At least to some extent. My division is being sold, and we were told that the people who stayed were going to get a severance equal to “about” what the profit was on selling the division (>>$100,000 per employee). What's more, they said that as a part of the deal, everyone had a job with the new company.
It sounds insane, but we've been a family-owned company for almost 70 years. They have a history of profit sharing and generous exit packages, so people had hope.
They strung us along for eight weeks. It came out last week, as we pressed harder to get things in writing, that “because people were getting job offers, they didn't need severance pay”, and what's more, none of us even actually have a job with the new company. Just an interview.
Yesterday was eight weeks + 1 day. Things came to a head after the close of the deal was pushed back two full weeks by the resistance put up from people over the lack of severance pay / no promise of new jobs. The delay is costing the company hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The contentious series of meetings and phone calls culminated in me telling our boss that he'd lost all credibility with me when I found out the new company wasn't taking everyone, and my star coworker backed me up and saying he didn't want anything from our boss ever again except in writing. Apparently we hurt his feelings, because I'm told he was complaining about how poorly we treated him and how unprofessional we were for the rest of the day.
Yesterday evening, just before 8 PM, we got an email that there was a written retention offer for us, ready to be presented in the morning. I have no illusions it will be even half of what we were initially told, but anything is more than we had. Here's hoping it's for everyone, not just the people who complained.
The kicker? I have today off to go to my doctor's office. Knowing it's probably a terrible lowball, my weekend will be better if I juat deal with it on Monday. I'm not even going to call in to hear the offer. I'm sure if it's very bad or very good, one of my coworkers will let me know.
Moral of the story? There is no moral, the universe is amoral, and if your boss is a liar, you better let him know.