The first 72 hours

Read this part first

If you have two minutes, do these three things:

1. You do not have to sign anything today. Many people say or write: “I understand. I would like to review this before signing anything.” That sentence is complete. No further explanation is owed.
2. Download everything you can, now, before your access is cut. The list is below and it takes four minutes.
3. Write down four dates from the document in front of you: your separation date, when your final pay arrives, when your health coverage ends, and the deadline printed on the agreement.

Everything else can wait until tomorrow.

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Behind the curtain: The careful, scripted tone of that meeting is not personal. The people on the company side are trained professionals whose job is to protect the company. A campaign working paper found that 79% of senior ethics and compliance leaders at 58 large US companies are lawyers. Treating the meeting as the careful legal process it is helps you respond with the same care.

Hour one: the meeting itself

You will not be at your best, and you are not expected to be. The meeting is short by design and the decision is not being made in the room.

Things you do not have to do: sign anything, agree to anything, respond to the severance offer, explain yourself, or negotiate. You can decline all of it politely and nothing bad happens.

Four questions worth asking, with the answers written down:

• What is my official separation date?
• When will my final pay be issued, and does it include my accrued unused vacation or PTO?
• When does my health coverage end?
• Who is my contact for paperwork, and what personal email can they reach me at?

One request worth making: “Please send everything to me in writing, including a personal email address I can use since my work account is ending.”

If you are being let go as part of a group, also ask whether a California WARN Act notice was issued. Covered employers must give 60 days written notice for a mass layoff of 50 or more employees within 30 days at an establishment of 75 or more persons.

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Hours one to four: the four-minute download

This is the most valuable thing on this site, and the window to do it is short. If your access is already gone, skip to the records request below.

Save all of this to personal storage. Not a work laptop, not a work drive, not a work account.

• The separation agreement and every version you have received
• Any document the agreement names: offer letter, confidentiality and invention assignment agreement, arbitration agreement, equity plan and award agreements, relevant policies
• Your last 3 to 6 pay statements
• Your most recent benefits enrollment summary
• Your equity dashboard: grant dates, vesting schedules, exercised and unexercised totals, exercise deadlines. Export or screenshot everything.
• Your 401(k) provider name, plan number and login
• Your last two performance reviews
• Contact details for colleagues you want to stay in touch with
• Anything you wrote that you may want for a portfolio, if it is not confidential

Do not take: customer lists, source code, pricing data, internal strategy documents, unreleased product information, other people’s personnel data, or anything marked confidential. Taking company property is the most common unforced error in this whole process and it can create a problem far larger than the one you started with. The line is covered in What you may keep.

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Day one: unemployment

File immediately. Do not wait for the separation agreement to be signed, and do not wait for your severance to be paid. In California you file with the EDD, and there is a one-week unpaid waiting period, so delay costs you directly.

Answer every question truthfully and report everything you received. One point surprises people: under EDD’s own benefit determination guidance, severance paid under a company plan to a class or group of workers is generally not treated as wages for California unemployment purposes, following the California Supreme Court’s 1965 decision in Powell. Vacation paid out when the job ends also does not reduce weekly benefits if you have no return-to-work date (Unemployment Insurance Code 1265.5). Pay in lieu of notice must be reported, and its treatment depends on the facts.

That is a general rule, not a prediction about your claim. Report what you received, describe it accurately, and let EDD apply the rules. If you receive a determination you disagree with, you generally have 30 days from the mailing date of the notice to appeal, so read any notice the day it arrives.

A layoff is generally a qualifying separation. Signing a severance agreement does not by itself make you ineligible.

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Day one or two: health coverage

You have two paths and they are not equally priced.

COBRA continues your current plan. You generally have 60 days to elect it, and you pay the full premium plus a 2 percent administrative charge, which is 102 percent of the plan cost. Most people are shocked by the number, because they have never seen the employer’s share before.

Covered California is the state marketplace. Losing job-based coverage opens a special enrollment period, generally 60 days, and subsidies are based on your current income, which has just changed. For many people who have just lost a job this is substantially cheaper than COBRA.

Price both before electing either. COBRA elected later is usually retroactive to the date coverage ended, so you often have room to compare without a gap. Confirm the retroactivity rules for your specific plan.

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Day two: the written request

Send one email. It starts several clocks that work in your favor.

I am requesting a complete copy of my executed separation agreement, including all exhibits, any document incorporated by reference, and the signing certificate or audit trail, under California Labor Code 432. I am separately requesting a copy of my personnel records under Labor Code 1198.5 and my payroll records under Labor Code 226. Please confirm receipt today.

The full version is in Tools. Send it from a personal email address and keep a copy.

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Day two or three: read the agreement properly

Do not read it in the parking lot or at midnight. Sit down with coffee, print it if you can, and work through Reading the agreement, which walks the clauses in order.

Then decide what to ask for. How to ask covers what is usually negotiable and the words that work.

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What not to do in the first 72 hours

• Do not post about it publicly while you are still negotiating. It rarely helps and it occasionally costs.
• Signing just to make the discomfort stop is common, and hard to undo. The discomfort passes. The release does not.
• Do not forward confidential company material to yourself. See above.
• Do not tell the employer you have consulted a lawyer unless you want the conversation to become formal. Consulting one quietly is normal and costs you nothing.
• Do not ignore the deadline either. Review periods are real. Use them, do not sleep through them.

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One page to print

If you want a single sheet for the fridge, the first-week checklist has all of this as tick boxes.