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Yelp Fired a Single Mother Today: Me

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Re: Yelp Fired a Single Mother Today: Me

#101

Post by prostoalex »

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…

> Society does not owe any special treatment to a single mom, not more than any other mom.

Just playing the devil's advocate here:

1) Society also does not provide any particular path for her kid's pre-school, which she must cover out out of pocket, unlike, let's say, creches in France.

2) When her kid grows up, society (in California at least) also doesn't provide any meaningful transportation options to/from school. She will have to handle the driving. Her best hope is to find other parents who'd agree to a carpool, so that at least it's not daily.

3) Most work hours are 8 to 6. Most school hours are conveniently 9 to 3, which means that she ought to explain to the coworkers that she'll be late in the morning as she needs to drop off the kid at school and then pay someone (after-school care) to pick the kid up at 3, or drive herself, if feasible.

4) In some states leaving the kids at home alone would be a reason for neighbors to call Child Protection Services, so there's a need to hire someone to accompany the kid from 3 till 6 until mother gets home.

So while society may not owe a single mother much, it seems to have gone to incredible lengths to complicate their lives and annihilate any possibility of them having a career and any modicum of social mobility.

Re: Yelp Fired a Single Mother Today: Me

#102

Post by rootlocus »

b6 wrote: post #38
rootlocus wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the first time on HN I'm actually sad I don't have enough karma to downvote a post. "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.”

Please help me understand your point of view.

When my father died last year, I was immediately offered (without me even asking for) up to two weeks payed leave. And they didn't call me the next day to give me an ultimatum.

Of course the company didn't care that my father died. No one outside of my team even knew. But my immediate supervisor did. And he did everything he could to help me get through. Because he's a human, not a corporate drone.

However deep or shallow a company's hierarchy may be, at each level there are discreet human beings.

Re: Yelp Fired a Single Mother Today: Me

#103

Post by anexprogrammer »

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 wont hire such a person.

I don't know about the USA, but in many countries that would open you up to a discrimination lawsuit.

Re: Yelp Fired a Single Mother Today: Me

#104

Post by anexprogrammer »

crdoconnor wrote: post #82
tanv_nadkarni wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>Society does not owe any special treatment to a single mom One of the measures of a civilised society is how well it looks after its most vulnerable members.

As an outsider it has to be said the US seems to do comparatively poorly on that measure.

Re: Yelp Fired a Single Mother Today: Me

#106

Post by prostoalex »

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…

Would she be offered such position if the company didn't "treat their employees like replaceable trash instead of human beings to save a few bucks"?

Performance-based sales in any industry (Internet ads, Yellow pages ads, timeshares, used cars) are known for high pace and high turnover. Companies are quick to hire, but also quick to fire.

If you told the company they were entering a long-term relationship with an employee, and it wouldn't be that easy to get rid of them, the employer would suddenly get very selective, and the candidate would probably have to show years of past sales experience, recommendations from previous employers, go through a few rounds of interviews, etc.

Re: Yelp Fired a Single Mother Today: Me

#107

Post by anexprogrammer »

diskcat wrote: post #22
moonshinefe wrote: post #2

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…

So by your logic it would be OK to fire her because her partner was doing some risky outdoor activity?

Would it still have been OK if he was knocked down just crossing the street? That's also a risk after all.

What about if he had been on a bus involved in an accident?

Thinking of my own career I've had several occasions to call upon compassionate leave - and each time the employers (one a large US firm) handled it in exemplary fashion.

Have you ever heard of a concept called "basic human compassion"?

Re: Yelp Fired a Single Mother Today: Me

#108

Post by [deleted] »

raarts wrote: post #21
b6 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

No, I did not mean the harsh physical conditions, I mean the lack of control over your own life. This employer seemed to 'own' her much more than I would consider reasonable. It's not legal ownership, but the outcome seems practically the same.

[deleted]

Re: Yelp Fired a Single Mother Today: Me

#109

Post by sgift »

ktRolster wrote: post #69
tanv_nadkarni wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not the case that people at Yelp find it great joy in firing people. When a person did not turn up for work for three days some HR manager gleefully typed out a termination later and hifived all his co-workers. I don't think that is the case. Hiring someone costs money and so does termination. Unless I know the Yelp's side of the story I wouldn't buy her version. It is possible that she failed to inform her sup…

> It is possible that she has a long history of staying absent from work. She did. She'd only been working there from December, used up all her sick-days while still in training, and missed even more days in the following months. One time she missed work because she couldn't find her car keys. It sounds like her manager got fed up and that was the end of it. Being a single parent is hard.

"used up all her sick days" ... the whole idea that sick days are something you can run out of is so .. wrong.

Re: Yelp Fired a Single Mother Today: Me

#110

Post by raverbashing »

diskcat wrote: post #84
raverbashing wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

We all got problems. Why should Yelp be responsible for her problems?

Is she asking them to pay for the ICU?

It's a sales position, not a firefighting one

Besides I bet they also work overtime without being payed

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