Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The absolute worst scenario happened

reddit.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

541–550 of 566 posts

Re: The absolute worst scenario happened

#541

Post by Sebb767 »

gambiting wrote: post #440
nimih wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if they did "pin it on him," why should he care, exactly? Seems to me like he had no obligations here, contractual, ethical, or otherwise.

Well because if he was taken to court that costs time and money, even if ultimately the lawsuit fails, no?

A bit late to the party, but even when threatening with insolvency-via-lawsuit, this would probably not work for them:

- if he can prove the threat, the company will be in an even worse position

- given the rather lacking precedent (as pointed out by the sister comment), there's a good chance the suit would be thrown out pre-court and therefore be rather cheap

- given that the OP seems to be a valued engineer, it is reasonable to assume that he has the f-you-money to fight this out

- even if won, the drawn out battle would take far too long to fix the software in time and, given that they then lost a 10 million contract, they lack the motivation (and maybe money) to continue

- lastly, even if they won after loosing the contract, they'd probably not be able to extract much in damage payments

So it's a rather empty threat.

Re: The absolute worst scenario happened

#542

Post by sangnoir »

arcade79 wrote: post #538
sangnoir wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If they are at the "fuck it" point, what's going to force them to be useful and productive during the forced 3 month notice period? Nothing - beyond professionalism. It is common for knowledge transfer to happen in this time, and any outstanding vacation days are usually taken at this time. There's a huge cultural difference between US and Europe (rest of world?) when it comes to going to work after serving notice.…

It's not unheard of, but it happens quite rarely. Violence, or threats of violence, typically leads to being escorted out immediately here in Europe too.

You are correct - when I was typing my previous comment, I had considered adding "unless criminal behavior is involved", but I thought it would make the sentence too unwieldy. If I could edit, I'd remove "unheard of" and replace it with "ridiculously uncommon"

Re: The absolute worst scenario happened

#543

Post by cutemonster »

johnchristopher wrote: post #539
DubiousPusher wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it." That includes labor. The business was free to try and renegotiate their contract with their customer. They were free to delay the release and offer a discount. They were free to turn down the 125k and the 250k payment on principle and deal with the consequences. They found the most economical solution that met their needs was to pay $250,000 to have the work d…

> They found the most economical solution that met their needs was to pay $250,000 to have the work done on time. I'd be inclined to believe that if there were some other providers but as it is told working with OP was the only solution. And OP's first offer was 125 000. Two screams later it's 250 000 ? It has nothing to do with economical theory or free market interpretation.

I think 250 was likely under market value, and the seller could have raise the price more.

And yelling, made the prise jump closer to market value.

Re: The absolute worst scenario happened

#544

Post by cutemonster »

anonAndOn wrote: post #526
nate_meurer wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "The fair price is the one that god paid, uh.” This is literally the definition of price discovery in a free market. If the price was not worth the service the company was to receive, they would not have paid it. The fact that they did pay it clearly indicates that the first price was far below what the "market" would bear.

He probably even left money on the table. When you need The Wolf to come clean up your mess, The Wolf gets paid well to do so.[0] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojTKkfgvwvU

> left money on the table

I think so too, however maybe better play safe I guess, and be content with 250? The negotiation partner seemed a bit irrational to me

Re: The absolute worst scenario happened

#545

Post by johnchristopher »

cutemonster wrote: post #543
johnchristopher wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They found the most economical solution that met their needs was to pay $250,000 to have the work done on time. I'd be inclined to believe that if there were some other providers but as it is told working with OP was the only solution. And OP's first offer was 125 000. Two screams later it's 250 000 ? It has nothing to do with economical theory or free market interpretation.

I think 250 was likely under market value, and the seller could have raise the price more. And yelling, made the prise jump closer to market value.

Maybe, maybe not.

I find this explanation (from top comment) more in line with how the world spins:

> If they left under bad terms because the business was a bunch of dicks, expect to pay 10x market rate. If this is truly "fix this or the business is out of business" - then it shouldn't be a tough decision to make.

So, “being a dick” has more to do with price raising than any free market justification (which I am okay with, just don't try to convince me it's the only thing at play. The offer would have been 250k from the beginning then. Or 500K to get 250K, whatever.).

Re: The absolute worst scenario happened

#546

Post by kwhitefoot »

benlivengood wrote: post #405
kwhitefoot wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Management said we don't have enough money to fix any of this. It's often even worse. Many years ago I was responsible for backup a DEC Unix system. Asked for funds to conduct a disaster recover exercise to find out if our backups worked and was turned down even before we had tried to work out how much it would cost. I often wonder what proportion of backed up files and systems are actually in a state to be restore…

> I had to inform several users that I could not restore the file that they had only just noticed was missing because it was last seen more than two years ago and presumably disappeared longer ago than our longest backup cycle which was one year of monthly full backups. If you can afford 12 months of backups then you can almost certainly afford >=12 years of yearly backups by buying a new set of monthly tapes once a…

Afford in the strict sense of have enough money, yes of course. But backup is not the same as archive even when the backup exists. It is usually not easily searchable, it is hard to be sure which version is authoritative and so on.

Re: The absolute worst scenario happened

#547

Post by nate_meurer »

johnchristopher wrote: post #545
cutemonster wrote: post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think 250 was likely under market value, and the seller could have raise the price more. And yelling, made the prise jump closer to market value.

Maybe, maybe not. I find this explanation (from top comment) more in line with how the world spins: > If they left under bad terms because the business was a bunch of dicks, expect to pay 10x market rate. If this is truly "fix this or the business is out of business" - then it shouldn't be a tough decision to make. So, “being a dick” has more to do with price raising than any free market justification (which I am oka…

This is such a silly and mundane bit of pedantry you're harping on here. Of course there are emotional factors in price discovery-- it happens all the time, and is a completely natural and rational part of the free market.

Any small or independent contractor in any business will eventually have a blacklist, or a list of troublesome customers who get charged extra. Most of my contractors charge me less because they like me (and I pay on time). My HVAC contractor charges a particular customer double just because the customer is a rich entitled asshole; the contractor has decided that it's only worth dealing with the man's unpleasantness if there's more money to be made. Apparently the man has been blacklisted by other HVAC companies, so he might be in a tight spot, but whatever the reason, he ends up paying a lot more money for the same service.

This is a completely market-based mechanism: the troublesome customer has limited options (in this case, maybe only one option), and is thus obviously disadvantaged in negotiating price. Regardless of the myriad motivations involved in price discovery, it all leads to the same place: if the price wasn't worth the service the customer was to receive, they would not have paid it.

Honestly, this isn't mysterious or profound. It's economics 101.

Re: The absolute worst scenario happened

#548

Post by orestarod »

ycombinete wrote: post #322
tofuahdude wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love this with all my heart. You did exactly the right thing at every step.

Funnily enough it made me sick to my stomach. I manage a small company and the idea of being extorted in such a blasé and psychopathic fashion terrifies me to even think about.

You forget it's all part of business. If you hired an external contractor you would not say a word for demanding their money. And the price of the contractor grows by a lot relative to how much and how soon you need their work. Remember, you need their help, not the other way around. A contractor on bad terms with you would not help at all. How is a former employee any different? Do you think you become family after paying for their work?

If you do not have the money to pa for someone's services you cannot complain. You say you have a company? Have you ever let a client get your products by paying less than their value or nothing at all? Work itself is a product too.

Re: The absolute worst scenario happened

#549

Post by orestarod »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #487
hharlequin wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think enough of us have been on the same side of this story that we feel fairly comfortable taking it at face value, even if we're only applying it to said personal experience in a wishful fashion.

Yeah, HN at it's finest I suppose. He's like you, he says what you want to hear, therefore you believe him. No need to consider the possibility that maybe there might actually be another point-of-view.

The point of view of managers and business owners is well known. Work is not a new concept. You get what you pay for. Nothing is owed to you. Work? Tough luck, you have to pay for it too. On a free market, no less. I don't understand why business owners think the rules are different for them than the rest.

Re: The absolute worst scenario happened

#550

Post by orestarod »

johnchristopher wrote: post #539
DubiousPusher wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it." That includes labor. The business was free to try and renegotiate their contract with their customer. They were free to delay the release and offer a discount. They were free to turn down the 125k and the 250k payment on principle and deal with the consequences. They found the most economical solution that met their needs was to pay $250,000 to have the work d…

> They found the most economical solution that met their needs was to pay $250,000 to have the work done on time. I'd be inclined to believe that if there were some other providers but as it is told working with OP was the only solution. And OP's first offer was 125 000. Two screams later it's 250 000 ? It has nothing to do with economical theory or free market interpretation.

First, he owed no-one anything. He could set the price to 1 billion for all he cared. His former employees could take it or leave it.

Second, you speak as if his claims were irrational. The way I see it, however, you would set for 125k (probably much less judging from what you write) while he, the sentimental fool, scooped up double the money. Therefore, your decisions, which you personally claim are rational, would have left you with half the money the "irrational" player would get. Seems to me, the "irrational" is actually the rational one, as he netted more profits. Economy and market are not math games in a vacuum, and players are not formless ideas.

Post reply on HN