Miso pays disputed $10k referral bonus to ex-engineer, apologizes • Hacker News Board

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

#141

Post by crdoconnor » Fri, May 11, 2012, 3:15 PM UTC

michaelochurch wrote: post #109

ww520 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the developer paid with his reputation. He actually gains reputation as someone who would stand up to injustice and unethical behavior. Of course unethical employers would hesitate to trust him but do you want to work for unethical employers?

He actually gains reputation as someone who would stand up to injustice and unethical behavior. I wish you were right, but you're not. For all the press about the "war for talent", there's never a good time to be a whistle-blower. Sometimes it is worth doing, because these kinds of stories are extremely common (read: there are a lot of bubble startups with shitty, unethical management) right now, but it's generally a…

You're saying that he shouldn't have exposed his company's knee jerk bad behavior because there might be other companies out there who exhibit similar knee jerk poor judgement.

In a competitive market (which sort of exists in tech), those companies that exhibit bad judgement fail. You're really doing yourself a favor by not getting hired by them.

Frankly, I think any company that would behave as you describe would probably do this same shit all over again.

I'm not sure if this guy is a decent hire or not (possibly not), but my decision to hire him wouldn't be based upon this episode, it would be based upon whatever I could figure out about his abilities.

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

#142

Post by crdoconnor » Fri, May 11, 2012, 3:19 PM UTC

rdl wrote: post #7

spitfire wrote: post #6

Utter crap. Rewriting history after you get called out is just pathetic. They owed him money and either through mistake or malice didn't pay him. When he contacted them to correct it they tried to legalize their way out of it. If I wouldn't have anything to do with them before, I'm doubly unimpressed now.

They paid him. They admitted they were wrong and apologized. They clarified their policy so people won't dispute it in the future. I'm not sure exactly what more you'd expect them to do. I'm sure they wish they'd handled this differently, but once he posted it, they seem to have handled things reasonably well. Plus, of course, you've only seen one side of the story. Even if the company has other facts, they can't pre…

>I'm not sure exactly what more you'd expect them to do.

There's not a lot more that they can do. They've advertised themselves as a company that willingly screws their employees and goes back on their word.

Whatever the details of the case, anybody who is thinking of joining their team will now think "they might do something like this to me".

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

#143

Post by ericd » Fri, May 11, 2012, 3:25 PM UTC

nknight wrote: post #40

weixiyen wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps he is trying to suggest that Joshua gave notice before his 6 months were up, therefore shift the blame back to the ex-employee. Or maybe I'm reading too much into it.

That's exactly what he's trying to do. This isn't an apology or an admission of any wrongdoing, it's an obvious attempt to reshape perception of their original actions by pretending their motives were different than they really were. Motives that were utterly self-evident from their very first reply: > After you lost our data and caused our entire company to scramble for 3 days, I am hesitant. Everything since then h…

If he cost the company 10k in lost engineering time with his mistake, it's only natural that they'd feel hesitant, even if they legally owe him.

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

#144

Post by dkroy » Fri, May 11, 2012, 3:31 PM UTC

alecco wrote: post #117

ahelwer wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Josh made a comment under the other story stating he would donate any money he gets to charity.

It's sad he is forced to give it away to save face.

Yeah, I agree. He is a bigger man than me though. I don't think I would have done the same in his situation.

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

#145

Post by djhomeless » Fri, May 11, 2012, 3:32 PM UTC

citricsquid wrote: post #89

djhomeless wrote: post #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.

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!"?

No, it's a bonus, which has to be applied for. I take it from the CEO's comments that they were not clear about the T&C's, but my point was that for all of us working for under-funded companies or projects, it takes a lot of nerve to cry foul/name and shame, over a mutual mistake.

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

#146

Post by dangrossman » Fri, May 11, 2012, 3:42 PM UTC

jrs235 wrote: post #128

lurchpop wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing that stood out for me is the part where they said, "You and Miso never signed a contract that mentions bonuses", which means he has no "legal proof" a bonus was even offered in the first place.

In many jurisdictions VERBAL agreements can be considered contracts and legally binding. Often people don't sue over verbal contracts is because the burden of proof that one existed/exists is very difficult. The mere fact he has the email exchange which took place between them afterwards is probably enough evidence to show in court that a [contractual] agreement existed. Miso was dumb to ever respond. They would have…

> Often people don't sue over verbal contracts is because the burden of proof that one existed/exists is very difficult

That, and because verbal contracts are not enforceable for all transactions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_frauds

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

#147

Post by loumf » Fri, May 11, 2012, 3:50 PM UTC

dlokshin wrote: post #11

I'm not sure that the 10k was worth it for J Wu. Employers Google potential employees, and this blog post will definitely show up. Even though I feel he's in the right this type of public shaming would make me think twice about hiring him. Just doesn't seem like it's worth the hassle even though I don't plan on doing anything terrible to my employees (criminal in this case!) To be clear, I feel that Miso is in the wr…

I would pay 10k to have future unethical employers filter themselves out (even if it filters out some ethical ones too).

I might not have handled this exactly like J, but I certainly wouldn't think twice about hiring him because of this.

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

#148

Post by vijayr » Fri, May 11, 2012, 3:50 PM UTC

jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #23

rdl wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They paid him. They admitted they were wrong and apologized. They clarified their policy so people won't dispute it in the future. I'm not sure exactly what more you'd expect them to do. I'm sure they wish they'd handled this differently, but once he posted it, they seem to have handled things reasonably well. Plus, of course, you've only seen one side of the story. Even if the company has other facts, they can't pre…

When they thought they had all the power, they saw no reason to pay him. Once it was clear that the power wasn't imbalanced, they went for damage control. That reads pretty transparently to anyone who's been around the block a few times. The loudest expression of your morals is what you do when you have all the power. If you act poorly, later rationalizations do little to convince anyone otherwise.

True. But at this point, what exactly does anyone expect them to do? They screwed up, got caught, apologized and finally, paid him. It is very much possible that they wouldn't have paid him, if he didn't go public. It is also possible, that companies in similar positions will behave the same way in future (abusing power, until they get caught). There is probably nothing that can be done at this point, except move on.

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

#149

Post by jackfoxy » Fri, May 11, 2012, 3:51 PM UTC

First, congratulations to Josh (who I do not know).

Second, Josh: you took a Hell of a gamble (speaking as someone with practical experience on the hiring side). From now on you will have to find some subtle way to include the entire history of this situation in future job application processes. A hiring manager stumbling upon only the first part of this episode will likely not give you the opportunity to explain the whole story.

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

#150

Post by mgkimsal » Fri, May 11, 2012, 4:05 PM UTC

gaius wrote: post #140

mgkimsal wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we don't know the size of the db involved. multi-gig dbs dumping every hour may be production-limiting.

Well, I've worked on a 50T DB doing 800G of changes per hour, which was recoverable to any point in time. That's not even particularly big by today's standards.

and you dumped the entire 50terabytes every hour? The point above was that they should have been doing a db dump. that's not always the best way (or even possible) to deal with large data sets.