r/negotiation • u/hereforthereferal3 • 17h ago

Advice sought

Asking for my senior father.

My father earned a decent, slightly above average salary years ago. He hasn't received any sort of pay increase in so many years that his salary has stagnated for so many years that he now earns slightly below the average and for the high cost area he lives in, he's now actually earning below the local poverty level. He's in an office -professional job that has dwindled as tech has changed over the years/decades. His work has technically increased because his coworkers have been layed off over the years and his pay has halved over the years because the have cut off his overtime and his on call pay (and his stress has increased because he's effectively on call all the time as a one man department overseeing a massive and critical portion of a major client).

For the last several years, his company (a major tech support company that's he's worked for almost 20 years) has been trying to lay him off -- going so far as to actually include him in a routine, mass layoff a few years ago before realizing they didn't have adequate redundancy for him.

Now, they are very clearly planning to lay him off again and have been pestering him incessantly for him to document his workflow.

This week, while on a call with his supervisor, once again being pressed for the necessary information to replace him, he finally got so fed up he gave his two weeks notice. His supervisor talked him into reluctantly retracting his resignation -- for the time being.

I want some advice about what he should do.

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u/facebook57 16h ago

He should wait for them to lay him off. He will get a severance package and then he can consult an employment lawyer to see if he can negotiate a better package than what he will be offered. He should not quit.

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u/hereforthereferal2 15h ago

Thank you for replying.

So, he's trying to avoid training his replacement (they are trying to outsource his WFH job overseas) and they have been really pressuring him to do so (on top of his other responsibilities and the stress and his feeling of being disrespected and devalued already led him to resign, 'though he retracted it after his boss's pleading).

They are not explicitly stating that's what they are doing, but it's blatantly obvious that's what they are doing. In the many years he's worked there, they have never pushed this hard or at this level of detail for him to document his workflow. Once they do that, I fear he loses all of his leverage. They actually send him a lay off notice in the last round of layoffs before they realized they didn't have someone to replace him and he found a way not to train the person they surreptitiously wanted to replace him. (In reality, his amount of work is daunting and would likely take months to train someone -- it just happens to be relatively easy for him because it's all second nature after all the years he's been doing it.)

I tried to convince him to go through with his resignation and offer to return as a trainer (because doing Job A is one thing and Teaching Job A is a whole different job with a more specific skill set and decades of experience), but he just ultimately wants to be left alone to do his job. I think that's unrealistic because even if they didn't want to lay him off (they probably do now!), it's unrealistic for a company to be so dependent on one individual cog in an important contract. He's old and emotional. I want him to finally get a taste of his value and a little sum for retirement.

I keep telling him its just a job and no one cares and he should be more realistic and calculated, but he's too emotionally invested and has his feelings hurt.

Sorry, too long... I don't think they will let him go until they have extracted every step and process of his job, from documenting to screen recordings, at which point I think he will have outlived his usefulness.

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u/facebook57 15h ago

It’s not that complicated. If he quits, he gets nothing. If he stays, he can document all their misdeeds, wait to be laid off and then work with an employment lawyer to extract the best exit package.

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u/NotA_A 12h ago

What was he going to do had he resigned? Do that.
I assume he'd be applying elsewhere if he resigned. So look for another job now and let the current company terminate him - so he can get unemployment benefits and maybe a severance. Can probably drag out the "train-the-replaement/document your workflow" part. But if he actually has a real offer in hand, (maybe even started the new job) then resign.