Any Employment Attorneys out there? I’d rather not drop 2k on a case I won’t win. In November I was asked to move into a new role that would take away a team of Recruiters I have built over 6 years and into a “more senior” role. I finally started making some serious commission (17k for the 3rd quarter which was supposed to continue every quarter based on performance). I thought about it for the weekend and refused the position saying I’d like to stay where I’m at. This didn’t make the owners happy and they started scrambling to figure out what to do as they were planning for 2022. My boss said he’d get back to me.
Unfortunately shortly after, I had an alcohol relapse after 3 years of sobriety. I promptly checked myself into a rehab center and went on PFML (Massachusetts). I heard through the grapevine that this pissed them off. I was out Jan-April. When I returned, I was told over the phone that they wanted to help me out and offer me something less stressful which I was appreciative of and they mentioned a couple different roles. A couple weeks later, they come back and offer me the SAME job as they did in November, with a 10k base pay increase with commission potential. The problem is that 50% of the responsibilities were in a business unit I had no experience with. It also requires travel and office time (I’ve been remote for 6 years). At the time I didn’t feel I had a choice and knew there was some bad blood so accepted.
Fast forward to a week ago, the owner, who never emails me, sends an email that he expects better results and copies all senior managers. He was also pissed that I scheduled a month away working too far from the office to commute in (which was booked and paid for prior to my role change and was never an issue in the past). This prompted me to ask my boss for a layoff.
Yesterday he contacted me with options…
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Take an Hr job at corporate with same base pay but need to commute in for 6 months. If going well I could get a base bump and go remote. IVE BEEN REMOTE FOR 6 years.
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Take a demotion to a less stressful position and work remotely and maybe stay at same base pay.
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Plead with ownership to keep my current job and give me another chance.
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Take a mutual layoff.
I’ve never had a disciplinary or performance problem and have been a key contributor to the new division I helped build over the past 6 years. I asked HR over a week ago for my employee file.
My ideal result here would be to be a severance AND layoff to collect unemployment while I find my next venture.
Any advice? Thanks all!