I live in Illinois.
I was terminated last week, during a mass termination due to the economy, and my network password was shut off during the meeting. I did not get any of my personal files (pictures of kids, my resume, my research, etc.). These files were on the laptop issued to me by the company. So I may be out of luck. I talked to HR today and they are burning a disk with my picture but what about everything else? They do this for everyone as a courtesy.
I should also note that it wasn't a big deal that people used their work PC for personal files. I was in Management and we never had a policy against personal use. I worked there for 6 years and have a lot of stuff on there that I am sure I'm not remembering everything. I am also referring to my annual appraisals, my contracts that we signed digitally, etc. Are these my property?
They said that HR looks through each file to determine if it's co property or not. They terminated 100 people that same day. there's no way an HR team of 2 went through all these files. Is there anything I can do? I'm not looking for a lawsuit or anything like that. Maybe I should try to negotiate the files with HR directly? Thanks, in advance, for any advise offered.
I was terminated last week, during a mass termination due to the economy, and my network password was shut off during the meeting. I did not get any of my personal files (pictures of kids, my resume, my research, etc.). These files were on the laptop issued to me by the company. So I may be out of luck. I talked to HR today and they are burning a disk with my picture but what about everything else? They do this for everyone as a courtesy.
I should also note that it wasn't a big deal that people used their work PC for personal files. I was in Management and we never had a policy against personal use. I worked there for 6 years and have a lot of stuff on there that I am sure I'm not remembering everything. I am also referring to my annual appraisals, my contracts that we signed digitally, etc. Are these my property?
They said that HR looks through each file to determine if it's co property or not. They terminated 100 people that same day. there's no way an HR team of 2 went through all these files. Is there anything I can do? I'm not looking for a lawsuit or anything like that. Maybe I should try to negotiate the files with HR directly? Thanks, in advance, for any advise offered.