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Did my old job only exist because of fraud?

david.newgas.net

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Re: Did my old job only exist because of fraud?

#321

Post by benjiro29 »

Buttons840 wrote: post #59
comrade1234 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was too risky. My boss was scummy and even though I had documentation about my hours being edited he would have fought it and we'd go to court and at that point it'd be a crap shoot. If I remember right, the prison time was five years and there is no parole with federal sentences.

To prevent this situation the peons should be given the benefit of the doubt by the courts. In this case, either (1) the peon was lying about reported hours, the boss didn't notice, and then the peon reported himself... or (2) everything happened just like you said. Aren't there bounties for reporting things like this? At the very least winning should include reimbursement for legal expenses.

All your going to end up with this type of cases is:

* Years of stress

* Years of financial losses because lawyers are not cheap. And no matter how well you are innocent, not having a lawyer is guaranteed that you will fail.

* Years of time wasting.

And for what? The government maybe sentencing a guy for fraud. When its like 90%+ he will strike a sweetheart deal with the prosecutor.

Even worse in a case like this where its almost your word vs the boss his word. Yea, you can be the guy that ends up living under a bridge while the CEO laughs his way to the bank, being able to pin it on you.

Its already difficult with some proof... Dealing with this type of fraud case reporting, is easier when your not in the spotlight of the crime, and then reporting it. But if your unwilling part of it, few people want their neck on the line.

Re: Did my old job only exist because of fraud?

#323

Post by Scoundreller »

RandyRanderson wrote: post #272

In Canada this is a huge scam. The government advertizes that it's funding incubators. Great, right? The money doesn't go to the start ups - it all goes to large tech companies like IBM, etc, because, obviously, IBM knows about innovation. The cover is that the government doesn't know tech so it will give money to trusted partners and they will choose who to give the money to because they've been doing such a great j…

Meanwhile they haven’t raised the HST/GST threshold to start collecting from the $30k in sales it was since the tax was launched in the early 90s.

You know, just something that could provide a little leg up to every small business until they’re not small anymore. But no, inflation doesn’t exist!

Re: Did my old job only exist because of fraud?

#324

Post by gwbas1c »

I lived in Silicon Valley for almost a decade, and stuck my fingers in the startup scene for awhile.

One thing I learned is that a some people running startups are "poker players." They run the company to keep up appearances: Their goal is to get more investment and eventually sell the business at a profit. (And then what the purchaser does is their business.)

There's nothing wrong with working for companies like this! You might not realize it going in; or the investors might see through the bluff and replace the leadership, creating a great job for you.

In contrast, you could join a business run by honest people, and they could sell out to a poker player who then ruins it. Or, more typically, the honest people turn out to be so-so business people and the business fails. (This is what happened when I tried to run a startup.)

At the end of the day, working for a startup always involves risk and the leadership structure will always change as the company grows, pivots, or fails.

Re: Did my old job only exist because of fraud?

#326

Post by timkam »

cubefox wrote: post #290
franze wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like Europe....

Yes, I remember someone explaining that a similar thing happens with all kinds of research grants in the EU. Some companies specialize in writing very complex grant proposals in just such a way that they are likely accepted, and then produce some useless bullshit reports. Actual specialized companies with expertise in the matters the grant is about don't have the knowledge of how to fill out grant proposals in a way…

Indeed. Also, companies with a genuine and socially at least somewhat useful business model prefer focusing on customers buying their actual products as the main revenue source. The state- and EU-driven funding ecosystem is so convoluted that one either mostly ignores it in favor of value-creating work, or specializes in exploiting it, unfortunately.

Re: Did my old job only exist because of fraud?

#328

Post by liveoneggs »

jojobas wrote: post #55
etothepii wrote: post #25

As a junior software engineer, I worked at a large UK bank. Senior management routinely seem baffled that they could announce redundancies or hiring freezes, yet technology costs would continue to rise. One pattern I saw repeatedly was a contractor being let go, only to return via a large outsourcing provider. The provider must have added a substantial markup despite supplying the same engineer back to the same team,…

This doesn't seem to answer why an engineer is let go and gets rehired through an outsourcer.

At one of my old jobs contractors just cost what they cost.

Benefits are the obvious one but there were also Corporate Costs which were calculated based on headcount - Exec salary, office space rental, laptop costs, etc all were line-items based on department headcount.

The ratio ended up being 1/3 employee and 2/3 contractors so plenty of desk-sharing, "war rooms", etc.

Re: Did my old job only exist because of fraud?

#329

Post by chollida1 »

RandyRanderson wrote: post #272

In Canada this is a huge scam. The government advertizes that it's funding incubators. Great, right? The money doesn't go to the start ups - it all goes to large tech companies like IBM, etc, because, obviously, IBM knows about innovation. The cover is that the government doesn't know tech so it will give money to trusted partners and they will choose who to give the money to because they've been doing such a great j…

I'd never heard of this. Can you provide a link?

I'd be very interested in reading about this fraud.

Re: Did my old job only exist because of fraud?

#330

Post by c-b »

I mean, there are far more nefarious things happening in big tech, so if the author feels they were somehow being "used" in an immoral sense, I think they should feel ok about themselves based on the types of knowingly wrong but technically legal things happening in large companies.
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