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Meta fires staff for 'using free meal vouchers to buy household goods'

theguardian.com

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Re: Meta fires staff for 'using free meal vouchers to buy household goods'

#151

Post by jcgrillo »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #149
jcgrillo wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh, I've never seen a digital voucher before. How do they work? And how can the employer detect what the employee uses it for? I guess the net result is the same? It seems accepting the digital voucher comes with a huge risk--what if they decide to object to the establishment or your food choice? So just.. bring a sandwich for lunch instead or pay with your own money... EDIT: the important thing to remember as a U.S…

> EDIT: the important thing to remember as a U.S. employee is that--just like every interaction with the police is grounds for arrest--every interaction with your employer is grounds for dismissal. So minimize those interactions. What a sad and scared worldview. Interactions with your employer are also grounds for promotion, recognition, and advancement. Instead of hiding from life, you can engage with it. There are…

> but competent humans can asses those risks and proceed in a thoughtful way to achieve their goals.

As a competent human, here's how I approach these risks. There's simply nothing an employer can possibly do to me that matters significantly. Firing is an opportunity--I can collect unemployment and apply to better jobs and probably get a raise. Failing that, I'm confident in my skills to survive and thrive in any north american climate and--with a small amount of luck and some learning curve--by extension just about anywhere else on the planet. So I'm not actually super worried about the worst case scenario. But I'm not super confident it won't happen, because to be so i'd have to trust employers which is a known mistake.

> grubhub and ubereats

Ah ok, i've never used apps like that. I'm probably not the demographic who'd be caught in this sting.

Re: Meta fires staff for 'using free meal vouchers to buy household goods'

#152

Post by s1artibartfast »

jcgrillo wrote: post #148
s1artibartfast wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your bad experience with expenses? There are lots of areas where I dont trust employers, but following published expense policies is not one I lose sleep over. I have never once had a problem, or heard of anyone else having a problem in real life. I have used corporate expenses for decades, and know tons of people doing the same across dozens of companies. That said, I don't overtly steal from the company. I'…

I have never had a bad experience with expenses! That's part of what stands out so strongly about this incident. In a culture of blameless postmortems--where an operator can screw up a command causing millions of dollars of damage and the question is "how did this process fail", not "who should we pin it on"--to see my employer suddenly fire a bunch of people for something their process should have detected and corre…

>EDIT: I have had (accidentally) improperly reported expenses rejected before. That's normal procedure. It would be quite shocking if my employer instead just fired me... Albeit given U.S. employment law it would not be surprising

This makes perfect sense. There is a difference between a good faith mistake, and intentional theft. I imagine your employer would be less forgiving if you fabricated your report or try to fly under the radar with personal purchases

Re: Meta fires staff for 'using free meal vouchers to buy household goods'

#153

Post by jcgrillo »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #150
jcgrillo wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never had a bad experience with expenses! That's part of what stands out so strongly about this incident. In a culture of blameless postmortems--where an operator can screw up a command causing millions of dollars of damage and the question is "how did this process fail", not "who should we pin it on"--to see my employer suddenly fire a bunch of people for something their process should have detected and corre…

Why do you think this is a process problem? How much should the process prevent willful lying, cheating, and stealing by process users? Is periodically firing employees not part of the process too? If these people are habitually and willfully lying and stealing from the company for $20, what could that mean for the rest of their work and interactions. Several thousand dollars of stolen meals is a bargain to identify…

> Why do you think this is a process problem?

Because if the employees were using some kind of non-monetary compensation that was allowed to be accepted in an uncontrolled manner that's a process problem. When they swiped their decoder ring or what the fuck ever it should have errored out.

> habitually and willfully lying and stealing

Prove it beyond a reasonable doubt and i'll listen.

Re: Meta fires staff for 'using free meal vouchers to buy household goods'

#154

Post by s1artibartfast »

jcgrillo wrote: post #151
s1artibartfast wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> EDIT: the important thing to remember as a U.S. employee is that--just like every interaction with the police is grounds for arrest--every interaction with your employer is grounds for dismissal. So minimize those interactions. What a sad and scared worldview. Interactions with your employer are also grounds for promotion, recognition, and advancement. Instead of hiding from life, you can engage with it. There are…

> but competent humans can asses those risks and proceed in a thoughtful way to achieve their goals. As a competent human, here's how I approach these risks. There's simply nothing an employer can possibly do to me that matters significantly. Firing is an opportunity--I can collect unemployment and apply to better jobs and probably get a raise. Failing that, I'm confident in my skills to survive and thrive in any nor…

So firing is an opportunity, but you categorically avoid engaging with your employer out of fear of giving them pretense to fire you. something isn't adding up for me.

Re: Meta fires staff for 'using free meal vouchers to buy household goods'

#155

Post by jcgrillo »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #154
jcgrillo wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but competent humans can asses those risks and proceed in a thoughtful way to achieve their goals. As a competent human, here's how I approach these risks. There's simply nothing an employer can possibly do to me that matters significantly. Firing is an opportunity--I can collect unemployment and apply to better jobs and probably get a raise. Failing that, I'm confident in my skills to survive and thrive in any nor…

So firing is an opportunity, but you categorically avoid engaging with your employer out of fear of giving them pretense to fire you. something isn't adding up for me.

Less is always more when it comes to work. The faster I can coast towards retirement the better, but if they want a fight fuck it let's go.

Re: Meta fires staff for 'using free meal vouchers to buy household goods'

#156

Post by s1artibartfast »

jcgrillo wrote: post #153
s1artibartfast wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think this is a process problem? How much should the process prevent willful lying, cheating, and stealing by process users? Is periodically firing employees not part of the process too? If these people are habitually and willfully lying and stealing from the company for $20, what could that mean for the rest of their work and interactions. Several thousand dollars of stolen meals is a bargain to identify…

> Why do you think this is a process problem? Because if the employees were using some kind of non-monetary compensation that was allowed to be accepted in an uncontrolled manner that's a process problem. When they swiped their decoder ring or what the fuck ever it should have errored out. > habitually and willfully lying and stealing Prove it beyond a reasonable doubt and i'll listen.

Firing the employees is a feature, not a bug.

24/70,000 employees seemed to have a problem with theft. The process worked for 99.97% of employees who weren't thieves abusing the system.

>Prove it beyond a reasonable doubt and i'll listen.

Not even the fired employees are contesting what they did. They are just saying they didnt think it was a big deal

Re: Meta fires staff for 'using free meal vouchers to buy household goods'

#157

Post by em-bee »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #135
salawat wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you asking the right question when instead of just being paid the employer is engaging in the sordid practice of "company scrip" with more layers? Employers should not be exercising control over how compensation is used. Period.

They weren't.it wasn't compensation. The employees were stealing from the company coffee jar

for comparison, in germany it is compensation and taxed as income. as far as i know almost everything an employee in germany receives is considered compensation to avoid tax loopholes. even actual free meals served in the office (not just vouchers) are assigned a monetary value and taxed. only snacks, drinks or exceptional meals (like pizza for the all-hands meeting) are exempt.

Re: Meta fires staff for 'using free meal vouchers to buy household goods'

#158

Post by FirmwareBurner »

ffsm8 wrote: post #103
infamouscow wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of these employees believe they're elite, they aren't. The natural aristocrats are unaffected, not because they get away with abusing the system, but because they don't abuse them. One has to be remarkably pathetic and morally bankrupt to abuse this in the first place. Meta is simply correcting their mistake of hiring a fundamentally unqualified peasant.

After reading your comment multiple times I can confidently state that the best thing about it is that I am still unsure if you're sarcastic, trolling or actually believe that

Let me rephrase for you what he meant: "If you steal, don't get caught."

The rich and powerful are simply much better at breaking the rules without getting caught, that's how they're rich, while the poor are usually not, that's why they stay poor.

Re: Meta fires staff for 'using free meal vouchers to buy household goods'

#159

Post by ffsm8 »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #158
ffsm8 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After reading your comment multiple times I can confidently state that the best thing about it is that I am still unsure if you're sarcastic, trolling or actually believe that

Let me rephrase for you what he meant: "If you steal, don't get caught." The rich and powerful are simply much better at breaking the rules without getting caught, that's how they're rich, while the poor are usually not, that's why they stay poor.

I doubt he'd agree that he meant that ( • ‿ • )

It's also undisputably false, unless you exclude all the people that don't adhere to your thesis. But at that point, you're just grasping at straws and cannot admit to being wrong.

I.e. P Diddy as a very notorious recent example that was both rich and effectively powerful (how else would he have gotten away with it for decades) and has now crashed. The inverse exists as well, where people publicly commit crimes and get away with it, just because they can. Very frequent for politicians for example, I don't think you need specific examples for that?

Re: Meta fires staff for 'using free meal vouchers to buy household goods'

#160

Post by JohnFen »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #135
salawat wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you asking the right question when instead of just being paid the employer is engaging in the sordid practice of "company scrip" with more layers? Employers should not be exercising control over how compensation is used. Period.

They weren't.it wasn't compensation. The employees were stealing from the company coffee jar

It certainly counts as part of the compensation package.

That said, it's compensation employees accepted with conditions in its use, and to intentionally violate those conditions is not ethically supportable.

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