I once got called at home the Monday after I&#x27;d left a company to hear that I&#x27;d been &quot;laid off&quot;.  The previous Friday had been my official last day (planned exit, I was going off to college), but I had banked a bunch of unused vacation days, and they were calling to let me know that they wouldn&#x27;t be able to pay out the remainder of my vacation pay.<p>Much later, when I got into the workforce for real, I learned that I could&#x27;ve collected unemployment checks for this, and that if I&#x27;d played my cards right, I could&#x27;ve been drawing unemployment for my first year at college.  Ah well - one of my coworkers told me &quot;If you&#x27;d done that, I might have to hate you.  Unemployment is for workers who need it, not college students who take a gap year at a dot-com.&quot;