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

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

#171

Post by michaelochurch » Sat, May 12, 2012, 12:01 PM UTC

temphn wrote: post #165

michaelochurch wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cal…

Of course, most of us have no way of knowing whether OP is a good programmer or not.

If a programmer is consistently making mistakes that cost other programmers time and energy, and either incapable or (worse yet) unwilling when it comes to improvement, then he's a bad programmer and should be fired. No company can tolerate dividers.

It doesn't sound like this is what happened to the OP. It sounds like this was an occasional mistake. They happen.

If a run-of-the-mill junior programmer mistake is an existential threat to the company, that's management's fault. Either (a) it was too early to hire someone that junior, or (b) the infrastructure was poorly designed.

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

#172

Post by ansible » Sun, May 13, 2012, 8:03 AM UTC

jrockway wrote: post #170

ansible wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 gamb…

I've worn a sysadmin hat for many years. You're not supposed to gamble, or take risks of any kind. You are supposed to make sure. To make absolutely sure.

The successful companies we hear about did not gamble, in my view.

There are plenty of ways we ought to take risks in business, but basic IT practice is not one of them.

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

#173

Post by MattRogish » Mon, May 14, 2012, 6:08 PM UTC

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.

Speaking as a manager - no, not superhuman (I'll restate to be it's a management/organization problem - not an individual problem).

It is my job to make sure we have a well-run software engineering product team. Ensuring that backups run and are tested is one small part of my job. Not doing the backups, sure, but making sure the team has taken care of it.

Mistakes happen and folks shouldn't be punished for that.

Remember that disks are fallible - human error needn't be involved to require recovery from backups.

Regardless of the root cause of data corruption, requiring three days to recover is completely a management/organization problem.

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

#174

Post by ekianjo » Tue, May 15, 2012, 2:12 AM UTC

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…

Well, there's no better way to find out if this book makes sense than just reading it. I think you can take it with a pinch of salt, nonetheless it makes some valid points about how Lincoln treated power. The new edition answers to the criticism that was made against it.

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

#175

Post by rmc » Fri, May 18, 2012, 3:08 PM UTC

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.

the CFO tried to use the lack of contract

He did have a contract. It just wasn't written and signed. It's still a contract. The CFO is misleadingly implying that because it was not signed, there was no contract.

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

#176

Post by rmc » Fri, May 18, 2012, 3:10 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…

They would have been better to pretend they never saw or heard from the gentleman again

That's hard.

It's easy to pretend you didn't get an email. But what if you send via registered post a letter, or a courier? What do you do if the employee has a signed form saying you received the letter? Blatantly ignoring the good faith attempts to resolve this matter before courts are involved might harm your case.