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Comment by epoxyhockey | Hacker News Reader

One of the more frustrating things about working in the Bay Area is having to deal with finicky personalities like the OP's boss & CEO. It really takes a psychopath to court a potential hire so hard and then fire them 5 weeks later due to their appearance (after they sign a couple of large customers, btw).

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.

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I watched a CEO fire someone he had recruited cross country just weeks after he had relocated his family to the Bay Area. They screwed him and his family over real good. Not long afterward, the CEO fired his outside accountant and made his wife the CFO of the company. I straight up asked if he was hiding something, knowing that he probably was and that my stock and bonus were fictional.

I was fired immediately afterward. I laughed gleefully on the drive home from the comically bad exit interview.

There's a certain level of unethical behavior in termination that can lead to a successful termination lawsuit even in an at-will state like California. Outright bad-faith conduct still violates the implicit covenant of good faith and fair dealing, though it's a fairly high bar to be held in violation.

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...

"If this were NYC, I could understand stabbing someone in the back after they secure a couple of large customers."

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.

You're right, it doesn't even make sense in NYC. I've been away from the East Coast for too long, apparently.

Yeah I cant understand why they had such a problem with his look looks perfectly ok for a start up and slightly less hair product and a tie I could see him working for a blue chip.

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.

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