Scenario cards

What it looks like. The exit conversation is designed to be short, surprising and final. Knowing its shape in advance is most of the defense.

A counter-move people use. You do not have to sign anything in the meeting. Say "I understand. I'd like to review this before signing anything." That sentence is complete, polite and sufficient.

What it looks like. A sudden interest in documenting your performance usually means a file is being built. The file is for a decision that has already been considered.

A counter-move people use. Respond to a performance plan in writing, calmly and specifically. Acknowledge receipt, correct any factual errors, and ask clarifying questions about how success will be measured.

What it looks like. No meeting, no letter, no decision anyone will own. Instead the work, the information and the standing drain away over weeks or months, until resigning starts to look like the only move left. That is not an accident of management. It is an outcome with a price advantage.

A counter-move people use. Do not resign in the middle of it. Resignation is the specific outcome this pattern is priced to produce, and it is very hard to undo.

What it looks like. The person who wants you gone cannot fire you, so they feed the file of the person who can. The decision arrives signed by someone with no quarrel with you at all, which is exactly what makes it hard to challenge.

A counter-move people use. Put the decision maker on written notice of the underlying bias, before the decision. Name the supervisor or colleague, the protected activity, and the sequence of dates. A decision maker who has been told cannot later be presented as acting in an untouched vacuum, and your notice becomes part of the file they decided on.

What it looks like. California law gives workers in a mass layoff a right most never hear about. Sixty days of written notice, with back pay if it never arrives. The right depends on a count, of people, days and sites, and the count is exactly what a quiet sequence of small departures can obscure.

A counter-move people use. Build the timeline yourself: departure date, site, team or job family, headcount and the stated reason, for every exit you know about, over 30-day and 90-day windows. The pattern, if there is one, lives in that table and nowhere else.

What it looks like. You read the agreement, you agree to it, and then a second version arrives described as the same document. It is not the same document.

A counter-move people use. People commonly compare a replacement file with the one they read before signing it. "Nothing has changed" is a claim to verify, not a fact.

What it looks like. The package you negotiate is not the package that releases your claims. A second, shorter document shows up later, and the first one says you must sign it or pay everything back.

A counter-move people use. Before you sign anything, search the document for the words "supplemental," "second release," "confirming release," "reaffirm" and "within". Find out now whether a second signature is coming.

What it looks like. California gives you at least five business days to consider a separation agreement. Nothing in that law says what happens when the employer rewrites it on day four.

A counter-move people use. Write down the date you received each version. The clock you care about runs from the version you are signing.

What it looks like. Buried in the agreement is a statement that you have not filed any claims. If you have, you are being asked to sign a false statement, and that is a problem you did not create.

A counter-move people use. Search every draft for the words "have not filed," "no claims," "no charges," "no complaints," "represent" and "warrant."

What it looks like. Some rights survive your signature no matter what the paper says. Employers still print the clauses, and most workers believe them.

A counter-move people use. Read the release list to the end. The broad clauses tend to be near the bottom, after you have stopped concentrating.

What it looks like. Agreements routinely pull in other documents by name. Those documents are part of what you sign, and they are usually not attached.

A counter-move people use. Make a list of every document the agreement names. Then ask for all of them in one email, before you sign.

What it looks like. The document arrives with the company signature already on it, described as the standard package, with a deadline presented as fixed. None of those three things means what it appears to mean.

A counter-move people use. Treat a pre-signed document as a draft, not a verdict. It is an offer with the signature pre-filled to save a step.

What it looks like. Last day worked, last day on payroll, termination date and benefits end date are four different dates. Equity vesting, health coverage and your exercise window all hang off them.

A counter-move people use. Before you respond to anything, write down four dates: your last day of work, the separation date in the document, the date your health coverage ends, and the date your option exercise window closes.

What it looks like. Some clauses have no legal force here and real force in your head. California has written two statutes specifically to stop that from working.

A counter-move people use. Do not assume a printed non-compete binds you in California. In most employment situations it does not.

What it looks like. Buried in the boilerplate of many separation agreements is a promise that any dispute will be decided by a private arbitrator, alone, with no jury and no appeal worth the name. It is enforceable more often than not, which is exactly why it has to be read before you sign, not after you need a court.

A counter-move people use. Find the clause before you negotiate anything else, including any older arbitration agreement the separation agreement keeps in force. It decides the terrain for every other disagreement on this page.

What it looks like. The release says you give up any and all claims. Somewhere in a drawer are receipts for travel, equipment or a phone plan you paid for the job and were never reimbursed. In California, that money is in a category a release generally cannot reach.

A counter-move people use. List every unreimbursed work expense before you sign, with dates, amounts and receipts.

What it looks like. Returning company equipment is a normal and legitimate request. Some return clauses go further: they cover any device that ever touched company data, allow inspection or remote wiping, and say nothing about the personal files, photos and messages that live on the same phone.

A counter-move people use. Find out exactly which devices the clause covers, and whether a personal phone used for work email is one of them.

What it looks like. You signed electronically. Months later you need the document and discover it sits inside a system you were locked out of on your last day.

A counter-move people use. Download the signed PDF the moment it is available. Not later. Save it to personal storage you control, not to a work laptop or a work account.

What it looks like. Urgency is not a property of the process. It is a choice, applied selectively, and the email thread records it.

A counter-move people use. Make every request in writing, with a date. Verbal requests do not start statutory clocks.

What it looks like. The money you negotiated and the money described on your final pay statement can be the same total and tell completely different stories.

A counter-move people use. Negotiate the allocation in the agreement, not after. If part of the payment is for something other than wages, the agreement should say so and say how much.

What it looks like. A clause says that if you breach the agreement, you repay the severance, or pay a set amount per breach, and cover the employer's attorney fees. The severance stops being a settlement and becomes a deposit held against your future behaviour.

A counter-move people use. Find the remedies section before you sign and read the trigger words. "Any breach" and "material breach" are very different promises.

What it looks like. Two short provisions decide your future with this employer and what the next one hears. You agree never to be rehired, by the company or often its parents, subsidiaries and affiliates, and the company agrees to say only your name, title and dates to anyone who calls.

A counter-move people use. Read the no-rehire sentence and ask how far it reaches. Company only, or parents, subsidiaries, affiliates and contractors? Ask for the list to be narrowed to the entity you actually worked for.

What it looks like. A boilerplate sentence near the end of the agreement says the losing side pays the winning side's attorney fees. Read it from where you sit and it says something plainer: challenge anything in this document, and you may end up paying for the lawyers on both sides of the room.

A counter-move people use. Before you sign, search the document for the words "prevailing party" and "attorney." Read the whole clause and find its trigger. Is it any dispute, a breach, or only a challenge to the agreement itself?