If You’re Gonna Get Fired…

I'm not sure what it was like when you got fired, but I'm almost positive that it didn't end like this. One time, I was fired after being on the job for 3 months. They paid me for the next six months, even after I had found another job. I thought that was a pretty sweet deal, until I read about this! Former baseball player Bobby Bonilla will be collecting over a million dollars this month from his former employer, the New York Mets. They fired him in 1999!

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Back then, the New York Mets believed that they were going to get rich (er) because of an investment they made with Bernie Madoff (I promise I'm not making this up). They were so sure of themselves that instead of paying out Bobby Bonilla's remaining 5 million dollars at the time, that they agreed to pay him 1.1 million dollars per year for 25 years, beginning in 2011.

Bobby Bonilla last played pro baseball in 2001, and if you're wondering how he was going to go with no income for ten years, then you;ll love this! 1999 wasn't the first time he was fired from the Mets. In 1995, they traded him to Baltimore. When the Orioles had enough of him, the Mets and the Orioles, who were responsible for parts of his salary, decided that they'd instead defer his money. So he started collecting $500,000 a year from them in 2004. Those payments will stop in 2029, and his million-dollar checks stop in 2035, when he is 72 years old.

The next time you're handed a severance package, maybe see if you can have it deferred for a while. Perhaps you can get a sweet deal like Bobby Bonilla did... twice!