As any loyal reader of this blog knows, we offer legal analysis and strategy on a range of FOTL issues, from severance agreements to how to negotiate a higher severance package to calculating damages under a severance agreement. But, just as it is good game design, we don’t often get a chance to link that strategic analysis with fun pop culture references like “The Game.” But today, we get to do so as we’re going to take 10 common ideas from gaming and show you how they are analogous to finding and identifying warning signs in severance agreements.

Red flags in an employment contract (or severance agreement) can be a terrible thing – if left unchecked, you may end up stuck in an extended post-separation battle with your former employer costing you money and a lot of time. That’s why we’ve put together this simple guide to identifying red flags in severance agreements, now available at this resource.

Why They Matter

First, we’ll take the obvious one – we’re attorneys, and red flags in an agreement could cost you a lot of money if not caught. But even aside from that, you should know about red flags in severance agreements because knowing about them is half the battle (just ask G.I. Joe). Almost nothing will throw a wrench into a strategically planned post-termination battle more than your surprised enemy using actions or words that should have tipped you off. If you know there are certain signs that your employer may be setting you up for one of those surprise moves, you can develop a strategy to both expect and be prepared to counter it.

Power-ups in Disguise

But we’re not talking only the obvious examples. We’re talking in-game scenarios that might appear at first glance that it might not be important, but after thinking about them hard enough, you realize that there’s something really significant about them. Severance agreements are, surprisingly, full of those power-ups in disguise. Here are a few of the common examples:

Read the Manual

It’s easy to think that the rulebook and instructions that come with a new console or game are superfluous. It’s easy to think that the instruction manual that you sign when finalizing a severance agreement are the same way. Even really sophisticated gamers who consider themselves experts can miss out on pieces of gameplay information that would help them overcome challenges, and you probably shouldn’t be thinking any different of a severance agreement.

Skip The Tutorial

One of the first things people do when playing any type of game is jump ahead and begin the next mission or level. On your first day playing a game, how often do you read the tutorial? If you’re like most players, probably rarely. But you don’t then think that there’s anything wrong with the game, and you shouldn’t think the same thing about the severance agreement you’ve been provided. If you skip the tutorial, you’re probably going to miss something that would be very helpful for you later in the game. Similarly, if you rush in and sign your severance agreement thinking that you’re ready to go, you might be missing something that will come back to ‘bite’ you (a.k.a. hurt your financial payout).

Stealth 101

Stealth-focused strategies in games are some of the most difficult to pull off, but are equally rewarding to try. However, not having the right timing for a stealth move is nearly always detrimental to the player’s strategy. Similarly, you don’t want to wait too long to address any red flags in your severance agreement – if you do, you run the risk of damaging your strategy.

Game Breaking Bugs

In every single game that has ever existed, you can find bugs, glitches, and inopportune things that disrupt gameplay. The longer you play, the more bugs you find. The same thing goes for red flags in severance agreements – the longer you let the agreement sit on your desk, the more bugs you might find.

Downloadable Content Day One

The day a new DLC pack comes out for your favorite game, you jump into the couch and begin playing for the next 12 hours. You can’t get enough of the new content, features, and gameplay elements introduced in the DLC pack. When you get the first Wen Agreement post-termination, you read through it and jump on it immediately, thinking you can’t get enough.

What Are These Easter Eggs?

The worst ‘Easter eggs’ in a level involve a scenario that you couldn’t have seen coming. But once you’ve seen it once, no matter how long you spend revisiting the level, you know where to expect the Easter Egg. Severance agreements are just the same – once you identify a problem in a particular agreement, you can probably bet that you’ll see that bug in agreements for a long time.

Now, You Can Fight Me

Fighting games are notorious for having players become very accustomed to a particular fighting style, so they don’t anticipate moves or attacks that contradict that style. The same thing can happen to you if you accept a severance agreement and don’t read the fine print carefully. You may be so thrown off guard by a particular move that you lose track of your goals and end up getting knocked out.

Team Comms

Without a Discord (or TeamSpeak) chatroom, you wouldn’t make it through the mission. There are too many moving parts to not have some sort of dedicated comms system. The same goes for a severance agreement – without a strategy to approach, you’re likely to miss out on a potentially damaging piece of information.