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Jason Calacanis at his finest

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Re: Jason Calacanis at his finest

#71

Post by baha_man »

ryanhuff wrote: post #32
aidenn0 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen several people leave at places I've worked, but never seen one of them locked out. When people are asked to "resign" I've seen them told to finish out their paid term at home, but that's obviously a lot more confrontational than someone who chooses to leave.

It happens all of the time. For many situations, there is considerable risk in letting somebody hang around for two weeks. The employee's mind is going to be elsewhere. He will be excited about the new job, and eager to talk to co-workers about the move. The employee may even decide to save some of his more valuable work to use in the next gig. The manager is almost always better off by letting the departing employee…

"The employee may even decide to save some of his more valuable work to use in the next gig."

If someone's resigned rather than been fired or made redundant, they'll already have had plenty of time to do that, won't they?

"What I find most puzzling is why announce the resignation via email? This is almost always best done face to face, or at least via phone. Doing this electronically strikes me as immature."

I agree that handing in your resignation is best done in person, maybe it's an age thing.

Re: Jason Calacanis at his finest

#72

Post by _delirium »

run4yourlives wrote: post #31

I'm just going to ask a question to the 110 people that voted for this "story". Do we really think it's appropriate to air a company's dirty laundry and/or conflicts on Hacker News? I mean, that's the type of shit they do over at TMZ isn't it? Gossip about people? I don't care who's an ass, who's been wronged and who has sand in their ovaries today. I don't come to HN for this.

I guess I'd be happy to have an HN that was just technical content, with no VC/startup/funding/biz stuff at all. But if we're going to have it, might as well have the bad stuff too, not just the horn-tooting TechCrunch links...

Re: Jason Calacanis at his finest

#73

Post by scorxn »

exit wrote: post #53
pg wrote: post #34

Let's be fair here. For all we know, the guy might have done something quite bad. Or not. But if he did, Jason couldn't say so. We just don't know. But what we do know is that this is exactly the kind of half-story that gets people going on forums: an antagonist everyone loves to hate, and structural reasons why we're probably not getting the whole story. Many, many times I've seen users on a forum go on the warpath…

we do know calacanis went on to publicly denigrate the former employee. it doesn't make me think there's more to "his half" than juvenile petulance. >"Free advice for entitled Gen Y trophy kids: if you spend 12 months at a company over and over you look like a flake." 10:06 PM Apr 21st via Twitter for BlackBerry® http://twitter.com/Jason/status/12621363849

Withholding judgement and taking that tweet at face value, it does touch on something important. Usually when entering a job, a candidate will be excited and say just about anything. "Hell yeah I could see myself here for the next 5 years!" Who knows if that happened here.

The employer may take on certain expectations, possibility choosing a hire based on that enthusiasm and apparent commitment. Either way, no one expects a new employee to a) dislike a place soon after coming onboard, or b) abruptly take another offer. Is 12 months abrupt? Depends on the expectations.

It's a difficult situation that has to be handled tactfully on both sides. Doesn't appear to have happened here: Jason for his response, Evan for resigning _via email_.

Re: Jason Calacanis at his finest

#74

Post by spamizbad »

exit wrote: post #53
pg wrote: post #34

Let's be fair here. For all we know, the guy might have done something quite bad. Or not. But if he did, Jason couldn't say so. We just don't know. But what we do know is that this is exactly the kind of half-story that gets people going on forums: an antagonist everyone loves to hate, and structural reasons why we're probably not getting the whole story. Many, many times I've seen users on a forum go on the warpath…

we do know calacanis went on to publicly denigrate the former employee. it doesn't make me think there's more to "his half" than juvenile petulance. >"Free advice for entitled Gen Y trophy kids: if you spend 12 months at a company over and over you look like a flake." 10:06 PM Apr 21st via Twitter for BlackBerry® http://twitter.com/Jason/status/12621363849

I'm beginning to resent that my generation has been dubbed the "Trophy Kids." Those trophies were more for parental egos than our own self-esteem. We weren't dumb, we knew it was just a meaningless participation trinket. Most of those things ended up going in the trash unless your parents mandated you keep them (Mine didn't, thankfully). I think I'd keep them around for a year or two just for the sake of having a knick-nack, until I needed the space for a model.

Re: Jason Calacanis at his finest

#75

Post by marilyn »

hugh3 wrote: post #68
marilyn wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Way to toot your own horn. 37prime is clearly quite right about the attention seeking part too.

I think he's allowed to toot his own horn in response to a comment suggesting that he hasn't done anything worthwhile in a decade.

When the work speaks for itself, no tooting is required.

Re: Jason Calacanis at his finest

#76

Post by joezydeco »

jayliew wrote: post #46
kwyjibo wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is 2 weeks notice common in the USA? Here in Europe it's 1 month or 3 months, depending on what contract you have.

2 weeks is courtesy, and standard. In California, it's "at will" employment .. meaning, the employee can quit with or without notice, but the employee can also fire, with or without notice. That said, there's a lot of labor laws to comply with, so companies in practice don't just fire people at will (they can be sued by the now ex-employee). But yeah, in this part of the world, 2 weeks is courtesy. No courtesy is rud…

Actually, it's the opposite.

The moment you give the employee a reason, you open the door to a lawsuit. The best way to let someone go is simply say "your services are no longer required" and leave it at that.

Re: Jason Calacanis at his finest

#77

Post by jacquesm »

scorxn wrote: post #73
exit wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we do know calacanis went on to publicly denigrate the former employee. it doesn't make me think there's more to "his half" than juvenile petulance. >"Free advice for entitled Gen Y trophy kids: if you spend 12 months at a company over and over you look like a flake." 10:06 PM Apr 21st via Twitter for BlackBerry® http://twitter.com/Jason/status/12621363849

Withholding judgement and taking that tweet at face value, it does touch on something important. Usually when entering a job, a candidate will be excited and say just about anything. "Hell yeah I could see myself here for the next 5 years!" Who knows if that happened here. The employer may take on certain expectations, possibility choosing a hire based on that enthusiasm and apparent commitment. Either way, no one ex…

Plenty of people resign via email simply to make it official. That's where the whole 'handing in your notice' expression comes from, people used to literally hand deliver their termination letter, these days letters are emails so it is a logical - even if it feels rude - development.

Re: Jason Calacanis at his finest

#78

Post by dasil003 »

pg wrote: post #34

Let's be fair here. For all we know, the guy might have done something quite bad. Or not. But if he did, Jason couldn't say so. We just don't know. But what we do know is that this is exactly the kind of half-story that gets people going on forums: an antagonist everyone loves to hate, and structural reasons why we're probably not getting the whole story. Many, many times I've seen users on a forum go on the warpath…

I don't care so much about fairness--tabloid culture makes it impossible and is not going away--but I am saddened for such a "story" to rise so quickly on HN.

As much as Mahalo is a total diarrhea stain on the internet, and as much as I'll vote up articles about yet another angle of its spamminess, Calacanis' internal business stuff is simply not apropos.

Re: Jason Calacanis at his finest

#79

Post by wyclif »

jayliew wrote: post #56
pg wrote: post #34

Let's be fair here. For all we know, the guy might have done something quite bad. Or not. But if he did, Jason couldn't say so. We just don't know. But what we do know is that this is exactly the kind of half-story that gets people going on forums: an antagonist everyone loves to hate, and structural reasons why we're probably not getting the whole story. Many, many times I've seen users on a forum go on the warpath…

I've been "burned" by exactly what pg just said, on Reddit too. And I agree, because with the labor laws, the employer has more to lose than the employee if they aired certain things. For our non-US people, in California, there are laws that specify that ex-employers cannot say bad things about an employee (a bad one or not), to the employee's next prospective employer. As the employee, you get away with some things…

Another perspective: in some states, such as Pennsylvania, employment by law is "at will" and you can be fired/sacked/relieved "without cause."

So you might lose your job. You'll get a reference but nothing that your future employer is really going to base a hiring decision on.

I'm not convinced that the old employer loses any money by replacing and retraining employees once you subtract raises that would have been earned and benefits, so I tend to think there's still a tremendous amount of power on the side of the company rather than the employee.

Re: Jason Calacanis at his finest

#80

Post by sokoloff »

jayliew wrote: post #23

Having been through a few conflicts myself, as an independent observer and as one of the parties in the conflict .. I'm not taking sides, but just wanting to note that although the employer definitely could have handled it better, I have a feeling we're only scratching the tip of the surface and we don't know much what really happened between the employer-employee. The "pack and get out now" is actually very standard…

Who's to say that Evan only resigned via this communication to the team? Presumably, as an honorable individual he resigned to management privately, and then in addition sent a mail to the team stating the facts of his resignation, thanking them and wishing them well. That's the classy way to go about it.

If that was the first communication he had with Mahalo about his resignation, bad on him. Given my perception of Jason (as a douche-nozzle leach/blight on the internet), it wouldn't surprise me at all if he tried to portray it as if that was the first and only communication from Evan to Mahalo and that Evan was somehow the bad guy here. Employees quit. Get the F over it, and don't extend your reputation as a petulant out-for-number-one dickhead.

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