Dropsafe

by Alec Muffett

IF YOU ARE BEING RIF’D FROM SUN UK, PLEASE ADD TO THIS TODO LIST / CHECKLIST / POST

I’ve had a request:

Please send your checklist as it now stands of things to do to prepare for redundancy.
I know you’ve already done some of the stuff on there and that there are things to add which will be specific to me, but I’d be grateful!

But alas most of it has been erased because that’s how I work; to reconstitute it from memory will be hard, so I’m posting this to the world in order to solicit feedback/ideas and stuff I’ve missed.

So far, what I can remember doing / planning to do, is:

1) mail your manager to get confirmation that you are being RIFed – a 1-liner will suffice

2) if you want to keep your cellphone number, forward your manager’s confirmation to the “mobilephones@” alias, along with your cellphone number; this will get you a PAC code so you can take your number elsewhere

3) contact your healthcare provider (BMI, BUPA, whoever) and talk about carrying your existing policy forward into a private one; this will save you the cost of a medical check for future health insurance, because they roll your existing coverage forwards rather than treating it as a new enquiry.

4) visit hrweb/hewitt and print out *everything* pertinent to you. PDF copies also make sense, but check for page-orientation issues.

5) visit the stockoptions website and print out *everything* pertinent to you. PDF copies also make sense, but check for page-orientation issues.

6) get a good independent financial adviser; you will need pension statements (both kinds, if you have the contracted-out as well as the corporate pension) and throw all the above paperwork at them.

7) tell the inland revenue as soon as everything is confirmed. tell them you will be unemployed from whatever date, etc. tell them if you intend to work again, and if so, how soon. ask them to issue a new tax code on that date. do not mess around with this else you will get laid-off in august and they will expect you to keep paying taxes as-per your tax code until April, and then ding you next year for a lot of money they expected but never got. eventually they might let you have some of it back.

Your mileage may vary, I am not a professional, there may be many other things I have missed.

Anyone else got any good ideas? Stuff that I’ve missed? Pleas add as comments to this posting…

⊞

Comments

18 responses to “IF YOU ARE BEING RIF’D FROM SUN UK, PLEASE ADD TO THIS TODO LIST / CHECKLIST / POST”

  1. simon

    Had back the company car if applicable
    make sure you enjoy the rif money
    collect awards from office..if you still want them
    join linked in
    enjoy summer 🙂

    Reply
  2. alecm

    Other pertinent links:

    http://blogs.sun.com/katysblog/entry/after_the_rif_notice_before
    http://blogs.sun.com/oldmanmanager/entry/points_on_rif
    http://www.uswet.com/blog/tag/rif/

    Reply
  3. alecm

    anonymous input from a colleague:

    Work out what work I want to do and not want to do and do it.
    calculate my ESPP value and work out how to get it, after the acquisition and what records I need for tax purposes next year
    work out if as an old fart > 50, I can enhance my tax free status, this may involve an accountant or a call to the IR
    Are my options underwater? When do I have to exercise them? Will the change of name add sufficient value between the date of aquisition and final execution date?
    Are there any training courses I want to do? MySQL?
    Claim my expenses for the eye test and spectacles? (Do you know what we’re entitled to?)
    Work out when to tell the Mortgage Interest insurers (if you have it).

    NB If you have kids at college, then it might be worth getting the means test redone to see if any loans convert to grants for fees.

    Reply
  4. alecm

    something else i missed:

    sort through your last year’s inbox looking for stuff to rmove to your personal e-mail account; this includes storecards, frequent-flyer programs, etc…

    Reply
  5. Clive

    Bear in mind that BUPA doesn’t offer individuals the same underwriting terms as companies. In particular, “medical history disregarded” policies aren’t available at all to individuals.

    Remember that the unemployed can get a contribution made towards the interest on their mortgage.

    Find out what’s happening to your office e-mail address. Notify people of change of address, migrate mailing-list subscriptions, etc.

    Having been made redundant myself back in November, I found the process remarkably easy and pain-free. Certainly less stress than the day job. (-8

    Reply
  6. Clive

    Oh, and, on a more mischievous note, any useful sheaves of paperwork, large off-site rsyncs and/or trundling of USB hard drives should be done judiciously and in good time, rather than on the last day when they’re watching people like a hawk.

    Not that entire codebases ever walk out the door when people get made redundant, of course.

    Reply
  7. C3

    – write your CV or at least recent employment history, inlcuding accomplishments, courses, etc… before you forget what you’ve done
    – if necessary, get your tax accountant to review the paperwork to tell you what to do to minimise any other questions which the taxman may raise
    – if you have a company car, figure out when it goes away and possible options for purchasing it from the leasing company
    – line up colleagues/customer/business partners to provide personal and professional references in the future. If they’re willing to put something in writing, gratefully accept it
    – if you use your work e-mail as a primary reference, change your email contact address for all social networks, banking stuff, frequent flyer accounts, back-up adresses for anything
    – if you are married and have children, make sure that you replace the company life insurance and other benefits in a timely manner. You don’t want your family to be unprotected.
    – if you are married and your spouse is employed, investigate becoming registered on your spouse’s benefit packages

    Reply
  8. KevB

    Thanks Alec, very useful.

    There’s also the Sun Alumni program that has some free and discounted courses for former employees for later, details are here: https://learning.sun.com/sites/alumni/

    Ironically my 15 year award notice came up yesterday, fortunately still eligible given anniversary date is 15 Aug. At least I see something for my troubles.

    Reply
  9. Dave Walker

    * Get set up on LinkedIn, if you aren’t already. Apply to join the Sun Alumni group.
    * Get some dedicated non-Sun email addr(s; see later) dedicated to job-hunting; ensure the bit before the @ looks professionally-focussed. gmail is recommended, for its intrinsic filtering capabilities.
    * Until you get officially put on Gardening Leave, *KEEP WORKING*. Continuing to do your job, even though it’s going away, will earn you kudos, especially among potential referees. If you need the money, see if you can reject Gardening Leave in favour of working your full notice out.
    * Sort out who, from your current colleagues, you would be happy to have as referees to cite on new job applications or disclose at interview, as required. Ask them nicely for permission. Be sure, where appropriate, to divide into “technical referees” and “character referees”. Be aware that former colleagues with whom you have stayed in touch, can also be valid character referees.
    * Close to your last day, post a final “Stop-A” entry to your blogs.sun.com. Include a link to your new externally-hosted blog, if you want to keep blogging. Include a contact email addr, and even a pared-down copy of your CV, if you don’t mind being shameless. Ensure this contact email addr is different to your primary job-hunting email addr, see above.
    * On your last day, set a .vacation on your @sun.com email, which replies to any email with a polite message to the effect that you’ve been RIFfed and can now be contacted at an appropriate email address (I’d probably go with the one on the blog posting, here).
    * If you’re not going to be job-hunting for a while and run your own car(s), see if you can renegotiate your insurance to drop the “use for business purposes” from your premium.
    * Ditto for WFHers and house insurance (ITOps will also want your WFH Sun Ray back, if you have one).
    * Back up copy of all of the business-relevant stuff from your company laptop to some appropriate media you can give to Sun, back up all private stuff to your home infrastructure, and *SCRUB THE HELL OUT OF YOUR LAPTOP’S HARD DRIVE* before returning it to Sun. Use something like “Tariq’s Boot and Root”. Of course, if you’d thought ahead, you wouldn’t be using a Sun laptop for all your daily computing needs :-).
    * If you’re on a long-term project, the fact that the customer isn’t going to see any more of you, after Aug 31st, is the Project Manager’s problem. Be sure they know of your impending RIFfage and have a plan in place regarding containing customer annoyance.

    Reply
  10. Dave Walker

    One more:

    * Politely and graciously resign all external positions in the context of which you represent Sun. If you can find and nominate a colleague who is not in danger of RIF and agrees (with management approval) to fill your now-vacant boots, all the better.

    Reply
  11. Melodie Neal

    If your Sun home directory includes a website that you know your colleagues rely on for some purpose, it would be kind to get it moved to somewhere they will still be able to reach it after your home directory gets deleted. One of my managers just had my website burned to CD, so they could still access the files after I was gone.

    Check your corporate credit card for anything that is set for automatic payment (ISP?), and adjust as necessary.

    Reply
  12. Dave Levy

    Find out if you are on the Asset Register as the owner of any significant assets (such as computers) and get the name channged.

    Reply
  13. Tim Caynes

    Thanks for kicking this off. It is a useful task list generator…

    Reply
  14. Andrew Gabriel

    If you think you might ever return again, make a list of the internal mailing lists you’re on, so you can easily rejoin the right ones on your return (if you want to).

    If you own any internal mailing lists, reassign them to someone who’s staying (I think that’s a servicedesk ticket unless you have mailadmin rights). Your manager gets to own them by default (ripples upwards until it finds a manager who isn’t leaving too).

    Reply
  15. Bill

    Setting up “local folders” on Thunderbird or SeaMonkey is a good thing. Transfer chunks of your historical collection of thousands of emails into it once in a while (instead of doing a mass flood download). Portable hard drives are usually faster, and cheaper per GB than flash drives (and are less likely to get re-used).

    Don’t forget that last “TTFN” email, and make sure bridges that *might* be crossed in the future are *not* burned… even if the bridge is a total arse.

    (friendly neighborhood three-time re-tread)

    Reply
  16. Aaron K

    Send a link to this list into the sun alumni group (as Dave W suggests joining)
    sun_alumni at yahoogroups.com
    There’s plenty of support over there!

    Reply
    1. alecm

      see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/moneybox/8142673.stm#Redundancy for links

      Reply
  17. Dave Levy

    Replace all necessary copies of StarOffice with Open Office

    Reply

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