I call BS on this story.
First, I haven't heard any local news about layoffs from Lenovo, but I might have missed the news so It's possible they've let people go.
Cisco doesn't suddenly convert employee job requisitions into contractor roles. They cancel the job req, wait 3-6 months and then fill it with a contractor. Anyone remember the days of the Microsoft lawsuit by consultants who performed the work of employees for years, but never got the perks of stocks, benefits, etc. and won? There's no way Cisco is opening itself up to a lawsuit by saying it needs an employee, then hiring you as a consultant for the exact same role.
"One of the managers I interviewed with is now the manager of the department. She sent me an email asking if I was interested." Again, doesn't happen. All that communication comes from the recruiters, not the hiring manager. And managers don't manage departments. Directors or Senior Directors do.
Name one technology company that hires "private consultants" with a minimum number of hours AND a contracted payout to terminate the consultancy. If you wanted a contract with a buyout, you need to be either a professional athlete who's at the top of their game, or a head coach at a college or for a professional team. Or you have to be rich and working as a CxO at a publicly traded company.
Consultants are lucky at Cisco if they get to complete their contract. Most of us/them are offered a one year contract. Even then, they're broken into quarter-by-quarter agreements so they can end it at the end of any quarter they want if budgets get tight. If budgets are good and if we work out well, it might get renewed and we can stay for a max of 18 months due to policies designed to protect Cisco from Microsoft-style lawsuits. If they/you don't work out, you're gone in short order regardless of quarter end. Other roles are considered "managed services" where a consultant company agrees to bring in a team of people to perform a service governed by a statement of work (SOW) which allows Cisco to maintain the agreement longer than 18 months. Whether or not the consultant company keeps the same workers past that 18 months is up to the consulting firm, but they usually do. Workers who don't fit in or perform well are quickly replaced until a good team is found. Everyone stays and gets renewed quarter by quarter as long as budgets are good. When the budgets get tight, the SOW is cancelled, everyone is shown the door and Cisco employees have to pickup the workload until budgets get good again or Cisco decides to hire one person to try to do what that team used to do because the Cisco employees can't absorb that much extra work.
In either case, you're NOT going to get a minimum number of hours and a contracted payout to leave. If you want a payout to leave, you have to be an employee and get laid off. Even then, the amount isn't contracted and changes from one LR to the next.
It's a good thing they don't hire "entitled" people like you. It's bad enough there with upper management making things bad with poor decisions and letting people go regularly and ruining what used to be a great company culture ('98 - '08), but to add toxic employees like you would only add salt to the wounds.