[throwawayjava]

> passes up 50K

If the author had another job lined up already, the severance package wasn't worth much of anything -- it only paid out until he had a new position. So, probably closer to passing up $0 than to passing up $50K.

Still a bit of an annoying personality. If you know you won't get any $ from the severance package, just send a "thanks but no thanks" message to the person off-boarding you. Don't harass some poor corporate lawyer 2 years of out law school with inane demands for preferential terms on the severance contract for an individual contributor.

[SpicyLemonZest]

I think you're giving the system too much deference here. If an individual contributor is important enough that the company wants to give them a gag order, they're important enough to ask for preferential terms about it.