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Why I Was Fired From a Tech Startup and What My Boss Had to Say About It

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Re: Why I Was Fired From a Tech Startup and What My Boss Had to Say About It

#131

Post by robomartin »

tehwebguy wrote: post #108
robomartin wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facts matter not when the Labor Department gets involved. I walked in with a legally-binding contract done by my attorney and singed by the guy I fired. He was required to sell a certain dollar amount in 90 days. He sold exactly zero. Zero. The Labor Department mediator made me pay him several thousand dollars in ADVANCE COMMISSION I withheld at the time of firing. In reality, per the agreement, he owed ME several th…

What is advance commission? Was he paid a base?

It's an amount of money paid above a base pay. This amount represents future commissions not yet earned by the sales person. This is done in order to provide a more stable paycheck during the initial "on-boarding" process as well as during lean times.

Frankly, I never understood why sales professionals don't just work for a good wage and that's it. The very engineers who build the products earn a decent wage, work long hours, are continuously studying and sharpening their skills and devoted years of schooling to even be able to get the job.

In my early exposure to sale folk I recoiled at the idea of paying someone commission because I felt that if one person got commissions then everyone involved in bringing the product to market was just as entitled to them. Of course, the problem is far more complicated than that and I quickly learned you simply could not hire a good sales person unless they saw some kind of pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. That's just the way that side of the universe has devolved and that's it.

One approach I have never tried is to have everyone on stock options. Pay the sales folks a good salary, not some crapy $30K/y base + commissions. The theory being that they are going to want to work just as hard to get the company to a level where their stock will make them a bundle of money. A lot of folks in sales are very mercenary in nature and end-up living from battle to battle, commission to commission. This sets-up a situation where it might actually be difficult to convince them to use a forward looking approach and forgo the usual deal in favor of stocks at some time in the future.

My experience got me to the point where I determined it was a far better idea to identify someone with no sales experience and bring him/her up into sales from within the company. No bad habits, better connection to the business, actually thankful for bringing them up to a level where they could earn real money and a whole host of other benefits. Once I tried that approach and had good results I never hired another sales person from the "real world" again.

Live and learn.

Re: Why I Was Fired From a Tech Startup and What My Boss Had to Say About It

#132

Post by VexXtreme »

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #77
FDpod wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi there. I'm the author of the piece (my friend just emailed me to tell me I'm on here - which is all sorts of cool and weird). I didn't run the Full Disclosure site at the time but I was doing standup comedy, which certainly could've been one of the reasons. Comedians have to have a web presence, so if you were to google my name, videos of me doing standup may have appeared. But to tell someone not to pursue their…

Sorry for what happened to you, but in reality what you do off the clock does indeed matter. Companies have an image to maintain, not least startups which are trying to woo more venture capital, and you can bet that the VC's staff will be researching each and every employee. And if it's not VC, it's a potential purchaser or a broker that's going to take you public. It sounds like your CEO was probably a jerk, but in…

> Maybe you should be up front with your next employer about your stand-up stuff and see how they respond.

What someone does off the clock with their own time, unless they're a public figure representing their company 24/7 (such as various high profile CEOs) should have no bearing on how they're perceived either by their employer or clients.

As long as you are performing your work duties efficiently and doing your job, you are holding up your end of the bargain and that should be the end of it. If your employment contract doesn't stipulate that you are not allowed to engage into certain activities outside your working hours, then you can do as you please and your employer has opened themselves up for a gigantic lawsuit by pulling these kinds of shenanings.

I for one would sue the hell out of you if you fired me based on what I do on my own time, if you can't prove that I was underperforming or damaging the company in any way.

Re: Why I Was Fired From a Tech Startup and What My Boss Had to Say About It

#133

Post by perlgeek »

cjensen wrote: post #78
AliEzer wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So in the US you don't have to give explanations? Damn that sucks for the ex-employee. In France you have to write a report in order to fire someone unless they're in their trial period.

Which is why people HATE to hire in France: it's so hard to undo a bad hiring decision that no one will take a chance on a candidate who only "might" work out. The right solution, in my opinion, is allow fire-at-will like we do in California, and have thorough unemployment benefits so that it's not worth making a fuss over.

But that's what the trial period for, isn't it? If you can't figure out in 6 months (typical trial period in Germany) if he's a good fit, you have a problem anyway.

Re: Why I Was Fired From a Tech Startup and What My Boss Had to Say About It

#134

Post by krainboltgreene »

jusben1369 wrote: post #4

I'm impressed his former boss sent him a note to state that he felt really bad about the way things happened. It would be nice if he'd done more initially but it still takes a lot of character to write that note and apologize vs just blow it off or chalk it up to the past.

I disagree. There was nothing to lose by sending this and everything to gain. There was no character required to write an apology when you're no longer near the situation.

I suspect he's just trying to rebuild burned bridges for better networking in SF (he just moved there).

Re: Why I Was Fired From a Tech Startup and What My Boss Had to Say About It

#135

Post by perlgeek »

vinceguidry wrote: post #95
mratzloff wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It hasn't yet that you are aware of . I would immediately pass on your resume without a second glance. Four jobs in less than six months very strongly signals a number of negative things to prospective employers. Perhaps the only companies willing to hire you now are those with high developer turnover who just need a warm body to fill the last vacated seat? And perhaps you are perpetuating that?

Hmm. The 3 jobs I've gone through were all very different. One was a very small software development company, they decided after three weeks that they wanted someone with a lot more experience. I went from there to a huge corporation, where I was unhappy so I found another job. This one I'm at now is a largish "small business", like 300 employees. I'd be confident in my ability to find another should these guys sudde…

Fwiw I wouldn't even list an employment of three weeks on my CV.

Re: Why I Was Fired From a Tech Startup and What My Boss Had to Say About It

#136

Post by acuozzo »

askance wrote: post #121
FDpod wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't worth getting into within the post, but there were strong suggestions that the CEO may have listened to a podcast of mine where I talk about having been an escort, and many people think I come off as gay. "What your look may convey to clients" really wasn't my favorite thing to hear. http://www.fdpod.com/podcasts/episode-19-coming-out-vince-ma...

You didn't once mention the fact that you're wildly open about your personal life on the internet: http://brokeassstuart.com/blog/2013/01/30/cheap-dates-super-... I don't know about your employer, but I would certainly think twice about keeping an employee who clearly doesn't realize the effect that this brand of open honesty has on people outside of SF kink circles. They didn't can you because you were an escort; th…

Please take your puritanical sensibilities elsewhere and be sure to say "Sayonara!" to the First Amendment on the way out. kthxbye

Re: Why I Was Fired From a Tech Startup and What My Boss Had to Say About It

#137

Post by csh1234 »

acuozzo wrote: post #136
askance wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You didn't once mention the fact that you're wildly open about your personal life on the internet: http://brokeassstuart.com/blog/2013/01/30/cheap-dates-super-... I don't know about your employer, but I would certainly think twice about keeping an employee who clearly doesn't realize the effect that this brand of open honesty has on people outside of SF kink circles. They didn't can you because you were an escort; th…

Please take your puritanical sensibilities elsewhere and be sure to say "Sayonara!" to the First Amendment on the way out. kthxbye

The first amendment has nothing to do with this. That governs the relationship between the government and "the people" and until incorporation via the 14th amendment it didn't even apply to states and their citizens. It has nothing to do with the employer / employee relationship. Secondly I didn't see anything wildly puritanical about the statement. A lot of people aren't comfortable with that type of content and that fact could have affected the CEO's decision to fire the OP; because he didn't feel comfortable presenting the OP as the face of the company, which as the sales guy he was.

Re: Why I Was Fired From a Tech Startup and What My Boss Had to Say About It

#138

Post by wdr1 »

cjensen wrote: post #26

His boss fired him and told him why? Never do that. When firing someone in an at-will state, just do it and explain nothing. Explanations can easily lead to lawsuits. It's just not worth the risk.

> Never do that. When firing someone in an at-will state, just do it and explain nothing. Explanations can easily lead to lawsuits. It's just not worth the risk.

Explain nothing? It may not be worth the risk, but it's a pretty shitty thing to do to another human being.

Re: Why I Was Fired From a Tech Startup and What My Boss Had to Say About It

#139

Post by bobbles »

nilkn wrote: post #128
bobbles wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO CVs should be 3 pages. 1) Cover letter. Explain why you want the job and why you're a good person for that job. 2) Contact Details & Education. Most relevant and recent should be top of the list. 3) Previous Work experience. List only relevant skills from each position. Less is more. If they want more detail they will ask for it in the interview.

How does (2) fill an entire page outside of someone applying for an academic post who has to list all the conferences they've been to, etc.?

All mine has is name / address, etc followed by course studied and the relevant topics studied during that course.

It's not a 300 word page filled with text.

Leaving space is also a good way for people to take notes on the CV (I've found that during my interviews the interviewer often used the CV like a checklist for asking their questions on my experience)

Re: Why I Was Fired From a Tech Startup and What My Boss Had to Say About It

#140

Post by lostlogin »

md224 wrote: post #40
cjensen wrote: post #26

His boss fired him and told him why? Never do that. When firing someone in an at-will state, just do it and explain nothing. Explanations can easily lead to lawsuits. It's just not worth the risk.

Unrelated to the validity of this advice: it's kind of sad that our society has evolved legal structures that make it prohibitively risky to tell another human being why you're taking an action against them. Hmm... what if you could have an employee sign a release as a precondition of being told why they were fired?

Not all societies do this. New Zealand seems to be headed to a blame based system, but our healthcare system, while far from perfect has a fairly good part called the accident compensation corporation. It's no fault, pays out for accidents, prevents lawsuits and helps get to the bottom of issues constructively, without a defensive mask. It has had rough times of late unfortunately.
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