaslight me into believing that I’ve done something wrong, I really love my coworkers and the work environment has been relatively great all things considered.
Thank you in advance for any help/kind advice you can give.
I’ve spoken with the labor bureau (who’s encouraging me to try to negotiate myself til I hit a wall before requesting further assistance from them if needed) and am considering talking with a lawyer.
Also, time is of the essence cuz I’ve basically verbally agreed to being “unofficially” finished at the end of the month to go on garden leave even though they’ve been pushing for my “last day” to be at the end of this week. Though again still haven’t signed anything.
by iriswitchkitty