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Comment by bojo | Hacker News Reader

I've had a similar story happen in the past.

I was living in Japan looking for remote jobs and came across Couchbase. Interviewed well with the team who all seemed excited to get someone with my experience on board, however, the hiring manager said he wasn't sure he wanted to manage someone in my timezone. He pulled me into a separate call at the end of the rounds and asked some weird questions, which in hindsight were documentation.

When the HR person handling me called to congratulate me and sent the offer letter I was pretty excited. It seemed the timezone thing wasn't a problem then. I put my notice in with my other job, and then waited for a week. Two weeks. Three. HR person didn't know what was going on when I called them back.

Then I got any email from Couchbase's lawyers with a document stating they would hire me for 10 days total and no longer. Fuck you very much, hiring manager Larry. If you didn't want to hire me so bad why the dog and pony show?

I scrambled to see if my old position was open, but the CEO said he had closed it because, well, I put my notice in right at the end of the budget year and he moved that money.

I went unemployed for 5 months as I hunted for jobs, both local and remote. It put a massive amount of strain on my marriage, my mental health, and everything in between. Thankfully it didn't include a move as it sounds like the blog author did.

View on HN

Never put in notice until background checks and all on boarding paperwork is 100% complete. Putting in notice on an offer letter is premature and, unfortunately, leads to bad results.

For clarification, by on boarding paperwork do you mean forms i9 and w4?

I’ve had a career lasting over three decades and counting. Have never gone a day without a job in that time.

Part of the reason is because I followed your exact advice. To which I would also add - don’t have a big gap between your last day at your current job and your first day at your next.

Simply walking in the door on your first day increases the amount of paperwork they have to file to get rid of you.

Why do you belittle yourself so much?

Maybe there is more paperwork if they let you go on the first day (but for the HR people it is just doing their job - to do that paperwork!), but I don't think so. It is also very common to have a short (1 week max) notice for the probation period, so they will let you go if there are any issues. The reason why you had a job was most probably not the amount of paperwork they would have had to do had they really wanted to fire you. Maybe you were doing your job right?

And what if you are without a job for some time? Unless you are just starting out from nothing, your you depend on a visa, it is not the end of the world... Some people even do it on purpose.

>Some people even do it on purpose.

Yeah, when I took my current job I was more in the vein of "How much time off can I take that you won't mind?" We settled on something like 3 or 4 weeks and I booked a vacation.

Sure, stuff can happen. But I try not to be paranoid about what are low probability events at the end of the day that I only have limited control over.

> Simply walking in the door on your first day increases the amount of paperwork they have to file to get rid of you.

How? I have fired an employee for walking in on their first day smelling like cannabis and being high as a kite and it did not it change any “paperwork” I had to do. Everywhere in the US has at will employment, so barring a union agreement, all the employer has to do is document that they no longer want to employ the person anymore.

How's that supposed to work, when the process dictates that onboarding begins on your start date? If only we could give -10 days notice.

> If only we could give -10 days notice

Don't let your dreams be dreams!

Then you give -10 days notice. 2 weeks is a nicety and not legally required in the USA. Probably not required in many other places as well. It's unfortunate but I've never had a manager get too upset about it.

Also jobs often/usually fire people with 0 day notice and no severance. I don't know why it's an expectation that employees would give notice without any reciprocation.

0 day notice and no severance is unusual, at least for skilled professional jobs in the US. It does happen, but usually only for some unusual circumstance, like some kind of employee misbehavior or a sudden financial calamity for the company. Two weeks notice by the employee or severance by the employer is the most common case on both sides, probably for roughly 80% or so of professional jobs including all of my own. Of course it does suck to be in the outlying 20%, and the anecdotes will trend towards reporting that case, but is the minority. Most actors on both sides behave well, even if there is a substantial minority of problems.

(Edit since some replies seem to have the wrong idea - termination effective immediately without notice is common, but usually there is severance pay except in cases of misconduct or disaster.)

i have worked full-time at 6 different companies in engineering and management roles (admittedly none larger than ~300-500 people) and this wasn't the case for anyone at any of them, and have also never heard anecdotes from people in my life in general about this happening to them.

i don't not-believe you, but I would be super surprised if the 80% figure is accurate

the more common thing i've seen time and again is someone giving two week notice and then being told to not bother with the last two weeks (and not getting paid for it either). after one of my employers did this to a coworker i liked who was relying on that final paycheck for rent, i quit a couple months later with 0 notice "because it seems like you guys don't do 2 week notice here". I got threatened with a baseless lawsuit for that cheeky stunt and they abused DMCA claims on my consulting website to try to get it taken down

> I got threatened with a baseless lawsuit for that cheeky stunt and they abused DMCA claims on my consulting website to try to get it taken down

I obviously don't know anything about the company, but it sounds like you dodged a bullet by leaving.

Anecdotally, I have never heard of a US company giving two weeks notice for a termination of any kind. The vast majority of terminations I've seen are immediate, but I've also seen companies give termination dates in the (relatively) far future to employees (generally a couple months, but I've seen 1-2 years).

Severance is also only common in large organizations. I've seen few small startups or bootstrapped companies pay severance when letting people go.

I've seen it once in 25 years. Management told an engineer that she would be layed off/terminated "when she is done with the project she is working on". She milked the project for almost four months and then quit on her own after finding a new job. Turns out she did almost zero work during those four months. Can't say I blame her.

I did something similar about 15 years ago. I worked in a small remote office far from the company's headquarters. On an all-hands call one of the executives let it slip that they were going to shutter our office and close down the remote branch in 7 months. We kind of saw it coming, as 90% of the people who worked in that office had been laid off in the previous months, and we didn't really have any new work coming in or projects left to finish. They didn't just lay us off, though, so the 15 of us that were still there just got paid to go to job interviews for 6 months. It was pretty surreal, but I'm glad we got the heads up regardless.

Right, termination is usually done immediately, nobody wants to keep a jilted employee on hand to cause damage on their way out the door. But unless the termination was for some kind of misbehavior, severance pay is most common, even among fairly small companies in my experience. (Maybe not a startup in immediate danger of insolvency, of course.)

Same. Never seen a 2 weeks in the US from the company. It's either "get out, now." or else it's a layoff situation where there is usually 2-3 months to let them gracefully out.

Exceptions being PIPs, if you want to characterize it that way; usually a gracious way to push people out without the drama or severance.

I now live in Canada and there are some different requirements re: getting terminated.

I knew approximately two months ahead of a layoff and was offered a stay bonus to stick around until the last day.

I have also worked at two other companies where we informed certain workers of an impending layoff and provided stay bonuses to them. One of them included basically a non-disclosure agreement since the impending layoff was not publicly known yet.

It may not be common knowledge but it definitely happens.

Once here too.

We were told the company was shrinking by almost half once we hit 1.0 on our project, which was still six weeks away. We would get extra severance if we stayed and if we hit the deadline.

I've never had notice of a firing or severance so I don't know how common it is.

>>Also jobs often/usually fire people with 0 day notice and no severance.

That is not typical nor the norm.

Most companies have established PiP policies, and severance even in the cases of "for cause" terminations (though that is rarer)

"Fire with 0 day notice and no severance" is more likely to be found at startups, and/or small owner led companies with no real policies, or HR Depts.

Don't know what the law is like in most states in the US but in the EU if the employee has been with the company for longer than 6 months it wouldn't even be legal to fire with 0 notice & no severance - generally companies wants you out asap but continue paying your salary for the minimums require by law. In my experience at least 2 weeks and more commonly 1+ months (I've seen people get 3 months, that have worked at the company for several years).

This of course doesn't apply if the employee did something like outright breaking the law or the terms of their contract (rare).

I think it goes without saying that the EU is different.

Here in Germany, in fact things are problematic in the other direction. For the last 2 hires I made, their previous company forced them to work through their 3 month notice period.

That's becoming more and more widespread. It's idiotic and counterproductive but apparently companies love some fake sense of security.

I think this is more for "traditional" companies, I've never seen a startup here (Berlin) do that in the 10 years I've been living here.

I have 3 months notice. It is unreasonable.

It's unreasonable for the company to want you to stick around for 3 months before you switch jobs, but it's not unreasonable to ask a company to let an employee who has been with them for years 3 months' (notice or severance) before they fire them (as the power balance is not equal - the employee is supposedly dependent on that salary for their livelihood and not everyone can instantly land a new job after being laid off).

Overall even as a business owner myself I prefer the pro-employee German system over the free-for-all American one.

In my experience it's becoming more and more widespread specifically in startups. I hope you're right and I'm just seeing the bad outliers.

> Also jobs often/usually fire people with 0 day notice and no severance.

This is only true in the US.

In many places the notice period is enforceable, with a standard period of three to six months for senior positions.

Yeah that my experience outside of the US. And it’s kinda nice. Less rushed.

What places?

Three months is fairly common in Sweden, and longer than that isn't all that rare (often depends on how long you've worked at the company).

In Germany at least 4 weeks depending on how long you have been with the company up to 7 months.

Other countriesin the world, besides the US. In European countries you can't just tell someone tonnit come tomorrow and not pay anything. Sure you csn tell them to not come anymore if you want to keep your secrets or whatever but the company has to pay for this notice period like the person was working there.

When I or colleagues have changed jobs then we have given a month or more notice, continued working etc. Only when someone is fired for total incompetence or just not showing up you don't want to see them anymore ever in the office so the company pays for the notice period time.

Varies by province in Canada but generally there is a fixed amount of time you need to be at the company before they can just kick you out. For example in Alberta if you've been with an employer longer than 2 years you must give them 2 weeks. They can terminate you immediately after you resign, but they own you 2 weeks of pay.

Likewise, if the company lays you off, they have to give you up to 8-weeks notice depending on how many years you were with the company; 10+ years warrants the full 8-weeks, while 2-4 years in service gets you 2-weeks. These are also mandatory minimums; some companies or employees with contracts or collective agreements may get / offer more.

Plenty of loopholes there, like for "just cause", and some industries are "exempted by custom" or by law, like construction or forestry.

* https://www.alberta.ca/termination-pay.aspx

I know it’s common in Switzerland, Italy and France.

Many, but definitely not all. And Google and other big tech companies usually have “at-will” employment on both sides. Just know that it very well might be an option for you.

Many places, as in physical places. Google definitely has notice periods enforced by law in Europe.

At my company, there is no 2 weeks. The day you give your two weeks notice is your last day. We might pay you for those two weeks, depending on circumstances, but your building and network access is cut off within the hour. So, I personally would not give my notice until the day I actually want to be my last day.

That has never been the case at any company I have ever worked for. My impression is that two weeks notice with continued access is pretty standard so long as you're leaving on good terms.

his username is literally irrational... kinda makes sense

> That has never been the case at any company I have ever worked for.

Many companies are essentially antagonistic with all IT resources. It's very common where positions are not well paid or the company is not tech-centric, eg Mike Ferry Organization

At Microsoft, the standard practice is that if you say you're leaving to take a job a company they consider a competitor, they cut off all your access at the end of the day, even if your manager wants you to stick around for knowledge transfer. If it's not a competitor, it's up to you how much notice you want to give. If you say you're leaving but don't say who your next employer is, they assume it's a competitor.

Facebook was classified as a competitor, Amazon was not.

I can confirm based on my experience that at Microsoft, depending on a lot of factors like your level, role, information you have access to, and where you’re going, that they may terminate immediately as soon as you give them notice.

Amazon has rapid termination processes as well but I’m not as clear on their criteria.

If you work for a big technology company and are jumping to a perceived competitor, and/or if you have access to sensitive information, then you should expect that the day you give notice will be your last day.

> that they may terminate immediately as soon as you give them notice.

Which is nonsense, because it’s the employee that chooses when to tell the employer. If I want to exfiltrate confidential data, I’ll do it first, then I resign.

It’s different on layoffs, where disgruntled employees could break havoc.

That's not how Corporate Accountability works. If you tender your resignation and I continue to provide you access to the systems then I'm accountable for having continued your access to those systems.

If you exfiltrated confidential data prior to tendering your resignation then no one remaining in the organization is responsible for your actions. It may trigger a policy review to minimize the exfiltration of confidential data, but no one remaining is accountable. Moreover, the exfiltration of confidential data will put you in felony land and your employer will prosecute. You're guaranteed to lose your new job too, and likely never work again.

No, what most employees do instead - for those who do these kinds of things, which is exceedingly rare - is destroy data. That is extremely damaging to an enterprise.

There are plenty of motivations to get your rear end away from the keyboard! Some are legally mandated, depending upon which industry you're working in.

Which is still bonkers. Plenty of people with high level access have notice periods of 6 months in some European countries and work their remaining time after giving notice or at least part of it, because they negotiated the 6 down to 2 or 3.

If an employee has been malicious during their tenure then other systems should have detected and caught that. That scenario can be decoupled from the termination scenario.

Think about making a 2x2 matrix (nod to Pascal’s wager):

Across the top: fire immediately, don’t fire immediately.

Down the side: employee is benign, employee is malicious.

There’s only one square where the company is at risk- bottom right.

The algebra is easy: terminate immediately and the company is not at risk.

And for some reason there's a particular country in this world where this is interpreted in one way and one way only (well not 100% true either but the odds of being treated one way are waaaaay skewed towards what you're saying) while in other countries it's interpreted in other ways and they're all just fine. I've personally witnessed and been part of the other squares over my entire career.

If entire countries can run on the other squares, why can't the US?

Some countries selectively put some people in the "you have a very long notice period" and "you will not be working for us, but still be paid, during your notice period" (so-called gardening leave).

Not unusual in the finance industry, somewhat unusual (but I have heard of it) in "more pure tech". Probably also more common the further up you get in the corporate hierarchy.

> No, what most employees do instead - for those who do these kinds of things, which is exceedingly rare - is destroy data.

So the employee could destroy data first, then resign.

> If you tender your resignation and I continue to provide you access to the systems then I'm accountable for having continued your access to those systems.

Well, if the employee is still an employee, and they need access to the systems to do their work… what would the alternative be? How could you honour the pre-resignation time otherwise?

I’m perplexed by the sudden drop in trust at resignation time. If an employee is trustworthy, why should their attitude change just because they resigned? And if they aren’t trustworthy, you have a problem even before their resigning.

> I can confirm based on my experience that at Microsoft, depending on a lot of factors like your level, role, information you have access to, and where you’re going, that they may terminate immediately as soon as you give them notice.

I saw Apple do this. Not to me.

Many companies require staff to leave immediately upon tendering their resignation - including non-IT companies like mine. You tender your resignation and all your access is removed within 24 hours. I work for a utility company that manages what the Department of Homeland Security classifies as 'National Critical Infrastructure', i.e. generation plants, transmission, distribution, metering, and FERC mandates your access is cut off ASAP. You'll get paid for your last two weeks, but you can't do anything.

My friends in health and finance have said they have similar mandates. Us folks in IT can mess up too many things to be granted continued access. We need to be cut off.

Even prior to working for a utility I've worked at places where people were escorted off the property by security when they tendered their resignation. Their personal items in their office would be packed up and shipped to them. This has been going on for decades.

There was one job I had where I was so well-liked and we had considerable mutual respect that I was still granted visitor access to the facilities, meaning I required an escort. I no longer had access to any of the systems, but I could guide those who did. That worked out really well, too. Heck, they negotiated an extra six weeks instead of two and paid me 50% more to boot! That made a helluva impression at my new company! Then I got a great sign-on bonus at my new company! Boy, those were the days!

Wow!

I have almost 30 years in tech and thankfully have never run across that. But I can see how that could be a thing for other companies/industries.

Every place I have worked I have given 3 week notice, and every potential employer has been ok with me starting in 3 weeks (except one).

The one exception was a company that balked at my request to start in 3 weeks in order to give my current employer time. They countered with "Well, take it now and start immediately, or leave it. You must not be serious about working here." I countered with "You are probably looking to hire people with no sense of responsibility to their current employer". Bullet dodged.

I have quit before I have started. I accepted an offer from a company (after being jobless) but my interaction with their HR the day before I was to start was so rude and combative that after I left, called my future boss there (who I really liked) and told him I was rescinding my acceptance. I then grovelled back to another job whose offer I had turned down (and they re-made the offer). It all worked out.

I worked at one company that was like that, but it was a result of the CEO being pretty awkward about people leaving the company, something he wasn't used to until huge growth hit. That's a red flag IMO.

Your company is doing the something that is legal but still a jerk move.

Not really, they could be exposed to risk and it's typical to just pay you for the 2 weeks and cut off access so the risk is mitigated

Not paying out the 2 weeks would be sort of a jerk move. But simply cutting a check and saying "It's been good having you" as they show you the door is perfectly reasonable in some circumstances.

The risk isn't that you'll call them a jerk, it is that when your new job falls through, your old job can no longer credibly claim that you left voluntarily because they moved your quit date. You were fired. So you'll be able to claim unemployment and the business' unemployment insurance premiums could rise.

It's bound to be cheaper to pay the two weeks than to pay the increase in unemployment insurance premiums for every remaining employee in perpetuity. In that sense, it's short-sighted to not pay you through your notice period.

I'm pretty sure they can accept your resignation effective immediately and it not be a firing. Post dating it is a nicety you offered and they declined.

Of course you can be terminated at any time, but that would not be your resignation anymore. You are an at-will employee at all times. You can be fired, or you can quit. But let's not conflate the two.

https://www.hg.org/legal-articles/fired-after-giving-notice-...

I'm pretty sure this lawyer knows a thing or two. And anyway, nothing is open-and-shut. Giving notice isn't "cause for termination" by any reasonable standard.

We were talking about risks. You can be pretty sure, and then a judge rules against you. Are you willing to take that risk? (Sure, maybe you know a judge. Or you live in a state with fewer worker protections. IDK, but I'm not making this up, and laws vary from state to state.)

> Are you willing to take that risk?

The financial risk is small, can often be less than the cost of paying the salary over those 2 weeks. The risk the person is going to lawyer up is also fairly small, but at that point you just settle, you've probably lost the gamble at that point. If let it go to court, you're definitely going to lose on a financial perspective.

Either way, it's not a hill I'd die upon, my policy has always been to pay it out because it's just the right way of acting from an ethics perspective. I think the link you posted makes sense in our current world, but it's also using CA as an example and my gut tells me where I live is not as progressive; along with ~half or more of the US.

It is a courtesy to give notice, and one must generally be prepared to extend courtesies in order to receive them in kind. You sound like a person who understands all of this. It is certainly going to vary from state to state.

As far as risks go, increasing UI premiums is one risk; it might be easy to invent a valid cause for immediate termination when someone gives notice, but also quite transparent in terms of ethics as you say. Concretely, that would also be leaving employers at a greater risk that word gets around with the remaining employees, and then you likely won't see employees giving notice anymore, or affecting morale of the remaining employees, or what else.

https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-samples/hr-...

To be fair, I'm pretty sure that I won't find the precedent I'm looking for in my own state either, but the link above is interesting: if your company has a policy that employees must give notice to quit, whether it was legally enforceable or not, with a termination after notice is given that policy could be used as evidence against you!

I guess it's a good idea to have a firm grasp of the law and review your own company's policies regularly, to be sure they align with the law! For another example in the same vein, I thought that only California made non-competes illegal but there are at least two other states, and it may be illegal to try to enforce a non-compete at a federal level soon.

https://www.foxrothschild.com/publications/ftc-proposes-rule...

(Not that this has anything to do with notice or unemployment...)

In what way would they be exposed to risk? If I had a desire to exfiltrate to your competitor, I would just not bother telling you I'm leaving, exfiltrate, and give zero notice. Having this policy just makes you look like an idiot.

Nah, it’s pretty normal. Particularly for sales positions.

One of my employer's had that policy too; until I quit. They made an exception and wanted me to stay to help transition. I did help where I could (because I liked them and knew they needed it, I know I didn't have to)

I quit a place that had the opposite, you were required to work your last two weeks, no vacation. It was frustrating because I had mapped out using up my vacation before the job change, unaware of the policy.

What are they going to do? Fire you?

Even worse, they might even try to _hire_ you!

Sounds like you should've been "sick" during those last 2 weeks.

If I quit and gave two weeks notice (and expected to be paid for that time), I would absolutely expect to be working for those two weeks doing the whole handoff thing which is why notice is often the custom. Past that, I'd expect vacation to be either paid out where those are the rules or taken after "last day of work" (which has some benefits for the employee).

In this case, you probably weren't actually required so if you really wanted to take the full vacation, you should probably be have been "I won't be here on Monday."

This is pretty common. Even more so outside of tech. I did sales for a while and this was normal.

You push back the start date until they've finished that process. It's a common request, I've made it several times, my wife has made it several times and it's always been granted in my experience.

I have never worked for a company that does the background checks, drug screens, etc on your start date,

Typical process that I have had both as employee and a manager is

1. Offer Letter

2. Offer Accepted

3. Pre-Employment Activities start. Start Date is set 2 weeks out

4. Pre-Employment Activities Completed 1 Week out

5. New Employee Starts.

It would/should not be an issue for an incoming employee to request a start day 2 week after Pre-Employment Activities are cleared if they wanted to give notice

I don't think it's that uncommon. I have personally worked at two companies that didn't do the background check until after employment (which I would never do again), and I've heard this anecdote a few times from others.

hmm I know for some position there has been a high first day no show rate, I wonder if that is what drives that position? Background checks while not super expensive are not cheap either and if you have a high number of people noping out before the first day I could see where they would want to mitigate those costs.

With the changes in drug laws, and this I have seen some companies starting to forgo pre-employment drug screens, which IMO is a good thing.

I am not sure what value most of these Pre-Employment checks provide anyway really.

Were these companies startups or outside the U.S.? I’ve never heard of a big company doing a background check after start date, that makes no sense.

Bank of America did this for outside US contractors.

These were US-based startups, to be clear. I would be surprised if very many larger companies did it this way since they generally have a formal process for this.

>How's that supposed to work, when the process dictates that onboarding begins on your start date?

You remind them that they better finish their background check and sign the final documents fast if they want you on that date.

Whatever is the minimum notice period you have to give your current job (eg. 2 weeks), the countdown starts after you get the real signed offer from the future job.

you shouldn't risk fucking up your career over loyalty for a job that has not even hired you yet. If they want that loyalty, they need to first sign the papers that makes you an official part of their team.

> Whatever is the minimum notice period you have to give your current job (eg. 2 weeks), the countdown starts after you get the real signed offer from the future job.

At least in the US, I know of no requirement for 2 weeks notice, anywhere. It's just considered polite.

> If they want that loyalty, they need to first sign the papers that makes you an official part of their team.

Again in the US, I know of no papers that I've ever had from a company that guaranteed anything important. You might end up with something guaranteeing moving expenses or something, but they can still fire you on day 1, if you even make it that far.

In previous jobs I’ve always given notice after receiving an offer. In hindsight, I realize that was pretty dumb, but it was a different time, long ago. Going forward I will absolutely wait until my first day on the new job to give notice to the old one. It’s not fair to either employer, but getting an offer pulled after quitting an existing job scares the hell out of me.

No it's not dumb. It's perfectly normal and, especially in a non-remote situation and even more especially with relocation involved, pretty hard to do any other way. And it's not like you can't be laid off during a trial/probationary period with probably very little severance involved.

Sometimes stuff does happen and you can't protect 100% against every eventuality. And your current employer can lay you off too and then you are 100% certain of being unemployed. (Yes, there may be severance is that case but there is absolutely no guarantee that severance generally amounts to much.)

> Going forward I will absolutely wait until my first day on the new job to give notice to the old one.

So... you'll give -1 days notice? "Hey old boss, you may have noticed I didn't come in today..."

I work remote, and will continue to do so. Not impossible to manage that situation. Just let the old job know that you're giving your two weeks for brain dump.

I think OP meant they’ll be moonlighting 2 jobs for 2 weeks.

Ah.

I still don't understand how this isn't considered fraud, or people aren't worried about being prosecuted or sued over it. Getting paid to do two "full-time" jobs simultaneously, without them knowing about it. Maybe just confident they won't get caught.

I think that they might be fired if new employer somehow finds out about it. (Though I doubt anyone would bother suing.) I don't understand all the people counseling getting some incremental protection against a low probability event (offer being withdrawn) when that incremental protection is something you'll probably get away with but better hope no one finds out.

Or if the OLD employer finds out about it -- that you were working a new job for two weeks while still taking a paycheck from OLD employer for those two weeks, I can't see them being happy about. but I guess there's little they could do to you, but try to stop payment on your last paycheck.

My current (non-profit, academic) employer says in the employee manual that you can't do ANY outside work without disclosing it to them and getting approved -- so I'd be in violation of that policy if found out. At first I was annoyed by this -- why shouldn't I be able to do some consulting on the evenings and weekends without their permission? But as long as the process for approval is quick and easy and they generally approve... I can see how maybe it was actually intended, in a remote work world, to make it clear you are violating their policies if you take a second full time job and imply to both jobs you are on the clock simultaneously!

https://www.wired.com/story/remote-tech-workers-secret-multi...

They mention the legal "murkiness" a little bit there.

I'd honestly expect if an employer found out I had been doing this for a year, they would not just fire me, but could sue me to get my salary back.

It seems to me super unethical, and probably at least hypothetically a legal liability.

But people actually pretty frequently talk about doing this on HN. Which doesn't necessarily mean it's widespread, but I'm surprised by how matter-of-fact HN commenters are talking about it. Assuming, as in this case, that everyone is doing it or willing to do it, that we all understand that of course we could continue to collect paycheck from former employer for the first few weeks we're also working for new employer.

> I still don't understand how this isn't considered fraud

Because there are 168 hours in a week and each full-time job only consumes 40 of them.

Now, if the employers are competitors of one another, or there's otherwise something that would produce a conflict of interest, then that's another story - but beyond that? As long as you're fulfilling your duties for both jobs, it's neither employers' business what you do on your "free time".

You really think people doing this are working 80 hours a week, 40 on each job?

That seems unlikely to me, but maybe not to you? Or you're saying it's like plausible deniability, like nobody can prove they weren't, or something?

I wonder if GP who mentioned giving his two weeks notice on first day of new job... was planning on working 80 hour weeks for two weeks while they overlapped?

> That seems unlikely to me, but maybe not to you? Or you're saying it's like plausible deniability, like nobody can prove they weren't, or something?

I mean, there were times in my career where I was working 12+ hour days for one employer, so working 16+ hour days for two doesn't seem like that much of a stretch; still leaves you with 8 hours of sleep. I've known enough workaholics in my time to know that it ain't beyond the realm of possibility.

But yes, it's more of a plausible deniability thing. Either/both employers would need to prove that you weren't working 40 hours a week for them, which is not only impossible (good luck proving a negative) but a much higher standard than is reasonable in the first place (especially for programmers, having a full 40 productive hours a week is rare and unsustainable; half that or less is more typical).

This is a core difference between salaried/exempt and hourly workers. You're paid a fixed salary to perform work for your employer, whether there's 80 hours or 2h of work in any given week, you get paid the same.

So if you're a salaried worker delivering results, meeting your obligations and overall expectations of your employer, then how could you possibly construe it as fraud?

Taking away the upsides, but not the downsides of salaried work sounds, for the lack of a better word, rigged.

I think they mean when you get completed background check and a signed offer. Though if you're wfh you might as well try to keep the old job for as long as you can keep getting paid...

Agreed, not until I have a signed employment contract.

You can still run into the same issues. As the blog author.

For me, if you're going to be making a move, you've already decided you're making a move. Worrying about the other side withdrawing the offer doesn't worry me that much, especially since in quite a few country there are legal requirements about job offers.

It sounds like OP had a signed employment contract.

> Thus, the contract with me has been terminated 10 days before it was supposed to take effect.

Apparently a contract that allowed no-cause termination. I'm not sure what that contract is good for exactly, but I think this is common in the USA. Whether it's legal in the UK I couldn't say.

In the UK you don't get the typical employment rights until after 2 years of employment. Most employment contracts have you on zero-notice until 6 month probation is completed.

> Most employment contracts have you on zero-notice until 6 month probation is completed.

No?

I've never been on zero months notice. A reduced notice period for probation yes, but never on no notice.

Always one week notice during probation in my experience.

But the point remains that the company can terminate you with very little cause and very little notice when you've just started. So while it is a good idea to wait until at least receiving a signed contract before giving notice to your current job you'll still be at higher risk for some time.

This is misinformation. Maybe you've had this situation/contract, but that is very much not the norm.

Yeah that’s wrong.

In the first MONTH of employment either side can terminate with immediate notice

1 month - 2 years is 1 week notice

After 2 years it’s one week for every year of employment with a cap of 12 weeks

That’s notice period, after the first month of service other employee rights kick in and grounds for “instant dismissal” become ridiculously strict.

Meaning after the first month, if your performance becomes substandard or interpersonal problems arise you have to be given written notice by your employer (usually 2) and roadmap for correction agreed by all parties after which termination of position can be delivered (which includes the week(s) of notice to which you are entitled, or payment in lieu if you are asked not to come back.

All the contract I signed in the US ( 5 or 6 ) were « at will » Basically a 1 pager stating the total lack of contract between you and the company. And your salary.

I think that's typical in the US. Makes me wonder why even bother calling it a "contract".

There’s a lot else in it, like the part where they typically own all your output during that period.

Yeah it’s not like I got a string of abusive contracts. Pay is handsome and some even have actual vacations. But god forbid any type of commitment to each other.

I can be fired at will without notice and vice versa.

Generally the response is to drop a few hundred on a lawyer to write them a stern letter about bad faith and failure to execute the contract. Your specific legal remedies vary so much country to country that it's hard to generalize, but I have been shocked by how quickly nonsense becomes sense when formal letters requesting negotiation and arbitration enter the scene.

A labor lawyer generally knows what regulatory remedies exist and can send the letter in a way that it gets attention outside of the HR or and Hiring managers desk.

My state job did (& it was normal) all i9 w4 stuff on 1st day of joining.

I'm sure the parent poster recognizes this is good advice in retrospect. It's a good lesson for others to learn vicariously, though.

100% this. Never hand in your notice until you have a contract in your hand. No contract means you’re relying on hopium.

Hopium?

Honestly if either one is remote, just keep them both for a little while

YUP!

This happened to me and a good friend of mine who is an Eng Manager at Netflix now...

But we both went through a three month long panel interview and I was told I did "very well" on all my interviews and to expect an offer letter in the morning.

The next day they called and told me that they wouldnt be making me an offer.

The issue was that Brin was still the final sign off...

The school that i went to in the early-mid 90s was "Mesmer Animation Labs" in seattle... one of only five animation schools at the time (because of the cost of all the SGIs)

It was later bought and merged with UW to basically become the animation dept at UW the year after I graduated...

and Mesmer no longer existed... so I put down UW on my resume because there was no Mesmer to confirm that I had gone there any longer...

So because I called Mesmer "UW" I got kicked in the financial balls by Brin/Goog as I had opened my mouth any was told I got an offer to my then employer, Lockheed...

Yeah - never tell anyone about a verbal offer.

A couple of things there.

1. A Verbal Contract Isn’t Worth the Paper It’s Written On -- attributed to Samuel Goldwyn, the G of MGM. I don't agree with all the advice to work 2 jobs simultaneously but definitely wait for a written offer. No sensible HR person is going to have an issue with that.

2. In the case of acquisitions/mergers/etc. make it crystal clear that you're not trying to claim a school/employer with maybe more cachet/recognition but where you actually went to/worked at is part of someone else now (or defunct) so if they want to confirm past attendance/employment that's where they need to go.

I'm not going to say I worked for Dell even though a string of 2 past employers are "Dell" now via a string of acquisitions. (I might say, these employers, now part of Dell Technologies though the companies are well enough known that I could probably skip the Dell reference which is irrelevant other than they'll pay me a pension someday.)

To put icing on the cake, Google recruiters kept calling me for FIVE FUCKING YEARS for the same job...

I had to finally tell them I had gone through three months of panel interviews, Ive designed parts of your data centers, video studio and have built every salesforce office in the US at that point, and designed shit for other FAAN companies so give me the damn job or lose my damn number.

They stopped calling me for the job after that. (it was for a network PM under Raligh Mann, who was the ILM CIO before he went on to google... after I designed the DC for Lucas' Presidio campus.

Also fun fact, I found out Goog was designing their own motherboards at the time - and I happened to see one when visiting a friend on-site, and saw one under his desk and said hey whats this? and he said "uh, you werent supposed to see that - lets go!"

This was before it was public that both Goog and FB were designing their own DC hardware...

Some dope engineering though.

Oh, and I have posted this here before, when I was a design eng for ILM/Lucas/Lucas Arts...

I was asked "when will you be able to deliver 'Power Over Fiber' (This was a mtg with all of the top execs at Cisco, and All tops at ILM.. and I murdered this this guy (in a polite way)

but I pissed my pants on the drive back from Bigrock about how funny that was...

Yes, that was me sitting in a design mtg with Cisco CTO and the CTO of Lucas Arts asked me to provide that... Ill leave it there...

(Just for context, the design req was "fiber to every desktop such that the workstations will be render nodes when workers leave... but they wanted Power Over Fiber"

So, if you know how, there is a dude with 15 billion dollars waiting for your call,.... and he has the best property in the US.

It is a thing!

https://www.fiberopticlink.com/product/fiber-optic-isolation...

(I mean, solar panels are a thing, so turning light into power is definitely possible, and these things do exist.. I just doubt they have the economics the people in that room desired)

In France where I work an offer letter is binding to hire. After that if you are fired you are entitled to strong compensation if there is no proof you failed at your job. On top of that there is significant unemployment benefits to support you during looking for a new job for years.

This seems like a normal societies way to secure the transition between jobs. I’m thankful I don’t live in any of these crazy places that make changing jobs seem like a severe stress way beyond what it should be.

After 15+ years on the industry and being on all sides of the table (hiring, firing, being hired, being fired, interviewing, prospecting candidates, etc...) I haven't found a situation where HR makes things better. What's the point of HR? Can't we do without them? Really.

Edit: This tweet[0] which is pretty much a rant in disguise has a point. What if AI has a much better success rate on this? Recruiters are clueless wrt. to tech anyway.

0: https://twitter.com/adcock_brett/status/1645450069326598145

Oh God, please no. Not enough getting tons of recruiter spam, now I'd also get robots pestering me about considering an exciting opportunity in a new exciting startup about which they'd surely be glad to tell me if only I respond to their spam. And this would happen anytime I'd write something online that is tangentially related to some keyword they gave to the robot. Because if I asked a question about some Scala library, and your company uses Scala too, this means I'm a perfect match for you and surely would want to drop everything and come to work for you. Or at least it doesn't cost anything for a robot to try?

And the worst of all, if anything goes wrong - "sorry, our AI hiring system had a bug, we deployed an update. We apologize for the inconvenience".

You basically laid out what an HR-minded person would do with an AI (I want a faster horse), and yes it sucks.

Try to think of how the hiring could be improved in such way that HR becomes unnecessary. "One-click-apply" to any job you want, AI vets you in seconds and tells you yes/no/feedback. Many other good possibilities.

>"sorry, our AI hiring system had a bug, we deployed an update. We apologize for the inconvenience

LOL, are you trying to make a point for humans here? Ghosting candidates is the standard nowadays. In the example you make the candidate gets a response, at least.

I've had two companies where HR made things better, but much of that was because I became personal friends with at least one person in HR.

A lot of HR professionals genuinely want the employees to be happy and healthy and all that. A lot of HR professionals are stymied in their efforts by other executives that either prioritize money or came up in hardship and think everybody should experience the same hardship.

To be clear both of the companies in question were small US Federal government contractors. Since pay is pretty standard across the sector, the way many choose to distinguish themselves is though benefits, culture, and things like that.

I hope Couchbase AND Larry reads this because that's messed up. I would never even consider a job there after hearing this.

They are too selfish to feel anything. But fwiw, I will try.

“We are sorry that this incident happened and will look at our process to see how we can avoid situations like this in the future.”

Feel better?

Sounds like a procedural fuckup. All the usual hiring checks (technical etc.) got approved but Manager Larry's objection wasn't handled correctly by HR so the job offer went through anyway. They really should have paid out at least two months to be honest considering it was their fuck up.

I used to work for Couchbase and a lot of the teams were distributed, but spanning too many timezones caused problems in places. If the team you were joining were already spread across say US and Europe then they'd be totally justified in saying that adding Japan to the list would be a bad idea - although that should have been picked up much earlier.

It was very dishonest and ignorant of them, I will remember them for that! And spread how they f around people.

Apparently my strategy of not to handing in notice before a contract is discussed and executed (signed) is not a bad move. I make this clear normally when I start discussing details of employment. I usually tell "I can start x weeks after my contract is signed", where x is the noice period in the previous place. It is not a guarantee as one can be sent away still after (or even before) start, but gives a clearer picture for both parties on each other's current intent.

>Apparently my strategy of not to handing in notice before a contract is discussed and executed (signed) is not a bad move.

I mean, sure? Not quitting before you and they actually sign a piece of paper is a practice absolutely no one should disagree with. No particular reason your start date can't be a bit further out than your customary notice period though if your new employer to be is OK with it and you want to take some time off.

What difference does it make if you're at-will. You could be let go on the first day, no reason given.

Or hours reduced to part-time, or salary cut. As long as they don't try to do this retroactively, or cut your wage below the state minimum, it's not illegal for employers to do that in the US. Fortunately for the rest of the world, the US laws are quite less favorable to employees than many other countries.

Just set your VPN to an EU zone country and google "unlawful termination" if you're from the US / set your VPN to US if from EU, and read for some eye-openers!

Sure. There is risk in any job change. The point here is leaving a job and being boned by the company you are joining because of their own internal fuck up.

The difference is the company knew they didn't want them. It's awful

> He pulled me into a separate call at the end of the rounds and asked some weird questions, which in hindsight were documentation.

Would you mind elaborating?

Really hope you were able to find something better. Sounds like that’s not a place you’d want to be at anyways.

Guessing the manager didn’t want someone in that timezone but had to extend an offer due to some pressure from above / internal policy so he baited gp to tell on himself in that last session and then used that as grounds to back out

>Then I got any email from Couchbase's lawyers with a document stating they would hire me for 10 days total and no longer.

I wonder what would happen to your sign-up bonus? There is usually a clawback clause if you decide to leave yourself, but letting you go after 10 days should still make them liable for it.

Stories like these are why I probably won’t give notice at Job A until I’ve already passed probation at Job B. If both jobs are remote, why not?

Wishing you and yours less strain and more happiness going forward, mate. That's rough.

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