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Miso pays disputed $10k referral bonus to ex-engineer, apologizes

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Re: Miso pays disputed $10k referral bonus to ex-engineer, apologizes

#81
post #3

Miso was 100% in the wrong. Small claims and labor board actions would have cost them far more than 10k.

10k isn't small claims in any jurisdiction I'm aware of.

How about $25k?

http://www.ag.gov.bc.ca/courts/small_claims/info/what_is.htm

Re: Miso pays disputed $10k referral bonus to ex-engineer, apologizes

#82
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me tell you my perspective, which may be interesting. The company Miso has good points about the reason for the program. In the original exchange the points were brought up. To me, the points were brought up one email too late. The moment the first response was Josh, let me talk to Tim. After you lost our data and caused our entire company to scramble for 3 days, I am hesitant , I saw this as. "Let me think of ho…

I don't know what the culture is like at Miso but I would take "After you lost our data and caused our entire company to scramble for 3 days, I am hesitant." as "How do I justify to the rest of the team paying you an exorbitant bonus for team building after you trashed a production system that cost the team 3 days of work, then quit." Not that this changes the fact that they should have paid.

I will just point out that in the present climate the bonus is NOT exorbitant where Miso is based, especially post-funding or after a few employees.

Exorbitant would be: equity; $50k; paid on when the referral joins (instead after 6 months); paid if the referral is brought in for an interview, regardless of hire. (would be VERY VERY exorbitant). This is just standard.

Re: Miso pays disputed $10k referral bonus to ex-engineer, apologizes

#83
This article has only reiterated my belief that any deals that you make with your employer/client should be in writing so that they will not try to weasel their way out of an agreement.

It got me thinking that for every developer who manages to get frontpage on HN about their employer's dishonesty, there are probably more out there who had been screwed the same way.

Re: Miso pays disputed $10k referral bonus to ex-engineer, apologizes

#84
Seriously, for all of us out there bootstrapping startups or working for companies struggling to raise funding, this all comes across as petty. $10k is a lot of money.

I'm glad Josh is donating the money to charity, but the onus was on him to claim the bonus while he was employed.

Re: Miso pays disputed $10k referral bonus to ex-engineer, apologizes

#85
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what the culture is like at Miso but I would take "After you lost our data and caused our entire company to scramble for 3 days, I am hesitant." as "How do I justify to the rest of the team paying you an exorbitant bonus for team building after you trashed a production system that cost the team 3 days of work, then quit." Not that this changes the fact that they should have paid.

I will just point out that in the present climate the bonus is NOT exorbitant where Miso is based, especially post-funding or after a few employees. Exorbitant would be: equity; $50k; paid on when the referral joins (instead after 6 months); paid if the referral is brought in for an interview, regardless of hire. (would be VERY VERY exorbitant). This is just standard.

I guess it is a different culture. In the teams I have experience with, people referred because they wanted to work with good people.

Re: Miso pays disputed $10k referral bonus to ex-engineer, apologizes

#86

Moving forward, we have established the following clear criteria to explain how employees will be eligible for the $10K referral bonus: - The employee must provide a referral for a full-time hire. - The referred employee must work at Miso for 6 full months after hire date (excluding any leaves of absence) - The referring employee must be employed at Miso and not have given notice to depart the company prior to the da…

The thing about contracts is that you can't just put any old unfair term in there, because both parties have the right to a fair contract, and a court can rule that particular terms are unfair. I wouldn't be surprised if there is some employment law which is being broken by that 3rd term already, because it allows the company to withhold the bonus for an arbitrary amount of time: they could avoid ever having to pay it by simply waiting until an employee gives notice, then saying "oh we can't pay that anymore" - no way is that a fair term. These guys are cowboys.

Re: Miso pays disputed $10k referral bonus to ex-engineer, apologizes

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The CEO of Miso is an unethical egotistical person who doesn't even have the self-awareness to admit to his knee-jerk abuse of power Unless you have information not available in the original post or reply, you're making that judgement off of a severely limited set of (largely one-sided) data.

If you read the email stream, the CEO wanted to withhold the referral bonus as a punitive measure for a work-related mistake. His subsequent "apology" in the comments tried to unring that bell, instead blaming an "unclear" referral policy for the "misunderstanding". The first act was unethical, the second was egotistical, and both judgements are based on the CEO's own choice of words, not Josh's.

"work related mistake"? If anything, the CTO should be blamed here... it's not hard to do a sql dump on the hour for backups.

Re: Miso pays disputed $10k referral bonus to ex-engineer, apologizes

#88
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will just point out that in the present climate the bonus is NOT exorbitant where Miso is based, especially post-funding or after a few employees. Exorbitant would be: equity; $50k; paid on when the referral joins (instead after 6 months); paid if the referral is brought in for an interview, regardless of hire. (would be VERY VERY exorbitant). This is just standard.

I guess it is a different culture. In the teams I have experience with, people referred because they wanted to work with good people.

It sounds like you're talking about companies where there wasn't a bonus of this kind and magitude. If so, yeah, different and not really comparable (maybe a token $500 or whatever). Otherwise I think if there's the bonus and people ask for it, obviously it does figure in motivating them to take proactive steps to bring someone on.

Re: Miso pays disputed $10k referral bonus to ex-engineer, apologizes

#89

Seriously, for all of us out there bootstrapping startups or working for companies struggling to raise funding, this all comes across as petty. $10k is a lot of money. I'm glad Josh is donating the money to charity, but the onus was on him to claim the bonus while he was employed.

Was it? They had a policy of paying $10k if you refer someone that sticks with the company for 6 months. It was a payment.

The onus is not on you to claim your wages is it? And if you forget you're not allowed them because "you should have told us!"?

Re: Miso pays disputed $10k referral bonus to ex-engineer, apologizes

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Joshua's rep broke even, or possibly slightly ahead. It shows that he's a passionate employee, and will go out of his way to make things right. In a work setting, he'll probably fix up that copy-pasta code instead of just leaving it there. Passionate employees always win over passive employees. Additionally, his name is so damn generic, it might as well be john lee. There might be 10 serial killers with his n…

I doubt that. What you perceive as passion, I perceived as whiny. Whiny as in how a 4 year old REALLY wants a toy when his parents won't buy it for him. Is a child throwing a tantrum passionate about that toy? Is that a good thing? Will this potential employee throw a fit when we don't use the libraries he wants? Probably not (like I would assume of most professionals), but this new found infamy would make me as a re…

I don't think this could have been handled privately without lawyers. It was clear that Miso did not want to hand over the $10k when asked nicely. This reminds me of the scalding coffee from McDonalds. The woman tried to handle the matter privately, and McDonalds would probably only had to pay a few thousand in medical bills had the fessed up early, but instead they took it to higher courts and got slapped in the face with a million dollar bill.

The only reason Miso paid up so quickly is that they're hoping the $10k will keep people from grabbing more pitchforks.

If you look at other examples of bad company PR, you'll see that companies tend to react fast when then smell a shit storm coming their way... it has nothing to do with poor communication.

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