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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

#161

Post by lurchpop »

JackC wrote: post #130
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.

I don't want to pick on you in particular, since it's something a lot of non-lawyers are confused about, but you might be interested to know that "he has no legal proof" isn't really accurate as a legal matter. Your assumption should be that any time you make a promise in exchange for a promise (or a promise in exchange for performance, like "if you refer someone we hire, we'll pay you $X"), you probably have an enfo…

I'm actually aware that the absence of a written contract doesn't necessarily negate his rights, especially in light of the fact that he had emails showing the arrangement. I was pointing out the CFO tried to use the lack of contract to fuck him out of the money.

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

#162

Post by peetahb »

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.

Miso is actually raising funding just fine.

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

#163

Post by JackC »

lurchpop wrote: post #161
JackC wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to pick on you in particular, since it's something a lot of non-lawyers are confused about, but you might be interested to know that "he has no legal proof" isn't really accurate as a legal matter. Your assumption should be that any time you make a promise in exchange for a promise (or a promise in exchange for performance, like "if you refer someone we hire, we'll pay you $X"), you probably have an enfo…

I'm actually aware that the absence of a written contract doesn't necessarily negate his rights, especially in light of the fact that he had emails showing the arrangement. I was pointing out the CFO tried to use the lack of contract to fuck him out of the money.

Oh, I get you. Yeah, that makes sense.

Just because the idea is kind of neat: It's possible you're getting jumped on by the lawyers here because "legal proof" itself is such a non-legal concept. There's such a thing as mathematical proof, for sure. There might be such a thing as scientific proof. But you could rarely point at something and say "that's legal proof." You could only say, "that turned out to be enough evidence to convince that particular jury." "Proof" is defined by the observer (jury, judge, etc.), not the object (contract, bloody knife, etc.).

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

#164

Post by temphn »

MattRogish wrote: post #139
ericb wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These kinds of fuckups rarely have only one person at fault Fat fingering an rm -rf or corrupting a DB, if you have good backup policies, should generally not cause End of Days.

Exactly. Accidentally deleting a database should be a minor concern in any well-run company. It'll be painful and annoying, but shouldn't cause "scrambling" for "3 days". The ire should be directed at management that allowed that condition to exist, not the person that fat-fingered something.

In this worldview "management" is expected to be superhuman, while the guy who actually makes the mistake is absolved of responsibility.

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

#165

Post by temphn »

michaelochurch wrote: post #111
its_so_on wrote: post #70

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 saw this as. "Let me think of how I can not pay you." It's a (thinly) veiled threat. Of course, it's irrelevant to what's being discussed, but it's a way of saying "I can embarrass you with this irrelevant issue if you press this" without actually saying it. Classic extortion tactic. Since Josh printed the exchange in full, they no longer have this on him. Still, I don't know if it's a smart move on his part. He co…

  He could have been poorly trained, or working 80 hours per 
  week-- at which point mistakes are inevitable-- or given 
  bad tools.
Or he might just be a really poor programmer. Why do people want to be highly paid software engineers without taking any personal responsibility for their work? If you are getting paid $10,000 referral bonuses, you should be training yourself and doing things that are above and beyond the call of duty, not punching a clock.

The phrase "poorly trained" puts the blame on someone else, rather than on the person who made the mistake. Anything to avoid responsibility.

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

#166

Post by mturmon »

jbooth wrote: post #137
ekianjo wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this is attributed to Lincoln, that kind of phrase does not play to his own advantage. (hint: read "The Real Lincoln" if you are interested).

Holy shit that book looks bad. From the inside cover: "DiLorenzo portrays the sixteenth president as a man who devoted his political career to revolutionizing the American form of government from one that was very limited in scope and highly decentralized?as the Founding Fathers intended?to a highly centralized, activist state. Standing in his way, however, was the South, with its independent states, its resistance t…

We are clearly getting way off track, but anyone who has entertained the (false) idea that the South seceded from the union because of some States Rights principle would benefit from reading the original secession proclamation from the state of South Carolina. The document is available online; here is one source:

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2010/12/the-south-has-risen.ht...

The first section in the linked page is a preface written on a state website, summarizing that the secession document was totally concerned with slavery. It is then followed by the document in its entirety so that you can see the truth for yourself.

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

#167

Post by kstenerud »

temphn wrote: post #164
MattRogish wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Accidentally deleting a database should be a minor concern in any well-run company. It'll be painful and annoying, but shouldn't cause "scrambling" for "3 days". The ire should be directed at management that allowed that condition to exist, not the person that fat-fingered something.

In this worldview "management" is expected to be superhuman, while the guy who actually makes the mistake is absolved of responsibility.

It's more of a question of demarcation of responsibilities, of which there are two:

1. Responsibility to have a backup.

2. Responsibility to not screw up live data.

When someone screws up on #2, it inconveniences the person responsible for #1 and potentially loses any data since the last backup. That is the limit of #2's responsibility in this.

If #1 hasn't done his job right, it will come out when someone eventually plays the part of #2 (mistakes happen). Once that happens, the damage from not having a backup is #1's responsibility, not #2's.

In this case, we do not have clear information about who was responsible for #1.

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

#168

Post by eric-hu »

bricestacey wrote: post #116
eric-hu wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I learned earlier this year is that tech recruiters get paid a flat fee for their services, plus a percentage of the recruitee's salary after some vesting period, usually 6 months. From what I heard, that percentage was between 15-25 percent. Consider that the average programmer's salary is above 60k. 15% of that is 9k, plus the flat fee. The company has already gotten roughly 10k out of this referral transactio…

I think your numbers might be conservative. 60k is a low intro-level salary for most metro areas and many recruiters wouldn't bother. Finding intro-level programmers is relatively easy so the burden of proof and stakes are high for the recruiter. It's a gamble and generally not worth his or her reputation.

I was indeed choosing a conservative number so there wouldn't be much of a counterargument about the 10k value aspect. My point was mainly that 10k for a 6 month vested tech hire is something other tech companies pay to non employees.

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

#169

Post by jongraehl »

> The 10k I'll be getting will be going to charity to celebrate the integrity, compassion and passion demonstrated by the community at large.

So much for "damaging his reputation" (assuming he follows through). This gesture paints him as shaming Miso on principle, rather than for wanting $10k.

The righteous indignation we feel when we're wronged, that makes us waste time trying to get the $20 rebate (or whatever) we should have received, is part of what holds society together. Punishing wrongdoers is almost always costly. Someone has to bear that cost.

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

#170

Post by jrockway »

ansible wrote: post #110
veemjeem wrote: post #48

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…

Both sides lost reputation to me when they put something into production without backups.

Programmer: I'm wary about putting this into production without backups.

Manager: But we really need to launch today. We'll get backups going next week, I promise.

Programmer: OK... gulp.

Ultimately, a startup involves taking a lot of calculated risks. Miso decided that the benefits from launching early outweighed the risks from losing data (physical media failures, fat finger, bugs, etc.). They were wrong. They gambled and lost. The successful companies we hear about are the ones that gambled and won.

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