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Yelp Fired a Single Mother Today: Me

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Re: Yelp Fired a Single Mother Today: Me

#71

Post by mryan »

tanv_nadkarni wrote: post #40
diskcat wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Exactly my thoughts. Also I don't understand the "single mom" part. Society does not owe any special treatment to a single mom, not more than any other mom. Single mother is a choice of an independent woman and if she cant afford it she should probably not make it. Instead of being thankful for an employer to have given an opportunity in first place she is ranting against her employer, this is going to make it diffic…

I agree with your point that writing this post could be a red flag for future employers, however:

> Single mother is a choice of an independent woman and if she cant afford it she should probably not make it.

With respect, this is a very naive and simplistic view of the situation which displays a lack of empathy. I doubt many women make the explicit choice to become single mothers. There are many reasons she could have ended up in this situation. Perhaps her husband died, or ran away when he discovered she was pregnant.

You might as well say that being in a car crash is the choice of an independent driver, and if they didn't want to experience pain they should not have chosen to be in a car crash.

Re: Yelp Fired a Single Mother Today: Me

#72

Post by diskcat »

moonshinefe wrote: post #13
b6 wrote: post #7

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.

Isn't that attitude the issue at hand though? Large corporations (this one has north of 3k employees and is pulling in hundreds of millions in revenue) shouldn't be able to treat their employees like replaceable trash instead of human beings to save a few bucks. Ironically, if I had a family tragedy and asked for leave at the small company I work for that makes very few profits, they'd give me the thumbs up instantly…

They are not treating employees like replaceable 'trash'. They are treating employees like replaceable workers.

And this relationship goes both ways. Employees can treat their employers as replaceable. Although I haven't seen an equivalent loaded word for 'trash' in this scenario.

And there is no reason to believe that the only reason she was fired was because she wanted days off. Based on her own testimony, which is the best version of the events for her, she had many times used leaves to care for her children and put her manager in a 'difficult position'. So she would have been marked as a bad employee.

As for the union. A union of sellers of anything is called a cartel and is illegal, but if it's a union of sellers of labour then it is suddenly the shining beacon of equality. The only real difference is that union of sellers have way more voting power.

Re: Yelp Fired a Single Mother Today: Me

#73

Post by makeitsuckless »

It's stories like this that cause everyone in Europe except the blind SV worshippers and libertarian fundamentalists to just shrug and shake their heads every time a rant comes up about how the US is so much better for startups and entrepreneurs.

And this thread is just full of sociopaths blaming the victim. SV culture disgusts me.

Re: Yelp Fired a Single Mother Today: Me

#74

Post by robryan »

Surely this isn't worth it in the long run for Yelp. I understand if someone was constantly absent in a way that looked like they were abusing goodwill.

Surely though, the loss of morale from fellow employees over an incident like this is not worth it, unless you want to reinforce some kind of authoritarian workplace where people better keep quiet and stay in line if they want to continue being employed.

Re: Yelp Fired a Single Mother Today: Me

#75

Post by aikah »

moonshinefe wrote: post #13
b6 wrote: post #7

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.

Isn't that attitude the issue at hand though? Large corporations (this one has north of 3k employees and is pulling in hundreds of millions in revenue) shouldn't be able to treat their employees like replaceable trash instead of human beings to save a few bucks. Ironically, if I had a family tragedy and asked for leave at the small company I work for that makes very few profits, they'd give me the thumbs up instantly…

> they got paid higher wages, and got treated with a lot more dignity over it

This. But I guess working conditions will need to go back to early 20th century ones for people to find out how low can things go without bargaining power.

Re: Yelp Fired a Single Mother Today: Me

#76

Post by nrinaudo »

ktRolster wrote: post #61
nrinaudo wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's hard to know what happened without hearing both sides of the story. In this case, what we can guess it looked like from her manager's point of view was: she kept taking days off, with excuses that didn't seem to make sense (can't find car keys), and now she wants to take three more days off. Without trying to blame anyone, I feel bad for her and hope her boyfriend recovers.

Oh, sure, I wasn't really commenting on the original story but on the parent's assertion that it'd also get you fired in Europe, which I think is either untrue or too general a statement.

Firing a single mom for needing to take time off to take care of someone close to her, especially when it would appear her performance has been at least acceptable (if maybe not her attendance)... right or wrong, it's still a bit of a dick move, wouldn't you agree?

Re: Yelp Fired a Single Mother Today: Me

#77

Post by josh_fyi »

danso wrote: 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…

Ada Lovelace was upper-class.

Re: Yelp Fired a Single Mother Today: Me

#78

Post by prostoalex »

nrinaudo wrote: post #36
jkot wrote: 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…

> or family reasons

Well, this is protected by law in the US, resulting in a similar guaranteed win if sued, the caveat being "boyfriend" not included under "family".

Re: Yelp Fired a Single Mother Today: Me

#79

Post by jonesb6 »

robryan wrote: post #74

Surely this isn't worth it in the long run for Yelp. I understand if someone was constantly absent in a way that looked like they were abusing goodwill. Surely though, the loss of morale from fellow employees over an incident like this is not worth it, unless you want to reinforce some kind of authoritarian workplace where people better keep quiet and stay in line if they want to continue being employed.

Isn't that what a lot of sales environments are like? High pressure to perform, constant turnover, management who only care about the quarterly numbers?

Re: Yelp Fired a Single Mother Today: Me

#80

Post by diskcat »

gaur wrote: post #33
diskcat wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

Firing somebody for not working is clearly sensible. Your opinion of whether Yelp's action is reasonable is irrelevant.
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