hurrah for Nortel stupidity!
I used to live in Torbay, where there was a huge factory run by Nortel who had a terrible reputation for hiring people then laying them off. At one point I was kind of desperate so I reluctantly applied for a job there. After a week of 'training' I was put into the testing department. My job consisted of plugging chips into a machine which took anything between 10 seconds and a minute to tell me whether the chip worked or not. All bloody fucking day. In a clean room so you couldn't take anything in there with you. And the radio was permanently on, and tuned into inane local radio. After a few days my brain was seriously considering dribbling out of my ears to escape the boredom.
However, 3 weeks after I'd arrived, almost the entire workforce (somewhere between 3 and 5 thousand if I remember correctly) was laid off. At first I was annoyed but relieved. Then I recieved a letter telling me that, along with everyone else I was being given redundancy pay of 3 months wages. That's right - 1 week of pissing around being 'trained' 2 weeks of utter boredom, then 3 months of redundancy pay - happy days!
(teasus likes tea, Mon 27 Feb 2012, 21:49, 5 replies)

Happy days for you
probably not the other thousands who needed the work, however inane.
( M3rx likes the Asian ladies, Tue 28 Feb 2012, 9:32, closed)

this is true
As it was for me, I was planning to start up in business and it was just the chance I needed.
(teasus likes tea, Tue 28 Feb 2012, 20:57, closed)

Hmm
My gut tells me that a big company like Nortel wouldn't have risked wasting that much of their shareholders' money on getting rid of people unless it knew it was potentially open to industrial tribunals, etc.

You had no statutory right to reduncancy at all; depending on when this was, you'd have to work for six months, a year or even two years before being entitled to anything at all.

So I'm guessing what you were paid was part of a compromise agreement i.e. they paid you off so you didn't sue them.
( shinyshinyscalp less a man, more a way of life, Tue 28 Feb 2012, 11:22, closed)

I guess so
I didn't expect it or even ask for it though.
(teasus likes tea, Tue 28 Feb 2012, 20:56, closed)

Thank god it wasn't Tittish Bellicom.
Bastards.
(Set your faces to Stunned Bigly, Tue 28 Feb 2012, 16:28, closed)