A friend of mine while we were in school (RPI) interned at GE and apparently they receive tons of letters each Christmas sent to Santa which have 12345 as the zip that GE staff volunteer to reply to.
IANALE-either but from my understanding the Pardon is so wide (only restriction being preventing from stopping an impeachment) that the President can and has Pardoned people preemptively. There are some other limits on it as well for practical uses.
Most notably, President Ford pardoned President Nixon for basically anything he might have done as opposed to specific charges.
I had the same thought of it just shifted who you had to negotiate and convince group to the entire office instead of eliminating that aspect.
Especially considering Buffer was mentioned and their formula was average for the role adjusted for cost of living, time with company, experience and equity level in a very straight forward way.
https://dailygazette.com/galleries/2014/12/09/ge-answers-san...