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Comment by lohszvu | Hacker News Reader

I appreciate the CEO being direct. It gives you a chance to find another job before you get fired.

Honestly, I can't tell if you're being sarcastic, but I really think you're absolutely right. Some people really like working in that environment. Personally, it's not for me, but at least the CEO is upfront about what he expects. Really, he's being a good leader in that respect. I wouldn't want to work for him, but he's clear about what he wants which a lot of people in management miss.

EDIT

Let me explain why this is good. First as your boss, I'm not your friend. I'm not your pal. My sole responsibility is to ensure that I communicate clearly and effectively what needs to be done and make sure it happens. That's it. Does this mean, I'm not compassionate? No, of course not, but what it means is that I am tasked having uncomfortable conversations about things that need to be done and to make it understood. Have I asked people to work nights and weekends? Yes. Several times? Yes. Do I like doing it? No. This is the job. If you want to quit over this. No hard feelings. I make it clear that this is what we have to do. Have I fired people for under performing? Yes. Do I feel bad about it? No. That's my job. I feel bad, when I have to let someone go, because we don't have the money to keep them. When management says, "lose two heads, because we want to cut costs," and they were good employees. I feel bad then.

Working weekends sucks, I agree, but sometimes you have to. If you've never worked for a company that is on the brink of bankruptcy, you really don't understand what it's like to have to lay things on the line. The CEO is being honest about consequences. We honestly, don't know the situation from that blurb. It sounds like he's being an ass, but there maybe an underlying reason for it. (Probably not, but you never know.) Whether you choose to keep going is your choice.

A previous company I worked for, was on the brink of going out of business. Only a few of us knew (out of 200+ employees). We had a shortfall of money and we didn't know if we were going to make payroll that month. They didn't want to tell anyone (in fact I was instructed not to), but I knew, because I knew several of the executives. I pushed my staff, and myself for those three weeks, because I knew that if we didn't bill, the company could quite possibly go under. People say working weekends crosses a line. Knowing that your co-worker (or employee) may get evicted from the country, lost their house, etc., because you didn't do your job for those couple of weeks, I can't do that. That's crossing a line for me.

With this line of thinking, we would still work 14 hours per day...

Which is fine if you want to do that. I agree with the above posters, and you can certainly argue that working so much is bad, but the company is telling you exactly what it expects which is far better than most companies.

On the other hand, there is a lot of toxicity in there. If your bonus is zero no matter how work you hard, and you are encouraged by the CEO to "push" your colleagues (some of which are working on weekends), it's a terrible company to work for, no matter what pay they offer (of course it's good, otherwise the CEO wouldn't have the balls to treat his employees in this way as everybody would just walk out).

It is a type of Social Engineering. Politicians are using this all the time. When one group is e.g. on strike, they ignore the 'problem' and wait until other affected groups start throwing rocks at them. Classic example of teachers striking everywhere on the planet. Politicians know that parents will revolt at some point.

This is a shitty CEO and an equally shitty HR director imho. You got problems with deadlines/projects?

Do a root cause analysis, find out what is wrong, fix THAT wrong thing. Don't ask Alice to threaten Bob!

> Do a root cause analysis, find out what is wrong, fix THAT wrong thing. Don't ask Alice to threaten Bob!

I'm cynical enough to assume that the KPI targets, deadlines etc. in this case are deliberately set beyond reasonable expectation to use as leverage when coercing people to work for free. Management in that case is not incompetent, just scum.

I'm not arguing that. I'm merely saying that he is giving people the option to choose if they want to work like that. At least he's being direct instead of waiting until after the bonus is paid (or not), and then firing them without telling them the expectations. In truth, if I saw that, I'd probably walk right then and there, but there are people who like that environment, and it's their choice if they want to continue there.

When I was 22 I would gladly have doubled down for the money. Over a decade later... not so much.

People forget that there are others not like them. There are plenty of companies that set deadlines and expect you to meet them, even if that means working the weekends when you’re behind. There is nothing inherently wrong with that, lots of people love the money and/or don’t have families. No one is forcing you to work there, so let them be.

That argument would justify unlimited abusive behavior from employers. No time for bathroom breaks? Locked exit doors during working hours? [1] "There are plenty of companies with conditions like those, and obviously a lot of people love the money. No one is forcing you to work there, so leave them alone."

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fi...

I find it fascinating that your reference is from 1911... because there clearly haven’t been any laws enacted since then that would protect workers.

The only potentially relevant statement you made (bathroom breaks at Amazon warehouses) is the uncited one. Also coincidentally illegal in every US state I’ve ever been employed in...

The example shows that the same words could have defended those unconscionable conditions from 1911, which were also legal at the time.

Can you come up with a reason workers shouldn't fight back against RevolutApp's demands that wouldn't also apply to the horrible conditions in 1911?

I never said workers who didn’t like it shouldn’t. If you don’t like it you absolutely could and should.

If you reread my comment I specifically said that some people do like it at certain points in their lives. Let them decide if the job is for them...

RevolutApp is small enough (for now) that working there might seem optional. But working is not optional, and if employers are able to impose conditions like these, they're all going to want to.

Would you feel the same way if a company with 100,000 employees made these demands? If hundreds of companies with millions of employees total did so?

> But working is not optional

I know people who've been on welfare for generations, having never worked a day in their lives.

When I got divorced, the only thing that kept me going was my job. It allowed me to push everything else out and focus. I welcomed it. and I volunteered to work extra, because it was less painful. I wouldn't do it now, but that lifestyle is for some people. I learned very quickly not to judge anyone for their life decisions.

Good for you, but I don't see how the sentiment is relevant to this situation. That you'd volunteer for overtime because it fits your lifestyle is different from the CEO threatening to fire you because you don't work unpaid weekends, or holding bonuses hostage because being a "great contributor" somehow doesn't figure in their KPI metric.

I'm just saying that some people want to work like that. What you see as a threat, others see as an opportunity.

> What you see as a threat, others see as an opportunity.

All right, but in the scenario you describe, you volunteered to work overtime because that's what you felt was best for you, not because of the lingering...opportunity to get fired if you didn't.

I don’t know the specifics of your circumstance but I can guarantee anyway that asking people to work the weekends was still an error on your part.

I can guarantee the following happened:

- your employees made more mistakes during weekend work

- at least a few had deteriorated health / sleep

- your teams morale took a hit

- you accomplished less than you would of had you had your employees come in regular weekly hours

Required weekend work is always a fault of management to properly plan and execute. Always. The few times I had my teams work the weekend I always admitted how I was at fault and how my poor planning would be the subject of a post mortem.

Source: I have been in management and executive positions for 15+ years at startups ranging from super small to rocket ships IPOs.

Well, it's not always management's fault or due to poor planning. Sometimes you have to come in because client work requires it and the regular shift work isn't enough. I'm speaking about support roles or operations roles that might require extra hands due to specific windows of either extra customer load or maintenance windows. Typically though you give people time off during the week to compensate, but it's not always possible.

How is this a responsible position from a company? They are the ones keeping the employees in the dark, withholding crucial information that their very livelihoods are on borrowed time.

That's not crossing a line for you, is it? People on working visas have a set period to find the job and they need to send their applications in advance to stand a better chance of finding one.

It makes for a good story if you were the one who saved the day with 11-th hour heroism, but from an unbiased observer's perspective the management had failed a long time ago.

People often invoke "the company is family" trope to promote loyalty, but imagine that if you got married and then you suddenly found out that your spouse had high six-figure debts or that they were terminally ill. Relationships built on keeping your partner in the dark about things as serious as those are dysfunctional.

People are taking advantage of human kindness, an employee with no significant stake should not be the martyr looking for a sword to fall on.

If your company is going out of business because it's not profitable, that's called capitalism. Unprofitable business needs to go under.

I don't think it's a coincidence that the same companies who find their way into a cash crunch also find themselves requiring overtime from their employees to try and fix it. Both are signs of poor planning, poor management, and not treating your employees well.

In the end it's the chicken and the egg scenario. Did your bad decisions force you to treat your employees like shit or was treating your employees like shit part of the charter to begin with and it's just now catching up to you?

Either way, requiring overtime is a red flag whose appearance instantly tells me it's time to look for a new job. Whether the company is doing well or not. I work to live, not the other way around.

So did your company pull itself out of the brink or did you just make people work harder to prolong the inevitable? It sounds as though you hid a truth from your employees, you didn't tell them that the work they were doing possible wouldn't be paid. I was in a company that did this, they laid off entire swaths of the company including new hires. They pretty much only survived because nearly the entire company walked out after that. They cut the sales team, marketing, engineering, and finance teams. The CEO also left and a new one was brought in. They are still struggling years later and have never pulled themselves out of debt except for shady dealings that diluted the stock. Most of my team works weekends now if required, not because anyone asks, quite frankly most of us in leadership positions just want to be available and we truly love our team, I'm also salary and paid very well for the amount of work I put in.

> Let me explain why this is good. First as your boss, I'm not your friend. I'm not your pal. My sole responsibility is to ensure that I communicate clearly and effectively what needs to be done and make sure it happens. That's it.

This kind of attitude is a classic indicator of a poor manager. If you think you (a) only have one responsibility and (b) that it's just making sure things happen, then you need to take a hard look at some actual good managers and ask yourself "What makes them effective?"

Good management is about evaluating competing demands and constraints, and then finding a solution. Telling people that the only way to make something work is have them work weekends is just passing the buck downwards for your failures to either deliver what you promised or manage expectations upwards.

I can not describe how sad I suddenly felt when I realized I couldn't be sure this was sarcasm.

If every asshole CEO were that sincere I would have lost a lot less time on shit jobs

Why leave yourself? Just let them fire you and get the severance pay.

I'm not sure if it's sarcasm or not, but asking people to work on weekends means crossing the line, whether it's expressed in a direct or indirect way.

What if during the interviewing process they're very clear that they are a startup that isn't a normal job and the trade off is equity and a great cheque in 2-5 years?

Very clear would be "maybe a great cheque in 2-5yrs but it could be we'll fail and you'll lose your job and get nothing", wouldn't it?

Apparently in USA ~50% survive year 5 of businesses. I see similar numbers for UK.

eg https://www.researchgate.net/post/Most_Start-up_Businesses_F... for USA

Yes! And one way (not the only way) to increase your chances of survival is by working harder than normal to get to a product/revenue point where you can make it. Again, all I'm asking is if the startup is very clear about expectations going into the role is that ok? We have very low unemployment right now so it's not like skilled technology workers don't have a lot of choices. Is there any way to ethically create a startup in today's age and expect people will work more than government mandated hours?

Seems like access to capital is the primary reason for failure, so you working harder might make no difference.

>Again, all I'm asking is if the startup is very clear about expectations going into the role is that ok? //

Absolutely! The truth will set you free.

Some countries have laws for that tho, which were implemented precisely so that all business are not allowed to think themselves as so "special" that they can set any rules whatsoever, they've done it in the past and it was ugly. If I make a mining startup can I say it's not a normal job, this you go back home once a week, work 14hrs day and can bring your child as a mini-employee?

I'd be curious as to what work laws in UK says.

It depends: if they tried to pull this off in Europe, they would face trouble as it's illegal to exploit people whether they agree to it or not.

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