Why I Was Fired From a Tech Startup and What My Boss Had to Say About It
fdpod.com
fdpod.com
Those who live by the sword die by it.
He particularly liked "you're a great cultural fit." That means you are JUST LIKE THEM. We can't say, "same race" (but it's true), we can't say, "same gender" (but it's true), and we can't say, "same taste in technology, living address, clothes and what you do on your off time" (but it's true - to the point that side projects are a part of many CTO job descriptions).
Well, those who live by the sword die by it. What I really like about this story is that it shows just how shallow "cultural fit" is.
At my company, I have no idea what some of my C-level people look like. This will absolutely shock some of you. It also gives me access to talent at a multiple of talent to dollars that you cannot even dream of.
Sure, we will never put an "About us" page up with a 'culturally fit' workforce. We might even just use models of 16 28-year-old men who look exctly the same (maybe off of a swim team), give them all glasses and a Macbook, and put them all in a company T-shirt, with a footnote "Representative models."
Meanwhile the rest of you feel free to continue warming chairs with them.
The comment should be regarded as a draft, only, of a satire and/or opinion piece.
You not knowing the C-levels does this?
> Meanwhile the rest of you feel free to continue warming chairs with them.
Who's warming chairs?
I suspect he's just trying to rebuild burned bridges for better networking in SF (he just moved there).
Never do that. When firing someone in an at-will state, just do it and explain nothing. Explanations can easily lead to lawsuits. It's just not worth the risk.
Hmm... what if you could have an employee sign a release as a precondition of being told why they were fired?
A year or so ago, I was applying for an internship at a small, local web dev shop that had some pretty cool projects in their portfolio. As the second interview was wrapping up, I had the impression that I wouldn't get the job. My default reaction would have been to simply ride out the rest of the interview, grab a coffee then move on, but for some reason I decided to ask them what their thoughts about me and my suitability for the position were.
And they told me.
They said that they would be completely candid, and asked if I wanted to proceed. I said of course. They then laid out all the areas that I had impressed them, as well as those that were red flags to them. Some of those were technical, and some were more about their general impression of me and my passion for the work.
Ultimately, I didn't get the job. I did, however, get to spend 20 minutes digging into depth on what potential employers viewed as my weaknesses and how I could go about addressing them, and that was perhaps even more valuable. They certainly weren't obliged to offer that advice, and I can't imagine they got much from it. Were we not all straight, white men in our mid 20s, I imagine they could have opened themselves up to a discrimination lawsuit. But, at the end of the day, they went out of their way to help me out and the advice stuck. I'll forever be grateful for that.
The guy had some great experience but the CV was weird.
It was 10 pages long for 4 jobs. He listed every course he'd ever been sent on, including health and safety and diversity training ones, and just mixed his degree in somewhere with them. He listed each version of word he'd used (seemly every version released) with equal prominence as Java and SQL. Each time he'd been hired as a temp contractor he wrote his job title as CEO, because he was getting paid via his company.
My boss laughed at it and told me to bin it.
He needed to know what was wrong, or he'd stay unemployed (which was a shame for a guy with some great skills). I agonized for about a day and finally sent him some tips from my personal email, but I'm sure we could get sued if the strangeness was due to a disability. Something wrong there.
At some point, probably around the time he was graduating from high school or college, somebody helped him put together his first resumé, and since it was naturally thin, they probably encouraged him to put in everything that might catch an employer's eye. He's probably never read anyone else's resumé.
I've seen this several times, and I've seen the opposite extreme, too. Somebody gets told early on "fit it on one page", and thinks that's how all resumés should be, forever. None of these people have any disabilities I'm conscious of, though in tech, a mild ASD would hardly be shocking. They've just been given advice that's either wrong or incomplete.
Meanwhile, I know one guy very well who does have a disability, and whose resumés have frequently been complimented. You'd have no way of knowing from them that he's in possession of a document from a psychologist that says PDD-NOS on it, and unless you know exactly what you're looking for, you're not going to notice when you meet him, either.
When it comes to employment matters, you can be sued by just about anyone for just about anything.
Opposing counsel can and will spin every fact that seems meaningless or innocuous. For example, the poster here indicates that he responded to the applicant through a personal email. This is not normal behavior, so you can bet a plaintiff's attorney would focus in on that and try to use it to suggest that the poster didn't response through his work email because he knew something wrong was being done.
Talk to any defense-side employment attorney and they'll all tell you the same thing: flimsy, baseless lawsuits are filed against employers every single day. But responding to a flimsy, baseless lawsuit costs money, and many of these lawsuits are settled because it's more cost-effective and expedient to pay to make the case go away.
Bottom line: taking action based on an unrealistic "you can't be liable..." attitude is extremely dangerous.
1) Cover letter. Explain why you want the job and why you're a good person for that job.
2) Contact Details & Education. Most relevant and recent should be top of the list.
3) Previous Work experience. List only relevant skills from each position.
Less is more. If they want more detail they will ask for it in the interview.
It's not a 300 word page filled with text.
Leaving space is also a good way for people to take notes on the CV (I've found that during my interviews the interviewer often used the CV like a checklist for asking their questions on my experience)
I won't disagree outright with that, but what is "the right thing" here?
The threat of litigation is incredibly real when it comes to employment issues. Even the most proactive employers (those that attempt to follow the law and keep meticulous records) face lawsuits from employees, former employees and job applicants. The potential damages can be significant (particularly for certain causes of action) and even small and seemingly baseless claims can easily result in five figures worth of attorney's fees (or more).
Here, despite apparently having some idea that his actions could expose his employer to a lawsuit, an employee decided that his employer should take on legal risk despite the fact that his supervisor effectively told him to proceed in a manner that would reduce risk substantially.
If as a result of this employee's actions, the company was unable to pay someone's salary, or had to allocate money from expansion to legal expenses, would you still suggest that the employee did "the right thing"?
Bluffing is part of legal risk management.
i'm certain this varies across companies, but in the startups i have worked for i've build very close relationships to many of my coworkers. i like to think there is a mutual trust established in that relationship. Part of that trust includes me looking out for their best interests, which i feel includes explaining to them what their next steps are to further their careers after they depart.
My attorney insisted I understand that when you fire anyone in California you must --you must-- say nothing pertaining to the reasons for the firing. I made the mistake of behaving like a human being once and it cost me thousands.
This happened because I told him I was letting him go because he did not sell anything. He (and the Labor Department folks, I'm sure) came up with some bullshit reason why I should pay him money anyway.
Had I given no reason whatsoever it is likely that there would have been less grounds to even bring forward a case. I'm summarizing something that is a bit more complex than the above but the overall idea is very much there.
Regrettably what you have to do is smile every day, take notes, document everything and, if the decision to fire is made, simply fire people without any explanation whatsoever. It goes something like this: "I'm sorry. I have to let you go. Here's your check." And walk them out immediately.
Oh, yes, if you can you should really consider having a witness to the firing. I was laid off twice in my life and both times there were three people in the room. Years later I would understand the reasons behind something that seemed weird and almost demeaning to me at the time.
I don't like having these kinds of relationships with people I work with but the legal framework in our state pretty much dictates you act this way for simple self preservation.
How does an unsuccessful salesman owe you several thousand dollars? And you are saying you withheld money at the time of firing.
Sales is precarious, but sales without a base is nasty.
I also notice in your language terms like "he, effectively, never earned". Basically, it sounds like this guy worked for you, didn't do so successfully and then you were forced by a court to pay him for his time, rather than you getting into trouble for letting him go.
I was going to treat you to a tune on the worlds tiniest violin, but I told the mice about your plight and now they are refusing to play it for you.
There are many approaches to paying a sales person. I've probably tried them all. This particular variant was one where you pay a base salary, say, $30K/year and, on top of that, a advance on unearned commissions. So, every week the sales guy is getting a check with two components, one he earned and one he is presumed to earn in the future.
In most agreements the sales person is liable for any commission that was not earned at the time of separation. If I paid you $5,000 in advanced commissions and you only earned $2,500 at the time of separation you owe me $2,500. That's money I was loaning you every week on the assumption that you would sell and actually earn it in the future.
This is standard stuff, nothing revolutionary here. I have to say that as an engineer dealing with sales people was one of the most difficult and gut wrenching things I've ever had to do. It took me years to understand the, sorry, sub-species. I've seen it all.
Anyhow, the fellow in question had been advanced commissions for nearly 90 days before I let him go. Yes, I was a sap back then. I actually kept thinking that this guy would wake up after my frequent pep talks and start selling. I let him float by all the way to the 90 day mark. When I laid him off I gave him a check equivalent to four weeks of his base pay and withheld (did not pay him) the commission advance I had been paying him all along. Why? He was gone. Like I said, he actually owed me money. And, again, I was nice. I was only supposed to pay him two weeks at the point I let him go. It was near the holidays and I decided to give him another couple of weeks to be helpful. Big mistake. This was during my early days of dealing with such folks and, true to what I said above, I was a total sap. BTW, I've never had problems with engineers, web developers, marketing people, production folks, not even the shipping dudes (other than the occasional swiping of wrenches and minor tools from the shop). No, it was always the sales guys that kept me up at night until I learned.
Here in California the labor department is decidedly anti-business. It was almost a foregone conclusion that his complaint would be decided on his favor. I was too naive and inexperienced to understand the game being played.
Frankly, I never understood why sales professionals don't just work for a good wage and that's it. The very engineers who build the products earn a decent wage, work long hours, are continuously studying and sharpening their skills and devoted years of schooling to even be able to get the job.
In my early exposure to sale folk I recoiled at the idea of paying someone commission because I felt that if one person got commissions then everyone involved in bringing the product to market was just as entitled to them. Of course, the problem is far more complicated than that and I quickly learned you simply could not hire a good sales person unless they saw some kind of pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. That's just the way that side of the universe has devolved and that's it.
One approach I have never tried is to have everyone on stock options. Pay the sales folks a good salary, not some crapy $30K/y base + commissions. The theory being that they are going to want to work just as hard to get the company to a level where their stock will make them a bundle of money. A lot of folks in sales are very mercenary in nature and end-up living from battle to battle, commission to commission. This sets-up a situation where it might actually be difficult to convince them to use a forward looking approach and forgo the usual deal in favor of stocks at some time in the future.
My experience got me to the point where I determined it was a far better idea to identify someone with no sales experience and bring him/her up into sales from within the company. No bad habits, better connection to the business, actually thankful for bringing them up to a level where they could earn real money and a whole host of other benefits. Once I tried that approach and had good results I never hired another sales person from the "real world" again.
Live and learn.
Just don't do that at firing time.
If anything, a justifiable reason as to why you are fired should be mandatory. You don't have to be a 'protected' minority to deserve a fair justification for being fired.
I'm all for the right of employers to fire who they want, but we can't expect employees to be responsible for how their actions impact the company and not expect the same in return.
He's lucky to have been a self-reliant young entrepreneur with probably other ways to make a livelihood. It could have turned very ugly had he been a father caring for a sick child without other resource than his job, all that because some nitwit didn't like his hairdo.
Duties and rights, not just one or the other.
That's what you got from this article? Yay for hypocrisy!
The right solution, in my opinion, is allow fire-at-will like we do in California, and have thorough unemployment benefits so that it's not worth making a fuss over.
The Zappos model [2] of $2,000 bonus for quitting one week in is great, I wish more places would use it.
[1] http://hrmagazine.be/fr/newsitem/la-france-au-top-des-cotisa...
[2] http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2008-09-16/why-zappos-of...
Some other states are more employer friendly, and others are less.
Explain nothing? It may not be worth the risk, but it's a pretty shitty thing to do to another human being.
Was the writer working running his "sex and comedy" blog at the same time as working for the company?
I can imagine the CEO sacking him when he came across the guy's blog; what with the pictures of vibrators and skanky models..
The start-up's customers were looking for Software Developers: unless they were limiting themselves to the young/liberal Bay then this kinda thing will be damaging to their image.
That depends on what kind of blog we're talking about. If it's someone's Tumblr where they're posting selfies, concert photos, and "deep thoughts", that's one thing. But it's certainly possible to have your front-facing, top-level-domain, professional blog showing off your work and getting you jobs.
I didn't run the Full Disclosure site at the time but I was doing standup comedy, which certainly could've been one of the reasons. Comedians have to have a web presence, so if you were to google my name, videos of me doing standup may have appeared.
But to tell someone not to pursue their extracurricular passions while bludgeoning their soul during the day for a paycheck, just sucks. Maybe it's a reality, but it did not leave a good taste in my mouth about my employer.
It sounds like your CEO was probably a jerk, but in his mind he may have had his company's welfare as top priority.
Now as for sacrificing one's soul for a paycheck, well, that's a personal choice. Maybe you should be up front with your next employer about your stand-up stuff and see how they respond. Once it's out in the open, you will at least know where they stand.
Best of luck.
What someone does off the clock with their own time, unless they're a public figure representing their company 24/7 (such as various high profile CEOs) should have no bearing on how they're perceived either by their employer or clients.
As long as you are performing your work duties efficiently and doing your job, you are holding up your end of the bargain and that should be the end of it. If your employment contract doesn't stipulate that you are not allowed to engage into certain activities outside your working hours, then you can do as you please and your employer has opened themselves up for a gigantic lawsuit by pulling these kinds of shenanings.
I for one would sue the hell out of you if you fired me based on what I do on my own time, if you can't prove that I was underperforming or damaging the company in any way.
No, you wouldn't. It's incredibly expensive and without a really blatant reason like "We're firing you because you're black, old, and gay", no lawyer's going to do the work on contingency.
Anyway, the company is never going to say they fired you for running a knitting website, or whatever it is you do. They'd just say they're downsizing, sorry, and while they're grateful for your contributions, market conditions necessitate an occasional reorganization.
Sure, we only listened to one side, but this sounds like creating absurd reasoning to try to justify what the company did.
Certain types of clients just prefer to deal with people who conform to what might be considered a more "conservative" appearance. Deviating from their expectations can reduce their level of trust, for instance, which can impact business dealings. This is especially true when dealing with customers from abroad, especially when there are other cultural differences at play.
Some people have also had very, very bad experiences with other people who dress or groom themselves in a specific way. It's not the appearance itself that is harmful, but rather the association it has to other people who were directly involved with bad experiences in the past.
An example of this are those Ruby on Rails developers who choose a so-called "hipster" appearance. It can only take one disastrous Ruby on Rails project for a client to consider all software developers who have such an appearance to be untrustworthy and unprofessional. Again, whether it's right or wrong, this can happen very easily.
The specifics of this particular case aren't very clear. But I wouldn't be so quick to underestimate the importance or impact of physical appearance in general, when it comes to business dealings.
I've had very, very bad experiences with people who dress in suits. Indeed, the people who have had the most severe negative effects on my life have invariably worn suits. And I can't name many people I've had positive experiences with who ever wear suits.
Yet, somehow, I don't think that's what you had in mind when defending this nonsense.
> People who are dressed in a suit represent the existing power structures; lots of people like said power structures; people with suits represent some sort of alignment with power structures and can resonate as an authority and conformer to the way things are.
I want to clearly distance myself from this statement, but I recognize that it (or some variant of it) is adhered to by many people.
The reality of the business world is that those who control the money are often "people who wear suits". This is especially true when large sums of money are involved.
If a given business wants such people (and the organizations they represent) as clients, then the business will need to conform to the expectations of these potential clients. The impact of such conformance can be even greater on a startup, which may not have much leeway or influence in such dealings.
I'm not "defending" nor "promoting" what happened in this case; the details are much too vague. I'm merely pointing out that there are factors at play in the real world which may make such decisions more plausible and more comprehensible.
I'm a person whose life experience tells me anyone wearing a suit is, to a very high degree of probability, evil, stupid, or both.
Do your justifications work both ways or not? If it's just fine to discriminate against someone for not wearing a suit, is it equally fine for me to discriminate against someone for wearing a suit?
> the business will need to conform to the expectations of these potential clients
If people would stop appeasing these idiots and instead do the ethical thing by telling them to take a hike, it wouldn't be an issue.
You keep forgetting about the context we're discussing here, though: real-world business dealings. When one party has money, and the other party wants some of it, the party with the money generally sets the tone of the business relationship. This may involve certain expectations with respect to how the people they deal with appear and behave.
Yes, maybe startups seeking business relationships with larger, wealthier organizations shouldn't put up with expectations that they feel are unreasonable. But that's not how the real world works, unfortunately. If money is to be made, then some sacrifices of various forms will very likely need to be made. I'm merely pointing out this very real fact of today's business world, and how it's plausible that appearance can play a very significant role in business relationships.
I didn't say distrust, I said discriminate against. As in, "I don't like that you wear a suit, so you're fired.".
> I'm merely pointing out this very real fact of today's business world, and how it's plausible that appearance can play a very significant role in business relationships.
You're pointing out that many people are willing to be unethical to make money. This is neither surprising nor interesting.
It is, however, disgusting, and doubly so because the appeasement is the only thing that allows it to persist in the first place. If the person with money had trouble finding vendors who lived up to their arbitrary expectations, the incentive would exist to change those expectations.
Or at a job interview.
As an interviewer, I've encountered only a couple people who did wear suits. Definitely lived down to the stereotype.
Do you understand that you're reinforcing the stereotype?
Yo, fuck that. Everything is negotiable to one degree or another. That sounds like someone trying to take advantage of you.
This only happened for two reasons: there was some bad stuff in that contract that I really didn't want to agree to, and if they didn't sign a contract with me, I could go directly to their client. They had no power over me, and we both knew it.
FUCK company/corporate loyalty. I'm here to get paid so I can fund an adventurous life, not to make you richer. I'm here to make myself richer and that's 100% all there is to it.
Know your value, unless you're really in a bind.
That was it.
Let me repeat that: you are replaceable.
It's not up to you to decide how the team fares after you're gone: that's your boss' problem. If he doesn't want to pay you what you need, then you are perfectly within your rights to leave immediately or with two weeks notice. He knows what the consequences of you leaving are and it's his decision whether or not refusing to pay your salary demands is worth it.
I think you mean to say that "my boss" is capturing more value from my work than I am, which is probably true, but that doesn't mean that we're not both benefiting. I look at it as a simple transaction; I give my time, he gives me money. I don't plan to keep this arrangement forever, but it's certainly making me richer right now.
Powerful statement.
I know the current attitude is against unions, and there are probably a lot of anti-union people on HN, for good reasons. Unions realized their power and became corrupt, became money-hungry, became power-hungry. Unions were one hand in the pot that bankrupted Detroit. And that's a shame, because now employees have literally no one watching their backs. At-will employment and an employer-friendly environment creates a hostile work place where employees of many companies never know when or why they're going to be fired.
Unions aren't entirely bad. Employers aren't entirely bad. It's just a shame we can't figure out a good balance of employer and employee protection.
The problem is, most of them never get there.
It's a bit naive to believe that HR is about anything other than protecting the company.
Sure, employees have the side benefit of having someone to go to to answer questions about pay schedule, holidays, and benefits, but that's all it is: a side benefit. The real reason is to limit the company's legal exposure.
Looks like his trust was violated and the new discounted expectations make him not apply for equivalent jobs anymore.
Based on my experience in the tech industry, I assume I am being lied to. Things have only gotten worse recently with all of the fast money sloshing around and the bad actors it has drawn in.
Perhaps the only companies willing to hire you now are those with high developer turnover who just need a warm body to fill the last vacated seat? And perhaps you are perpetuating that?
I'd be confident in my ability to find another should these guys suddenly not want me. But they told me when they hired me that it wasn't even a competition, I was that much better than their other candidates. It was like that at BigCorp too.
Another thing is that all three were contract-to-hire, except for BigCorp, which omitted the hire part. I had significant accomplishments at each of them, making and delivering entire apps. This is reflected in the resume.
It's a different world out there. You really have to try people out before you can commit to them. Many times it just doesn't make sense to continue.
Right now I'm just trying to get a decent salary. This contract-to-hire nonsense has to go. I'm sick of $20 an hour. If I jump again, they're going to have to offer $70K+ right from the start. No more recruiters, my last two jobs went through recruiters, I need to be my own advocate.
I would love to be able to stick around, but in many cases that's just not smart. I just so happened to have strung three such situations together.
If this were NYC, I could understand stabbing someone in the back after they secure a couple of large customers. Though, in the Bay Area, it's like being stabbed in the back by a meth addict; sometimes it makes sense, most of the time it doesn't.
I was fired immediately afterward. I laughed gleefully on the drive home from the comically bad exit interview.
Cases where it's been found in the past include terminating an employee in a way calculated to harm the employee maximally, due to a boss settling a personal vendetta and being intemperate enough to say so; and engaging in a pattern of firing people just before promised benefits vest, in which case the company can be found to have been falsely promising benefits it never intended to deliver.
Hiring your wife as a CFA to cover up questionable dealings seems like it might be leaning in that direction...
Why would that make sense in NYC or anywhere else? If someone brought in some large customers, I'd expect them to be able to bring in more large customers in the future. Firing someone with that track record would just be stupid.
When I interviewed at a start up I was introduced to our art director and my first thought man your nail varnish is chiped - he was an out tranny.
Sounds like the CEO is one of those people who should not be running a welk stall.
Personally if it was in the UK I would have seriously considered taking the company to a tribunal over this - and have a paid pit bull flay the CEO in public one guy I know in the field is a proper working class Glaswegian and makes Malcolm Tucker look like a little pussy cat.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:www.fdp...
You should be allowed to negotiate as a savvy prospective employee. With very few exceptions, you don't want to put yourself in an environment where terms are dictated to you rather than opened on a floor with you for your input. Even if you fail miserably at the negotiation, at least you had an opportunity.
Second to this - unless you're literally at-will employee, this is grounds for liability. The author was explicitly told, "You didn't do anything wrong, we're just getting rid of you because you don't fit." IANAL, so I won't harp on this as I don't know the particulars, but I'm fairly sure this is a case most lawyers wouldn't shy away from if everything is to be taken at face-value here (anyone with a law degree can correct me if I'm wrong).
In any case...I'm glad the author received validation of his abilities, even if it was nearly a year later. Maybe his former boss will grow a backbone and rehire him for something awesome. At least he didn't burn a bridge.
>You should be allowed to negotiate as a savvy prospective employee.
that was the negotiation. The author took "being a part of that revolution" in lieu of money.
"At-will" is pretty much the default in the U.S. Unless you're working under a union contract, or some other kind of contract that spells out a specific period of employment, you're probably at-will.
You can always negotiate. You can also dictate your terms. Of course, the other party can refuse your terms, just as you can refuse their terms.
From my perspective, both tact (and associated political skills), and knowing when to cut your losses are awesome skills that many of the best have.
However - I do agree that getting fired can be a badge of honor.
But I got fired from a burger place once because I wasn't much good at making burgers.
They also say 'Judge a man by his enemies. A man with no enemies is no man at all'. But I suspect most people you'd want to work with don't have enemies at work.
Typically, these people should run their own companies or consulting instead of working for other people.
> His ethics meant nothing as long as he was having a paycheck lorded over him.
> We need to be employed. But at the cost of what? Our ethics? Our passions? Those that trust us?
I had to do a lot of extrapolating to come to this conclusion. Given the circumstance I wouldn't meet this former boss either. I learned a long time ago that people who'll screw me over once will screw me over again.
You may or may not get the answer you want, but there's not much they can do about you making the attempt.
"Well it turns out I could [be fired], unless it could be reasonably inferred that I was being fired for being part of a protected class. So had my boss said “The CEO thinks you dress like a faggot” or “The CEO thinks that’s what a nigger would wear”, things would have been different. But as it stands, the fact that my boss told me I was being fired related to appearance at all was definitely a dicey, questionable move."
I've no idea why he feels the need to talk about how "protected classes" can't be fired when he's talking about why he was fired, but it seems as if he's no idea why some people are protected based on their sex, sexuality or color.
Unless the author is gay, then “The CEO thinks you dress like a faggot” is in no way equivalent to "The CEO doesn't feel you have the right look for the company."
I don't know about your employer, but I would certainly think twice about keeping an employee who clearly doesn't realize the effect that this brand of open honesty has on people outside of SF kink circles.
They didn't can you because you were an escort; they canned you because you talk so openly about fucking on the internet, attached to your real name and without any kind of prompting. What else will you overshare?
But things were definitely said around the office about my sexuality, questioning it, etc. which I am obviously more open about than most.
People should grow up and realize that by doing that they're just stigmatizing the object of prejudice even more.
1. What do we know about the Boss? Nothing. Does he have a family? We don't know.
2. Is the Boss meant to quit simultaneously? Why? It's not clear that this would've stopped OP being fired.
If he's such a good boss, quitting makes the situation worse for everyone left behind.