Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Machine Fired Me

idiallo.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 578 posts

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#101

Post by def8cefe »

useful wrote: post #74

I've had this happen, myself and an employee who I had signed the termination paperwork for shared the same first name and someone put my name in instead of his. It was hell for at least a month as different automated systems kicked in and disabled my accounts, benefits, and payments. Worse, the first notification email happened while I was presenting to the CEO and the HR contact in the meeting had noticed half way…

> No one was able to stop the machine because no one really knew all the different processes or they weren't built to stop midway.

This is (in my opinion) one of the reasons why everyone talking about getting rid of dedicated IT ops in their organizations is making a mistake. You can have devs building integrations and automation all day, but you still need sysadmins who can see the whole picture and override them when necessary. Having an outsourced (or even internal) hell desk that goes off a script doesn't take care of situations like this either.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#102

Post by crooked-v »

g051051 wrote: post #93

Remarkably similar to the 1981 Timothy Zahn story "Job Inaction".

Now I want to see a story that takes the "lost in the company" myth to farcical extremes, with an entire legion of stormtroopers having to fend for themselves in a remote corner of a Superduper Star Destroyer.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#103

Post by jergason »

rhacker wrote: post #96

It makes sense that the HR IT industry would have some of the worst software developers. It seems obvious to me at least that you can't rely on first name + last name to make a match, and if you do, you have to write code that fails if there are multiple users with such a combination, as well as falling back on soundex or double or triple metaphone as well as nickname support. Second, the screens involved in terminat…

Why would HR IT have worse software developers than other industries?

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#104

Post by _lqaf »

jiaweihli wrote: post #52
terlisimo wrote: post #18

I had a sort-of related experience with PayPal where the machine said "No." I've been using it for at least 10 years at that point. What I did was try to pay for some cheap VPS hosting in Italy. The transaction was denied. I thought there was some problem with my CC, so I immediately tried to do a $1 transaction with some other company and it went without a hitch. So I contacted PayPal support about it and the next d…

I've heard nothing but bad things about PayPal and how they often hold your own money hostage. Why don't people switch to alternatives? Are there no good ones?

The reason sellers don't go elsewhere is that buyers really like it, because it gives buyers a lot of power.

I've had them be annoying to me before. My favorite PP fact I found out the hard way: never put the string 'aleph' in the note field. Apparently that's flagged as a Terror-Word(tm), and it held up a transaction of mine for over a month.

I still use them, but only under modified-casino rules: never play with money you can't lose. Have a separate bank account just for them, so they can't get up to shenanigans with more than you intend; never depend on them for anything time sensitive; and never send money anyone depends on for anything important.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#105

Post by paulddraper »

drewg123 wrote: post #20
sigfubar wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What made you think that you were entitled to something that you were supposed to receive on a date which was later than the date on which you resigned?

I resigned effective the 2nd of a month, and the promo was effective the 1st of the month. See above "resignation (slated to be effective after the promo)". So the resignation was scheduled for the day after the promo. I actually stayed an extra week to receive the promo.

Your story is inconsistent?

> I resigned just after I had gotten a promotion, but before the date when the promo was effective

If I get sick before my insurance is effective...I don't get my coverage.

If I resign before my raise is effective...I don't get my raise.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#106

Post by astura »

isostatic wrote: post #55
rectang wrote: post #45

> I missed 3 weeks of pay because no one could stop the machine. Why has this company not made their loyal worker whole? He stayed there when they needed him even when their system was trying to lock him out. They need to fix this. If they don't, they are not a company anyone should work for. Perhaps the worker did not want to risk making a big stink, but a manager should have taken the initiative. Humans were involv…

Surely a 3 year contract means the company is in breach of it by not paying you?

Their account got cancelled because the contract did not get renewed. Sounds like the company fulfilled the terms of the original contract, just (accidentally) didn't renew it. Many long term contracts require periodic renewals and/or options.

>Some of that work included renewing my contract in the new system... When my contract expired, the machine took over and fired me.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#107

Post by dpark »

crooked-v wrote: post #54
terlisimo wrote: post #18

I had a sort-of related experience with PayPal where the machine said "No." I've been using it for at least 10 years at that point. What I did was try to pay for some cheap VPS hosting in Italy. The transaction was denied. I thought there was some problem with my CC, so I immediately tried to do a $1 transaction with some other company and it went without a hitch. So I contacted PayPal support about it and the next d…

> and for security reasons we're unable to offer further details To give a little behind-the-scenes here, I worked for a bit for a web hosting company that had this as standard policy. This was because, before it was put in place, scammers would actually use coordinated campaigns of support calls with otherwise legitimate accounts in order to extract piecemeal details about how the company's fraud investigations work…

That part makes total sense. It doesn’t make sense that a human could not override.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#108

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

pbh101 wrote: post #85
sonnyblarney wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Financial fraud prevention gambits are complicated. It may be possible that PP thought someone else was using your account. What should happen in these scenarios is simply a validation of some kind ie payment only goes through if you click on the email your received. I used to travel to SF from Canada a lot and my bank would block my Visa even though I told them not to. In the US there's no password in Visas, i.e. no…

The US largely migrated to chip and signature in 2015. I think a large majority of credit card uses today are chip in the US because the issuers quickly sent out chip cards, most terminals got updated to use them, and swipe is rejected often if chip is available. To be clear, this is chip (and sometimes signature for large purchases) but not chip-and-pin, so the original statement of no passwords generally holds true…

There are still idiot retailers that won't support the chip for debit transactions. Or even stupider, some let you choose between credit or a debit after inserting to the chip reader and reject you for choosing debit.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#109

Post by girvo »

joering2 wrote: post #89
pbh101 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US largely migrated to chip and signature in 2015. I think a large majority of credit card uses today are chip in the US because the issuers quickly sent out chip cards, most terminals got updated to use them, and swipe is rejected often if chip is available. To be clear, this is chip (and sometimes signature for large purchases) but not chip-and-pin, so the original statement of no passwords generally holds true…

Put your chip card quickly in and out three times, next the machine will tell you to “swipe your card”.

This even works in chip-and-pin systems, at least here in Australia. Makes me sad, I don't really understand why falling back to what we're trying to replace is considered a good idea :(

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#110

Post by crooked-v »

dpark wrote: post #107
crooked-v wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and for security reasons we're unable to offer further details To give a little behind-the-scenes here, I worked for a bit for a web hosting company that had this as standard policy. This was because, before it was put in place, scammers would actually use coordinated campaigns of support calls with otherwise legitimate accounts in order to extract piecemeal details about how the company's fraud investigations work…

That part makes total sense. It doesn’t make sense that a human could not override.

At my company, there was a specially-trained fraud department that could handle cases like that, with specially arranged hoop-jumping to prevent social engineering for information. I would expect that Paypal has something similar, but maybe the phone drone in that case was too untrained or unmotivated to transfer things to them.
Post reply on HN