In the late 90s I worked for a software company that kept buying small (15-30 employee) companies in the same field, and doing it with borrowed money. That worked until it didn't, and in 2001 the banks stopped being tolerant of late loan repayments from the company.
We were "emergency sold" to a large company in the field in a deal that took something like two weeks to arrange. I think the top brass ended up losing all their paper riches. Oh well, it was their decisions that got the company there anyway.
Anyway, the big company wanted to cut staff, so they laid off literally half the purchased company. They did it by seniority, but even after 5 years I was the newest person on my team. I got a great deal though. Four months pay for severance, and an extra two months bonus to stay on for two months and finish my current project (bonus on top of paying me to work for two months). So six months total. Living frugally, it was plenty enough for at least a year.
I used the money to move to Los Angeles, where I floundered for a while because I didn't have a network to tap into. Plus, you know, dot com crash and 9/11. I ended up freelancing on work through people back where I came from and built from there.
I'd been doing C++ server side work (not web). Over time my new work became more and more web oriented, and learning the stack was something new and fun. But a lot to learn.
Eventually the big company hired back a lot of the laid off people. One guy just took a six month vacation and then was hired back at a higher salary and a signing bonus. A manager went to work for a competitor for a year at a higher salary, and then came back to an even higher one at the original company, also with a hefty signing bonus. If I'd stayed in town I probably would have too. I did do some freelance for them at one point, supporting a west coast customer on software I'd written, at a much higher rate than I'd made at the company.
We were "emergency sold" to a large company in the field in a deal that took something like two weeks to arrange. I think the top brass ended up losing all their paper riches. Oh well, it was their decisions that got the company there anyway.
Anyway, the big company wanted to cut staff, so they laid off literally half the purchased company. They did it by seniority, but even after 5 years I was the newest person on my team. I got a great deal though. Four months pay for severance, and an extra two months bonus to stay on for two months and finish my current project (bonus on top of paying me to work for two months). So six months total. Living frugally, it was plenty enough for at least a year.
I used the money to move to Los Angeles, where I floundered for a while because I didn't have a network to tap into. Plus, you know, dot com crash and 9/11. I ended up freelancing on work through people back where I came from and built from there.
I'd been doing C++ server side work (not web). Over time my new work became more and more web oriented, and learning the stack was something new and fun. But a lot to learn.
Eventually the big company hired back a lot of the laid off people. One guy just took a six month vacation and then was hired back at a higher salary and a signing bonus. A manager went to work for a competitor for a year at a higher salary, and then came back to an even higher one at the original company, also with a hefty signing bonus. If I'd stayed in town I probably would have too. I did do some freelance for them at one point, supporting a west coast customer on software I'd written, at a much higher rate than I'd made at the company.
Big companies work in mysterious ways sometimes.