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    CultureCannibalHamilton Nolan
    10/22/15 5:49pm

    I would sign the agreement and then just give really shitty, fucked up, wrong answers every time they called me to consult...like, laughably wrong answers. Because what are they going to do? Sack me?

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      SeaBeastRisingCultureCannibal
      10/22/15 5:52pm

      This is the only answer. What could they possibly do if all of a sudden you were terrible at your job that they aren’t paying you for?

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      ClareCultureCannibal
      10/22/15 5:53pm

      How about sue you to recoup their severance payments?

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    MadExponentHamilton Nolan
    10/22/15 5:50pm

    If they don’t want to take a severance package, they don’t have to be on call. This isn’t, “you’re fired now you still do what I say,” it’s “you’re fired and here’s severance money we don’t have to give you, by the way, if you take it you have to agree to be on call.” Let's at least be honest about what this is.

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      The Original SunshineMadExponent
      10/22/15 6:03pm

      Illegal?

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      Punt ManThe Original Sunshine
      10/22/15 6:11pm

      I think it’s shitty but shitty isn’t against the law. What part of this would be illegal?

      The corporation (unfortunately) is not required to provide a severance package. If they do, they can ask for shit in return. If you agree to take the package, chances are good you’re giving up something in return. This is literally how every legal contract works.

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    wordtrey2Hamilton Nolan
    10/22/15 5:51pm

    I don’t think this holds up at all if challenged right? I’d assume Suntrust’s legal can ask for it, and hope people don’t object, but couldn’t enforced right? Seems like the best bet might be to take their calls, do the work, then slap them with a class action in two years maybe? (Wishful thinking?)

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      Ardenitewordtrey2
      10/22/15 5:55pm

      Correct. You cannot legally compel someone to work - especially without compensation. Doesn’t matter what they signed. This is completely unenforceable.

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      Adjrawordtrey2
      10/22/15 5:59pm

      I am a lawyer, but I have absolutely no experience in contract/labor law. In plumbing my long ago law school memories, it seems to me this provision would be unenforceable if challenged. I think it is the doctrine of unconscionability that would void this...

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    kyngfishHamilton Nolan
    10/22/15 5:52pm

    I worked in the banking industry for 5 years, mainly in their cards and payments sector. These guys are the ultimate middle-men. I had a bank president tell me that he didn’t give a shit about cash, all he wanted was for you to swipe your debit card as a credit card so he could collect transaction revenue, which basically gets tacked on to your purchase price. They aren’t worried about the things that banks are supposed to do, like lending, or growing businesses or communities.

    I can’t wait until networks get good enough, secure enough, and cheap enough to topple these payment networks and their flunky banks. What a bunch of chumps.

    There are some exceptions to the rule, like some credit unions, but really, other than that, the banking industry is broken.

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      NooYawkkyngfish
      10/22/15 6:01pm

      My wife has worked in finance for 30 years. Last several she has worked for the largest banks in the US. Hands down the technology and security and even the protocols they follow are outdated and barely make any sense. These companies don’t want to spend the money into techonology because they’re trained to put money into things that only bring a return. Creating security, efficiency and increasing productivity doesn’t add up for them.

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      Snake Lipssynkkyngfish
      10/22/15 7:00pm

      Interesting you say “ultimate middle men”, which I guess you meant as an entity in the industry.

      But it reminded me of speaking at length with a mid-level rep at BMO and he said the bank had effectively emptied out their middle class employees and dumped as much on the bottom rungs as possible.

      The rep was super nice, but I still had to go to the ombudsman to get them to waive $100s in account fees they shouldn’t have charged, and they finally did.

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    onehappymanHamilton Nolan
    10/22/15 6:02pm

    Enforcing this is going to be a joke.
    The HR/Management/Legal team that came up with it are the ones who should be laid off.

    ‘We don’t want to pay you all that money and benefit stuff, but we realize the value of your knowledge and experience and we’d like to use that for free when the cheap idiots we hire to replace you ram us into an IT wall.’

    Suntrust, Fuck You.

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      ReburnsABurningReturnsonehappyman
      10/22/15 6:25pm

      It’s actually brilliant. It’s really shitty of them, but brilliant in a greedy sort of way.

      Of course it’s unenforceable, but if it scares a few people into complying when SunTrust asks them to come in and help without taking the matter to court, then it will have been worth it.

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      Michael ZaiteReburnsABurningReturns
      10/22/15 8:04pm

      Scares? You know there’s going to be some boot lickers that will do it just to “keep in the game” just incase they might get hired back.

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    UncleCCClaudiusHamilton Nolan
    10/22/15 5:51pm

    I wish there was video of the people who came up with this and the lawyer who signed off on it.

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      youjustkeepthinkingbutchUncleCCClaudius
      10/22/15 5:57pm

      Imagine Jabba the Hutt....

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      dogbongUncleCCClaudius
      10/22/15 6:00pm

      I bet that video would just show a bunch of people sitting in front of their computers in different offices sending emails and editing the draft in Word.

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    fun-with-headcheeseHamilton Nolan
    10/22/15 5:48pm

    What a great opportunity for sabotage.

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      김치전!fun-with-headcheese
      10/22/15 5:58pm

      Yeah, if we’re talking about “matters in which I have been involved in the course of my employment with SunTrust and/or about which I have knowledge as a result of my employment at SunTrust,” I think my knowledge would begin and end with photocopying my ass and stealing lunches from the common fridge.

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      CultureCannibalfun-with-headcheese
      10/22/15 6:00pm

      Or you could just answer the phone like this every time they called you.

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    ReburnsABurningReturnsHamilton Nolan
    10/22/15 6:13pm

    Setting aside how awful this is from an employee treatment perspective for a moment ...

    if your IT situation as a bank is so fucked that you need to bring back a RIF’d employee to help with things, it means you let expertise on systems and processes be held at such a tribal level that their replacements couldn’t figure out how to keep the thousands, if not tens of thousands, of moving parts that add up to keeping a bank’s core systems for accounting, compliance and asset management chugging along for every month, quarter and year end date.

    Also, who the hell would want to litigate “reasonable” in this circumstance? I can’t imagine Sun Trust would. If they tried to withhold severance because an employee has moved and can’t make it back for example, would that be deemed “reasonable”? I can’t imagine it would in court, and I can’t imagine that SunTrust would want the bad publicity that would come with trying to litigate the matter as well.

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      Burner613ReburnsABurningReturns
      10/22/15 9:10pm

      Setting aside the employment issue, this is not a great move from a tech perspective. Major companies are pulling back outsourced work because the firms can't handle it, especially firms in India. Target was pretty upfront that their major breach a few years ago was due in part to outsourcing tech security to India - work that they've now had to hire tech folks for in the U.S. Money they save in salary and benefits is often lost in productively and quality and ungodly turnover rates.

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      ReburnsABurningReturnsBurner613
      10/23/15 9:49am

      Well, it depends. A good IT group, everyone from the folks who deal with your hardware, network administration and for banks almost as crucial, data management/governance, should be building processes and procedures that make maintaining ongoing operations and even expansion clean and straightforward.

      That’s obviously a bit of a Holy Grail sort of scenario, but it’s possible.

      Sure it creates problems to outsource IT, but you’d be surprised at how, even though those problems seem urgent at the time, it can’ still be a net cost saving measure.

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    Who the hell knows anymoreHamilton Nolan
    10/22/15 5:58pm

    This is a gross exaggeration (File under: surprise, internet, Gawker).

    This does not mean they will be “on call” 24/7 for 2 years. It means if 18 months from now they have an issue with some piece of software and Jon Doe built the thing, they will reach out to him and he nominally “has to” help them out. What I’m curious about is how they could possibly enforce this. Are they not giving severance for 2 years? Is there a clawback provision in the event of non-cooperation?

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      ARP2Who the hell knows anymore
      10/22/15 6:08pm

      They can’t force you to work, and most states can’t claw back the money. So they can sue you for breach of the severance agreement.

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      Who the hell knows anymoreARP2
      10/22/15 6:17pm

      I guess, but what would that suit look like? An injunction for specific performance? Some claim for actual and/or punitive damages? I just feel like either would be insane because (1) what kind of Pyrrhic victory could you expect from those lawsuit?; and (2) why would you fire anyone that was the only person on the planet that could answer a question that would have a material, economic impact on your business?

      My point is, this is most likely one of those overreaching clauses that will actually amount to so much ink in the end. It’s basically just a formal, “hey, we might reach out to you about some of the work you’ve done. If we do, we won’t compensate you.” — which, don’t get me wrong, is a shitty set up, but I would bet is fairly common in practice (I’ve seen former employees contacted about projects).

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    BlankensteinHamilton Nolan
    10/22/15 9:43pm

    This is boilerplate severance agreement language. Sun Trust is right in their statement. I used to work on severance deals all the time. This is boilerplate language. BOILERPLATE. You make yourself available if a regulatory tribunal or court has a case and you need to be called as a witness or as someone who has specific knowledge.

    ETA: Pay a few hundred bucks and have a lawyer review your separation/severance agreement before you sign. Seriously. Do it. It’s worth it. (Unless your severance is only for a few hundred bucks. Then it’s not.)

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      YikesLostMyPasswordAgainBlankenstein
      10/23/15 1:05pm

      BEST ADVICE! I’d love to tell this to my team... but then, someone would probably tell HR “But so-and-so told me to talk to a lawyer” and then I’d be up shit creek...

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      BlankensteinYikesLostMyPasswordAgain
      10/23/15 1:26pm

      Jeez! When I was drafting these things, we also had boilerplate language that basically said “I have been given an opportunity to obtain legal advice and have obtained legal advice from ____ at ____ . The employee would fill in the blanks if they had actually gone and gotten some. That way the employee couldn’t come back saying the contract was unconscionable and that they were too unsophisticated to know it was or that we pushed them to sign it without giving them a chance to consider the terms. Another reason I’m super happy I’m not in the US. People in my industry actually talk about how working for the employer means helping the company do the right thing, and not break the law, as opposed to trying to circumvent it.

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