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Ask HN: I was hired and unhired in 2 weeks, for no reason

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Re: Ask HN: I was hired and unhired in 2 weeks, for no reason

#261

Post by andrea_s »

justguessingbut wrote: post #227
jowiar wrote: post #26

> I like the founders - they are good guys. No. They're not. You don't get to screw around with other people's lives and continue to possess the title of "good guy". If they were good guys, you would be receiving tens of thousands of dollars for your difficulties, and such would have enough of a runway on that such that you wouldn't need to ask us for advice. Please do us all a favor and let us know who they are beyo…

I think the YC startup is almost certainly SketchDeck. It's not too difficult to find the OP's real life identity based on his past work. From that, the information on http://angel.co/ pretty much gives it away.

I had never heard of SketchDeck - I don't want to derail, but I'm genuinely interested in understanding their business model.

Specifically, it looks like a linearly scalable enterprise (consulting-like: they provide custom design on demand).

How is this appealing for an investor? I'm not deeply involved in the mechanics of looking for funding, but I thought investors kind of shunned consulting startups.

Re: Ask HN: I was hired and unhired in 2 weeks, for no reason

#262

Post by geoelectric »

Alupis wrote: post #201
sheetjs wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Please do us all a favor and let us know who they are beyond "a YC startup" so that none of us find ourselves in your shoes. Two other reasons for considering revealing the name: 1) a casual bystander might see this and conclude that all YC companies behave in this way, which hurts the other companies. 2) PG and other partners at YC read HN, and there's a good chance that action can be taken if they know who is inv…

I assume you are in California. California has At-Will employment -- so they can hire and fire you for any reason whenever they want. "You weren't a good fit", "You didn't think Big enough", "You didn't produce enough", etc etc etc. Coming on here and ranting and trying to bring some action against the startup is not a good way to handle this. You feel wronged -- I'm sure the founders feel it was a good business deci…

CA's at-will is a little more complex than that, due to the implied good faith covenant.

One (not primary, but fairly clear) source:

http://www.cslaw.com/our-practice/san-francisco/employment-c...

Googling "california at-will good faith" will unearth much more.

Edit: more detail, including that this isn't specific to explicit employment contracts. Also, I'm in no way saying this case would fall under this, only that at-will isn't absolute in CA, even beyond the normal discrimination boundaries.

http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Breach+of+an+I...

Re: Ask HN: I was hired and unhired in 2 weeks, for no reason

#263

Post by Alupis »

x0x0 wrote: post #260
Alupis wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're arguing over semantics now... you get the point I was making. The big picture is the founders felt the OP wasn't going to work out -- and made a very appropriate decision to cut him loose now instead of later.

Are you being deliberately obtuse? Read the chain. Nobody is arguing the company couldn't let him go. Rather, people are upset the founders didn't make it right for him. Frankly, they are assholes. Decent people would say something like, "Hey, this isn't going to work. We fucked up, and we're sorry. Here's two months of comp (or maybe six weeks) to find a new job, regain leases or find a new apartment, etc. And on th…

Make it right? Why do you feel they are obligated to pay him for work he did not do? Severance is optional, and a benefit of working at larger companies (of which a startup is not). Startups pivot quick and often (as it seems they did here), and usually don't have loads of extra cash laying around to do things like severance until they "make it".

Again, we have one side of the story here, and with only one side, people are jumping to conclusions. What if the founders came on and said the OP lied about his qualifications? Letting emotions get in the way of business is a fast way to fail.

Quite frankly, and in your words, the OP "fucked up" by committing to a startup before even having a Visa he pointed out is/was important, and from the sound of it, may not have even been an official hire with contracts signed. He did work, and if he was an official hire, he would have already been paid for said work.

Being told you will be a COO is not the same as actually being the COO. That would be as-if I told a gardener I thought I might hire him, then come home one day and he's cut my yard and demands payment. If i was hired on as a COO with a startup, you bet my contract would have specific terms for which I may be terminated. Why did the OP not have something similar?

The bottom line -- it's nothing personal, it's business.

Startups are not big corps. They aren't going to do big corp things like severance. If that's not acceptable to you -- do not sign on with a startup. In a few months the OP will be in a new job and will look back on this as a learning experience - one that he will be a stronger individual from and perhaps more cautious in the future.

Re: Ask HN: I was hired and unhired in 2 weeks, for no reason

#264

Post by dragonwriter »

Alupis wrote: post #263
x0x0 wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you being deliberately obtuse? Read the chain. Nobody is arguing the company couldn't let him go. Rather, people are upset the founders didn't make it right for him. Frankly, they are assholes. Decent people would say something like, "Hey, this isn't going to work. We fucked up, and we're sorry. Here's two months of comp (or maybe six weeks) to find a new job, regain leases or find a new apartment, etc. And on th…

Make it right? Why do you feel they are obligated to pay him for work he did not do? Severance is optional, and a benefit of working at larger companies (of which a startup is not). Startups pivot quick and often (as it seems they did here), and usually don't have loads of extra cash laying around to do things like severance until they "make it". Again, we have one side of the story here, and with only one side, peop…

> Why do you feel they are obligated to pay him for work he did not do?

From the account given, he did do work remotely.

> may not have even been an official hire with contracts signed.

A contract generally doesn't need to be signed to be valid (there are specific exceptions to this, but employment contracts generally aren't exceptions), it can be oral, and, accepting the account given by the OP, offer, acceptance, and performance under the contract are all evident.

Re: Ask HN: I was hired and unhired in 2 weeks, for no reason

#265

Post by jerven »

ilaksh wrote: post #211
jerven wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't ever do this. It is blackmail and will get you into a whole lot of trouble!

Is it blackmail or is it giving them an opportunity to see one reason why they should pay him what they already owe? For context, try to imagine if the company had offered him a "legal agreement" where he was payed a few extra weeks' salary and in exchange agreed not to discuss anything.

Asking for what they owe you is fine, even asking for more is acceptable. It is the threat of an unrelated negative that is blackmail. And that the quickest way to make people unhelpful and if you leave a trace of it, its going to ruin your chances in court.

So no upside just downsides, so don't do that part of "else I am telling the world".

Re: Ask HN: I was hired and unhired in 2 weeks, for no reason

#266

Post by Alupis »

dragonwriter wrote: post #264
Alupis wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Make it right? Why do you feel they are obligated to pay him for work he did not do? Severance is optional, and a benefit of working at larger companies (of which a startup is not). Startups pivot quick and often (as it seems they did here), and usually don't have loads of extra cash laying around to do things like severance until they "make it". Again, we have one side of the story here, and with only one side, peop…

> Why do you feel they are obligated to pay him for work he did not do? From the account given, he did do work remotely. > may not have even been an official hire with contracts signed. A contract generally doesn't need to be signed to be valid (there are specific exceptions to this, but employment contracts generally aren't exceptions), it can be oral, and, accepting the account given by the OP, offer, acceptance, a…

If the OP did actual work, and was an official hire with either verbal or written contract, then he would have already been compensated for his time. (Otherwise that would be a violation of the law, and I seriously doubt a startup is trying to get away with not paying for work done "on the clock")

If the OP did actual work, and was not an official hire with either verbal or written contract, then he was an eager beaver and jumped-the-gun, which is understandable, but ultimately would be his mistake. (I refer back to my gardener example above).

People seem to be arguing the startup owes him some sort of severance -- which is ridiculous unless it was in his employment agreement.

The OP will look back on this and learn some valuable and long lasting lessons from this ordeal.

Re: Ask HN: I was hired and unhired in 2 weeks, for no reason

#267

Post by beachstartup »

bentoner wrote: post #148
beachstartup wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$5000 is peanuts to work two weeks , uproot your life and reject other, more valid job offers, only to get sand kicked in your face for no reason. in fact it's downright insulting, and most importantly, humiliating to an extreme degree. if there's anything in the world that could be classified as being a bitch, that's it. stop short-changing yourself and technology professionals, you do us all a disservice and it's e…

> a CPA also could not get hired, and let go for no reason, within 2 weeks, without having several avenues of recourse through his professional governing body. What's his professional governing body going to do?

if you can't figure out how a vast, organized dues-paying professional guild full of highly educated, intelligent, like-minded individuals can help you, i kindly suggest that you contemplate the possibilities a while before trying your hand at being a c-level executive because you'll probably be caught in the same position as the o.p.

a professional board is basically a labor union dressed up for white collar people. they'll argue until the end of the earth that they aren't, but let's be real, that's what it is.

also, if you're a vp-level or above, and not a significant owner, negotiate a severence package. ever wonder why they have severence packages? this is why. because if you don't, you're highly likely to become a bitch. in fact it's pretty much guaranteed because the cost of losing you is nothing.

Re: Ask HN: I was hired and unhired in 2 weeks, for no reason

#268

Post by dxbydt »

Was in your shoes two years ago, coincidentally this exact month. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4567857 Since then, I've met several people who were in the same boat. This sort of stuff seems to happen with regular frequency but is swept up under the rug as if its no big deal. Props for being bold & writing about it. Good luck to you sir! More than the subsequent job-hunt, it was the memory of all those false promises that hurt the most.

Re: Ask HN: I was hired and unhired in 2 weeks, for no reason

#269

Post by georgespencer »

jowiar wrote: post #102
georgespencer wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"action can be taken" Come on. They didn't do anything wrong. They withdrew an offer of employment. 1. It could be performance related, and they just don't want to tell OP, 2. They realised quickly -- shock horror, things change quickly in startups -- that actually they don't need X guy they need Y guy. These things happen. In situations like this you can fire well: give explicit reasons, make sure the person knows y…

> They withdrew an offer of employment. Doing this without compensation is ABSOLUTELY doing something wrong. Maybe not necessarily tortious, but certainly unethical and indicative of someone who should not be trusted in a business relationship. The YC company made a mistake and is sticking someone else with the bill. FWIW, There's a certain amount of "foreigners are expendable" mindset that seems to exist in the Amer…

> certainly unethical and indicative of someone who should not be trusted in a business relationship

Not necessarily. What if a major investor pulled out and they aren't going to have the capital available to hire this guy? What if hiring him meant not paying people who had been promised salaries after working for free? What if they could have hired him but others would have had to be fired?

They certainly made a mistake, but we don't know why they did what they did. It's unlikely to be malicious "Let's just screw this guy", and far more likely to be for reasons that each one of us, if we were in their shoes, would consider to be very good.

Re: Ask HN: I was hired and unhired in 2 weeks, for no reason

#270

Post by tptacek »

reinhardt wrote: post #196
patio11 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If somebody for some reason managed to convince me to come onboard as an employee, and I was asked nicely to leave after two weeks, I would begin the conversation with "That is unfortunate and unexpected, as I was looking forward to working with you guys. We're all businessmen here, so we know that there are certain reasonable expectations which one has with regards to employment offers. I shouldn't be telling you an…

Good luck convincing them to shell out 60K for two weeks. If they could afford it, they'd probably could afford throwing 30K more and keeping him for a year.

They don't have to pay it up front; they can draft an agreement to defer compensation to their next round of funding or to their first $N dollars of revenue, pay him the immediately owed "salary" number today, and pay the delta later.
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