41–50 of 212 posts
I don't understand what beer culture has to do with the majority of the post
n.b. It was time to leave, and the HR lady came to me and said I would have to sign a release letter and send it back within 2 work days (the following Monday was a holiday), otherwise I would not get any of the remaining pay I'm not familiar with the law in Canada, but I rather suspect that it's similar to America, so a bit of advice for the young and impressionable: virtually no threat to not pay an employee wages…
I was asked by a lacky to sign the 'I quit' paper, essentially resigning my benefits.
Lesson here: Do not sign anything without asking a lawyer about it or at least reading it in depth.
Having no experience with startups, I gotta say that I have some sympathy and it sounds horrible, however, what does this have to do with beer? I read the whole story and you had one friday night, after hours, with beer, and you didn't partake as you are a teetotaler. That's fine. I didn't see any other references to that fact, so I'm confused how it has anything to do with the story. It doesn't sound like they have…
n.b. It was time to leave, and the HR lady came to me and said I would have to sign a release letter and send it back within 2 work days (the following Monday was a holiday), otherwise I would not get any of the remaining pay I'm not familiar with the law in Canada, but I rather suspect that it's similar to America, so a bit of advice for the young and impressionable: virtually no threat to not pay an employee wages…
Oh, the employment law is a lot employee-friendlier in Canada than in the US. In particular, BC employment law (relevant to this post) is a lot friendlier than California employment law. And when you go to take them to court, the government will, under some circumstances, provide free legal services to the employee (you can look up the BC gov's Employment Standards Branch). That said, IIRC, even BC is pretty employer…
Based on the quotations around "stock options", the fact that the HR lady brought up the topic, not the author, and that the author adds "$0 (as expected)", it seems pretty clear that the author was not expecting, nor feeling entitled to any stock option compensation.
before he even got to the first "red flag" I started to see red flag patterns. a team that small with its own PM and copywriter, detached executives (plural, and again, with an overall team/copmany size that small, etc.) disadvantages to getting older, but one advantage is accumulating a set of observed good patterns and bad patterns you can start doing pattern matching against. there's a reason some companies specif…
I'm starting a new policy of not reading posts like this unless they say who the offending company is.
However, most of the time it'd make perfect sense for OP.
Wow. I'm a founder of a tech company, and the thought of checking someone's LinkedIn profile or old website to verify degree of commitment would never even occur to me. The fact that someone would not only think of it, but actually act on it is absolutely mind-boggling. I've seen new managers do silly things, but this is seriously new.
Serious question, or at least food for thought: How are you instilling that attitude in your company? How big would your company need to grow before misguided middle management might be appointed who _does_ think this is an appropriate management technique, resulting in this happening on your watch with you later described as a "detached executive"? Having stuff like this "never even occur to you" leaves you in the p…
The startup described by the OP is smaller than our company, and they already have this problem. If we were large enough to need middle management, I would be absolutely paranoid about hiring good people that understand management. There is a lot of culture around hiring good engineers and sneering at management, but it seems to me that hiring good managers is an order of magnitude more important. A bad engineering hire can be a very expensive mistake, but a bad management hire can be absolutely devastating. They can derail their own team, and a few other teams they interface with.
If I had a really insecure/misguided manager like that reporting to me, I cannot imagine not noticing. Here's one simple trick to do that -- have occasional one on ones with their reports. Most people won't necessarily say anything bad about their manager directly, but you can quickly gauge people's sensibility in what they don't say. It's like doing reference calls on hires. Few people will say "this guy wasn't good" but there is an enormous difference between references who say "this guy was ok" and "this guy was spectacular". You can sense it very quickly if you're looking out for it.
What are good questions to ask during an interview to avoid situations like these? How are other people weeding out employers like this one? This sounds like a bad situation that I'm sure we'd all like to avoid.
I've asked it so often and been in so many different teams I can more or less tell what the working environment and management will be like now.
Generally they aren't expecting this question so you catch them flat footed and get a clear unfiltered emotional response. The emotion on there faces betrays them. Every team has pain points, they have to answer the question with something negative, but its how they react with them that gives away a lot about the work place.
From a good teams you'll get a chuckle or story, which indicates to me a culture of understanding and dealing with things sensibly. Sometimes just a smile followed by a negative statement like "well releasing is problematic". But its that initial positive reaction.
From bad teams I've seen panicked looks between interviewers to make sure they don't divulge something, people turning white/clammy/sweaty, refusals to answer/insisting to move on/changing topics, silent stars at me LOL anything thats not openly a positive emotion.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh, the employment law is a lot employee-friendlier in Canada than in the US. In particular, BC employment law (relevant to this post) is a lot friendlier than California employment law. And when you go to take them to court, the government will, under some circumstances, provide free legal services to the employee (you can look up the BC gov's Employment Standards Branch). That said, IIRC, even BC is pretty employer…
It was time to leave, and the HR lady came to me and said I would have to sign a release letter and send it back within 2 work days (the following Monday was a holiday), otherwise I would not get any of the remaining pay, including my “stock options”. Apparently instead of full-time as stated in my offer letter, I was a “Contractor” and that the agreement was “terminated”. I guess that’s to protect them somehow. And…