New documents for the Okta breach
twitter.com
twitter.com
It could also be a friend calling in a favor. Both very viable options.
Feel bad for the employee caught in the crosshairs.
Just to be clear, for any LEGAL reason. "At-will" in no way negates statutory rights such as anti-discrimination law or refusal to commit illegal acts. Retaliation against certain protected acts is forbidden. Also, like almost everything under state law there is significant variety even within a given category. There are many states which are at-will overall but also have state level exceptions for things like public policy (this is where whistle blowing can fall under, though that involves some complicated questions too), implied covenants, etc. Finally, at-will is just a legal default, someone could still negotiate a contract that required some different higher level of cause.
So as always, need to consult the specific state law and contract in question unless it's a clear violation of something federal like the Civil Rights Act.
That's one of those American things that when you first hear about them, they sound weird/wrong or "okay, why not", but on second thought are just downright crazy and screw over the common people. Like no paid leave by default, even for maternity.
How about the way most of the rest of the civilized world handles it?
Termination must have a cause, be backed up with documentation, and ideally display the company's attempts at remediation (i.e. the PIP).
I think we can see a difference.
It’s not that we don’t end up with “corruption” with at will policies, but it’s better for the economy to have a more dynamic workforce.
As an individual though, of course I’d like to have a guaranteed job, but… I mean then you get government performance.
Yes some people will excel despite the lack of incentive, but most will prefer to just be mediocre and get by —why not? You won’t get in trouble.
However, there is a dynamic where good performance by employee A is frowned upon by the majority of other employees because that will expose their mediocrity. It’s a complaint I’ve heard from a couple of people who’ve worked in the public sector.
Termination for most companies is expensive. It's why so many US companies still have and use PIPs. They're up against a threat of losing a lot of money, and if they can remediate the employee (it happens a fair bit, I've found), they've saved that money.
To paraphrase a rather decent well and septic guy on TikTok, "I've just put tens of thousands of dollars into this guy's education. Why would I get rid of him?"
There are multiple equilibria. At-will favors agility.
On the other end of the spectrum we find economies where most of the workforce is informally or short-term employed and where new-firm formation is limited by employers' aversion to hiring and senior employees' reluctance to leave cushy jobs from which it is nigh-impossible to be fired.
> paraphrase a rather decent well and septic guy on TikTok
They are quoting Lee Iacocca.
Potential agility at the expense of eroding an employees rights and upsetting their equilibrium. IMO - not worth it.
> On the other end of the spectrum we find
Which is not a symptom of requiring a reason for firing someone, it's a symptom of the employer making people irreplacable.
Something that happens today even at-will workplaces.
Which is why many countries which have this allow for few months of probation (three months in Czechia) at the start of employment, where either employee or employer can call it off at any time. There are processes by which an employer can fire an employee after this period (failed performance improvement period, and often severance) or where an employee can leave (resignation effective after a contractually required notice period, or earlier on mutual agreement).
It would take a particular sort of person and probably a special contract for a situation where someone is able to resist being fired for an extended period of time. Most people aren't quite motivated or shameless enough to keep that up for long - it's probably the same sort of effort as actually doing the job.
Mass layoffs often are treated differently but then they come under different laws as well.
but a normal single employee termination, I have never worked for a company that did not have a Performance Improvement Plan process to terminate poor performance
Now then, a more likely complication would be riders. But that's not a side effect of codifying employment termination requirements, that's a side effect of shitty legislators.
And that? We have some control over that.
And again, we're not talking about some new legislation with no prior art. It's how it was before the at-will laws came into play, it's how it still is in some states, it's how a large number of companies work today and it's how it is in a majority of other developed nations.
Sorry reality does not work that way, any attempts to change the law would have massive side effects because the "riders" as you call them would be added, the bill would not be a 10 page ensure employers go through a PIP, no it would be a 1000 page grab bag of special interest back room deals
In my experience that's exactly how it works already. It's expensive to fire an employee. If I wanted to let someone go, HR would make me prove it was necessary and require the VP to sign off on it. And if the employee in question is known to be a member of a protected class (the biggest one being anyone middle aged or above) and they even speculate about the possibilities of legal action, good luck firing them at all, justified or not.
I've seen quite a few people exited by malicious managers who documented things in a PIP that didn't happen, and set rules for PIP exit that weren't attainable. All to avoid a lawsuit when a person is terminated.
Not sure that's highly functional.
For most of us on HN, it's likely not a big problem. I personally have enough money stashed that I could go up to 6 months without a paycheck. But for someone making $9/hr that never has more than 2 paychecks' worth of money in their accounts, it's a disaster.
Me – I have decided to part ways with the company. Here's my 2 week notice. Let's work out a transition plan.
Manager – You can't do that! We have to ship this project by end of quarter. There's no way we will be able to find a replacement in time.
Me – Well that's unfortunate, but my end date isn't flexible.
Manager – Let me discuss this with [director] and get back to you.
Me – There is nothing to discuss. I'm not asking for permission.
And then he had the audacity to switch up the project dates and suggest that I work overtime and finish all the work before leaving.
In the U.S., the acceptable reasons for terminating an employee are somewhat governed by each state's laws. Although federal laws impose additional constraints which state laws cannot override.
Bill obviously begins looking for a new job, and probably gets a raise, due to market conditions, anyway.
I have been terminated from Zoom for refusing to remove the following tweets - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30842186 - March 2022 (123 comments)
If the release is meant to be informative and altruistic - do it anonymously.
I think the folks hollering that Okta knew a user desktop was compromised and "did nothing about the breach" are over playing that specific event. I'm going to guess that user desktops are compromised frequently and per se this doesn't represent a "breach". If it did, then every large company would suffer a breach every week, at least.
Surely the aspects to focus on are their apparent opsec failures such as passwords in XL spreadsheet, possibly lack of patches on the desktop OS, lack of rate limits on actions by support staff, lack of constraints to affect only users belonging to active support tickets, etc.
> I'm going to guess that user desktops are compromised frequently
doubtful
But as I said, I don't think this is what has people up in arms.
No matter what they say or do or what you perceive from brash to goodie-two-shoes, the real truth only comes out when real shit hits the fan.