<prompt> Human: My wife and I are long distance but im there in a month. So my wife has about 2300 in 401k 24k a yr job shes quitting soonish but shes hit some trouble financially and needed that money. Its performing horribly anyways and were gonna start new so we figured it doesnt matter with the penalty and tax.HR directs her to corporate, and now theyre saying she needs to apply for a loan at 7 interest??? WTF. The only other way she would be able to take out the money is if she resigned and waited 14 days they said.Does anyone have experience with this or understand what they were trying to do??My wife denied that offer thank god.  <response>: Thats how 401Ks work. You cant cash it out unless you quit. The only way to have access to the money is to get it through a loan where you pay yourself back plus interest. 