Ask HN: What to do when you have your employer over a barrel? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What to do when you have your employer over a barrel?

#31

Post by jbverschoor » Mon, Jan 17, 2022, 1:48 PM UTC

10x-dev wrote: post #20

Why don't they borrow $250k from somewhere else and pay you? Spoiler: because it's easier and cheaper for them to sucker you into doing work for IOUs. Ask for the cash or a piece of the company. Once you hand over the code, you don't have a lot of leverage.

Don't try to get a piece of the company... Cut ties with them, as the headache and bs is not worth it. They will always try to screw anyone over.

Try to get whatever you can get out of it. Don't give a license of your code and technology.

Re: Ask HN: What to do when you have your employer over a barrel?

#32

Post by jbverschoor » Mon, Jan 17, 2022, 1:50 PM UTC

mcv wrote: post #23

ontheground wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is just me, though as I mentioned in a cousin comment it took some time for this to happen. Its not like I've just been working for the last year with out pay. Its more of a natural decay of their ability to pay... so 2.43 years +-

It's not healthy. Don't let outstanding debt accumulate like that. On my second job, my boss once told me not to commit any new code changes to the client's repository until they paid an outstanding bill. They paid very quickly. If they need something from you, use that you get them to pay those outstanding bills. > their ability to pay Ability or willingness? Do they pay their own people? Their own executives? That'…

> Ability or willingness?

That's the key indicator.. 95% it's willingness.

Re: Ask HN: What to do when you have your employer over a barrel?

#33

Post by justsomehnguy » Mon, Jan 17, 2022, 1:53 PM UTC

Var NFN: you don't deliver, they fail and don't pay

Var DFN: you do deliver, they fail and don't pay

Var DSN: you do deliver, they succeed and don't pay

Var DSP: you do deliver, they succeed and .. pay you? Why should they?

Your chance is 1/4 at best and 1/8, 12.5% realistically.

You credited them with $250k (1/40 of a potential revenue?), you won't find a quarter of million lying around.

As others already said - forget about that $250k. You now have a gambling chance to get something (way lower than $250k), but only if you demand the cash upfront.

PS: technically there is a variant NSP: you don't deliver, they succeed .. and pay you. It is only interesting in what it lowers your chance to 1/10. *grin*

Re: Ask HN: What to do when you have your employer over a barrel?

#34

Post by dpeck » Mon, Jan 17, 2022, 2:34 PM UTC

You have a very different view of “over a barrel” than most people.

Hard truth: the chances of you getting any of the money you’re owed, and any more on top of that is incredibly small. So small that the probably might as well be 0%.

Businesses that are going to be successful do not have a year+ of unpaid debt. And they are not betting their farm on an outsourced deliverable. The people you’re dealing with are “playing business” the way children “play house” except they’re doing real economic damage to everyone around them, yourself included.

That said, I can’t imagine this is real and is likely just someone trolling which is becoming increasingly common on HN.

Re: Ask HN: What to do when you have your employer over a barrel?

#35

Post by cyanotes » Mon, Jan 17, 2022, 3:01 PM UTC

xupybd wrote: post #14

This sounds crazy. They stand to make 10M and are relying on one external contractor to get them over the line. Yet they have not paid the contractor. Something is very wrong here. Either they are so hard up for cash flow they're almost done or they're abusing a key third party. I'd love to know more of the story.

It’s just manipulation tactics. These things wouldn’t work on intelligent people unless they go all out

Re: Ask HN: What to do when you have your employer over a barrel?

#36

Post by faangiq » Mon, Jan 17, 2022, 5:57 PM UTC

Exploiting code monkeys. So easy, yet so profitable.

Re: Ask HN: What to do when you have your employer over a barrel?

#37

Post by tata71 » Mon, Jan 17, 2022, 9:57 PM UTC

yason wrote: post #22

First, consider your $250k written off. Don't hang on to it: doing so will only make you dig yourself deeper into ground and giving in to the client's demands in the hope of maybe getting paid. This will ruin any strategy to recover from the situation. You can't negotiate anything if you remove your ability to walk away. Leave the $250k and call that the clean state. That's the worst case that might happen so why not…

They never said they were the only employee not being paid...

Re: Ask HN: What to do when you have your employer over a barrel?

#38

Post by rasz » Mon, Jan 17, 2022, 10:44 PM UTC

>12 months and $250k behind on payroll.

Do you mind working for me instead? My projections are $20M revenue in 6 months after deployment. I estimate it will only take you 6 months of free labor to finish my project.

Re: Ask HN: What to do when you have your employer over a barrel?

#39

Post by mod » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 1:32 AM UTC

So did you deliver the update today?

Re: Ask HN: What to do when you have your employer over a barrel?

#40

Post by mbrodersen » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 2:24 AM UTC

Sorry but it is the employer who has you over a barrel not the other way around. They clearly have managed to manipulate you into working for free for a long time, and are continuing to say whatever it takes to squeeze even more work out of you for free. The rule is to never ever let a company owe you more than a month of work, and stop delivering the moment they don’t pay. My advise would be to say to them: pay me what you owe and I will deliver. Otherwise forget it. The claims made by the company are obviously BS. Unless they can provide evidence that they have (say) a signed contract with a customer worth $ millions.