I'm a former Miso engineer and the founders screwed me out of 10k • Hacker News Board

Re: I'm a former Miso engineer and the founders screwed me out of 10k

#201

Post by TheCapn » Thu, May 10, 2012, 10:19 PM UTC

unreal37 wrote: post #65

rb2k_ wrote: post #35

Honestly, the answers that the Miso founders gave seemed very professional and I think am a bit on their side in this one. If OP had asked for the bonus while still being at Miso, it seems like he would simply have gotten it. Seeing as a non-contractual bonus is an investment in the employee that the company does in addition to the usual compensation, and seeing as OP quit on his own and doesn't have a compensation a…

I tend to agree with @rb2k. There are payments you are entitled to by law (salary, vacation, personal expense reimbursement) and payments that companies do out of the goodness of their hearts (annual bonuses, lieu days, extra days off, referral bonuses). Don't quit under bad circumstances and expect to get money you're not by law entitled to. Should have gotten the money first.

You're only hitting half the points here.

1) Yes, a referral bonus is optional

2) It no longer becomes optional once you make the offer to your employees. At this point you have established intent; especially if it is provided in writing. You cannot take it back once the other party involved has upheld their end of the arrangement.

Re: I'm a former Miso engineer and the founders screwed me out of 10k

#202

Post by mikeash » Thu, May 10, 2012, 10:19 PM UTC

unreal37 wrote: post #65

rb2k_ wrote: post #35

Honestly, the answers that the Miso founders gave seemed very professional and I think am a bit on their side in this one. If OP had asked for the bonus while still being at Miso, it seems like he would simply have gotten it. Seeing as a non-contractual bonus is an investment in the employee that the company does in addition to the usual compensation, and seeing as OP quit on his own and doesn't have a compensation a…

I tend to agree with @rb2k. There are payments you are entitled to by law (salary, vacation, personal expense reimbursement) and payments that companies do out of the goodness of their hearts (annual bonuses, lieu days, extra days off, referral bonuses). Don't quit under bad circumstances and expect to get money you're not by law entitled to. Should have gotten the money first.

If you are explicitly promised annual bonuses, lieu days, extra days off, or referral bonuses, and then they decide not to give them to you, then you most definitely are entitled to them.

Just about everything in your first category is not an entitlement unless it's explicitly stated up front. If I get no promise of vacation days, then come back and demand them, I have no real standing. I can request them, but I'm not entitled to them.

Likewise, everything in your second category is an entitlement if it's stated up front. If they say, "We're giving you a $X bonus this year to anyone who does Y" and then they don't, they are completely in the wrong.

Re: I'm a former Miso engineer and the founders screwed me out of 10k

#203

Post by temphn » Thu, May 10, 2012, 10:20 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #190

temphn wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 This guy Joshua Z.H. Wu does not come out looking good in this blog post. He doesn't realize it, but he just lost a lot more than $10k in lifetime earnings too. Someone willing to nuke something that their friends/coworkers built in this fashion is just not someone you ever want to hire. You find this kind of crap on Google, and you just don't call him back or offer an interview. After all employers are human too,…

Asking for money you're owed never makes you a "douche". It doesn't take stones to ask for what you're owed just because you caused some problems. There is no link between the two! I'm astonished that anyone thinks there is. There's absolutely no leeway to say, "I don't like what you did recently, therefore I'm not going to pay you the money you're owed for something completely unrelated."

There sure is leeway: no signed contract. If he had left on good terms they would have paid the bonus, no question. He didn't and his fuckup cost them a lot more than $10k. At this point, dig in their heels.

He says an email is a contract? OK, well, two can play that game. I'd bet that on the bottom of several of those emails there was something about "this email is only addressed to the sender, it may not be reposted anywhere".

Looks like Joshua Z.H. Wu is now in material breach of "contract" too. I'm sure a clever lawyer could come up with some sort of nondisclosure or material defamation claim. He wants to go to the mattresses, let's go to the mattresses.

Again, no need if he's a good guy. He's a good guy, they're good guys. If he's a douche, they have no obligation to be good guys.

Re: I'm a former Miso engineer and the founders screwed me out of 10k

#204

Post by mikeash » Thu, May 10, 2012, 10:21 PM UTC

unreal37 wrote: post #69

SeanDav wrote: post #63

Notice that Miso is not actually denying that they pay the money: "However, we only pay bonuses to employees." They are being hard-nosed about paying someone that is not employed at the current time, even though he was eligible when he was employed. Fail for Miso.

To be fair, most companies in North America would not pay any sort of optional bonus after an employee has quit or been fired. If you quit Dec 31, and the company usually pays out annual bonuses on Jan 30, don't expect a check.

If you were promised an annual bonus, and it was due before Dec 31, you had bet your ass you should expect a check. At that point they owe you money. It doesn't matter that you later quit. I can't fathom how people think it does. Can you explain it?

Re: I'm a former Miso engineer and the founders screwed me out of 10k

#205

Post by mikeash » Thu, May 10, 2012, 10:23 PM UTC

lawrence wrote: post #37

You may want to consider putting the $10K towards a good cause (if Miso eventually steps up), to show it was never about the money. Thanks for sharing. Sounds like Miso may have made a business decision, and you are reminding them of the cost side of that equation.

Why wouldn't it be about the money? Getting paid for one's work is pretty freaking important. The sum in question is more than enough to actually care about.

Re: I'm a former Miso engineer and the founders screwed me out of 10k

#206

Post by mikeash » Thu, May 10, 2012, 10:25 PM UTC

temphn wrote: post #203

mikeash wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asking for money you're owed never makes you a "douche". It doesn't take stones to ask for what you're owed just because you caused some problems. There is no link between the two! I'm astonished that anyone thinks there is. There's absolutely no leeway to say, "I don't like what you did recently, therefore I'm not going to pay you the money you're owed for something completely unrelated."

There sure is leeway: no signed contract. If he had left on good terms they would have paid the bonus, no question. He didn't and his fuckup cost them a lot more than $10k. At this point, dig in their heels. He says an email is a contract? OK, well, two can play that game. I'd bet that on the bottom of several of those emails there was something about "this email is only addressed to the sender, it may not be reposte…

> He says an email is a contract? OK, well, two can play that game. I'd bet that on the bottom of several of those emails there was something about "this email is only addressed to the sender, it may not be reposted anywhere".

Doesn't work that way. The e-mail in question was a back-and-forth conversation in which both parties clearly agreed. Your hypothetical bottom-of-the-e-mail notice is not. It may well not be enforceable.

I don't understand why you say "He says" here, as if this is some sort of fruity off-the-wall legal theory. Contract law is pretty clear that any agreement that meets certain conditions is a contract, and this e-mail almost certainly meets them. In theory, a simple conversation where the guy said "We'll pay you $X for a referral" and the other guy responded "OK" is legally binding. In practice, it would be hard to prove that it happened. It's really easy to prove that the e-mail happened, though. Did they promise him a referral bonus? Bam, done, legally binding contract.

But let's say it is enforceable. What of it? The company would have to show damages if they wanted to sue over it. What damages are they going to show, exactly? That their illegal refusal to pay their former employee got exposed? Good luck getting a judge to go along with that.

Re: I'm a former Miso engineer and the founders screwed me out of 10k

#207

Post by nknight » Thu, May 10, 2012, 10:28 PM UTC

thaumaturgy wrote: post #199

MartinCron wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How excited are you to give it to him? The scenario implies that the impact of the production db nuke was equal or greater than the bonus. Depending on the context, the impact could range from trivial to catastrophic. The fact that it wasn't backed up only makes it worse. Sometimes I joke that correctly working yet poorly-written code is "conceptually broken". Similarly, any important data that isn't backed up is alr…

Sure, but it doesn't take a development team two to three days to recover "conceptually lost" data (as according to the post). If you're about to touch the production database in a way that could potentially end catastrophically, and there aren't backups, you really should stop and consider the meaning of life before proceeding. Preferably, you decide that backups are the meaning of life, and even if it's an imperfec…

> It's a rookie mistake.

It's a mistake I've seen people with 20 years of experience make. If you haven't done it already, you will eventually. When that day comes, I hope, but don't expect, you'll remember to apologize to this guy.

> For a community that seems to pride itself on being the best of the bunch at this stuff

How you get from "Hacker News" to "infallible operations engineers" is beyond me. Operations is a rare skill to begin with, and even those who are best at it will make these mistakes.

Re: I'm a former Miso engineer and the founders screwed me out of 10k

#208

Post by planetguy » Thu, May 10, 2012, 10:29 PM UTC

altxwally wrote: post #126

nostromo wrote: post #60

Taking this "public" seems like a lose-lose. Miso doesn't come off super awesome obviously, but as a disgruntled employee, you're not setting yourself up for success either. For example, should some future employer decide to Google your name before making an offer, they're likely to come up with an old spat between you and your employer. Even if you're in the right, it will make them think twice about hiring you. Thi…

Otherwise what you are saying is to be afraid of the status quo because they have many ways of monitoring your past so you should behave, isn't it? If your 'future employer' gets biased by this kind of stuff then it would make sense to reconsider applying for work there, and whether it is really worth it to keep on supporting such kinds of disciplinary systems. What he is claiming sounds reasonable, and there should…

If your 'future employer' gets biased by this kind of stuff then it would make sense to reconsider applying for work there, and whether it is really worth it to keep on supporting such kinds of disciplinary systems

I would have second thoughts about hiring this guy, not just because he took his dispute with an earlier employer public, but also because he apparently blew up a production server and screwed everything up for several days.

Right now these are the exactly two things I know about this dude, and put together they don't give a strong first impression.

Re: I'm a former Miso engineer and the founders screwed me out of 10k

#209

Post by davidu » Thu, May 10, 2012, 10:31 PM UTC

pbiggar wrote: post #154

davidu wrote: post #86

"Because you are no longer employed by Miso, you are not eligible for this bonus." I must say, I completely agree. This is how it works. Your referral bonus is a perk, and nothing more. You didn't claim it. They weren't on top of it. You both failed here. But then you quit. And you left without it. That sucks for you, but they owe you nothing.

> "Your referral bonus is a perk" It seems your argument centers on this point, which is conjecture on your part, at best. Can you explain how you came to this conclusion?

At my company, it's a perk. And I love paying it out. And my loyalty is to my employees. I would bleed for them. But it's not to my former employees. As I approach 100 employees, many who have been with me for 4+ years, I find my stance to be entirely in their favor.

Re: I'm a former Miso engineer and the founders screwed me out of 10k

#210

Post by davidu » Thu, May 10, 2012, 10:31 PM UTC

pbiggar wrote: post #154

davidu wrote: post #86

"Because you are no longer employed by Miso, you are not eligible for this bonus." I must say, I completely agree. This is how it works. Your referral bonus is a perk, and nothing more. You didn't claim it. They weren't on top of it. You both failed here. But then you quit. And you left without it. That sucks for you, but they owe you nothing.

> "Your referral bonus is a perk" It seems your argument centers on this point, which is conjecture on your part, at best. Can you explain how you came to this conclusion?

At my company, it's a perk. And I love paying it out. And my loyalty is to my employees. I would bleed for them. But it's not to my former employees. As I approach 100 employees, many who have been with me for 4+ years, I find my stance to be entirely in their favor.