Given the headlines, this is so very timely.

by ALISON GREEN on NOVEMBER 14, 2022
A reader writes:

I work at Twitter and have been there for many years. As I’m sure you’ve seen, Twitter was just bought by Elon Musk and ever since the deal closed two weeks ago, the company has been literally falling apart.

I was fortunate enough to survive the round of layoffs in his first week that cut 50% of the company, but since then things have gotten exponentially worse day by day. We learn of new changes when Elon tweets them. We were told just before midnight on Wednesday that we were required to be in the office at least 40 hours per week — starting Thursday. My manager resigned this week, along with several other managers and members of the senior leadership team. I’m a manager and I don’t know how to support my team — our partner teams are all gone and I no longer have the resources to lead the team the way that I need to.

I’m now realizing that the folks who got laid off and received severance packages may have been (in general) the more fortunate group.

My question is, a lot of people are resigning right now, but I’m wondering if it would be better to wait to be laid off.

If I wait, is there a risk that I could get fired (without severance) instead of laid off (with severance) because I cannot meet the demands of our new owner? I’ve been a high performer during my entire tenure at the company and have never had a negative performance review, but that was under our former leadership. Could current leadership simply decide to fire me to prevent me from receiving severance? As much as I want to resign, I’m trying to stay until I have another job lined up since my family is on my healthcare plan.

*Allison answers: First, for any readers who haven’t been following the situation at Twitter, some background: (see links at original article.)

Inside the Twitter Meltdown
Two Weeks of Chaos: Inside Elon Musk’s Takeover of Twitter
Elon Musk Has No Idea What He’s Doing at Twitter
Twitter’s Content Moderation Head Quits As Departures Alarm the FTC
Here’s How a Twitter Engineer Says It Will Break in the Coming Weeks
Twitter Is in Grave Security Danger Right Now
A Day of Chaos Brings Twitter Closer to the Brink

*Okay, back to the letter. This is a complicated question.

*Let’s take the “what could Elon do?” parts of the question first.

*Anything! The answer, he’s made clear, is that he could do anything! He could demand your team create a product that charges users $8 to turn them into actual flying birds and ship it next week, and then fire you if you say you can’t do it. He could parachute nude into your cafeteria tomorrow and demand you all bow before him while singing Gregorian chants. Really, to any question about whether there’s a risk Elon will do X, the answer at this point has to be yes.

• *Which is utterly unhelpful to you, so let’s answer this in more pragmatic terms.

• *In general, at any company, there is always a risk that you could get fired instead of laid off because you can’t meet the demands of a new owner. At this particular company, you also have to worry that those demands will be unreasonable and that the decision will be made without thought. Is it likely? I don’t know; I wish I did; I’m sorry about that. Is it possible? Yes. Might you have legal recourse if that happens? Possibly. Is legal action a pain to pursue? Yes, although sometimes it’s worth it. Will you be the only one this happens to, if it does happen? No, and that would make legal action easier to pursue.

• *Could you be fired simply to prevent you from receiving severance? Yes, in theory. In practice, there is a huge spotlight on your employer right now and it would be much harder to pull that off. (On the other hand, Elon seems to enjoy flouting the law … although it does seem like he mostly attempted to follow it with the first round of layoffs … and there are still some questions about the legality of some of those details, so one would assume he wouldn’t want to add additional legal problems … although it’s not nearly as easy to be confident about that with a chaos goblin in charge as it would be with a more prudent owner.)

• In a normal situation, I’d say you’re unlikely to be fired rather than laid off unless your performance changes drastically. In this situation, if I had to guess, I’d say chances are better than not that you won’t be randomly fired (as opposed to laid off at some point). But that’s a guess, and it’s heavily informed by how this stuff normally works … while you’re in a situation that won’t necessarily be governed by those norms.

There’s also the risk that even if you’re laid off, the company might be in so much financial trouble at that point that they won’t have the money for severance that they have right now.

*As for whether it would be better to resign now rather than waiting to be laid off (which may or may not happen) or waiting until you get another job … If you can stomach it, you’re probably better off waiting, especially because your family depends on the health insurance. And really, if you’re weighing (a) resigning now (no severance) against the risk of being fired without severance … well, in both of those cases you’d be out of work with no severance. Staying at least gives you the option of severance down the road (if you’re part of a future layoff) and gives you an ongoing income and health insurance.

*Assuming, of course, you can stomach it. But as long as you’re not actively doing harm, there’s no ethical imperative to quit on the spot and no shame in staying if you need to.

Good luck, and I’m sorry something you helped build is being needlessly destroyed.