Comment by gkwelding | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gkwelding | Hacker News Reader

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This literally could have been written by any developer in the UK. I think most of us start out like this! I think the best one was a company I worked for in Leeds, it was building a secure learning platform for schools which ultimately fell flat on it's arse. The company was run by a self-made millionaire who was notorious for scamming people.

He'd randomly lay off huge numbers of the sales team, and the first anyone would know about it is when the door code would be changed and we'd have to ring the "office manager" (ex-SAS) for the new code.

His grand idea to save the failing online learning platform was "pivoting" to selling personalised dog food online........... (and I mean personalised in the sense of just slapping the dogs name and their face on some generic crap dog food, not actually nutritionally personalised to the dog)

Left that place being owed 3 months wages (which I never got).

Last I heard he was being investigated for fraud. (this was the scum bag in question: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/sep/04/barclays-sm...)

My first tech job was similar. ~15 person “IT company”. When I joined I was hired as a webmaster/developer to manage their own corporate website, and their main income was doing Citrix installations and outfitting SMEs with computers and networking hardware.

The CEO and 2 others were old high school mates, funding seemed unlimited, we had “company cars” we could take anytime we wanted for errands or lunch or whatever, all were pretty expensive performance cars. Company lunches every day at local restaurants etc (I generally just ate in the office because they all weirded me out). Any hardware/software/whatever you needed was on your desk the next day.

In the 2 years I worked there, the company pivoted maybe 8 times. I’d come to work and suddenly my role was to develop custom e-commerce sites, a few months later I’d be doing graphic design for hardcore porn (DVDs/etc) distributors, a few months later I’d be helping develop hardware prototypes for shopping mall displays, etc etc.

It paid very well (for a first tech role), but the whole thing constantly felt “wrong”, I kept expecting the feds to kick the doors in one day. Just bad vibes all round. I ended up getting a way better job through a workmate there and when I checked on their website a year later it was squatted and domain for sale.

Wow, that sounds very, very strange... Kind of puts things into perspective for me. Thanks for sharing.

Whoa. Just yesterday I was talking with a friend who years ago was sent to London to deal with a UK custom software vendor. He had a Friday meeting to talk with the CEO and lay down the law: they had to show my friend the software they were building right away or the deal was off.

He showed up for the meeting; the CEO was called away urgently. My friend was taken out for a very boozy lunch and given many excuses and platitudes. He held firm, though. Demo or trouble. They rebooked his meeting for Monday.

Arriving at their office on Monday, he found that the place had been totally cleared out. The only thing left was a photocopier that had been smashed. The CEO had, in the British phrasing, done a runner, leaving the employees suddenly out of work.

The good news is that my friend ended up hiring one of the employees, who turned out great.

“I feel that the developers are not really getting what is required so today we will start dogfooding! There is a personalised can on everyone’s desk.”

On my first day of my first web-dev job, I went to dinner with the top developers and all they did was tell surreal horror stories about the boss. Women would routinely leave his office crying.

The product we were making was complete BS, and I think the boss was just siphoning off money for himself. All he did was download songs on Napster all day and blare them from his office.

Our top developer was a guy from Australia working under the table because he couldn't get a visa. He missed two days while deathly sick. The boss docked him $800.

There are so many other horror stories. I always compared the guy to a cross between Captain Bligh and Mr. Smith from Lost in Space.

> we'd have to ring the "office manager" (ex-SAS)

I'm not sure what's the fetish with the SAS, but I apparently know more people who where in the or with strong ties to the SAS than regular British folks... OTOH, after knowing some actual members of various special forces for 2 decades: If they saw action, they don't brag. They are usually shy to admit anything even if it is not classified. Or the other way around: Those advertised as "ex-SAS" (or navy seals or french foreign legion, your choice) usually ain't.

A drunk ex-pat walks into a bar. He is a navyseal, with three tours of combat and also the CEO of a public traded company.

Hrhr. I actually know a legit one who fits the description. But that is exactly one :)

With all that experience, you need only one.

> > we'd have to ring the "office manager" (ex-SAS)

That's when you ask "What colour is the boat house at Hereford?"

Brown brick with blue and white, according to Google :-)

Great film!

You continued to work for 3 months without getting paid?

This is a really good thing to highlight for new employees - you may think there is a lot of oversight in companies doing the right thing but be defensive about your labour. If benefits or pay are being withheld assume they will never materialize.

This property should also be applied to "salary increase freezes" or promised bonuses in lieu of raises. Unless the money is in your pocket (or the company has a literally terrible HR person who actually put things solidly in writing i.e. a promisory note) then any intangible compensation is likely to never be realized. And if there is a salary increase freeze the thing that won't happen next year (I guarantee it) is that they'll double up everyone's expected salary increase - you may still be in a freeze, or that freeze may be lifted so you all get normal CoL increases.

When you're an employee be incredibly defensive about what you offer - your employer is being even more defensive, I can guarantee it.

We'd been working there for about 2 years at that point, had always got paid, had been the same team since day 0 so we had no reason to doubt the "I'm just waiting for the next investment to clear in the company account then I'll pay you everything you're owed" message. Plus the arrogance and naivety of "it's a tech company, he needs us to do anything so he's got to pay us eventually".

Just can't help myself to mention the eerie similarity with being a factory worker in Russia in the early 90-ies: people would too work for months without getting paid, and for pretty much the same reasons. Plus, when you see with your own eyes that the product is still being made and even shipped, surely at some point the money will clear?

It's almost like a workplace Stockholm Syndrome!

It happened to my wife, who was paid for 18mo and given lots of "options". People were steadily laid off around her until she was asked of she would work without pay? Because if you say no you're laid off and nobody wants that. I helped to convince her to quit. Company folded when she left ...

It may also have been payment in lieu of notice or holiday.

Given the context that seems unlikely - and it's genuinely hard to rack up a three month severance liability at most companies these days unless you're C-level. Most employers will either evaporate or pay out unused annual vacation so you're looking at a year's accrual at most (we can be over generous and say they may have had five weeks owed) - plus any in lieu time which usually caps out at three weeks.

> and it's genuinely hard to rack up a three month severance liability at most companies these days unless you're C-level.

This isn't true in the UK

To be honest I don't pay attention to my paychecks. I work in Silicon Valley and have things direct deposited into my bank account, which I never check.

Theoretically, my current (and past) employers could have left out a dozen paychecks and I may not have noticed.

I don't think it's that unusual. If he doesn't have any money in his bank account it may be more noticeable.

Don't you have any notifications for transfers? People could steal your identity or card details and you wouldn't even notice?

what is the relevance of working in Silicon Valley?

I think GP thinks it is more polite than saying “I’m so rich, I don’t even know if I get paid.” But I don’t think so and seems pretty cringy.

There was a post written a while ago by someone saying what it was like to be poor when they got their first job in SV. One of the exact points was that they had colleagues who didn't really mind if they missed a couple of months of salary... they wouldn't notice as they had no need to look. Just like GP. It was totally incomprehensible for her, as someone who had to live paycheck to paycheck.

My only real response to this kind of humblebrag is... good for you!?

Yeah, I’m not offended or anything. Good for GGP and whatnot, just trying to explain.

It was funny working with some people who didn’t really need the money. It was/is always an alien concept for me. We had a cool startup we were working with and they were in “stealth mode” for two years without any revenue or funding, just working without any income. Must be nice.

> My only real response to this kind of humblebrag

"Humble"?

(Semi-)Obliquely bragging about how much one is paid, AFAICS.

Same here. Only it was a PHP shop and they expected literally everything to be built in Drupal. I got hired 10 minutes after the interview, which should have been a red flag. We also had to clock in with a fingerprint reading device that hardly ever worked.

They were also scamming customers at some point after I got laid off. I didn't really dig into it though.

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