I just got a voicemail from my boss. Well, soon to be former boss. Not because I couldn't hack it at the job, but the business I was involved with had eroded over the years to the point where there was simply nothing left for me to do. I had finally given up. It wasn't really up to me. I talked with her about it a few times, but she wasn't interested in pursuing the sort of clients I used to work so hard to satisfy. So now my full-time job is finding a new job. I was in an interview when she called. I think this other firm is pretty lame but if I don't find something better soon I'll have to take it, so I'm hustling. Tonight I'm going to polish my CV and email some old contacts. I can call the old boss back tomorrow morning. What is she going to do, fire me again?
"A while later (hopefully a few years), you tell me it is time to talk. You are not happy anymore and feel it is time to change things. Of course I’ll try to convince you. See if we can change something in your job description to make you happier, see if I can get you motivated in different ways. But if we can’t work things out together, if it is simply time to end the relationship, let’s talk about it like adults. Don’t come into the office one day telling me out of the blue that you haven’t been happy for a while, found someone else and will leave me as soon as possible. And now that you brought it up, why should I pay your full wage if you are only working at half force since you aren’t motivated anymore?"
Consistency doesn't appear to be Inge's strong suit.
> And now that you brought it up, why should I pay your full wage if you are only working at half force since you aren’t motivated anymore?
I think this is the reason why "openness" is tough to achieve. Most of the time, the stakes are much higher for the employee than the company-- the business can probably continue operating after separation, but the employee might not be able to pay rent without a paycheck. All information is power in the relationship, so I don't think an employee should ever feel obligated to share more than what is necessary. I wouldn't expect to be informed that my department's budget for salaries is $X or that I'm going to be let go, effective three months from now.
> Don’t come into the office one day telling me out of the blue that you haven’t been happy for a while, found someone else and will leave me as soon as possible.
"Don’t come into the office one day telling me out of the blue that you haven’t been happy for a while"
The fact that she finds such "out of the blue" IS the problem.
As for "why should I pay your full wage if you are only working at half force since you aren’t motivated anymore?": you pay full wage because he's doing full required work, demonstrated by the fact that she didn't notice anything was wrong and was content to pay him for it. Maybe he's unhappy because he wants to do more but she's not making it worth his time/effort to.
And obviously the disclosure is "out of the blue" precisely because her first reaction is to cut his pay.
I consider it unsafe to click linkedin links anymore. I clicked through to the comments here because that's the closest I'm willing to get to content posted there.
I have read that LinkedIn will actively solicit your information to people that are near you once they find out where you are, and they will actively take steps to continue knowing who you are, even when you actively took steps to prevent them from finding out (like not logging in, and not accepting their cookies.)
Also they have been accused of dark patterns before, like that would result in people getting e-mail that purports to be from you, when you think you already unchecked the box and asked not to share your contact list.
Question: if you didn't get paid for the time between the agreement to leave and the moment you leave, you wouldn't complain because "now my full-time job is finding a new job"?
Most of the reactions both here and on LinkedIn seem to miss a crucial fact: this story happened in Belgium.
In Belgium, employees must be notified in advance before they are let go: you send them a letter stating "your contract will end in 12 weeks", they keep working for you for 12 weeks, and then they leave.
Employees are usually expected to pass on their knowledge to other team members and wrap up their current projects before they leave. And they are getting paid for it.
This is not the story of a CEO who fired out an employee on the spot, then tried to get back in touch later because they found out they still needed him.
This is the story of a CEO who told an employee that they would be let go three months from now, then asked them to help after hours---something that they had done previously---only to find that they were not motivated enough to do it anymore.
And this is what makes the story interesting: it's not a ridiculous caricature that you can point and laugh at ; it has all the real-life ingredients that you can easily find in the average company.
- Employers and employees who assume that "professionalism" means volunteering to work beyond the scope of a work contract.
- Employers who forget that loyalty is an essential factor in the motivation of many employees.
- A CEO who made the tradeoff of not having a dedicated 24/7 support team, and whines when the inevitable outage happens and there is no one to handle it.
I believe the original author herself said it best: "So your best bet is to hire people who share your passion, willing to 'volunteer' on such occasions."
No one is passionate about staying long hours to fix a production server. But they might be passionate about building a product that can make them proud. Their product. And once they feel it's not their product anymore, the passion is gone, and they'll be home by 7pm with their cell phone turned off.
I think most people from countries other than USA realized it was a 3-months notice.
I believe the story remains a caricature, for the following reasons:
1/ she terminated him because she determined there was no more need for his skills. Expecting overtime after that is admission that she was at best too early, and probably just wrong. Planning is one of the key competences expected from a CEO.
2/ she's surprised that he won't work more than he's paid for. That's a caricatural misunderstanding of how people relate to their job; from a farmer or a plumber it might pass, but coming from a CEO of HR-oriented companies, that's nothing short of crass incompetence.
3/ basic fairness: during employment, she kept paying him money because it was the only way to get some work done; she should expect the flip side: that he only works when it's the only way to keep making money. And he's not even slacking at work, is just doing no more than what he's paid for. This gives the whole story an "entitled brat" vibe IMO.
> "So your best bet is to hire people who share your passion, willing to 'volunteer' on such occasions."
That line kills me. Seriously, who's passionate about yet another online CV sharing app? Which probably has to be unbearably pushy with its users, since LinkedIn has long eaten everyone's lunch on this market? She's no Elon Musk, and the only things that could foster passion for her business are stock options.
That argument is always used by people in boring businesses, rarely by those who'd be legitimately entitled to use it--I guess those don't need to.
I got the sense that the employee was being paid for the 3 months, and spending time mostly to look for a new job -- not to do actual work for the company.
As a result, the CEO probably thought it was reasonable to ask him to help out with an emergency. Although it was after hours, it was hardly "overtime" in the sense of being hour 41+ of work he did for the company. Probably more like hour 2+, in her mind.
I'm not saying her expectation was realistic, I just don't think it was a "caricature". I suppose I think you're not understanding her point of view, much as she didn't understand the employee's point of view.
> I suppose I think you're not understanding her point of view, much as she didn't understand the employee's point of view.
I think I understand what a workaholic's feelings might be in such a situation, although displays of empathy with her seemed out of my comment's topic.
But there's an asymmetry here: it's not my job to understand how workaholics react, whereas it's doubly hers to understand how employees react, as a boss and as an HR professional.
Thanks for clearing this up. It's funny how in the US, people rarely ever (only in high up enough roles) get any kind of a notification. Getting a 3 month notice is pretty awesome, at least you're not left out on the curb because of some layoff.
Outside of that, you hit the point right on and I think a lot of comments echo your sentiments:
- Any kind of "volunteering" for free, outside of working hours is preposterous as it is. Expecting an employee to continue doing so after given a notice is even worse. You're basically expecting favors after you told the employee they won't be able to cash out on those favors.
- And so, when the CEO has a 24/7 support of volunteers and used to it, and then cuts the volunteers, there won't be anyone there to handle it. I understand that Belgium sucks in terms of overtime (high taxes, finicky contracts) but if it's mission critical, you may want to have at least one person on your payroll that can do this. It's a necessary cost.
This is not specific to Belgium. Most countries beside USA have a notice period of 2 to 3 months.
In fact, it is actually much worse for an employee to have such long notice periods. The most obvious one is already mentioned - boredom and low morale. But it has an interesting side-effect: Most companies have immediate requirements and cannot wait for months before it is filled. So they hire from a pool that is limited to people who have already been laid off. And obviously the employees are in poor position to negotiate any salary increase.
Change "most First World countries" to "most Western countries"; Japan, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan are first world countries (at least in the sense 'first world' means economically developed).
And what happens in those countries in terms of notice period? I'm actually wondering specifically about those countries too. Otherwise, all we have left is the US + Europe, more or less, I believe.
In Singapore it's 1 day to 4 weeks, depending on how long they were employed[1]. Taiwan is 10 to 30 days, depending on length of employment[2]. Korea is 30 days[3]. Japan is also 30 days[4].
I'm Australian, and it's also one to four weeks notice here, depending on how long the employee's been employed at the company[5].
I have worked in several countries. It was based on my experience. Also, I have seen that notice period has gradually gone up in service based companies.
I know that HN core audience hasn't really seen that side of outsourcing, so the experiences might be different.
> In fact, it is actually much worse for an employee to have such long notice periods. The most obvious one is already mentioned - boredom and low morale.
Unless the law prohibits terminal paid leave, this is easily avoided.
> Most companies have immediate requirements and cannot wait for months before it is filled.
So? Hire someone immediately. Having notice requirements for termination doesn't prohibit you from doing that. Internal policies regarding positions might, but that's a problem of internal policies, not externally-imposed terminal notice requirements.
That is what I am saying. If you want someone to work from tomorrow, then you look for people whose notice period is ending tomorrow or has already ended. You can no longer poach employees.
Did you want to say something else? Could you please explain further?
2-3 months of the employee having been completely demotivated, festering resentment, and likely not doing anywhere close to expected productivity (much less overtime as the author was surprised about not getting).
"Out by 11AM" sucks, but it's _done_, minimizes suffering, and you can move on with life. Trust me.
The social (not legal) convention in the USA is 2 weeks (with 2 weeks pay in lieu of work if the "out by 11AM" happens). That's about enough to, if on good terms, wrap things up for all parties involved and transition accordingly.
Giving someone 2-3 months notice, and expecting performance as though it's going to proceed and end as if it were "out by 11AM" (to wit: work full enthusiastic hours for weeks on end with no distractions, then pack up and leave one morning) is absurdly unrealistic.
What about the suffering of the employee? They have bills to pay, rent or mortgage to pay, and food to buy. 2 weeks paid notice when you're fired means you have to scramble to get a job. The company have months of time to play for when to fire you, but you only get 2 weeks before you stop getting money? No way.
Of course not. I would prefer it to be around 2 weeks to 1 month.
But really, it depends on the job market. As an employee, let us say, a specialized laborer, I would prefer the notice period to be as long as possible because there aren't going to be any other jobs for me out there.
Those three months are an upper bound, not a requirement. If you are fired, then it can usually be assumed the employer would rather see you go sooner than later. You can usually negotiate a shorter term.
In most develeped countries (except the USA), you can't just fire someone on the spot (unless they are stealing from you / beating up co-workers etc.). So the employee always has a notice period to work.
It seems like someone believed her own bs. Article uses a lot of words to make situation sound as something entirely different then what it was.
"I know I fired this person, but I considered that merely a technical matter. I thought we agreed it was the best option for all involved, allowing him to grow professionally elsewhere."
Agreed as in employee did not put fight when he was informed of the decision? Good for both of them, but it is still firing. Feel good talk about "professional grow elsewhere" is just that. Might be even insulting to employee. Did she really expected the employee to buy it?
"It never crossed my mind that he had been FIRED. We just reached the end of our partnership, for now. Time to move on for both of us."
I mean, yes, they reached end of partnership by firing employee. He was not needed anymore. Nothing wrong with that, companies can not afford to pay people without giving them work. It is still firing.
"I have always valued being open, honest and correct. Even if I wanted to, there's not much you can hide in a small business. So I embrace transparency to the full extent."
No she does not. She tries to put spin around things to paint them rosier then they are. Then she acts all shocked when it turns out that employees are able read through euphemisms.
EDIT: changed he to she since CEO in question is a women.
She failed to consider that he considered that seriously a survival matter. Mortgage/rent has to be paid. Food has to be put on the table. High-quality healthcare is expensive. Dependents can't be put on 'pause'. He's working for her because he needs to, and she proved herself an unreliable source of vital means of survival. No word about a generous severance package, no word of a retainer, no word of can't-resist consulting fees.
Sure, nothing wrong with parting ways when need ends. But just because she didn't need work from him doesn't mean he didn't need salary from her. Yeah, maybe he'd banked enough to get by, maybe he'd been smart and planned ahead, maybe he didn't really worry about short-term survival ... or maybe he had no idea where money for the next mortgage/rent bill would come from and the pantry was sparse. She didn't consider why he worked for her; rare is the employee who doesn't need to work.
I look forward to the day when any candidate for a managerial job is tested for sociopathic tendencies. And then, to be clear, they aren't given the job.
That's a great idea. We should screen developers for Asperger's too, and make sure we don't hire any of those folks. Oh, and ADHD too. And you know what, people with bipolar disorder are a right pain in the ass to deal with, so we'll pass on them. Depressed people sometimes kill themselves, so hey, no hire, sorry.
There's an important difference. If you give somebody power over people and they are unable to empathize, then they can't be trusted to act responsibly. Many sociopaths seek power precisely because they like exploiting people. If you're interested further in the topic, try reading Snakes in Suits or The Psychopath Test.
Similarly, we shouldn't give people with peophillic issues power over small children.
Broken people deserve our support, and we should work to heal them. But in doing so, we can't let them break other people.
"If you give somebody power over people and they are unable to empathize, then they can't be trusted to act responsibly."
Sorry - are we talking about sociopathy or Aspergers here?
It feels like your exception is really a way of saying "well, no, don't discriminate against any of those people, only these people who I think really deserve it."
Sadly, such wordsmiths are far from rare in the world of business. Very often they will go through linguistic gymnastics to make every action of theirs sound good, and justify things they shouldn't have done as okay. In my personal experience, salespeople are the worst about this, as their entire job is really to bullshit people into buying a product.
I see it as a kind of sociopathy, an inability to empathize with others and a tendency to see them not as human but as resources for you to use. I have a high sensitivity to it and no tolerance for it. And I agree that sales people are the #1 bullshitters.
Apparently that happened with Dilbert. The author made stuff up and people kept writing to him saying "That story-line is just like $COMPANY, that's where you got the idea, right?"
Armando Ianucci has said that one of the reasons he stopped writing the political satire "The Thick of It" was politicians were now doing things that they'd written off as too implausible for the show.
Also I suspect Veep pays a lot better for basically the same idea.
I really enjoyed those! Seems like you've real talent:
"After my speech tonight one little boy came up to me and said simply, "I'm hungry".
I wanted to take him in my arms and tell him: "I feel it too, champ. I feel it too. I feel the hunger to succeed, to create a product that Johnny Ive would truly appreciate, I know precisely what you're going through."
> However, Belgian law makes it very difficult to put such a flexible schedule in a contract.
Oh really? I'm not an expert on Belgian law here, but are they really claiming they offered to pay people extra and/or give time off in lieu for optional overtime, but they didn't agree to it? Or is it just mandatory free overtime that is banned?
Belgian law probably makes it hard to require employees to work more than reasonable hours for no extra reward or choice. Which is a good thing. If you want 24x7 support, you need to pay for 24x7 employees. This person is wishing they had the right to specify in a contract that your working hours are "whenever I call."
Since they don't get that, I'm not surprised they didn't realise firing someone^W^W, sorry, "agree[ing] to terminate your collaboration" might make them stop responding beyond the call of duty.
Also, I was reading something the other day that pointed out that, whilst seeing things in black and white reduces you to only two perspectives (moral and immoral), the attitude that everything is a shade of grey (and the implied attitude that this makes moral comparisons impossible) reduces you to a single perspective (amoral). If you think two perspectives is too few, how is going down to one perspective supposed to help?
An unfortunate view most companies in Eastern European countries share.
It is not uncommon to get fired for not voluntarily giving up your time or even weekend sometime although they won't tell you why you get fired it's pretty obvious.
I had heard rumours that they were bad to work for (yet they still get lots of smart nerdy kids applying). You heard the same, or actually worked for them?
I had internship in a gaming company as a Software Engineer (internal systems, not games directly). Eventhough I did not do games, I was literally working in the same environment.
In addition I have a small business in games industry, and am having plenty of stories of game developers.
If you ask me, why such an abuse of staff? I believe it is the games - great opportunity of having endless pool of motivated and experienced youngsters. Just like a fashion journal for women.
Inflexible , huge employer costs (highest costs in the world for employment),...
Because of the taxes, employers don't want you to work extra hours and as an employee, you don't have much benefit of it (governement taxes that A LOT if you do overtime).
Some things that are forbidden (or pay extra taxes)
- Only normal hours (5 days a week, ...)
- Don't employ people outside of their working schedule
But those things should be forbidden and in the hands of the employee.
That said, I have signed the "I will work more than 48 hours if required" waiver at my current employer; mostly because I know it will hardly happen and if it does it will be extra-ordinary and I will be willing to pull with the team.
I'm an employee, it should also be my right to work more without the governement always taxing me extra.
I want to work more, but i see no financial benefit from it for working a day in a weekend (eg. when i have a deadline), nor does my employer.
PS. Overhours in Belgum don't get payed a lot or aren't encouraged because of the extra cost. Employees don't mind because their happy to have jobs here... But i shouldn't say that out loud, because it's illegal. But a lot of people work an hour / day for free (from my personal experience here in Belgium)
>it should also be my right to work more without the governement always taxing me extra //
I don't agree. Partly the government has to be concerned with the entire workforce. Some people doing more work means that other people may not be employed, or may be under-employed. Preventing overtime, or at least providing financial pressure against it, means that those who don't want to work all hours can avoid it more easily and also helps to make sure companies employ enough workers rather than simply squeezing dry fewer than they really need.
Lower taxes and companies would hire employees easier. Now we have a very dificult system. Everyone is on probation for 6 months and the governement pays this (interns and a system called IBO).
Having 1 full-time employee or doing it all by yourselve is mostly the difference between loss and profit in Belgium (for an SMB).
Also, the taxes are so high, every company with > 1000 workmen is subsidized by the governement (most recent example: 7,5 Million € goo.gl/HluVNB for keeping a company here).
There is not a single car manufactorer, that makes profits here in Belgium without subsidisement. (a lot of them moved away from Belgium the last years)
> There is not a single car manufactorer, that makes profits here in Belgium without subsidisement. (a lot of them moved away from Belgium the last years)
I'm an employee, it should also be my right to work more without the governement always taxing me extra. I want to work more, but i see no financial benefit from it for working a day in a weekend (eg. when i have a deadline), nor does my employer.
I'm not sure I understand here. Surely if you're making more money, then you should expect to pay a portion of that in tax? And you'll see a financial benefit as a result?
Let's say that a normal hour is taxed 50 %, extra hours are taxed under a different tax tabel, so more % goes to the governement. Also, if you work something more, there is a chance, you get in a higher tax zone.
So even if you work more and get more the current month. You are going to get taxed more on the end of the year.
As a result, you have earned less on the end of the year (because you get in the higher income zone, so you are taxed more).
Edit: below.
I didn't fully explained it, but it's complicated then that. If you get in a different tax bracket (didn't knew the term in English), you lose certain financial benefits.
I'd wish some Belgian accountant was here to explain it better, although i'm aware of tax brackets. They don't include some financial benefits when you have a lower income.
I'm not aware of any common tax regime that results in a marginal tax rate of over 100%, which is what you're describing there.
Even if your additional income pushes you into another tax bracket, you will only be paying additional tax on the amount made over the lower threshold. In the UK, for example, the top rate of income tax is 45%, and this is charged only on earning over ~£150,000 annually. If you earned £150,100, you would be £55 cash-in-hand better off than if you'd earned £150,000.
Unfortunately a lot of people don't understand the basic math you described. I know several people who think they lose money after getting bonuses and such.
It's not a matter of losing money; it's a matter of losing certain tax benefits that exceed the value of the bonus. It's a very real issue for people who straddle various thresholds for credits, deductions, and other benefits.
For example, in the US once you make over $75,000 (before most deductions), you no longer qualify for student loan interest payment deductions. For someone making $74,000 before who receives a $2000 bonus, they lose out on the deduction--potentially worth significantly more in tax-adjusted terms than the gross amount of the bonus before taxes.
> For example, in the US once you make over $75,000 (before most deductions), you no longer qualify for student loan interest payment deductions. For someone making $74,000 before who receives a $2000 bonus, they lose out on the deduction--potentially worth significantly more in tax-adjusted terms than the gross amount of the bonus before taxes.
The student loan interest deduction (and this is true of most -- AFAIK, actually all -- deductions with an income cap) doesn't have a sharp cutoff, it has a phaseout -- you get the full deduction up to $60,000, and it is reduced continuously with income down to zero at $75,000.
At $74,000, the maximum student loan interest deduction is a $167 deduction (which, at that income, is worth $42 in reduced tax liability.) Even with a $1,000 bonus that takes you just to the cutoff, its not possible for the loss of the deduction to be "worth significantly more in tax-adjusted terms than the gross amount of the bonus before taxes". [1]
It's unfortunate that the system for paying taxes has become so complicated. It's no wonder that people complain about rich people exploiting tax-law. Whereas they simply have the inclination/money to hire accountants that do the books properly, and give them the advice they need to keep their affairs in perfect-tax working order.
This is not how Belgian income tax works. Your pay gets divided up into tax brackets, and you pay a certain tax rate per tax bracket. You will pay a low rate for the first ~8.5k you earn, a higher rate for the next ~5k, higher still for the next ~10k and so on.
The result is that while you can be taxed more on additional income if it bumps your total income up to a certain tax bracket, you will only ever pay more money on the part that's actually above the lower limit for that bracket. This will never ever cause you to pay more taxes on the money you've already earned.
I don't think you understand how tax brackets/tax zones work.
For example, say there is no tax up to $50000, and a 50% bracket starts at $50000. If you make $50001, you only pay a 50% tax on that one dollar over 50k, the first 50k remains untaxed. This is how pretty much any tax regime in the world works.
So while you may have to pay a higher tax rate on extra overtime money earned, it would be just on that money, not on your base pay. It's impossible for you to make less money at the end of the year because you worked overtime.
I get it. You're explaining the point of a "flat tax": increased tax rates just because you're more productive (and fairly compensated for it) isn't fair. Likewise, getting unusual lump payments (overtime, bonuses) often have tax deducted at the highest rate to ensure you pay at least enough, getting the over-deducted fraction back later only when you've proven that you're not in the higher tax bracket after all (you may be in a 30% bracket, but get a bonus deducted as if you're in the 50%, getting back the over-paid 20% only after the end of the tax year, which could be upwards of a year).
Working harder, under most "progressive" tax systems, provides diminishing returns because of higher tax rates - right at the point when the personal cost of extra work grow exponentially.
> This is also a problem in the US if you manage to just cross a tax bracket.
Well, it would be, if the US adopted a tax bracket with a > 100% marginal rate. But it hasn't, so it doesn't. Though its a persistent myth, because people don't understand marginal tax rates and confuse them with total tax rates. (Or, for a similar problem, as illustrated in another subthread, don't understand the related concept of how deductions phase out before you reach the point where they are no longer available.)
"I'm an employee, it should also be my right to work more without the governement always taxing me extra."
Working extra means you earn more. You live in a society that taxes a percentage of your earnings. What part of those two concepts don't you understand?
I'm not using the deriving ought from is logical fallacy. I'm simply pointing out the facts, and the logical conclusions from that. But if you want to be all formal with your argumentation, here it is for you in all its simplistic and formal glory:
I think you're just trying to be argumentative/pedantic for no reason that I can think of or immediately see. Besides, you took one interpretation of "should", and I took another; nothing wrong with both. So you can either choose to be pedantic and continue nitpicking, or you can admit you were wrong in accusing me of a logical fallacy, or bask in the glory that you just watched me make an actual fallacy (before my edit).
I mostly agree - it depresses me that people have managed to be so brainwashed that if you dare to suggest that you only want to do the job that you're being paid for, you are seen as a radical troublemaker (of course, employers insisting that you do at least what you are paid for are seen as entirely reasonable).
The one bit I would partly question would be the response to "We need you to work this weekend". Every relationship needs a bit of give and take, and every now and then an emergency, or an unexpected big piece of work might mean that the company really needs you in the office, and (assuming that it's not a huge inconvenience for you) it would be reasonable to expect you to try to help out - in the same way that a "Boss, I need to shoot off early today to pick my kid up because he's had an accident" shouldn't be met with a "'fraid not, you're staying until you've done your hours" response.
The important thing, in both cases, is that it's an exception. An employer demanding that you come in every weekend for the next 3 months would be as unreasonable as an employee doing short hours every day because they continually need to run some errand or other.
Of course employers would suggest that if you were hired on salary, they're paying you to work any time they need you to work. I've gotten that line before: "your job is to be on call 24x7". Every employment contract, at least in the US, will say "other duties as assigned".
Yes, assuming the employer considering actual output when they talk about "value" and not "seat time". Otherwise the next conversation is:
"Good for him, I'm starting at B co. in two weeks."
Also one of the most reliable ways to get better positions & pay appears to change jobs, suggesting your scenario is just a carrot on a stick that rarely happens in practice.
I would have expected that career paths in software development would emerge as the industry matures. Instead I have seen promotion paths vanishing, even in older lines of work.
The companies where you can work your way up from entry level to executive are disappearing. The only one I am actually aware of that still promotes from within, even up to the top levels, is Publix.
Belgium and most other EU countries have pretty strict labor code. This prevents both the overeager Johns and their employers from setting up the race to the bottom where everybody has to work on weekends just not to fall behind.
So this conversation of yours would probably end in an investigation from the labor office to check whether John didn't cross the limits and was compensated fairly for the overtime.
"You need me to work this weekend, and I'm happy to do so with no financial gain. I won't be on this continent for long, so I want to work what time I can to do the best job I can because I take pride in my work."
"Don't you dare work this weekend. If you do, as your manager I risk criminal prosecution and jail time."
There's a huge gap between things that are forbidden and things that are simply discouraged through extra taxation. The result is that employers have to think long and hard before they have people come in on weekends or do tons of overwork, thereby protecting employees while being flexible enough to allow for weird work schedules when they're absolutely needed. How is that not a good compromise?
> (governement taxes that A LOT if you do overtime).
Let's say the tax rate on overtime is 60%. And that you would be motivated/consider the overtime pay fair if you got € X an hour.
Well then the employer needs to offer € X * 1/(1-0.6) gross pay to get the employee the right amount of net pay. It's not difficult, merely expensive, but since overtime like this is rare, I doubt it's impossible.
They're apparently the highest taxed OECD country when you add together income tax, VAT and both employee and employee social security contributions. Perhaps that's what he was thinking of.
But not only that, countries like Norway give you more "bang for the buck", meaning free education, ...
Not only that, but Norway and Switzerland have one of the highest per capita income in the world, Switzerland even has a minimal income of 2800$ / month!
Per comparison, Belgium is on #17, Norway on #2 and Switzerland on #4.
Living in Belgium, i only notice an enormous inefficiency and a complex accounting system, both are hurting SMB's.
Switzerland is as "low income tax/we want you to work" as it gets in Europe. The closest to a red EU country as it gets (but still much more responsible than any us state).
Oh dear god yes. Norway and Switzerland are mostly funded by oil and banks. I've paid €90 a night for a youth hostel in Switzerland, and a friend paid €11 a beer in Norway.
Like most European countries, they probably require to have a day team and a night team. Google has datacenter in Belgium[1], so it would be surprising it was "impossible".
They don't. It is not a requirement. But if you want your employees to do overtime, you have to pay them either 50% more or 100% more, depending on whether it's "just" overtime or overtime during a time when they wouldn't have to work at all (weekends, official holidays, ...).
The very short, very inaccurate summary is, you get 50% for outside of hours (after 19h, weekends). You get another 50% for working on weekends. And you get 50% for working on official holidays.
Meaning you get 3x your normal hourly wage for working after 19h on Easter or Christmas for example.
Needless to say, companies don't want to pay this, and will lie and cheat to get out from under this. Problem is, if they get sued, the maximum penalty is 2 years' wage, paid out on the spot, and it's up to the employee to decide whether to continue working there or not (if you fire an employee, and put down as reason that you've lost a court case against them, that's likely to result in another 2 years pay for the employee).
European Working Time Directive forbids more than a 48 hour working week. The UK has an opt out to that maximum. Sounds like this employer wants someone who can work 24x7, which y'know is illegal.
Indeed appears this self proclaimed CV/recruitment specilist has deleted the offending post highlighting how bad she is with regards to staff relations.
Short version , she fired somebody so she could save money and then had a problem and was unable to get the extra mile suport out of hours and outside the contract hours from that employee she had fired. Then took to social media to wonder how could this happen and trying to blame everything upto and including the old employee for her clear and blatant greedy oversight.
A while later (hopefully a few years), you tell me it is time to talk. You are not happy anymore and feel it is time to change things. Of course I'll try to convince you. See if we can change something in your job description to make you happier, see if I can get you motivated in different ways. But if we can’t work things out together, if it is simply time to end the relationship, let’s talk about it like adults. Don't come into the office one day telling me out of the blue that you haven't been happy for a while, found someone else and will leave me as soon as possible. And now that you brought it up, why should I pay your full wage if you are only working at half force since you aren't motivated anymore?*
This is really a special kind of deluded. I'm not even sure what else I can say. She's just pretty spectacularly unqualified to deal with people. She seems to think she's buying friends and that because she pays (has paid) them, she owns them.
If you can, can you save it with all comments from LinkedIn please? The Google webcache misses some comments, and they were the worthwhile bit of the post
Sure, I screenshotted the entire page, but removed the sidebar and topbars.. and it was 13MB, is there anywhere to upload it that takes files that large? imgur.com wouldn't work.
What did you use to take the screenshot, which handled that size? All my screenshot tools fail around the 5MB limit, which is a PITA when trying to screenshot long pages :(
If you're on a Mac, you might try Paparazzi[1] (no affiliation).
I don't specifically know if it has any trouble with a 5Mb limit as I don't generally pay any attention to file sizes, but it's never given me any troubles with pretty long pages, so I'm assuming it would work well in this scenario.
I guess Inge Geerdens, author of the text, and LinkedIn "Influencer" (sic!) removed the page; LinkedIn users were quite harsh with their comments. The logical development, IMHO, would be that:
1) relevant Belgian authorities launch investigation into employees' treatment in her company. Apparently they are forced to work after hours and, unlawfully, not being appropriately paid for the overtime work.
2) Inge gets fired for bringing disgrace to the company she works for as a CEO.
I read many comments and would not call them harsh, realistic yes. If anything rather constructive and tame to what could be worded as a reply to her post.
I would say the comments (most of them) were "relatively harsh", because usually comments under LinkedIn "Influencers"' blogs are limited to "thank you!", "great!", congratulations, etc. I thought they were pretty honest and not too diplomatic.
3) She is immediately hired by an American company or multinational, with her disrepect for European labor protections as her most outstanding qualification.
But she would have to learn to not talk directly to the people that she is firing. The best way to break up with an employee is by mass e-mail, text message, or simply by deactivating their access card and leaving the crap from their office in a box by the curb.
Been let go once by getting a call late at night on my personal cell, telling me to not try to go in in the morning, and my agency staff will pick up my personal items as soon as possible....
Please try to tone down the amount of speculation and blame you are adding to the story. AFAIK, none of the things you are saying is actually true or have come to pass.
Remember, the surest way to spot these types of comments is the lead-in with an ad hominem argument...
I don't see your point. It is clear to me that she admitted breaking Belgian employment law saying things like: "Belgian law makes it very difficult to put such a flexible schedule in a contract. So your best bet is to hire people who share your passion, willing to 'volunteer' on such occasions." Notice the 'volunteer' in quotes... When you put 'volunteer' in quotes it doesn't mean the same, it's just a cynical way of saying that she expects people to be happy working overtime for free.
In other comments in this thread by Belgian HN users you'll see that "Belgian law makes it very difficult" is an euphemism for "it's possible, but costly", so she is basically admitting to break the law to reduce cost. How much this kind of approach to law is tolerated in Belgium, I don't know, so a future investigation is a pure speculation, I admit, but hey, am I not free to speculate about the future???
As far as 2) is concerned, I'm not witch-hunting here, calling for her head, or anything like that. I just think that the bad PR she's made will not make the company's board/owners/shareholders etc. happy. She just hasn't done any good with this blog post. I'm sure you agree with that, regardless of whether you agree with her views on employment law or not.
So, yes, it's all speculations, and I'm sorry, but I don't feel guilty about it. Should I, really?
I can be very flexible and friendly, but I always put the company|religion|family first and I value the [company|religion|family]'s well being over an individual employee|Human.
Yes, she does sound like a nice person. Unfortunately when I worked for an investment bank, they seemed to encourage arsehole behaviour and promote it.
>However, Belgian law makes it very difficult to put such a flexible schedule in a contract. So your best bet is to hire people who share your passion, willing to 'volunteer' on such occasions.
Threw up in my mouth a little bit. My 'passion' is making money by providing services you need. You pay me, I do sh*t. That simple. Let's not kid ourselves.
I love the mental gymnastics she goes through to paint herself as having done no wrong in her mind.
To be fair, having grown up in Belgium, they take their red tape and bureaucracy to a whole new level.
I considered moving back there and freelancing after university, but the hoops you have to jump through (and tax you have to pay) scared me off that idea pretty quickly.
Hoops to jump through: set up a business bank account, fill out some forms, about 30 minutes tops. Pay taxes once a year for federal, provincial and city and VAT four times a year through a free online system. Sounds like a lot but it takes hardly any time. As a freelancer you can keep simplified accounts, double bookkeeping is optional. Pay an accountant if that's too much to deal with.
Admittedly it's more of a hassle in Belgium than it is in the UK (they treat sole traders really well) but it's still a walk in the park.
Level of taxation: sure, it's a lot, but always less than what an employee would pay. And you get health insurance and are saving for retirement as a part of that bargain – even as a freelancer!
She lets an employee go because they don't need him, then needs him and complains that he's not readily available.
Humans aren't inanimate objects to be used and discarded and retrieved as your personal needs change, and this CEO is getting some faint glimmers of that if not fully realizing the entire scope of this implication.
It's not a lack of class, it's a lack of intelligence.
Amicable separations aren't quite as rare as unicorns but they make California condors look ordinary. No matter what people claim, it's remarkably uncommon, one party always gets the bad end of the deal. If what I've heard about work in Belgium is true, unless this guy was an elite contractor, short of finding another position there is no way this was going to be amicable.
I was in a similar situation. Due to circumstance, I was the only guy who knew about a particular thing that was fairly critical to the business who could do any work on it.
My old boss gave me a call and said "Hey, Spooky23, we're in a bit of a jam with <system z>, would you be willing to do some consulting for a few weeks?". So I did. Worked about 30-40 hours fixing stuff, and spent a few hours training the guy they hired.
This happens all of the time. Some CEOs/VPs/etc have class. Others don't.
Then how does anybody take her seriously? Is it the lack of women in IT and business that make people more tollerant of such clear shortcommings, like that twitter post and her major snafu in people managment skills this article outlays. Especialy for somebody who proclaims to be some kind of staff recruitment expert.
I fail to see how believing conspiracy theories would interfere with her ability to recruit good people.
While the post was certainly beyond ridiculous, let's not get ahead of ourselves and most definitely don't start any pointless and damaging witchhunt here.
Oh her post reagrding the topic was indicative of her recruitment ability for me. This conspiracy which is clear to most interlectuals would easily be dismissed due to source alone and to panda towards such poor information is to me and many a sign of weakness, again non conducive towards stable manager.
Anybody who is easily lead by such a clear conspiracy is also the type to be in denial of the facts as indicated by this post about not understanding why a sacked employee did not jump thru hoops out of hours later on. We see it, anybody reading it see's it and she did not until after it went viral and enough comments enabled reality to set in that she eventualy realised her mistake and instead of admitting it, she just deleted it and pretended it never happened.
That is the relevance, and indicative that for some this person is not very credible. Employers go thru social media all the time and way it against you, it works both ways.
No witch hunt, rememebr this is instigated by her, everybody is just stating the obvious that she failed too see and then when she did, delete/denaial mode. no witch hunt, just trying to understand the type of person who would make such a post in the first place and if it was out of character or indicative of there mindset.
But any debate can be deemed a witchhunt, just does not distract from the facts. So more a facthunt.
The source is "Daily Mail". Pretty much sums it all: if she believes that conspiracy and its source she could easily believe that her own lack of continuity makes perfect sense.
At this point, conspiracies have just as much evidence as Occam's Razor regarding that plane's disappearance. The theory is pretty well out there, yet still fits what is known and not completely absurd.
What amuses/occupies people outside of work should be largely ignored insofar as it has nothing to do with work. Most people who are interesting/talented hold views others find ... weird.
'It never crossed my mind that he had been FIRED.'
Yes, by the end of most modern firings, which are conducted with an astonishing degree of cowardice, the goal is to make the employee somehow leave feeling like they've voluntarily quit. This is how we avoid recognizing the uncomfortable fact that a firing is actually a confrontation, and that it is super uncomfortable. And we don't want to experience that, right?
Apparently the CEO has somehow convinced themselves that firings are mutual and that they aren't super uncomfortable.
Stop couching something in euphemisms and recognize things for what they actually are. If you are letting someone go chances are 1) it's a one-sided decision 2) they won't appreciate it very much. Only in the flavor-less world of detached corporate speak are firings mutual.
> I am the boss with all the perks and the quirks.
I think this is yet another example of what another HN commenter recently called "ignoring the considerable power you wield over other people and expecting them to ignore it too."
Guess what, power matters in relationships.
> It wasn't a decision I made overnight. It wasn't even my decision. We talked about it on several occasions.
Is she really saying it wasn't her decision because they talked about it on several occasions, it was somehow a mutual decision? Bullshit.
You don't get to keep all the power, but then expect that in your interactions with people it won't matter, it'll be just like relationships between peers or equals.
> I am the boss with all the perks and the quirks.
these kinds of comments are dangerous.
what your boss thinks they have a right to treat you how they wish as if they own you then that is a problem... if they feel it is fine to say it openly and unashamedly then you are so far from sanity you shouldn't feel safe.
LOL What a parody! With this article she effectively destroyed her business... Unbelievable! Nobody with a brain would like to work for her after a simple search for references and her customers must be already scratching their heads if they can trust that a business with her as a head would stay afloat... Unless she is linked to EU funds that can keep her business funded regardless of performance due to political connections, I don't think many people would be willing to bet on her. This is not about making tough calls when they are necessary, it's about exhibiting inability to comprehend basic business and operational issues and inability to at least conceal that fact by issuing meaningless statements.
I was laid off along with 25% of our department back in 2005 and I stopped all work and started looking for a new job as soon as I got the news. I was halfway though a project, but My number one priority was keeping Myself employed. Thankfully the company was sympathetic to our needs, but there were some employees that had worked at the company for 18 years and now needed to find new jobs. I still came into the office for the following three weeks, unlike some of my other colleagues. Ironically, I was trying to get out of that company anyways so for me, the layoff was an amazing opportunity.
One of the saddest scenarios was one of my colleges that had been out of school for merely 8 months. He had a 2 hour commute to work one way: car/bus -> light rail -> Metro -> office. He was chipper and gung ho about coming into work and working on his projects. The day he got laid off (which was about 1 hour before I got my news) he comes in super excited (as always) and runs up to have a meeting with his Project Manager. Then 15 minutes later, I see him leaving with his back pack and I ask where he's going. He looks dead in my eyes eerily and says "You'll find out soon enough." While he was only out of school 8 months, I think he's now realized that companies aren't all way they are cracked up to be, but now he works at Goldman Sachs so who knows.
American here, I once left a job (quit) because of deep dissatisfaction with the management's general incompetence and constantly pushing critical maintenance off. I had been telling them for more than a year that there needs to be some changes or something bad was going to happen.
Got a call from them a couple months later, something bad finally happened.
"My consultation rate is <some ridiculously huge number per hour>."
"What?"
"You obviously want to hire me as an independent contractor to fix the issue I had been telling you about. Fair warning, I'm at another job now, so I'll be doing the work on nights and weekends."
"Your rate is ridiculous. It wasn't going to cost that much for you to fix it when you worked here."
"I warned you about it for a year and you had your chance to fix it back then when it wasn't a crisis. You ignored me and deferred the issue and now it's this is your emergency, not mine anymore. Frankly, I can charge whatever rate I think is appropriate."
To my surprise, they agreed (at a mildly reduced rate), I came back, spent a couple weeks fixing the issue and then we parted ways. They never asked me back again but I got my 1099 from them a while later.
Everybody always says, upon leaving a job, "call me if you need anything" because we all have friends at work we want to see succeed. But sometimes you have to stop volunteering our time (our lives) to cover up other people's failings. I keep hearing about people who leave a job, then come back in on the weekends to "fix a few things" at their old job. Stop doing that. If it's worth money to the company, it's worth some of that money to you.
Not fired in the American sense (you can't let someone go in any short term in most European countries). She let him know that he should look for another job, meanwhile he's still employed but unmotivated.
But the point here is that he is not "unmotivated" to do his regular job (she makes no mention of that), he just doesn't want to do the free extra time on night and week end for which he was never paid with to begin with, but used to do out of "volunteering" (her own words).
You can't fire a guy and then expect him to be 100% motivated, but you can even less expect him to keep doing the little extra on the side just for you ...
Entirely depends on which country within Europe, France for example has employment laws which are incredibly favorable to employees rather than employers.
The story happened in Belgium, and the specific duration in this case would be three months, unless there are some specific details that we are not aware of. I agree that it would have been different in another country.
That depends. New hires go through a probation period up to 4 months renewable (almost always renewed in practice) were you can be fired in a couple days without justification.
"Don’t come into the office one day telling me out of the blue that you haven’t been happy for a while, found someone else and will leave me as soon as possible. And now that you brought it up, why should I pay your full wage if you are only working at half force since you aren’t motivated anymore?"
And the comments... All these sociopathic-type managers living in the comfortable fantasy that employer/employee relationship is equal to equal. Crazy.
This is just one of the many examples of the utter douchiness of hiring people as employees, but treating them as "fellow entrepreneurs" whenever it suits the employer.
It seems to be a standard pattern in most start-ups, simply not taking the responsibility for being an employer.
What this CEO did isn't just a misunderstanding, it's very, very bad employer-ship, and detrimental to the well being of the employee. Every day that employee is sitting there, being utterly demotivated and wondering what they're going to do next with their career and life that person is edging closer to a burn-out.
Under Dutch law, if that happens, the company is 100% liable and will have to keep paying the employees salary (for up to two years), and get actively involved in the employees recovery.
In this case, it is very black and white: this CEO is an incompetent employer who on top of it has a serious, near sociopathic empathy deficit.
This is not about "leadership style", this is about simple management competence.
tl;dr - clueless CEO fires employee because she didn't know his work was still needed (and thought she'd fatten the margins), later finds out and regrets it.
I don't think they even realise this employee is still needed or that they haven't figured out how to deal with this when the employee is gone. As for expecting an employee to make themselves available to a level they're not legally able to contract them to out of some shared passion... naive to say the very least.
And now they need to hire a communications person to review their social media posts as well as figure out who's going to be mercilessly on call in place of the employee in question.
I wish this were extraordinary. President of our company showed up in the hospital room of the Sr. Developer he fired who had terminal cancer in order to ask him for documentation on various projects. Showed up multiple times in fact.
I actually really do wish that maybe this is extraordinary and that next time around I'll wind up under more human leadership.
That's what finally happened, thankfully. His fiance stepped in and acted as a silent wall to the president's ongoing requests. Thankfully he finally got the message and relented.
EDIT: Hah! Just parsed your message correctly =P no violence ensued haha
'I'm just being honest' is not an excuse for being an asshole, yet the vast majority of the time that is exactly what it's about. It's the most popular justification given by sociopaths.
This situation is a good reminder that just because people get themselves in leadership positions (and especially when they talk as advisors or authorities on leadership) doesn't mean they're actually any good at it. They may just be good at generating content that (usually) sounds smart.
I actually understand many of the reasons why companies need to let people go. Sometimes it really does make sense to stop having someone as a full time employee. But if that person did anything significant during their employment, chances are the company might need a little of their time again in the future. That extra, on-demand time should be compensated well; and the possibility of such a need should be discussed before the exit.
"we need the assistance of our colleague urgently"
Same guy. So there is a bus-factor of 1 and you fired that person. Since said firing was "a few weeks" ago, all critical stuff should have been out of his hands.
If I'm the CEO and I'm going to ask some people to work 80 hour weeks for a few days/weeks/months, I'd be around and find something productive to do just to show solidarity.
I've been the engineer in that scenario a number of times in my life. Almost every time there were management people who stayed who just couldn't contribute. Honestly, I didn't particularly need them to suffer. I'd rather they go home, recognize the situation and reflect on whether something should change if this is a semi-regular situation..and then act. That action is within their capacity and it would have been impactful to me.
As it was, they just didn't act, treated the suffering as a badge and pretended they were in the foxhole with us. If they could handle it, why couldn't we? Why were we bitching so much? They were right there next to us! Needless to say, I don't work in those kinds of places anymore.
It is not about just suffering for the badge of it. I guarantee you that there is actually something productive and useful to do. At the very least, as you say, you can reflect on the current situation and write-up the plan to avoid it in the future.
The only time I pulled a free week end at a company I worked for out of niceness, my boss was sitting in our office evidently having nothing to do beside support me and bring me a coffee every couple of hours.
At the time I thought that's not needed go home, but with retrospect I respect him a lot more for that.
That might sound dumb, but that's one of those things that stick with you when evaluating how you are treated by someone
Yup. If you're asking your team to dive on a grenade, the least you can do is make sure they're stocked with refreshments and feeling like you have some skin in the game.
This reminds me of an encounter with our department's director recently at an "all hands" meeting at my current gig. My company has been under financial pressure for the past few years, and there have been reorgs, layoffs, fewer promotions, and weaker merit raises. To answer complaints about all of this, particularly in the case of those who didn't get promotions they felt they deserved, he said, bluntly:
"You are responsible for your own careers."
To paraphrase Lone Watie from The Outlaw Josey Wales, I thought about his words. "You are responsible." And when I had thought about them enough, I decided to find a new job.
Right, so she's cool by letting him keep his job for some period of time while he looks for new work with minimal expectations from her - but then when she could use his help just once in exchange for paying him thousands and thousands of euros for doing nothing, she should have the hammer brought down on her?
It's amazing how little empathy this thread has for people that create companies and struggle through the employer's side of trying to be decent to people while trying to run a thriving business.
It's amazing how little empathy this thread has for people that create companies and struggle through the employer's side of trying to be decent to people while trying to run a thriving business.
No. This is Hacker News. You'll find that the majority of posters here are apologists for entrepreneurs and employers. When you can't even hold this crowd, that's a pretty good sign the employer's thoughts are so tangled up in their skewed perspective on labor that they can't even be badly rationalized into something approaching reasonable.
"Letting him" keep his job? I think you'll find that in Belgium, like in most of Europe, there are mandatory notice periods that range up to around 3 months (even more in some countries in special circumstances, such as plant closures). Outside of exceptional circumstances, he had a legal right to keep his job for some period of time after being given notice. There's nothing in her post that indicates that she out of the goodness of her heart had given him more time than his statutory notice period.
There's also no indication he was doing nothing during his notice period - surely if he'd been doing nothing, she'd have known already, and not expected to be able to reach him even outside of his contracted hours.
No she couldn't. In countries like Belgium or France when you fire someone you must give them notice. They then get 3 more months until the point they no longer work for you.
This gives employees time to find something else, and is also beneficial to public finances : the employer effectively bears the cost of the first 3 months of unemployment of this person, after which the state will cover.
But, to be fair, it also discourages hiring employees unless you know you can keep them, so there is more unemployment than there would have been otherwise.
Not in Europe. He'll have to have been given weeks/months of notices, so that he can look for a new job in his spare time and not be completely fucked up.
It's too bad you're getting downvoted. Even though the business owner's expectations of continued work out-of-hours are unreasonable, her method of letting this guy go actually seems pretty empathetic to me too.
Honestly, I would much rather be treated this way than walked to the door and told to wait for security to come by with a box of my stuff.
Nobody is (or few are, I'm not gonna count) criticizing the termination process, as it's about as empathetic as can be realistically expected.
The heat is coming from how she disavows that decision (and process), and is somehow surprised that he's not enthusiastic to not just put in the contracted paid-for time but won't go above-and-beyond to provide free services for her sole benefit. That's not "trying to be decent to people while trying to run a thriving business", that's expecting people to consent to be taken advantage of.
BTW: being shown the door with a check for 2-3 month's pay (not unusual in the USA) is quite palatable. Shows due appreciation without expecting someone to labor under a dark cloud when they should be out looking for work.
Getting a months-long notice period is required by law though. She hasn't mentioned doing anything more than just what she's legally required to do (oh except expecting a terminated employee to be on-call 24/7 and work unpaid overtime on request)
Sounds like someone really wanted to set up a UK style '0 hours contract' where you get to avoid paying an 'employee' unless you ask them to do something and then only need to pay for the actual time they spend doing it but you have the advantage of stopping them getting another real job since they are already reserved by your 'employment'.
UK companies do it all the time - sounds like this Belgian needs to move to the UK to get the desired outcome of slaves on standby.
I think this was recently touched on by the big four supermarkets coming under criticism.
No real full time customer service assistants. Staff are placed on 16 hour contracts with single, double or quad hours randomly placed throughout the week.
Nice and funny example of Poe's law [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law]. Failing to realize when you ought to STFU is part of what being a sociopathic boss is about. That her companies seem to revolve around HR and hiring is just the icing on the cake.
But from what I understand, LinkedIn somehow featured this article; I'd love to have them explain why and how they picked it...
Probably something to do with being an "influencer" and "thought leader."
Gag me.
Actually, when I'm feeling masochistic, I read articles on LinkedIn's Pulse section. They're so, so, SO bad. It's either "work harder, and you might become like me!" or "it turns out your employees are people too!" Strangely enough, never anything about workaholism.
Edit: Summary, by me: a CEO complains that someone who has been fired is not motivated, i.e. does not provide "urgent assistance" outside office hours.
The post might not be as shocking as it appears. In most of the EU you seldom can fire an employee without weeks of notice. The way she tells the story, it seems as if the employee was told his contract would terminate, but he was still working for the company when he was needed.
Still, I don't find strange that an employee who knows his days at a company are counted is not willing to respond to an after-hours phone call.
Looking for a job is also time consuming and in most of the EU the employee that got the firing notice is legally allowed according to the employment law to work shorter hours, say 6 per day instead of 8, in order to search for another job.
From the story it also seems that after-hours work is based on "volunteering" and thus not paid extra compared to regular hours, so it's not a surprise that an employee that got fired is not motivated to volunteer for doing work after-hours.
Apparently it's a big shock for some people that employees have needs and obligations, like a family to take care of. Receiving a notice that you've been fired can be very stressful, even if your skills are very in-demand.
A friend of mine was a trader of some long term with a particular bank and, because of his length of service with the bank, had to receive a few month's notice of termination.
They terminated him and made him come in to work to sit in a featureless room with only a table and chair -- no computer, nothing. He'd rather stay at home and garden or whatever, even it meant finishing up early, but they wouldn't let him. He always said that he must have seriously pissed someone off in HR.
From the way the last paragraph is worded, I would suggest that this lady take some time off. It's all over the place, she has a lot going on in her head. Perhaps she should see someone professionally to talk through things.
What would you call terminating someone? You can be fired and still be on good terms and have a healthy relationship but you still let that person go or fired them. Please dont be so naive next time you let someone go. We dont get a job to make friends we do it to make a living.
If my company fired me and gave me x amount of time till I had to leave, I would probably not being going above and beyond any longer. My body may be at work but my mind is focus on the new job or job search.
I speak British English, and I see a distinction. "Fired" (or "sacked") to me is getting told to leave. Now. Usually because your work is crap, or you have done something wrong.
Letting someone go like this (when the work is fine, but not needed) is usually referred to as "making the person redundant".
I guess there would probably be that distinction in American English as well. In casual conversation I may say I was fired because they didnt have anymore work left when in fact I was more likely laid off.
Either way I wouldnt me motivated no matter how I was let go. I am still losing my job.
Yes, "laid off" is another term I would put in the same category as "made redundant". I work in Spain now and I am used to non native speakers using sacked or fired when I would have used "laid off" or "lost his job". Like I say, I still have the connotations of incompetence or poor work when I hear "fired".
This CEO is actually an even worse person than her post implies. This was just a way of avoiding severance pay. They wanted to squeeze every hour they paid for out of a fired employee.
I am a 2 year old.My brain thinks everyone in the world wants what I want.When I grab some other childs toy I dont understand why the child cries instead of being motivated and jumping with joy at having done what I want.
Apparently this startup ceo has not outgrown the terrible twos
Can't wait 'til she discovers the wonders of forced casualisation and then gets super upset when employees choose not to come in for 3 hours at 20-minutes notice. "How dare they treat my business so flippantly?" I wonder.
"I don't think we'll be able to get a hold of him," says the colleague. Why's that? "Well, he got the sack. He's finding it hard to stay motivated." Right. I didn't see that one coming.......I know I fired this person, but I considered that merely a technical matter."
>> I value the group's wellbeing over an individual employee
There's the problem. Yes, you should not value an individual employee over the group's well-being, and yes, if he agreed to work until he found another job he should work until he found the job (although I don't know when he's expected to find that job in any hurry outside of work hours). But it's like she has no idea what that conversation would sound like to an employee. Your CEO brings up the fact that things aren't working out. You hear a prelude to being fired. In some situations, maybe you just agree rather than argue. If you've actually been under the impression you've been working hard, it looks like you can't win and you would be better off else where. Now that's a motivating thought isn't it?
The amount of narcissism in this article is revolting. "Oh, silly me, it didn't even occur to me that what's a voluntary decision for me might feel entirely different to the person loosing their source of income. But that's ok, cuz I'm the boss with Quirks and Perks!"
Employee was still working there, in most European countries you cannot just "fire" someone unless they have done something, you have to give them notice (which is a reasonable length of time).
Yes, but she wanted him to work after hours. So, btw, apparently this what she normally demands from her employees - IMO this is wrong in itself, but to expect that from someone who was just fired is, just... well, totally stupid or just infinitely arrogant, not entirely sure what is the case here.
That's incorrect. The actual tl;dr would be "don't give people notice if you need them".
He's technically still employed until the end of the notice period. How does "firing" work in the USA? Do you literally pack up your desk and walk out the moment you're "fired"? That sounds, well... illegal?
Typically, yes. Most states in the US are "at will" states, meaning both the employer and employee have the right to end employment at any time. It's customary to give your employer two weeks notice that you're leaving, but it's by no means a legal requirement. There's no such custom when the employer takes the action.
In smaller companies there typically is. I've only been terminated once (not for cause) but I was given two weeks notice and told I could take some time off if I needed to go on interviews, etc.
In most larger companies, I agree. Typically, you have to leave the same day and they must (by law) pay you through the end of your current pay period.
> It's customary to give your employer two weeks notice that you're leaving, but it's by no means a legal requirement. There's no such custom when the employer takes the action.
That seems incredibly unfair. Sure, by law neither party is required to give notice, but a sufficiently ingrained social more can be just as much of a burden (for the employee, in this case).
It's brilliant, though - lull employees into an informal gentleman's agreement, then pull the rug out from under them if things don't work out. If verbal agreements aren't legally binding, then the employee can't even appeal to the law, since the law is fair. And maybe the former employee blames herself for not agreeing to get this in writing, instead of blaming the overall culture of this kind of asymmetric relationship.
I don't see how this is a burden on the employee. If he gives 2 weeks notice, he still has the option of not finishing the 2 weeks of work. You can give two weeks notice and if the employer treats you poorly anytime during those 2 weeks you can stand up and walk out the door.
Like I said, the burden is in a form of a social more, not any concrete law. If employees are expected to give their notice, and put up with their employer in the same way as they have for the normal duration of their employment, then that is a burden since the employer does not have the same social expectation when they are letting the employee go.
The employer can say You wouldn't walk out on us now, would you? That would be a dishonourable thing to do (probably in a less direct way). An employee doesn't seem to have that same kind of social more leverage.
EDIT: This includes the circumstance that you mentioned - the employer is being somewhat unreasonable - since they can still guilt the employee into pushing through it. Another thing to consider is that, while the employer might not be treating the employee worse than he used to, the fact that the employee feels that he has to stay for the extra two weeks may be an inconvenience to him. He may have things that he want to take care of, etc.
That is how firing works in the US. I guess it is rationalized that the fired person might do something vindictive.
I have responded by not giving notice when I quit. I see quitting as "firing my boss". Notice is for suckers. I do not give where I would not receive. I only gave notice at one job in the last ten years, and that was because the only reason I was quitting was because I was moving.
For large companies in the U.S. Yes, you come into work and you manager tells you that he need to speak with you and hands you a packet of information explaining that you will get X weeks of pay if you sign it and asks you to leave the office. You have the option to not sign the packet and to sue the employer if you feel that you were unjustly fired.
> I can be very flexible and friendly, but I always put the company first and I value the group's wellbeing over an individual employee.
While difficult decisions have to be made for a group's wellbeing over an individual's, if you're managing people frequently you need to be perceived to put their wellbeing over the company's. Sure, most of the time your hands are tied (a capitalist company exists to make money) but botht he perception and some action are important.
> I have accepted that, on the short term, it does not necessarily make me nice or likeable. Many would even say on the contrary.
Here's the real cause of problems with the employee. You are a person who values logic and results above people skills. So am I. But - despite not running a company like you - I've learned that others don't, and people skills are infinitely more valuable to have and have to be developed by me, else I fail them.
Inge Geerdens, sort yourself out and then take your employees to task.
"Logic and results" is orthogonal to "people skills". I've worked with so many other programmers who act like this. Being smart does not excuse being rude.
I was at a conference with the graduating class at the Naval Academy in 2004. The Chief of Naval Operations was speaking, and my bosses, the Superintendent and the Commandant were with him on stage. He walked into the crowd and started asking people why they thought sailors got out of the Navy. To a T, every soon-to-be Ensign said it was the money, to murmurs of agreement from the crowd of 1000.
Then he saw me. "Let's ask this Lieutenant, back from the fleet, what he thinks. Tell me, Lieutenant Olson, why are sailors getting out of the Navy?"
"They're unhappy people who haven't achieved their goals."
You could hear a pin drop. He quietly, slowly, walked back to the stage and waited a bit. I thought I might be fired. He started talking about the value "division officer records", which is basically Ensigns keeping track of the progress their sailors are making toward their goals.
The headline and the comments prepped me for a major oblivious idiot-storm when I read the article, but this is about a person at least self-aware enough that they botched something up and were asking for something inappropriate.
Or maybe this is a commentary on social media -- you don't need to write something every day.
As a consultant rather than an employee, and someone who takes a similar attitude to employment, I totally get where the author is coming from. Employment is a transaction of money for work, not a marriage. I'll get annoyed is my hypothetical wife leaves me when my skills atrophy, but I'm not going to act butthurt just because my employer no longer needs a data scientits.
Additionally, it sounds like the employee was treated well. "eventually we agreed to terminate our collaboration as soon as he would have found a new challenge." Maybe I'm misinterpreting the corporatespeak, but that sounds like a "start looking for something, we'll pay you until you find it." Not a bad deal at all.
And it sounds like the employee was still employed (albeit being paid to look for new work) at the time this occurred.
That "deal" to give him reasonable time to find a new job was forced by law, not given by kindness of her heart.
And where exactly did you get the impression that the employee was "butthurt"? The employee noted exactly what you said: A job is a transaction of money for work, not a marriage, so: Do what is written in the contract. Not more, not less. She didn't like that.
That "deal" to give him reasonable time to find a new job was forced by law, not given by kindness of her heart.
If she wanted to do the minimum declared by law, she would have just fired him. The severance clock doesn't start ticking until you fire someone.
By just coming to an agreement with him that he would look for a job, she was giving him extra time. If she decided after a month that he wasn't getting a new job and wanted to let him go, then at that point, she'd still owe him the minimal amount of severance.
[edit: You can tell that this issue is all about emotion when a simple fact like what I stated above has to be downvoted]
That's just it - under Belgian law, there is effectively no difference between "You're fired" and "Let's agree to move on in 3 months" - they are the same thing because the law requires the latter.
You can couch it in all the touchy-feely-corporate-PR speak you want, but a firing is a firing.
Just upvoted in an attempt to un-grey you. Both because your comment wasn't out of place here, and because it was correct.
This is my preferred version of "work" as well. I tend to negotiate all my engagements as 1099 contracts specifically so that neither me nor the employer need to feel bad when things end. Assuming you're capable of saving money and finding your own health insurance, it's really the best arrangement you can have.
Need me to work overtime for a couple weeks because it's "crunch time". No worries, and no hard feelings because you're paying me for those extra hours. 18" of fresh powder in the mountains overnight? Nice! You'll find my next invoice with six fewer hours on it.
It's really the most equitable arrangement you can have with an employer. We're both businessmen, trading services for payment. When it's time to part ways, we wish each other well, make non-binding references to maybe working together again some day, and head our separate directions with no hard feelings.
The crucial factor here is that the CEO wanted him to be available for support outside of working hours, beyond the scope of his contract. In fact, beyond the scope of any legal Belgian employment contract!
Your argument seems to be that since the employer is giving him time to find a new job, the employee should work beyond the scope of his contract.
I don't think this holds up. First of all, I doubt this is 100% altruism. Destroying morale in a start-up can destroy the company. But even if it is completely altruistic, altruism on the part of the employer doesn't need to be reciprocated. (edit: added the two paragraph above before parent's reply, I think?)
After all, "Employment is a transaction of money for work, not a marriage".
See my response to jackvalentine. If available outside of working hours was part of the implicit contract and expectations of work, the employee is being a dick. If not, the CEO was.
Why do you think an implicit employment contract is acceptable or even enforcable? There is a reason job descriptions, employment contracts and labour laws exist: to stop abuse by heavily "implied" duties. If you want someone to do some work, make that explicit.
She made it clear "outside work hours" was not contracted, that she expected it as a matter of enthusiasm and personal character - right at the time when she had ended all cause for enthusiasm, and personal character was reasonably focused on long-term survival elsewhere.
Sure, employment is money in exchange for some time. But if you only pay for (say) 40 hours a week, the employee isn't required to give you any more. Sounds like the employer expected more than what they were paying for, and the employee didn't want to give the work away for free anymore.
A true capitalist would say that the employer was being stupid.
I'm increasingly stunned at the lack of empathy for what it's like to be an employer here on HN where, ostensibly, people are trying to learn about what it takes to become a successful startup and employer.
As an employer, I've dealt with helping people transition out of a job that has disappeared or turned out not to be right for them. I tried to do what this woman did - give the employee some extra time on my dime to find new work. If during that time that I'm paying them to hunt for a job (which costs me thousands of dollars a week, typically), if I need them to lift a finger to do something, I should feel guilty to even ask?
If I took the flip side of the attitude of a lot of people in this thread, I'd just fire an employee with minimal severance the moment he isn't making me money. That would suck.
As an employer, I'd consider it out of line to ask an employee to help in a crisis out of hours, unpaid. More so if they'd been effectively fired weeks before. As noted, the time to find other work isn't out of the goodness of her heart; it's the law in Belgium.
Employees giving their time for a panic, outside of their normal hours, is a privilege earned by employers through treating people right. Expecting those who've been shown the door to do so is twisted.
As an employer myself, I'm stunned at your lack of understanding of how unequal, unbalanced the employer/employee relationship is. As an employer whatever you do, you'll oppress your employees. There's no way around it. Don't try icing the shitcake and pretend the system doesn't suck; that's not about you, but the role you're assuming. That doesn't preclude you from being a decent human being and provide your employee extra time to look for another work. This is just however basic decency, not great generosity on your part.
I'm not arguing that employment or contracting is better - I think that markets are efficient and they are roughly equal deals. I'm asking why employees often don't take the same attitude about it, albeit with a different set of expectations/tradeoffs.
I.e., I had a client about 6 months ago who got rid of me when he no longer needed help with $STOCK_MARKET_STUFF. Then he needed more $STOCK_MARKET_STUFF done recently - I wasn't "unmotivated" as a result of him terminating our relationship previously.
1) The notice given was required by law, not some kind of sweetheart deal for the employee.
2) It appears that after-hours on-call work wasn't ever actually a part of the employee's contract - they shouldn't have been doing them anyway. When you know you're no-longer part of the team, why exactly would you go above and beyond? Show up, do good work in the hours you're contracted for and don't pick up the phone after hours.
The employee is treating it as a time:money transaction and since there is no ongoing deal why give away your time for free?
I don't see the relevance of (1). As for (2), I missed it on my first reading. Regarding (2), I see two ways to interpret it.
One is that the CEO was asking for a bunch of "above-and-beyond" work. The other is that there was an implicit agreement for such work, but Belgian law made it impossible to explicitly contract for. In the former case I have no problem with the employee, in the latter case he sounds like a pain to work with.
And make no mistake, there is an implicit contract at nearly all jobs. Typical clauses might be "CTO filters BS from above so developers can do real work" or "go ahead and take reasonable flex-time in spite of what the official policy is, but be available for crunch time". Even in a flexible place like the US, it's simply logistically impossible to encode everything in a contract. The closest anyone has come to it are union work rules, disaster that they are.
What "find an employee with passion" really means is "find an employee who's attitude fits better with the implicit contract".
> The other is that there was an implicit agreement for such work, but Belgian law made it impossible to explicitly contract for.
Considering Google has a datacentre in Belgian that presumably has 24/7 availability, I find this hard to believe. I presume Belgian has security guards, nightfill and a fire brigade also.
> What "find an employee with passion" really means is "find an employee who's attitude fits better with the implicit contract".
I read this as "find an employee who is too scared, too naieve or too stupid to enforce the explicit contract they signed".
If you want someone to do the work, you need to contract it. Anything else is abusive management.
The relevance of 1) is responding to this in your original post:
"Additionally, it sounds like the employee was treated well."
If Belgian law required say, two weeks notice and the CEO gave the guy 12 weeks I'd be more forgiving of her, but if the bare minimum of law is being implemented then she deserves nothing extra in return.
That one enters into implicit contracts is undoubtedly correct, however I would question the duration of that contract.
Firstly, the benefit relationship of all contracts, implicit or otherwise, is asymmetric: the benefits accrued to the employer will be greater than those accrued to the employees: to do otherwise would erode profits, and put the company out of business. Some companies have 'enlightened' opinions about how to extract good work from their employees, but it is still done with the goal of being more profitable. Arguing from the poor practices of other companies is not constructive.
With respect to the particular situation, once the employee had been placed on notice, it seems to me that the implicit contract was broken, unless the employer was just as willing as they were beforehand to offer the 'implicit benefits' to the employee, which seems unlikely. Indeed, the situation really seems to be that the employer is asking for all the benefits on their side of the implicit contract, without offering anything in return.
Finally, for me the implicit contract is not really between the employee and the employer, but between the employee and their coworkers. Whenever I have gone above and beyond, I haven't been doing it for the company, but for the people I work with. However, my experiences are limited to medium sized companies, so things might be different in smaller environments.
I think the employee's situation is more akin with you pitching for a job with a client you've worked with for a long time. The client decides to go with someone else, that goes badly and so they call you out of normal office hours asking you to drop everything and help fix the situation they've fallen in to by not hiring you (for the further work). Not only that but they're not going to pay you as you're already working on the old job for them.
Now you might still be motivated in thinking that they'll employ you for future contracts; but if you're not a contract worker that motivation doesn't really work out.
One of the implicit parts of having an employer is that you're signing on for a certain degree of stability - you're both invested in the long term of the relationship. And that stability is reflected in your lower wage than a contract worker would exact for the same service.
If that's not going to be the case, then trade offs that someone might make to invest in that long term relationship cease to make sense.
Not to nitpick, but doesn't changing the title of the article like this (from "Shades of grey" to "CEO complaints : employee not motivated after being fired") go against the HN Guidelines?
> [...] please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait.[1]
I guess you could make a case that the original title ("Shades of grey") was misleading, but seems to be more a case of the OP disagreeing with the angle/implication of the title, and wanting to change it to something that aligns more with the OP's point of view.
(FWIW I agree that the original "Shades of grey" title is pretty bad in that it's both uninteresting and uninformative, but bad != misleading)
I agree with what most people here are saying - there is certainly a lot of WTF's in what she wrote that doesn't quite add up.
BUT!
When someone is leaving a job (ie is working during the notice period and is still being paid), I would still expect that they fully do their job until they've actually left - doesn't matter if they quit or "were let go". Doing otherwise is, IMHO, very unprofessional.
Having said that, in this story, he was expected to work after hours, so he had absolutely no obligation to respond. So, given the circumstances, what I said above doesn't seem to apply in this case, unless it was in his original contract to be on call like this.
The volunteering line really reminds me of the post from the github founder's wife.
In both cases, a founder essentially guilted someone into spending extra, unpaid time working on a "world changing" (read: not at all world changing) new startup idea where they would retain all ownership while the people working for them were expected to "volunteer". How do founders get so sociopathic that they do stuff like this?
So, just in my opinion and in my experience. The more I work with clientele who are successful, the more I find that....
...the more successful they've been, the more detached from reality they are. Because they've been so successful, who's to argue with their view point in life? They must be right.
From her writing I cannot derive if she really agreed with this person to find a new challenge, and this person did find a new challenge, or if she just fired this person and it was not that amicable after all. Is this perhaps of language/culture misunderstanding?
Since I can't understand it, and it sounds a bit humorous to my ears, I can easily imagine this interview with Ms. Geerdens is a Vooza.com video http://vimeo.com/82075734
This sounds more like he was made redundant than fired. If his role at the company is no longer required that is redundancy and there should be a severance package in his favour. Assuming laws are similar to the UK.
a quote from this particular CEO's twitter feed sounds appropriate: „If I wanted to kill myself, I’d climb up your ego and jump down to your IQ level." (@netlash)
wow. Read the article. Sounded like this CEO was actually coming to terms with the ramifications of firing someone, rather than acting exasperated that someone acted this way after being fired.
This story is pandering to outrage where there is none to be had.
You'll note that the CEO at no point says that the after-hours work is actually a part of the employee's job description, she's just expecting them to do it because... "your best bet is to hire people who share your passion, willing to 'volunteer' on such occasions".
The key thing about volunteering is that it's voluntary.
