I’ve been reminiscing about when I got let go from the job I had between 2006-2013. It was a lower-tier position at a nonprofit. I hadn’t done anything specific to get fired though in retrospect I had been soft-quitting for a bit. When I got let go it was framed as a layoff and I was told I’d be able to continue working for several weeks, but I would be disallowed from talking about my firing in that time so as to not incite drama, and at the end of this I would be given a severance package. But I was asked to draft and sign a letter of resignation. I did not do the letter of resignation part, because I also wanted to file for unemployment and because it was simply not true that I was quitting, I did not want to create a false document regarding the terms of my end of employment. Seeing this, HR wrote a letter of resignation for me that they asked me to sign. They insisted that it was for my own good because it would look better on my resume than a firing (news to me, I thought I was being downsized). They promised they would not fight me on getting my unemployment and that it was only right for me to sign the letter considering they were giving me severance. When it became clear I wasn’t going to sign the resignation they became slightly threatening, implied it might affect whether I got that severance and that it would mark me as potentially unemployable. I didn’t sign, I got my severance and my unemployment. Now I’m wondering what their insistence I lie about resigning was all about. Were they straight up lying to me about the unemployment? Did they need it to look like I quit for some nonprofit/grant-related reason? What’s your best guess?