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Yelp Fired a Single Mother Today: Me

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51–60 of 171 posts

Re: Yelp Fired a Single Mother Today: Me

#51
post #22

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…

Well Yelp didn't vote for her to be a single mom, or for her BF to go on a risky outdoor activity to get injured, or for her to take a loan @ 300% interest (lol wat?). 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 conditio…

You're right

However they can't complain when people realize they're paying to work there

Oh yeah people get in accidents and get sick, Yelp should hire only perfect human beings I guess

Re: Yelp Fired a Single Mother Today: Me

#53

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…

Payday type loan at 300% APR maybe? Though generally you have to pay those back within a week or so afaik, so you don't actually pay 300%

Re: Yelp Fired a Single Mother Today: Me

#54
post #9

I am not excusing Yelp, but in most countries this is fire-able offense. In EU my friends were in similar situation and they had to go to work. She got half-day off on very short notice..

I don't know about the rest of EU, but I currently work in France and I'd be shocked if someone were fired because they took half a day off with little to no notice for serious health or family reasons. If anything, the company would be sued in a heartbeat and almost guaranteed to lose. I worked in the UK for a few years, and have had to take days off with no notice - to attend a funeral, say - and no one even though…

I live in France, in most companies you don't get to finish your trial period if you are out of the office. However for a low pay job like this one, you don't get a 3x2 mnth trial.

Re: Yelp Fired a Single Mother Today: Me

#55
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firing someone for taking three days off to handle a family emergency is not reasonable. Your opinion of whether the emergency was caused by risky behavior is irrelevant.

That is what she claims. It is her side and we don't know what is Yelp's side of the story.

Fantastic point that shouldn't be lost in the narrative.

Re: Yelp Fired a Single Mother Today: Me

#57
post #23

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…

Perhaps she means 130%, which is already insanely high? I can't imagine even a loan shark practising 300%.

[deleted]

Re: Yelp Fired a Single Mother Today: Me

#58
post #14

> 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…

For similar reasons people take out tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands in loans to go to college: a promise of a better future, a little bit of risk and debt now for a life-changing career, and a better future for her children. 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 oppor…

I don't understand how we can assign culpability after only hearing one side of the story though..

Re: Yelp Fired a Single Mother Today: Me

#59
post #35

> I am the single mother who closed 17K in month one and 19K in month two. I am the single mother who gets to see her son for a few hours a night, 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 (#yelpcares — no subsidy there) I'm not experienced in sales...but how is this a good deal for the author, nevermind tenable? This, plus the…

Yelp: So here's how it's going to play out. We'll start you on $2k/month base, and then after 3 months your target bonuses kick in. You: OK, what could those be? Yelp: Well, if you work hard, you could be looking at 25% of sales you book, and we'd be expecting you to be doing $15k-$30k of sales a month, so let's take the lower end of that, and assume an additional $45k a year bringing you up to near $70k/year. Whilst…

> So here's how it's going to play out. We'll start you on $2k/month base, and then after 3 months your target bonuses kick in

Hoodwink enough people and fire them before those 3 months are up, and you've got a sustainable business model there.

Re: Yelp Fired a Single Mother Today: Me

#60
> I am the single mother who closed 17K in month one and 19K in month two.

This needs more context. Is this amount of sales considered incredible, very good, average, below average or significantly below average in Yelp world?

It's one thing if the author was a top-notch performer terminated for family circumstances beyond her control, it would be a different story if she was under-performing, perhaps on internal probation, and termination coincided with a series of tragic family events.

Some companies are known to stack-rank and trim their sales force en masse.

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