19g616l0lil72b in 
Product Manager
Working towards severance
I have been working at a big healthcare insurance firm for the past 4+ years as a PM. Since last year July, i have had no work given to me due to the project funding cut down. Initially I assumed I will be fired soon but they have kept me on the payroll for some reason. Whenever I asked for work, my manager said someone will reach out to me. Fast forward to last month, when it was review time, my manager started giving me bad reviews even when I am actually not working at all and any of my previous feedback was always positive. A friend of mine told me, this is a process they start when I am going to get fired so a case against me can be built. I asked my manager for feedback on his review and he never responded.
1- Should I continue pushing to clear my reviews?
2- Assuming I will get fired, is severance mandatory for a company? I was reading some internal documents and it doesn't specifically say severance will be mandatorily paid.
3- How do I ensure, I get paid the severance?
4- Any other suggestions for next steps?
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HR5HRHuman Resources
In the US, there's no law requiring a company to provide severance, but at the same time, it's pretty common, so I'd just keep digging to see if you can find any info on it.
Otherwise, my advice is to document everything. Document every time you reach out for more work, document every time they tell you there's no work or "someone will reach out to you." This sounds super fishy, but I find it hard to believe that they just kept you on payroll for almost a year without any intention of giving you any work to do.
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singletonSoftware Engineer
Isn’t keeping you in a box with no work where you just have to stare at a screen all day doing nothing one of the many ways of getting people to quit? If you quit, then you wouldn’t get your severance, but if you’ve stayed on for a year despite that now they gotta try to find a reason to fire you without giving me severance.
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