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Comment by MOARDONGZPLZ | Hacker News Reader

I relocated to Toronto SPECIFICALLY to work for Joist, exactly one week ago. I was laid off along with everyone else within 6 days of working for them! Prior to that I was working in the USA for a few years; I'm now in a position where I have to figure out next steps with regards to my career :/ I'm still unsure why they hired me and brought me down here? I'm also hoping that they pay me for my time there (I worked my hardest to impress them, albeit only a week!)

By the way by my count it was closer to 90 people laid off, so they are depressing these numbers.

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Don't be thrown off of Toronto by one douchebag company. There's lots of jobs here for developers, and it's just a great city (imho).

I posted below, but the company I work for is hiring in Toronto and the pay is pretty good for this city.

+1 for the above. This sure was a dick move, but from the past week OP has probably already discovered Toronto is an amazing, clean, and courteous city (from my limited experience) compared to many others. Don't know what their work/visa situation is, but it's worth shopping around for another job and giving the place another shot.

> Don't be thrown off of Toronto by one douchebag company

What do you think the company should do? It's a company not a person who left their spouse when they got cancer. They are doing what they feel they should do in order to thrive and survive.

Now you can argue that you think they are wrong, that is that they don't need to move. But then again you won't suffer the downside of the wrong decision. They will. Companies do what companies have to do in order to grow the business based on how they interpret the facts. That is what joist has done.

If you're considering laying off 2/3rds of your staff and relocating the remainder to another country, maybe you shouldn't be actively hiring. They didn't come up with this idea last week.

Or at least not actively hiring in the place you're going to relocate from

From the other comments in the linked article, it looks like they hired more than one person that relocated from another city and were let go in < 1 week of starting employment.

I agree with you that it's a business and they are always doing what's in their best interest which they have every right to do. I think even with that in mind, this could have been handled a bit differently to avoid really sticking it to some people.

The company should be open and honest with it's employees. It shouldn't be telling them everything is fine, hiring new people, relocating them from other countries and then a day later firing most of the staff.

A decision like this isn't sudden. It's the difference between trying to work things out with your wife, talking through your differences and eventually deciding it won't work, vs leaving her without warning and taking the dog and bank account.

They can decide to move, sure. And it might be the right decision.

However, hiring people and relocating them 1 week before said move was decided would just be incompetent.

Given the stories of how they continued hiring people until the end, laying off people who had moved there and had only worked for a month or less when it happened, I absolutely can refer to them as a douchebag company.

#joist60 is trending on Twitter and lots of Toronto startups and software organizations are supporting those laid off. Some of your peers are tweeting that hashtag as well. Head there and take a look at the offers.

that sounds not right. I hope they give you a good severance if you relocated. That sounds like it should be illegal under something.

Dude... You deserve a lot. :(

Take all their red staplers.

Something similar happened a few months ago in a Dutch company that I was sent to have a look at. Utterly disgusting, to cause people to uproot their lives knowing full well that there is no intention to follow through.

i'm really sorry this happened. hoping you find a better gig in short order.

That is extremely shitty, and the people in charge should be shamed. They had to have known this was coming far before you starting there. For them to continue with that, knowing the position it would leave you in, solidifies the idea that those in charge are awful people.

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