1) You’re laid off, this is your final week, here’s a generous severance package.
2) Alternatively, if you’d like to keep this job, we’ll pay $4k toward relocation and you have three months to relocate to one of our 8 hubs. Let us know by Friday otherwise #1 is assumed.
This has all the hallmarks of manipulation: force a life changing decision without enough time, then weight everything monetarily towards the "decision" they want the employees to make.
It's cowardly and disingenuous.
Why is it accepted as "normal" to have such a relationship with your employer. We accept the fact that HR lies to us, we accept the fact that CEO lies to us, and it's becoming increasingly acceptable for our managers to also lie to us. Imagine saying in 2024 "my husband is good, he beats me only once a week" this is literally the same type of behavior, because we accept the fact that the entity that our lives depend on is fundamentally hostile to us and it's all about who outmaneuveres who
This is the point of view I'm struggling to understand. Patagonia is a business, one of many who overhired during the pandemic, and now they need to reduce staff and made a decision to mandate a RTO. Why is there this expectation that an employer-employee relationship is some enduring pact that can never end? If we can trust that severance is indeed generous, how are the employees being treated poorly? An employer is not required to pay any severance, nor are they required to provide a job for them at their in-person locations.
It's up for debate what's regression & what's norm. The tough love crowd loves to pretend like this is how it always has been, but there's just no historic evidence about for showing what totalized every business versus literally every other business on the planet looks like. You have to be a dumb fucking sap to not see that things are different as fuck. (And heartless & brutal, if you accept this is the way.)
Why anyone things we should accept this shit is beyond the pale to me. The purpose of a business is to provide a good way of life for the people in it. Anything else creates irresolvable internal tensions that will not be good for this world, and which will drive a company apart from excellence ongoingly.