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Comment by yawnxyz | Hacker News Reader

in most states, as long as it's not discriminatory, you CAN fire anyone for any reason

the article is wrong here

> … for any reason.

If they give a reason, it had better be a legal reason. “Because you’re Mexican” - not legal. “Because we don’t like you/you don’t fit in” - are you in any way different than management? Differently gendered? Differently skin toned? Different faith? Pregnant? Likely not legal.

They are not required to give a reason. You can be fired without reason.

There’s also mitigating circumstances. If the employee can show retaliation by the employer (say the employee participates in protected activities, like espousing unionization or questioning managerial decisions), they stand a chance of recovering damages from the company.

yeah that's true, and it gets murky - because employers will just wait til an employee messes up (which everyone does), and use that as an excuse

I guess that's the rub. every time I've been involved in firing someone that wasn't defensible as a 'broad structural layoff', there is a whole process, even in at will states. HR starts to collect documentation describing how the employees performance isn't acceptable, at that they were warned on such and such dates, and that all efforts were made in order to rectify the situation before an actual termination.

whether that's an excess of legal paranoia or not, that's how it seems to work

> HR starts to collect documentation describing how the employees performance isn't acceptable, at that they were warned on such and such dates, and that all efforts were made in order to rectify the situation before an actual termination.

I think this is a response to inexperienced, immature, or thin-skinned managers. The company doesn’t want to be on the hook for some manager’s attempt to fire someone and have it be an illegal firing. Since there’s typically no day-to-day log of behavior, HR has to begin documenting things. The only thing they can be certain is “safe” for the company is to fire for underperforming. So let’s begin the paper trail…

In practice, at any larger corporation with an HR department, despite the law saying so, you can absolutely not fire anyone for any reason. As a manager you’ll have to go through a 1+ month process of documented coaching, performance improvement plan, etc to gather evidence in case the employee sues after being let go. So not sure if Steve is technically correct here, but he is very much practically correct. It’s been like this in big tech, which is what Steve is talking about, for a long time.

>at any larger corporation

Like walmart, mcdonalds, amazon, target, home depot? It’s incredible how insulated the HN audience is to the real life day-to-day concerns of workers in the United States.

These companies do PIPs for software engineers, which is what Steve is talking about. He isn’t talking about a warehouse or fast food job interview. I am not insulated, I am merely staying on topic.

layoffs happen, and they're firings "without a real reason" - and no PIPs exist for surviving layoffs

You can, but most places would rather spend months building a legal shield through a PiP rather than risk a lawsuit.

Most places? Are you a human? Have you been to the United States?

Do you genuinely think McDonald’s is building a months long case against a fry cook? That Amazon is building a months long case against a delivery driver or warehouse worker who refused to pee in a bottle? That target is putting a cashier on a pip for months and allowing lost sales or theft?

The article is about tech interviews (and tech workers with the resources to sue), not McDonald’s or blue collar?

And yes, I’m human?

Strange comment internet stranger.

It isn’t strange in 2026 to wonder if an internet comment is from a human.

Tech workers have been laid off (without pips) en masse for the past 24 months, so it seems like I’m talking to a model trained in 2023 to be so absent of the obvious facts around us in the industry.

That’s why I ask. Because you’re either not in the industry and talking bullshit, not paying attention to the world around you, or a bot.

The comment chain is about firing people for cause (performance issues), not layoffs.

You seem determined to feel attacked ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

There's the legal world and then there's the world of custom and ethics. They don't always diverge, but in my experience they do.

At least over the last 25 years in the tech spaces I've been part of, I rarely hear of people being dismissed/let go quickly. #anecdata

is this sarcasm? tech industry has some of the worst layoffs ever. i have personally seen several different employers notify employees day of firing they no longer have a job

No-one in this thread is talking about layoffs, they're talking about individual firings.

I don't care about the notice period. I care about how much severance I'm getting. I'd be fine with no notice if the severance was generous.

Not sarcasm. I guess I've just had different experiences than you.

The larger point of the effort involved before the employees' last day still stands. But that's a hard one to speak to generally, since most folks in layoffs or firings don't talk about the process used to arrive at the decisions.

You haven’t experienced the last 2 years of layoffs across the tech industry? Do you have any friends in the industry? Do you avoid news about the industry?

Dead wrong.

Because I see so many people who believe otherwise, here's a direct quote from a prior contract:

> I UNDERSTAND AND ACKNOWLEDGE THAT MY EMPLOYMENT WITH THE COMPANY IS FOR NO SPECIFIED TERM AND CONSTITUTES "AT-WILL" EMPLOYMENT. I ALSO UNDERSTAND THAT ANY REPRESENTATION TO THE CONTRARY IS UNAUTHORIZED AND NOT VALID UNLESS SIGNED BY THE PRESIDENT OR CEO OF THE COMPANY. ACCORDINGLY, I ACKNOWLEDGE THAT MY EMPLOYMENT RELATIONSHIP MAY BE TERMINATED AT ANY TIME, WITH OR WITHOUT GOOD CAUSE OR FOR ANY OR NO CAUSE, AT MY OPTION OR AT THE OPTION OF THE COMPANY WITH OR WITHOUT ME NOTICE. I FURTHER ACKNOWLEDGE THAT THE COMPANY MAY MODIFY JOB TITLES, SALARIES, AND BENEFITS FROM TIME TO TIME AS IT IS NECESSARY.

Every job I ever held but the unionized ones had some variation of that.

Have you known folks at those jobs to be notified of being let go and sent home on the same day?

Have you been involved with letting people go and seen it happen as quickly as the above legal disclaimer implies?

I agree that the legal justification is 100% there, but in my experience it is often buffered and takes more time.

yeah it happens at smaller companies - someone insulted the boss and got sent home (small agency)

Whatever clause in whatever contract is just the starting point for negotiations if things go south.

What did they say is dead wrong?

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