Restructuring Announcement

on the positive side, it's a small thing monetarily, but retention of company laptops is a nice goodwill gesture

Eh, from the company's perspective this is logistically easiest--the laptop's value is hardly worth the effort.

a lot of companies ask for equipment to be returned due to security concerns, or just on principle

One former employer had this policy, and also refused to provide a way to ship said equipment back. No one was happy with my alternative solution: leaving it at the police station instead.

Is that what you proposed or what you actually did? I want a story!

I actually did it. This was back in the times when you could get a job the next day, and my new employer didn't want me keeping anything from the old employer by the time I started. Old employer was dragging their feet on the shipping label and made it clear that failure to return the equipment would be considered theft. I gave them a week of daily reminder emails with an approaching deadline (no response), then handed it to the cops as abandoned property. Got a few HR calls immediately afterwards asking how to pick it up, and an annoyed police call asking me not to do it again.

> made it clear that failure to return the equipment would be considered theft

Is "please arrange for a courier to retrieve it" not the end of your obligations?

In a situation where everyone (including me) was acting reasonably, sure. But I was slightly gruntled from being pushed out for filing a safety report, and keeping it in my possession would have technically violated my new contract. Giving it to the police was clearly not stealing it and didn't require going out of my way to help them solve a problem of their own creation.