Can the lounge please check my logic?

[malthaussen]

9. It is ambiguous as written...

... but if in practice the company has already interpreted "following year" to mean "next year," then they won't make an exception for you. Your only recourse would be legal arbitration, in which case you might win your point (ambiguous language is usually interpreted against the party who wrote the language), but all of HR and the company's administrators will hate you -- and so will any co-workers who have previously been burned by the policy. So what's that 28 hours worth to you? Note that even if your interpretation is reasonable by logic or law, that doesn't mean you'll win your point.

The language is strikingly similar to the old "Reserve Clause" in baseball, which was ultimately overturned after long legal battles; but the players who first began to fight it in court were soon anathema to the entire league, and now of course traditionalists bitch that free agency has ruined the sport.

-- Mal