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In Praise of Quitting Your Job, or The New Work Ethic.

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Re: In Praise of Quitting Your Job, or The New Work Ethic.

#11

Post by jnovek »

"The longest was 12 months at [Redacted], and that was only because I wanted my options to vest. I handed them my resignation on my 366th day."

This made me livid. I don't hire engineers with the intention of firing them the day before they vest, why would it be ethical to wait until the day after your cliff to quit?

[EDIT] Let me clarify. This individual seems to have decided months before that they would quit the day after their vesting cliff. Everyone here thinks that's ethical and appropriate?

I'm not questioning whether it's legal, of course it's legal. It's just not very honorable. A vesting cliff exists so that both parties -- employer and employee -- can have a chance to get to know each other before stock is granted and make sure that they're making the right decision.

Re: In Praise of Quitting Your Job, or The New Work Ethic.

#12

Post by jayp »

jnovek wrote: post #11

"The longest was 12 months at [Redacted], and that was only because I wanted my options to vest. I handed them my resignation on my 366th day." This made me livid. I don't hire engineers with the intention of firing them the day before they vest, why would it be ethical to wait until the day after your cliff to quit? [EDIT] Let me clarify. This individual seems to have decided months before that they would quit the d…

Cliff vesting is deferred compensation. Your concern about an ethical paradox is invalid.

Re: In Praise of Quitting Your Job, or The New Work Ethic.

#13

Post by moonpolysoft »

jnovek wrote: post #11

"The longest was 12 months at [Redacted], and that was only because I wanted my options to vest. I handed them my resignation on my 366th day." This made me livid. I don't hire engineers with the intention of firing them the day before they vest, why would it be ethical to wait until the day after your cliff to quit? [EDIT] Let me clarify. This individual seems to have decided months before that they would quit the d…

Your employment agreements set up the economic incentives for working at your company. If the agreement is 1 year cliff to vest and the employee took advantage of that why would you get mad? You got a years worth of work out of that person and in exchange that person got his/her stock. Sounds like a fair deal to me.

On the other hand, firing an engineer right before he/she vests is unethical because you are getting almost a years worth of work without having to pay out the stock. Also it is a pretty good way to get sued by said employee.

Re: In Praise of Quitting Your Job, or The New Work Ethic.

#14

Post by tocomment »

ahoyhere wrote: post #9

Yes. _Your muse can only be treated as the secretary of a subcommittee for so long before she decides to pack up and look for employment elsewhere. If you aren’t able to own the product and be creative, then you aren’t able to do your work, and if you’re not doing your work then you’re negating a very real part of your personality, which is no good for anyone. No good for you and certainly no good for your employer._…

What do you do now?

Re: In Praise of Quitting Your Job, or The New Work Ethic.

#15

Post by SMrF »

jnovek wrote: post #11

"The longest was 12 months at [Redacted], and that was only because I wanted my options to vest. I handed them my resignation on my 366th day." This made me livid. I don't hire engineers with the intention of firing them the day before they vest, why would it be ethical to wait until the day after your cliff to quit? [EDIT] Let me clarify. This individual seems to have decided months before that they would quit the d…

I don't think this is a very good comparison. Firing is different than quitting. I can come up with a scenario where someone leaves amicably one day after vesting, but I can't think of a nice, friendly parting where someone gets fired one day before their cliff.

Re: In Praise of Quitting Your Job, or The New Work Ethic.

#16

Post by pieratt »

jnovek wrote: post #11

"The longest was 12 months at [Redacted], and that was only because I wanted my options to vest. I handed them my resignation on my 366th day." This made me livid. I don't hire engineers with the intention of firing them the day before they vest, why would it be ethical to wait until the day after your cliff to quit? [EDIT] Let me clarify. This individual seems to have decided months before that they would quit the d…

An understandable response, but if I'm 3 months away from owning stock in a company that will surely go public, it would have been irresponsible of me to quit the job before the hours I'd put in had vested. Had the company not chosen to enact a cliff, I would have gladly walked away with what I'd had accrued up to that point.

Re: In Praise of Quitting Your Job, or The New Work Ethic.

#17

Post by [deleted] »

jnovek wrote: post #11

"The longest was 12 months at [Redacted], and that was only because I wanted my options to vest. I handed them my resignation on my 366th day." This made me livid. I don't hire engineers with the intention of firing them the day before they vest, why would it be ethical to wait until the day after your cliff to quit? [EDIT] Let me clarify. This individual seems to have decided months before that they would quit the d…

[deleted]

Re: In Praise of Quitting Your Job, or The New Work Ethic.

#18

Post by olefoo »

tocomment wrote: post #14
ahoyhere wrote: post #9

Yes. _Your muse can only be treated as the secretary of a subcommittee for so long before she decides to pack up and look for employment elsewhere. If you aren’t able to own the product and be creative, then you aren’t able to do your work, and if you’re not doing your work then you’re negating a very real part of your personality, which is no good for anyone. No good for you and certainly no good for your employer._…

What do you do now?

She's a wildly successful entrepreneur and UX person, she's probably spoken at more conferences than you've attended.

Re: In Praise of Quitting Your Job, or The New Work Ethic.

#19

Post by geebee »

jnovek wrote: post #11

"The longest was 12 months at [Redacted], and that was only because I wanted my options to vest. I handed them my resignation on my 366th day." This made me livid. I don't hire engineers with the intention of firing them the day before they vest, why would it be ethical to wait until the day after your cliff to quit? [EDIT] Let me clarify. This individual seems to have decided months before that they would quit the d…

It's very hard to comment without making some assumptions here, since we don't know the particulars...

But I don't see anything necessarily underhanded about quitting on day 366. He didn't take the job with the intent to quit at the 366th day. I don't know the whole picture, but let's assume he produced good work, slowly became disillusioned as the job turned out to be something other than what he reasonably believed it would be, and finally decided to leave. If some of your pay is in the form of deferred compensation (ie., for staying a year), and the writer continued to work honestly at the job (even if he was not highly motivated anymore) I don't see anything wrong with deliberately quitting on the 366th day (at my last startup was 25% vesting per year - in this case, this scenario is anticipated as part of the employee agreement).

Similarly, I'd see nothing wrong with you firing an employee prior to vesting if it turned out his performance was far lower than you reasonably expected it would be. The underhanded thing would be intending to do this when you hired him (then again, this seems like such a loser move... I know projects start and stop, but it seems like the startups that are going to make it have the opposite problem with talent - how to I keep this guy here now that he's vested?)

Re: In Praise of Quitting Your Job, or The New Work Ethic.

#20

Post by mmt »

Ownership not as a percentage of equity, but as a measure of your ability to change things for the better.

I found this succinct expression to be the most valuable (perhaps even the tldr summary).

A percentage of equity, as laughably small as it tends to be for non-founders, might not even serve as an alignment of financial interests.

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