Comment by empthrowaway | Hacker News Reader

Comment by empthrowaway | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

My thoughts exactly. Whether or not I update my LinkedIn profile should be my own problem. It feels almost like someone asking for your Facebook credentials before hiring (less ridiculous, but still weird nonetheless).

I did tell him I really like the product and the work, but the whole time he just went back to "You didn't update your LinkedIn profile. That tells me you are not 100% committed." and I couldn't get an answer out of him about the expectation to constantly work overtime; this was never mentioned in the interviews, offer, or during the last 6 weeks.

Another thing I just remembered about our conversation -- I've been doing freelance work for 6 years, and have continued to do so despite full-time employment in the past 3 years. I make sure to keep them separate though, I do not work on freelance stuff (including answering emails/phone calls) during the time I am at work, and I make sure I don't leave early just because I need to do freelance work.

He seems to attribute that also towards me not "giving 100%".

I'm quite frustrated right now, and since I've never worked in a startup like this, not sure if what he's saying is really justified at all. I have made sure to speak to him civilly though, especially when he kept saying I wasn't "100%" because of the LinkedIn and lack of excessive overtime (I was pretty ticked off but I still asked him why and explained my point of view).

The thing that's particularly peculiar is that he's dinging you for not updating your LinkedIn profile on your own. It's one thing to make that a requirement, it's quite another to construe not doing it on your own as not "giving 100%".

On the other hand, since you're still freelancing (why do they even know that???), well, by definition you aren't giving this job 100%, e.g. even when one is not working, one thinks in the background about the various problems one is working on. I don't know how they do things in Canada or B.C., but I've never heard of such a thing in a "Maximum Effort" "startup" (although very possibly this really isn't one).

If you aren't willing to give up the freelancing, I'd bail on this company ASAP.

It doesn't sound like this job is going to last very long at all, I mean, your PM is already angry at you and it sounds like he has an idée fixe that you're not "giving 100%". You're not going to fix his stated concern in his mind, you can't fix the LinkedIn issue since that's a "failure" in the past, and I think you'd be insane to give up the freelancing given the situation. There's a very good chance that no amount of overtime will satisfy him, especially since it will decrease your actual useful output.

Don't try to fix things, don't discuss this with any superior in the company now or in the future (that never works), obviously your company is happy with a PM with high turnover in his direct reports, and it would be unlikely they haven't realized he's a bully by now.

I work at a startup with even fewer people than yours (we currently have three developers in total), and if anything, the idea that you shouldn't stay late unless necessary has been pushed. It's definitely not usual (and I would argue somewhat abusive) to expect employees to work overtime on a regular basis, regardless of whether or not the company is a startup.

It's a sign of a bad manager that they expect to get more productivity out of their employees through additional hours on a regular basis; this has been proven repeatedly over hundreds of years to be a fallacy. I suggest you read Team Geek and maybe Peopleware to get a feel on what good managers should be doing... though it will probably make you want to leave your job even more, which is probably not a bad thing.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com