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Ask HN: Who is firing?

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Re: Ask HN: Who is firing?

#361

Post by philh »

vertex-four wrote: post #196
philh wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people think that pro-employee laws are not in fact good for employees. Regardless of whether or not you agree with them, it's super uncharitable to dismiss them in this way.

Pro-employee laws are not good for employees in the success case - that you're a top 10% worker in a field that is growing and has lots of demand. The thing is, if you think about the failure case - you're a disposable cog in a field that's stagnating - there's issues which need to be solved, unless you're a staunch libertarian with a belief that people who are unable to find work should die. Nobody wants to pay for…

> there's issues which need to be solved

Yes, and some people think that pro-employee laws make these issues worse.

Again, you don't need to agree with them, but you don't get to dismiss them as simply not caring.

Re: Ask HN: Who is firing?

#362

Post by JamesBarney »

scolson wrote: post #360
JamesBarney wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are confusing termination in an at will state with "termination-with-cause" which means that you cannot collect unemployment, and cannot be rehired by the same firm.(or maybe I'm wrong) When someone asks if you've been fired by a previous company usually they are asking about the second. They will call the previous company and ask if you are eligible for rehire.

No, not confusing it. Your original message was WRT paper trail, which is not required in all cases. To your message here, fired means something very specific. Though fired can be for cause or no cause. And the reason of cause matters for unemployment. Laid off means something else. So really, there are four categories from an unemployment standpoint: 1. Fired - policy violation 2. Fired - "incompetent" (note: in the…

Do most companies when contacted by future prospective employers disclose which of these 4 was the reason for termination?

Re: Ask HN: Who is firing?

#363

Post by acedinlowball »

andy wrote: post #234

I was fired from Wickr.com a few months after their layoffs. I was fired from Wickr a few months ago. The given reason was they considered me not a Senior Android Developer and that was my title - I asked too many questions apparently. My manager indicated that if my title had been Android Developer there probably would not have been a problem. I don't care about titles really. I was hired in 2014 as a contractor for…

From this comment, I can get a sense of why you were fired.

"The reason I emailed was because we were just in a scrum meeting where management was asking us for feedback on how the sprint went."

They wanted feedback on a sprint and you complained about overtime? Pretty easy to see why you got the axe.

Re: Ask HN: Who is firing?

#364

Post by throwaway2942 »

germanthrowaway wrote: post #357
throwaway2942 wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any more info you can provide? I dont want to sound combative, just curious because I have a lot of friends there and I havent heard anything. Is this happening for all employees? Do you think Crytek is holding on for robinson? I actually literally just got an offer a few weeks ago, this changes a lot. I know crytek had trouble before, but Im suprised these struggles are translating to the FFM studio.

it applies to everyone and some are worse off than others. we have had emails sent to us from the bosses saying that we should not talk with people from the other studios but of course there is nothing that makes this impossible. under no circumstance should you take work at crytek. the reason for all of this is that the company as a whole has not had positive books for a long time and they did not look for money ear…

Intresting, Im suprised this hasnt gotten any coverage or attention really. This is the first time Ive heard of it, but it correlates with a recent change in attitute with some of my contacts there. Some outright dont respond to messages, others reply with "Things are fine" etc...

Do you anticipate this getting more coverage in the comming days/weeks? When was the last missed paycheck if I may ask?

Thanks again. Your doing good work informing people.

Re: Ask HN: Who is firing?

#365

Post by marme »

kyrra wrote: post #275
traviswingo wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would honestly refrain from telling people you were fired in that case, and simply state you were laid off. I would then begin to infer that something fishy was going on internally and that you're probably better off not being involved with the company anymore. It really sounds to me like management didn't know how to deal with the situation and a "performance review" was simply their scapegoat, and not the reality…

Agreed. If your former employer is smart, they won't say much beyond "yes, that person worked here" when contacted by any company that is looking to hire you. If they say anything that directly results in you being denied a job, it opens them up to lawsuits. (at least that's my understanding)

it opens them up for lawsuit because they could have slandered you resulting in you losing a job opportunity. It does not mean the former employee will win but if you did say something that is grounds for the lawsuit which you will have to defend and prove what you said was all factually correct. It is cheaper to just settle with the former employee rather than pay lawyers to defend the suit even if you have 100% chance of winning. This is why no company will say anything other than yes that person worked here from x date to y date and maybe a handful of other benign facts about your employment such as your title

Re: Ask HN: Who is firing?

#366

Post by germanthrowaway »

throwaway2942 wrote: post #364
germanthrowaway wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it applies to everyone and some are worse off than others. we have had emails sent to us from the bosses saying that we should not talk with people from the other studios but of course there is nothing that makes this impossible. under no circumstance should you take work at crytek. the reason for all of this is that the company as a whole has not had positive books for a long time and they did not look for money ear…

Intresting, Im suprised this hasnt gotten any coverage or attention really. This is the first time Ive heard of it, but it correlates with a recent change in attitute with some of my contacts there. Some outright dont respond to messages, others reply with "Things are fine" etc... Do you anticipate this getting more coverage in the comming days/weeks? When was the last missed paycheck if I may ask? Thanks again. Your…

the reason for the coverage being low is that no one is saying anything and information on glassdoor is being ignored by most people anyway.

full disclosure: i am from the sofia office but i think that this is dangerous to say because we are fewer than the germans. in the sofia office we have not been paid for two months now and before that we had to wait two months for salaries, so it makes a total of 4 months of waiting. i can confirm that the frankfurt office also has not received money but i am not able to say exactly what their situation is. 2 or 3 months.

i dont think this will get coverage because i will not provide any evidence that will make it clear who i am. if someone can tell me how to prove this without being in danger with crytek i will do what i can.

Re: Ask HN: Who is firing?

#367

Post by artmageddon »

stevetursi wrote: post #289

Hertz laid off nearly the entirety of their rank and file IT staff earlier this year. https://news.slashdot.org/story/16/02/13/1630244/hertz-is-pu... In order to receive our severance, we were forced to train our IBM replacements, who were in India. Hertz's strategy of IBM and Austerity is the new SMT's solution for a balance sheet that's in shambles, yet they have rewarded themselves by increasing executive compensa…

I've sworn off Hertz after following the whole debacle as it was unfolding.

Re: Ask HN: Who is firing?

#368

Post by beachy »

JamesBarney wrote: post #321
traviswingo wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would honestly refrain from telling people you were fired in that case, and simply state you were laid off. I would then begin to infer that something fishy was going on internally and that you're probably better off not being involved with the company anymore. It really sounds to me like management didn't know how to deal with the situation and a "performance review" was simply their scapegoat, and not the reality…

Most companies will answer two questions "When did Joe work here, and is Joe eligible for rehire?" This is why it's important for him to figure out if he was terminated-with-cause or not. If this was the case then he is not eligible for rehire and when a company does a background check Joe will run into this issue.

Do you have any evidence about that? We are in the HR software field and in my experience being"eligible for rehire" is not a binary fact, and even if it was it might not be at the fingertips of the person giving the reference.

Re: Ask HN: Who is firing?

#369

Post by yarou »

xyzzy123 wrote: post #147
yarou wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The truth always matters. I'd rather be a truthful mendicant than a lavishly rich liar.

Mm how about a polite, forgiving person who is decently well off? I would say that it pays to be forthright, but understanding. Granted there are exceptions. Bear in mind that one person's "unvarnished truth" might come from a lack of experience or high expectations that are difficult to meet at scale and in a commercial environment. There are generally a lot of tradeoffs being made in companies. A "tire fire" of php…

Epistemologically, I agree with you. What I was getting at is that if your employer is knowingly doing something unethical (again, relative, but let's hand waive that for a moment), I feel like it is your duty to report it and publicize it.

Re: Ask HN: Who is firing?

#370

Post by karmajunkie »

daveloyall wrote: post #316
frogstomp19 wrote: post #37

Not technically "firing" I suppose but all of the dev org in Atlanta and SF, including myself, were laid off at athenahealth last week. Something like 120 people. Sucks.

Do you know anybody who might be interested in wiring Apache Camel up to be a Rhapsody replacement? The NEDSS Base System has an expensive dependency on Rhapsody, but all it does is grab incoming HL7, do some transformations, and dump the result into a NBS table. (For the uninitiated: State Health Departments are generally the users of NEDSS Base System... Rhapsody is a graphical ETL tool.)

Just out of curiosity, any reason you're using Camel for that instead of Mirth? I've been out of the healthcare sector for a few years but at one time was doing essentially that same thing to build out the state biosurveillance network in TX. Mirth was a great fit for it at the time, I'd imagine it still is.
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