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Comment by JDiculous | Hacker News Reader

Left $150k software engineering job (well got fired for making video called "9 Ways to cope with having a boring 9-5 job" which somebody found and sent to HR) to make videos about stuff I think is interesting (https://www.youtube.com/c/JDiculous1 https://www.facebook.com/HonestLogic), with a slant towards addressing wage slavery, basic income, student loans, capitalism, etc. Still in the early stages, but I'll be hitting this hard in 2018.

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You will get the experiences you need to go where you're going; being fired for pointing out obvious is not that bad, you did nothing wrong, it's their shitty karma. Can't you see the irony in doing something like that on facebook? The solution starts with making the right choices yourself.

Sounds like wonderful co-workers to have. Probably a matter of time before being stabbed in the back in such a work environment.

Annoying that somebody rolled on you for that.

Yea it's pretty lame seeing as how the video was posted under a pseudonym, meaning that person did some serious digging and clearly had an agenda (I'm 95% sure who it was). It's all good though, I had been wanting to leave for a long time but had kept putting it off for the "right moment". I'm glad that that decision was made for me because now there's nothing to regret.

You must have pissed that person off at some point. Without knowing the context though, that's a very low road move to take on their part.

In any event, I enjoyed the couple of videos of yours I watched.

Your Twitter is under your real name and in the About section though. Was it there when you got fired?

Wow, is it even legal in your country? What was the official reason mentioned? Maybe you can sue them?

In the US this would be 100% legal. For almost all jobs, you can fire someone for any reason (I don't like your shirt, your jokes weren't funny, it's a Tuesday) or literally no reason at all. The exceptions are few and far between - unions provide additional protection via collective bargaining agreements; you can't fire someone for being in a protected class (i.e. because of their race or gender); and you can't fire someone in retaliation for something like a wage complaint. You could almost certainly fire someone for making a video you don't like (unless they're in a union, which is very few tech employees.)

While it is true that most employment is “at-will” (which means that both sides voluntarily choose to employ/be employed) for both sides, in a friendly employee state like California, there are numerous wage claims and employment law suits that come with doing business. It’s not as easy to fire in some states.

Yea it's legal here in the U.S. since it was at-will employment. They tried to play down the effect of the video and made up some vague performance-related reasons.

It's all good though, I was planning to leave anyways.

Can you link to the vid that got you fired?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGTfP2jvpeU

Videos are pretty funny! Keep it up :D

Did you speak to a lawyer? Firing you for that sounds illegal.

It was at-all employment so they can fire me for any reason here in the USA.

That’s not quite true. There are still illegal reasons for firing (discrimination, retaliation for whistleblowing, etc) though fighting back can be difficult and costly. But if you’re okay with the current state of affairs (I was with my own previous incident - the company was awful) it can make sense to just move on.

That's true. I should've mentioned that they tried to play down the effect of the video and made up some vague performance reasons. But yea I'm fine with it and had been planning to leave for a while, so no hard feelings. The best retaliation would be me achieving success in my new endeavors.

Awesome videos man! Resonated with me since I live in the East Village as well

That's ridiculous.

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