I worked for what is now Verizon from 1972 to 2006. The we were known as New York Telephone, until 1982 when they broke up AT&T and created 7 regional independent companies we rename ourselves NYNEX. In 1984 we were offered the first retirement package the called it 6 and 6. They added 6 years to your service time and 6 to your age to make you eligible if you were not. The next offer was in 1987 same 6+6. In my department we lost so many people that we had to hire 17 people. I was the hiring manager. I was instructed to hire only people with an engineering degree. at that time NYNEX had a masters program that you could enroll in after 6 months on the job. They all got their Masters degree and left for better jobs. So we had to hire more people only by employee referral. This worked out very well, many of those people are still with the company. In 1991 I was asked if I could take 3 year assignment to Bellcore. Bellcore was the Bell Labs of the 7 regional companies that were split off by the Justice Department because the considered AT&T a monopoly.
One day all the NYNEX people who were working at Bellcore were called in for a meeting. A Vice President from NYNEX starts of the meeting with " We no longer guarantee a job for life". and there would be a retirement package offered to eligible employees. So the out come was they lost to many people. And the hiring started again. I went back to NYNEX in 1994. I don't remember the year but we merged with Bell Atlantic and droped the NYNEX name. Things went well with Bell Atlantic for several years until we changed our name to Verizon, then talks of layoff started again. We had a few rounds of layoffs this time a separation payout of $100,000 if you had the years and age which had to add up to 75 or over. In 2006 they came out with another retirement package. I was 55 years old and had almost 35 years with the company. I said to myself, I'm sick of this bull and took the offer.