For the past two weeks, many employees at Skydance’s CNN and CBS News have been weighing a difficult choice: take the buyout packages offered by management, or gamble on the round of forced layoffs expected to follow.

The offers landed on October 26, just as newsrooms were heading into the frenetic final stretch of the midterms, which meant staffers had until Sunday to make a consequential decision about their futures while covering one of the biggest stories of the year, and with little certainty about what awaited them if they stayed. If they chose to accept the deal, their last day with the company will be in just weeks, on Friday, December 4. That said, for many employees at CBS News, the acceptance deadline is on November 18, giving them some more time to weigh their decision.

The buyouts are intended to slash costs at the two Skydance-owned news organizations as David Ellison & Co. look to make good on their promise to Wall Street to find $6 billion in savings after the Warner Bros. Discovery merger. But the voluntary exit offers may have worked a little too well, Status has learned, creating an unexpected headache for the executives who extended them.