Silicon Valley tech worker fired after blogging about starving | Hacker News Reader

Silicon Valley tech worker fired after blogging about starving

rawstory.com

39 pointsandygambles36 comments

I recall seeing elsewhere that the employee wasn't fired for blogging about starving, but that she was found to have used her personal account to leave-in some cases-distasteful comments on some customer pages, and outright offensive ones on others.

Attempting to recall and track down where I saw this.

edit: user carl_13 has links in his comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11151531

Discussed at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11138086 and many other posts.

http://news.slashdot.org/story/16/02/21/2035225/yelp-employe...

> And I am sure it had nothing to do with her getting alcohol delivered to her while at work [archive.is] or bragging about making sexual jokes to the companies twitter account [imgur.com]. It's either quite a coincidence or she knew she was in trouble and wrote the letter to try and make the company look worse.

Why would getting alcohol delivered to work be an issue?

Well, I-personally-don't know if "issue" is really the right word to use.

I will say, as someone who drinks that brand of Bourbon quite regularly-the act causes me to ask if she's spending her money wisely living in one of the most expensive cities in America if she's having such a hard time making a livable wage that she's also having to eat at work constantly.

Maybe buying mid-tier bourbon that can run anywhere from $28-$40 (depending on the size) on liquor isn't the best way to behave financially. I wont comment on what this means as far as her relationship with Yelp, since I don't know their policies on drinking at the office.

I suppose then, if there is an issue, it's one of the credibility of the source.

We don't get to judge her financial acumen. She's young, she buys booze. Big whoop. Maybe it was for a present for a sibling's wedding. Maybe a close friend. Maybe she just makes bad financial choices.

That's not the story here.

You know what, you're absolutely right. We don't get to judge her her financial acumen. We don't get to judge her on anything really that doesn't impact other people in a negative fashion.

I'm just evaluating various externalizes of her situation and how she responded to them and considering how they may ostensibly contribute to that situation improving, or failing to improve accordingly.

So yeah you're right, it's not the story here...it's just something ancillary. I suppose it's a good thing I was only answering tangentially hypothetical question.

The reason I say we don't get to judge it is because we don't know _anything_ outside of someone digging up two twitter posts. That's it. You're evaluating a strawman to subtly twist this.

I didn't ask why we don't get to judge. That wasn't part of, point of, or component of any of what I just said.

A world with more judgment would be a better world.

More judgment would not make it a better world.

Her blog post talks about living off of a single bag of rice plus free food at work because she couldn't afford to buy groceries. Do expensive booze deliveries not count as groceries?

This is just another form of victim blaming, isn't it?

So I have this question about 'victim blaming': How do we distinguish genuinely blaming the victim, and bringing a spotlight to the culpability of the alleged?

We don't have 100% of the background facts of this situation, so that question isn't meant to suggest or imply completely that Ms. Jane is at fault completely for everything that took place here. It's just something I've often wondered when contrasting claims of "blaming the victim" and looking at the information being sold to me by the agent of dissemination.

CEO: "I've not been personally involved in Talia being let go and it was not because she posted a Medium letter directed at me."

A coincidence is possible, but doesn't sound at all likely ("the CEO didn't personally get involved" sounds like a very specific claim). It is, OTOH, indeed possible that other events were at work - "post hoc, ergo propter hoc;" that the two events might have another (undisclosed) common cause.

In other words: the data we have is of the "he said, she said" type...and a lot of emotional filters on all sides (inc. the readers). A strange game.

I don't understand this - Yelp provides free breakfast and lunch to all employees in their SF Office. Why would she be starving if her employer feeds her two meals per day for free ?

Probably not actually starving:

http://alotofrice.pixieset.com/thatsalotofrice/

This partly shows what a poor term 'tech worker' has become.

"Customer service agent fired after blogging about low wages" is a story that could be written anywhere in the country.

Person: "I'm starving and barely able to get by working for Yelp in SF."

Yelp: "You're fired." (Good luck paying rent without a job.)

Yelp CEO: "The cost of living is too high here, so we're going to instead move offices to Arizona and pay the same wage."

Does this mean that Yelp is going to...

    a. Help all of its employees move to AZ where they can enjoy
       a lower cost of living?
    b. Fire all of its employees and hire replacements in AZ?
    c. Something else?

Because if they're going with option B, wow.

The cost of living in SF is one of the reasons I refuse to ever move there for work, but it seems like a scapegoat in this case. Why not just pay your employees a livable wage to begin with?

Eventually, probably. There's a reason why most companies don't scale their customer rep teams in high cost areas like the bay area to begin with. Many companies either offshore or open their customer rep centers in places like Arizona or the Midwest where the low wage work will still be a living wage. It's inherently low wage work, and paying significantly above market wage for low skill labor is something businesses are understandably reticent to do.

They'll hire entry-level workers in AZ, quit hiring them in SF, and let the high churn rate take care of the transition.

I think it would be more likely to do the transfer in a more phased way.

For example, if they start to need more low-wage positions you start hiring directly in Arizona, and when someone leaves the SF office you just don't hire someone there again, you re-open the position in your other location.

Do this for some time and at some point you are probably going to have only a few employees left which would be easier to fire.

So it's kind of like option B except not everyone at a time.

Nice lie of a title.

Here's the real question: why did she chose to work in the most expensive city in the country?

What was she expecting? Yes, customer service reps don't get paid well. Why? Because literally anyone who can answer the phone and not be rude can do it. The required skill set for it is very low and it's easy to find replacements, so it's not going to be a well paid position.

If you read her article, you'll learn she majored in english (which is fine, but you should go into that knowing you're not going to make much money), and immediately got herself in a bunch of debt after college. She clearly isn't the best at financial decision making.

I wouldn't want to live in the bay area on a dev salary, let alone on a service rep one. No one is forcing her to make bad decisions. I can't stand people complaining about the status quo when they make horrible decisions with their money and life choices.

And just to note, I was a customer service rep for over two years, so I know what the job entails. I eventually realized it wasn't a career, and decided to teach myself to code. Even if I hadn't though, I'd still be doing okay by:

1. Not spending more than I earn.

2. Not living in a ridiculously expensive city without an equally ridiculous income.

> Yes, customer service reps don't get paid well. Why? Because literally anyone who can answer the phone and not be rude can do it. The required skill set for it is very low and it's easy to find replacements, so it's not going to be a well paid position.

Why are they offering that position in the most expensive city in the country? If they're not going to pay enough for it, who taking the job will be able to afford to live on the salary?

But they can offer whatever they want as allowed by law. They're a business, not a charity. People can choose to apply and work there, or not. No one is forcing them to.

I would recommend looking through her post and also some of the links posted. It looks like she wasn't living within her means. When that's the case you can either:

1. Work to increase your means

2. Reduce your expenses

3. Sink deeper and deeper into a pit of debt and despair

> They're a business, not a charity.

She's not a charity, either—she works for them, in exchange for the money to live. If they're not offering enough for that to be possible, then they're expecting for people to work for them as a charity.

> I would recommend looking through her post and also some of the links posted. It looks like she wasn't living within her means.

I'm not going to try and assess that based on pictures someone found on the internet.

You are 100% right - she's not a charity. If she's unhappy with the amount of payment she's receiving, she can leave and find another job. It's not like she signed a lifetime contract.

Unfortunately since they've mis-priced their offering, her replacement will be run into the exact same problem.

The idea that because someone doesn't have specialized skills means that they don't deserve a living wage is a bit silly. You're appealing to free market principles as a justification of free market principles. You're attacking this specific person for her poor financial skills but ignoring the larger issue of ALL the people Yelp hires and pays less than $10/hr and all the people in the country in similar positions. As long as we accept that someone has to do these jobs and that the unemployed and underpaid have very little leverage then this has to be seen as a systematic problem and not an individual failing.

I never said they don't need to be paid a living wage. I said that they shouldn't expect to be making tons of money for that kind of work.

Based on her article, she made $19,064.24 a year, or $1,588.68 a month. Is that a lot of money? Not really, but you can make it work. The key is to actually live within your means. Cut the expensive cell phone bill. Get some roommates. Stop eating out and going out for drinks all the time. Sell your expensive car and get a cheaper one (or just bike if you can).

I agree that people should be paid a living wage, but I also think people should be responsible for what they do with their money. If you don't like your current job, work to find a better one. Don't just complain about it on the internet.

I would think an up front calculation of cost of living in San Francisco (in top 5 highest in US) vs offered salary would show it was not feasible to take that job.

Yes, or she might have considered getting a roommate.

Whoa. Hold on there buddy. Are you implying that someone actually take personal responsibility for their actions and financial decision making? You better hope that twitter doesn't get word of this.

English, Sir or Ma'am. We speak English in this forum. I do not know what you're saying as it is foreign to me. Please refrain from that bothersome language as we are all about communication here.

> I would think an up front calculation of cost of living in San Francisco (in top 5 highest in US) vs offered salary would show it was not feasible to take that job.

So then why is Yelp offering it? Why do you think they offer that job at a salary that you feel a simple calculation reveals to be insufficient?

Did you consider that maybe making a tiny wage is better than no wage at all? Even in SF? Did you consider that maybe she has personal/family reasons to live where she does?

It just seems a little ridiculous to suggest someone just "get another job" somewhere else without knowing basically anything about their situation. It also deflects from the issue that Yelp is paying these ridiculously low wages to their full time employees.

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