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Yelp Fired a Single Mother Today: Me

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Re: Yelp Fired a Single Mother Today: Me

#31

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

timthorn wrote: post #16
jkot wrote: post #9

I am not excusing Yelp, but in most countries this is fire-able offense. In EU my friends were in similar situation and they had to go to work. She got half-day off on very short notice..

> in most countries this is fire-able offense. Really? The UK provides employment protections for this kind of incident, and we're not the most eager participant in the EU Social Chapter.

It depends on what job in the UK. In the office IT jobs that most HN readers have, you'd get the time off without questions, and likely a sympathy card from the team too.

As a packer on a zero-hours contract in an Amazon shipping warehouse? I don't know for sure but my gut feeling is "hell no, you'd be let go!"

Re: Yelp Fired a Single Mother Today: Me

#32

Post by PaulRobinson »

sputr wrote: post #27

Ok, so how they treat their employees sucks. Now comes the famous but . Why did she take a job she could not afford - from what I understand she's making a monthly loss of $700 + groceries, gas, etc. Why move to SF, to take a sales job you can't afford? More importantly, a job you knew would be making you an unsustainable loss before you even took it! With a kid in tow this just seems irresponsible. Now you can talk…

In that case nobody should ever go to college ever.

If you don't think you can get into a top school, another way to find a way up the ladder is to find a position at a top start-up you believe will lead somewhere better.

$1k/month for a year whilst building experience is a cheap way to get yourself into a position that might pay $100k/year if you work hard, especially compared to college.

Stop blaming her. Look at how Yelp behaved.

Re: Yelp Fired a Single Mother Today: Me

#33

Post by gaur »

diskcat wrote: post #22
moonshinefe wrote: post #2

I was going to critique her for taking on an unsustainable living situation. But by the end of that post, just wow. Yelp is a large company with a lot of resources, the way they treated this woman is despicable, especially after a family tragedy like that. It's not like they'll be going out of business if she took some time off to be a human being and care for her family. I don't use Yelp as I've heard many other neg…

Well Yelp didn't vote for her to be a single mom, or for her BF to go on a risky outdoor activity to get injured, or for her to take a loan @ 300% interest (lol wat?). For some reason people seem to think they deserve special treatment for the choices that they made that didn't turn out so well. Yelp is a company. Its relation with her is that of business, service in exchange for currency on agreed upon work conditio…

Firing someone for taking three days off to handle a family emergency is not reasonable. Your opinion of whether the emergency was caused by risky behavior is irrelevant.

Re: Yelp Fired a Single Mother Today: Me

#35

Post by danso »

> I am the single mother who closed 17K in month one and 19K in month two. I am the single mother who gets to see her son for a few hours a night, pays $2500 in rent (I make 2k a month so YES, my family has to help and I am so sorry to burden them), pays $1200 a month in daycare (#yelpcares — no subsidy there)

I'm not experienced in sales...but how is this a good deal for the author, nevermind tenable? This, plus the 300% loan she mentions...I wonder what the Yelp recruiting pitch was to her? To give her the benefit of the doubt, it'd have to be that Yelp overpromised on commissions for her to take such a risk.

But Yelp or no Yelp, this is just a difficult situation overall, and one that continues to increase the admiration I have for women who can deal with pregnancy/motherhood and go for a high-pace job, tech or anywhere (how the F did Ada Lovelace manage 3 pregnancies in her day?)...I'd love to hear from other companies -- whether it be traditional ones or established tech companies like Google/Facebook -- about how they've dealt with similar extreme situations, if ever? My conception of Yelp is that it's not doing so hot financially and so, malice or not, has just poorly prepared itself to deal with the author's situation, such that a manager/CEO can justify being abrupt because "it's her, or the overall company". Whereas a much more stable company with all the tech amenities has more flexibility in practicing "humaneness"

Re: Yelp Fired a Single Mother Today: Me

#36

Post by nrinaudo »

jkot wrote: post #9

I am not excusing Yelp, but in most countries this is fire-able offense. In EU my friends were in similar situation and they had to go to work. She got half-day off on very short notice..

I don't know about the rest of EU, but I currently work in France and I'd be shocked if someone were fired because they took half a day off with little to no notice for serious health or family reasons. If anything, the company would be sued in a heartbeat and almost guaranteed to lose.

I worked in the UK for a few years, and have had to take days off with no notice - to attend a funeral, say - and no one even thought about criticising me for it, let alone fire me. That might have been because it was a Japanese company though, I can't really tell.

I also worked in Germany for a while, and a co-worker found himself in a similar position. The company made a point of reminding him that this was not how the rules went before sending him off with instructions not to be back until the situation was resolved.

I don't know which part of EU your friend worked in, but I wonder if your generalisation might not be a bit too broad.

Re: Yelp Fired a Single Mother Today: Me

#37

Post by darkr »

johnloeber wrote: post #15

Not to distract from the content of the piece, but she took a 300% loan? THREE HUNDRED PERCENT? Could she have gotten a better loan? I'm under the impression that most banks offer loans at more reasonable rates. Also, how is Yelp able to retain salespeople in the Bay Area if they pay only $2k/month? The salary is clearly under the cost of living. On topic: please don't let all the particularities of this case distrac…

Maybe it's $2k basic before commission (as sales salaries are often largely composed of commission), and that fact wasn't disclosed in this post?

Re: Yelp Fired a Single Mother Today: Me

#38

Post by b6 »

rootlocus wrote: post #24
b6 wrote: post #7

Yelp didn't make her move, or make her take out high-interest loans, or promise any certain job stability based on performance. It isn't relevant to Yelp that she's a single mother. And on and on and on. So much of what is written here seems to be failure to take responsibility for questionable decisions and irrational expectations.

This is the first time on HN I'm actually sad I don't have enough karma to downvote a post. "It isn't relevant to Yelp that she's a single mother". There are so many things wrong with this statement that I can't even begin to answer. To quote something I found yesterday: “The amount of energy necessary to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.”

Please help me understand your point of view.

Re: Yelp Fired a Single Mother Today: Me

#39

Post by PaulRobinson »

diskcat wrote: post #22
moonshinefe wrote: post #2

I was going to critique her for taking on an unsustainable living situation. But by the end of that post, just wow. Yelp is a large company with a lot of resources, the way they treated this woman is despicable, especially after a family tragedy like that. It's not like they'll be going out of business if she took some time off to be a human being and care for her family. I don't use Yelp as I've heard many other neg…

Well Yelp didn't vote for her to be a single mom, or for her BF to go on a risky outdoor activity to get injured, or for her to take a loan @ 300% interest (lol wat?). For some reason people seem to think they deserve special treatment for the choices that they made that didn't turn out so well. Yelp is a company. Its relation with her is that of business, service in exchange for currency on agreed upon work conditio…

Attitudes like this are why trade unions fought for employment laws.

I'm absolutely disgusted by the number of people here saying it's her fault that whilst sat in an ICU she was terminated.

Re: Yelp Fired a Single Mother Today: Me

#40

Post by tanv_nadkarni »

diskcat wrote: post #22
moonshinefe wrote: post #2

I was going to critique her for taking on an unsustainable living situation. But by the end of that post, just wow. Yelp is a large company with a lot of resources, the way they treated this woman is despicable, especially after a family tragedy like that. It's not like they'll be going out of business if she took some time off to be a human being and care for her family. I don't use Yelp as I've heard many other neg…

Well Yelp didn't vote for her to be a single mom, or for her BF to go on a risky outdoor activity to get injured, or for her to take a loan @ 300% interest (lol wat?). For some reason people seem to think they deserve special treatment for the choices that they made that didn't turn out so well. Yelp is a company. Its relation with her is that of business, service in exchange for currency on agreed upon work conditio…

Exactly my thoughts.

Also I don't understand the "single mom" part. Society does not owe any special treatment to a single mom, not more than any other mom. Single mother is a choice of an independent woman and if she cant afford it she should probably not make it.

Instead of being thankful for an employer to have given an opportunity in first place she is ranting against her employer, this is going to make it difficult for her to find next job. I wont hire such a person.

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