21–30 of 171 posts
To me, the only difference between this woman's work environment and slavery, seems the lack of chains.
Please clarify for me. You're saying working at Yelp in 2016 is similar to life, e.g., as a rower on a slave ship?
I was going to critique her for taking on an unsustainable living situation. But by the end of that post, just wow. Yelp is a large company with a lot of resources, the way they treated this woman is despicable, especially after a family tragedy like that. It's not like they'll be going out of business if she took some time off to be a human being and care for her family. I don't use Yelp as I've heard many other neg…
For some reason people seem to think they deserve special treatment for the choices that they made that didn't turn out so well.
Yelp is a company. Its relation with her is that of business, service in exchange for currency on agreed upon work conditions.
Yelp might be a horrible company, but she is not a particularly admirable individual either.
Not to distract from the content of the piece, but she took a 300% loan? THREE HUNDRED PERCENT? Could she have gotten a better loan? I'm under the impression that most banks offer loans at more reasonable rates. Also, how is Yelp able to retain salespeople in the Bay Area if they pay only $2k/month? The salary is clearly under the cost of living. On topic: please don't let all the particularities of this case distrac…
Yelp didn't make her move, or make her take out high-interest loans, or promise any certain job stability based on performance. It isn't relevant to Yelp that she's a single mother. And on and on and on. So much of what is written here seems to be failure to take responsibility for questionable decisions and irrational expectations.
"It isn't relevant to Yelp that she's a single mother". There are so many things wrong with this statement that I can't even begin to answer. To quote something I found yesterday:
“The amount of energy necessary to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.”
Real efficiency on Yelp's part would be controlled flexibility. If what we read is accurate then they are losing out because of excessive rigidity.
We can't make employment a zero sum game. Humans are too valuable.
Why did she take a job she could not afford - from what I understand she's making a monthly loss of $700 + groceries, gas, etc. Why move to SF, to take a sales job you can't afford? More importantly, a job you knew would be making you an unsustainable loss before you even took it! With a kid in tow this just seems irresponsible.
Now you can talk about career development, the american dream etc. but at the end of the day, you don't take a job you can't afford. Now I'm not saying you can't take a job where you are loosing money so you get experience/references/career opportunities, (here comes that but again) BUT only if you can afford it. Yeah, you missed that "opportunity", but others will come along.
I wonder how she was employed, vs https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sick_leave#United_States
Yelp didn't make her move, or make her take out high-interest loans, or promise any certain job stability based on performance. It isn't relevant to Yelp that she's a single mother. And on and on and on. So much of what is written here seems to be failure to take responsibility for questionable decisions and irrational expectations.
> while being pitched ads for my brand new vocal studio in the South Bay > took out a loan with 300% interest to move to SF to begin training December 1st at Yelp > pays $2500 in rent (I make 2k a month so YES, my family has to help and I am so sorry to burden them), pays $1200 a month in daycare I do not understand. Why would someone take a loan (at a ridiculous interest rate) to move to a situation with higher rent…
It's quite possible she was sold the position on the basis of "well, in 3-6 months time, we'll reevaluate and get you up the ladder".
She may have seen it as a life-changing opportunity with some risk for a few months.
It annoys me that you are focusing on the things she did "wrong" rather than asking whether Yelp is culpable for some of the blame here.
Is it acceptable for somebody to be fired for wanting to take three days unpaid leave to deal with a loved one in ICU? Never mind the other points she raises: this alone is terrible behaviour.