Koolau
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
I may have been in a similar situation back in 2012, when I first joined this forum (almost exactly 9 years ago, wow!) and started a "should I retire now?" thread. My Megacorp had put on the table an early-retirement offer that I was eligible for.
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My good buddy from w*rk had to make that decision - to stay or go with a "package." I wasn't old enough to be in the mix. My buddy (the one who is NOW half a million in debt at age 76!) didn't really want to go because they were paying him an almost obscene amount of money for the w*rk they demanded of him. It was enough to meet his life-style and even build up (IIRC) almost $20K in his 401(k) (don't know whether to laugh or cry at that! ). His pension would be "sweetened" a bit, he'd get some "cash" as well. He could also "borrow" some pension (lower his pension when SS kicked in at 62.) I think they called it something like "pension smoothing."
So Megacorp sent some "big boys" down to the plant site to sit in a room with the couple hundred eligible "packagees." Buddy described the dire warnings of management. "We don't know WHAT will happen to the company of you guys don't take the package. For certain, it WON'T be offered later if the decision comes down that we didn't get enough folks to take it. So you can leave now WITH the package or HOPE you don't have to leave - but definitely with OUT a package in 6 months. It's YOUR choice."
Stuff always leaks out and we knew that over 90% of eligible took the package - the "boys" were good at their scare tactics. What leaked out 6 months later - and we already knew it by experience, was that the "boys" were hoping for 75% participation. Because so many folks "rabbited" we were left critically SHORT of w*rkers in critical technical positions. Those of us who knew the science had to learn how to actually "do" the w*rk and fill in for years to come - Good news to the company was: WE were on salary, not hourly. The extra w*rk was "free" to Megacorp. Of course, nothing is truly free and Megacorp lost the loyalty of a lot of folks who used to sing the company song (you know what I mean) whenever someone whined about w*rking there. Nothing was ever the same again. YMMV