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An Open Letter to My CEO
- MajorLOL 11y agoLong winding story for the final line to be the real sell; "...but any help until I find new employment would be extremely appreciated. My paypal is tjbenora@gmail.com." TL;DR I don't like my job, give me money.
- ReadingInBed 11y agoThat was updated later, after she got let go for writing that piece.
- MCRed 11y agoLets see, english major up to her ears in debt, moves to San Francisco for a CSR job? I think we need to up the math requirements for english degrees. Alas you can't teach common sense. I would be a lot more sympathetic if I weren't constantly being bombarded by BernieBros insisting we need "Free" college educations and all kinds of other handouts. Sorry, I grew up poor, I didn't get lucky, I worked hard. I made my own luck. She made her own bed, and then set it on fire.
- keyanp 11y agoI agree, the post was a terrible idea. And yes it comes off as a bit whiny and yes there are certainly improvements that can be made to her personal finance skill. All that said, your comment is not fair. Have we reached a point where only those with STEM degrees and $100k+ salaries deserve to live in SF? You didn't just work hard, you were lucky enough to have the aptitude and interest in a field with stable job opportunities. Others may not have the same interests or abilities. And how boring would it be if we were all engineers anyway? The author is frustrated with student debt, stagnant wages, and an inflated SV housing market. All valid concerns that millions of other Americans are echoing today. To top it off she is treated as expendable and fired as soon as she starts speaking out. Given that, maybe you could have some compassion? Or at least not resort to making an ad hominem attack?
- wanderer2323 11y agoHere you go, using the same word that got "the author" in her situation. 'Deserve'. I don't know whether she - or anyone else 'deserves' to live in SF. But I know that she was not able to - or, at least she was not able to find the standards of living she wanted. Being able to is a math question. Take your salary A after taxes, subtract B = rent, subtract C = payments on the loan you are planning to take to cover the move, subtract D = other monthly costs of living, subtract E = food costs. A-B-C-D-E = X . If X is less than acceptable (or even less than zero) don't move. 'Deserve', the word you (and "the author", although she does not spell it directly) use, is a proxy for 'wanna wanna wanna'. Guess what, even if you 'wanna wanna wanna' ('deserve', 'have a dream to') to live in SF, that won't help you a bit. An adult is supposed to be able to understand this. That's why there some of us don't have much compassion for the author. P.S. 'Deserve' is also a political tool, most often used lately to justify wealth redistribution. That's why user MCRed immediately connects the author to the Berniebros. I do too.
- foldr 11y agoThese are people who are being employed by companies in SF and yet who are not paid enough to live in SF. It's a disgrace. You can get people to fill these jobs because a lot of people are desperate right now, but that doesn't make it ok. If the author hadn't taken this job, someone else would have, and that person would be in exactly the same dire financial straights.
- nolite 11y agoMaybe at some point we should stop doing jobs that don't pay us enough to survive...?
- chris11 11y agoHow do you expect people to survive if all they get are bad job offers? Sure she should move to a different city, but it's really screwed up if a city is unable to provide decent jobs to an entire group of people.
- pandincus 11y agoI also grew up poor, and I also worked hard, and I've made my own luck. But the system is rigged, my friend. Only some of us will be able to "make our own luck." Are we not supposed to look after those of us who have failed? I'm glad the OP wrote this article. Sure, I disagree with their choices, but that doesn't matter. I'm hearing about these kinds of stories more and more in SF. When are we going to do something about it?
- wanderer2323 11y agoDoing 'something' about it is doing 'something' about the choices you disagree with (= limiting people's ability to make those choices). Until you understand this all you proposing is to shield people even more from the consequences of their bad choices. This does not help.
- randycupertino 11y agoWow, when I posted this she hadn't been fired yet. That didn't take long.
- elliotec 11y agoWhat a horrible idea. How could this person think that this would benefit them in any way? She got fired, and secured herself a spot in endless unemployment. In San Francisco, no less, where her mounting debt prevents her from buying groceries and paying her phone bill. Seriously, I would never ever hire someone who wrote something like this. This is a one way ticket to being eternally jobless. Her best next course of action is to delete the hell out of that post. And then she has the gall to ask for donations to her paypal and venmo? Lord. Give me a break.
- randycupertino 11y agoDid she actually get fired for writing this? I agree it was in poor taste. I think a lot of it was trying to be funny, but failed.
- elliotec 11y agoYep she did, mentions it in an edit at the end.
- karterk 11y agoI'm saddened to read such dismissive comments on HN. I think it takes someone to have been in a similar position to understand the plight of the OP. The CEO had a chance to fix this and do the right thing, but firing her was the easy thing to do. > Seriously, I would never ever hire someone who wrote something like this. The fact that nobody writes about these issues is the reason why some companies take their non-tech employees for granted.
- jcizzle 11y agoThe OP wrote an incredibly entitled and egotistical article. The person you are responding to isn't being dismissive, they are likely - like myself - shocked that someone thinks this way.
- argonaut 11y agoTo be fair, companies are able to treat people like this (is not just tech companies - ask many entry level employees in many non-tech industries in New York how they're doing) because they can. It's simple supply and demand. There is an oversupply of people with her background who are willing to endure minimum wages. A lot of these people are willing to endure entry level jobs because they won't "settle" for something short of their dream (a white collar writing/media/comedy job, in her case). That's a perfectly fine goal, but understand that you're competing with thousands and thousands of other people with similar or superior educations. Either accept the resulting low wages, or join a profession that is actually facing a shortage of labor (e.g. nurse, plumber, etc.)
- mrbill 11y agoNever write these kinds of letters unless you're sure the first response isn't going to be "You're only tech support. Good luck finding a new job." In fact, it's never a good idea to write these kinds of things in the first place. Heck, I work for a great company that provides free snacks (credit for the vending machines) and unlimited free sodas/sparking waters/coconut water/etc, and I'm not going to complain about any of it, even if I dislike some of the flavors or my favorite is out of stock for a day or two...
- randycupertino 11y ago> In fact, it's never a good idea to write these kinds of things in the first place. She was trying for her own version of "The things we think but do not say!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TohbD69ugSA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TohbD69ugSA
- yuhong 11y agoPersonally, I am more interested in the general practice of doing things like this than the exact nature of the complaints. Particularly, I want to fix the problems and the CEO should be able to respond too.
- opheicus 11y agoThe only thing I got out of this was that the author needs to learn personal finance skills. If she just got a roommate and sold her car, she could easily afford to eat and more. I can't imagine how one person who claims to spend a lot of time at work manages to rack up a $120 PG&E bill.
- chris11 11y agoThey claim they make $8.15/hr after taxes. That's around $16k/yr. I don't know how well they are budgeting, but I wouldn't want to try to live in the bay area on that salary. This letter might not have been a good idea, but I don't see how she had a decent job.
- bb88 11y agoOn the other hand, she only had to lose an $8.15/hr job, or $16k/yr to speak her mind. It's different if you were going to lose a $150k/yr job.
- skewart 11y agoYeah, I know. I wouldn't think of living without roommates in the bay area at her age. It sounds like she moved to the bay area with a fantasy about what her life would be like, and some optimistic ideas about work, and she never stopped to do the math. Hopefully she'll learn from this experience. Everyone has to learn the value of planning and thinking strategically at some point in time - for some it's 14, for others it's 40.
- michaelhoney 11y ago$8.15 an hour after taxes.
- stray 11y agoI am astounded that someone with so little compassion exists.
- dominotw 11y agowhen all else fails, pull out the appeal to emotion card.
- tedd4u 11y agoSometimes, you just gotta grab two beers and jump.
- firebones 11y agoTo everyone criticizing the author for various "failings" such as lack of personal finance skills, getting an English degree, choosing to live in the Bay area: exactly whom do you think is going to fill this role under the parameters the employer is offering? Would it help you be happier if it was someone in the same situation who chose not to raise the issue publicly?
- skyhatch1 11y agoThe author has failed the open letter litmus test, where the positive result is reserved for thoughtful discourses of potential public interest or concern. This Medium post read more like something you tell your friends after a few drinks - and even then, they would be silently thinking, "We're all in the same boat but I haven't sunk yet so quit complaining!" At the end of the day, the author - like anybody living in the free world - has the choice to pack and move to a more accommodating work/home situation.
- chris11 11y agoIt is of public interest. It may sound like someone just complaining about a bad job, but I'd say companies have responsibility to make sure that they pay a livable wage to their employees. And that should be of interest to the public.
- skyhatch1 11y agoI'll concede to the fact that this has stirred a debate the public cares for. Also, I am genuinely sympathetic to the plight of workers being exploited by their employers. However, the post risks polarizing readers, most of whom could start to see or confirm that managers don't care about the plight of their lowest rung. At my work, our lowest level employees get paid ~$23/hour, but even at that level, a few still complain about their wages being too low to live on. Managers are perhaps myopic in thinking about living wages, but they don't have much choice. Companies like Yelp are coming of age, and that means they need to turn profits, not just grow. Most such businesses have strict wage budgets, usually a % of revenue, to control operating costs. In this case, if Yelp's CEO capitulates and increases wages, his team will have to hire less people than before. Perhaps once again, a lose-lose situation. The business loses servicing power and less people get the opportunity to work towards their dream of working in media.
- firloop 11y agoCould her point have been made about the state of bottom ranking tech workers without naming Yelp? This is not a rhetorical question. Specifics of the author's personal situation aside, it's unclear why any well funded tech company in San Francisco is paying poverty wages for positions that seem to require more aptitude than similar paying jobs. It doesn't make sense from an economical standpoint if employee churn is as high as she claims, because hiring/interviewing/training costs a non-zero amount.
- exolymph 11y agoI feel really conflicted about this story. On the one hand, she's shooting at the wrong target: CEOs don't make minimum wage and healthcare laws. On the other hand, Yelp is a Bay Area tech company and something feels really wrong about their low-prestige support employees struggling to make ends meet. Then again, that's how supply and demand works on the labor market...
- dominotw 11y ago>it's unclear why any well funded tech company in San Francisco is paying poverty wages Because they can? Isn't it how it works.
- argonaut 11y agoThe biggest issue here is the rent. You can definitely find places in the East Bay, near BART stations, for less than $1000 for a bedroom/studio. Add a roommate, and you're looking at less than $500 per month for rent. And if you're willing to live in a somewhat crappier area, you can might be able to go as low as $300-400/month with a roommate.
- source99 11y ago$1245 per month for rent = 80% of her salary. $1245 / 0.8 = $1556 after taxes. $1556 * 12 months / year = $18675. Assume tax rate of 25%. Gross pay before taxes = $25,000 $25,000 / 8 hours per day / 5 days / week / 50 weeks / year = $12.50 / hour.
- tptacek 11y agoWhy are Yelp's CSRs based in SFBA to begin with?
- hspak 11y agoStoppelman tweeted a couple hours ago that they're going to expand support into AZ.
- pfarnsworth 11y agos/expand/transfer/
- ennuihenry 11y agoMany tech companies have CSRs in SFBA. Eventually, they add positions in low COL areas.
- ctvo 11y agoIf I worked at Yelp I might be questioning why we spend so much money on frivolous things like coconut flavored water vs. providing our customer support co-workers with a better wage. This applies to tech companies more widely. Would you take less snacks, less free beer, less hiring gimmick benefits to increase the wages of those making the least at your company?
- novel 11y agoprobably because the pool of candidates for positions that imply better wage is much smaller and it's harder to find and recruit a candidate, so such small things like free beer and snacks become more important? ps also, most likely wage of those making the least in the company has no correlation to goods such as free food etc.
- SilasX 11y agoTaxes are high enough (especially on high income employees) that if the employer can count it as an expense, and it doesn't count as employee income, then it's worth providing as long as the employee would be willing pay ~60% of its cost from their post-tax income. Factor in bulk discounts and the figure is more like 50%. Unfortunately, the debate on payroll/income taxation never really addresses such distortions, and gets stuck on "come on, an extra 10% isn't as big a deal for you".
- err4nt 11y agoI read this almost as a form of 'suicide by cop' in the workplace. To me it reads as though the author is unhappy with the job they signed up for, but instead of exerting the mental fortitude to resign, is instead throwing a public tantrum lashing out at the CEO in public. What was the imagined outcome? All that will come of tarnishing the employers brand and degrading yourself like this will be an immediate dismissal and a social 'blacklisting' preventing future job opportunities. Is that the desired outcome? I feel like this discussion thread is going to outlive the authors career.
- blizkreeg 11y agoThis is just not the way to deal with the problem, shaming the CEO and company publicly in full view of the Internet, more so when you're a current employee of the company. This is juvenile, imho. Did she first try reaching out to the CEO privately? She could've sent this same message to him in an email to get his attention. I'm absolutely empathetic to her situation (living on $16K a year is something I can't even begin to fathom) but this ain't the way to go about it. It's not slavery. Yelp (and many, many other corporations) can and should do better, in providing a livable wage to their employees. The coconut waters, roasted almonds, and kombucha should go away. It's a waste of money appeasing to overly pampered engineers (I'm an engineer, btw) and saving costs paying brutal wages to the lower-rung employees. Companies need to learn to shed fat, not muscle. All that aside, this really shows poor judgement on the part of the person venting like this in public.
- jsprogrammer 11y agoYou didn't explain why this way was incorrect, juvenile, or poor judgement.
- blizkreeg 11y agoI did. Read what I said again. "This is just not the way to deal with the problem, shaming the CEO and company publicly in full view of the Internet, more so when you're a current employee of the company. ". Downvote this, but it doesn't change the fact.
- jsprogrammer 11y agoI can't downvote your post. That doesn't explain why. Those are just statements of your opinion of the situation. Why is it incorrect to shame a CEO and company publicly?
- dfraser992 11y agoA lot of people seem to have an inbred, genetic, knee-jerk "respect" for hierarchy, ostensibly known as "authority". But -nothing- was ever handed to the masses - protest is always necessary to redress imbalances due to those in power unfairly taking advantage whenever they can. "They" always have and probably will always do so, due to fundamental principles in human psychology. Yes, the writer was petulant and could be doing some things to improve her situation, but the basic fact of Yelp being badly managed and wasteful is still valid. SF is as expensive as London, and not as nice to live in. $25k a year before taxes? In the Bay Area? Yikes. But employee churn is sometimes more profitable than trying to retain good employees, especially for low level jobs like CSRs. The attitude of CEOs etc is essentially that employees are just another resource to be exploited, and "free food" etc is a smokescreen to cover up this fact. This is Capitalism 101 (run amok) and you can easily see it throughout history. Americans seem to be slowly redeveloping a sense of 'class consciousness' of the type back in the late 1800s to early 1900s, due to the growing levels of inequality and the resulting 'bad behavior' of so many at the upper end of the income range. This is a good thing, really, and accounts in part for Bernie Sanders' surprising ... "competitiveness" in the presidential race. People are starting to get fed up and so I think the Internet will see more and more of these over time.
- dominotw 11y agofollows her twitter link. >> 30 yr old white dudes are evil mansplainers ...something something, paypal me money. Closes browser tab. Is there some sort of secret template out there for e-begging, I don't understand why I am to give her my money. Why particularly her, what about the rest of customer reps at Yelp.
- fisadev 11y agoIf you read the comments on the article you will understand those tweets. > "I don't understand why I am to give her my money." Maybe because you are a good human being who wants to help another human being in need? > "Why particularly her, what about the rest of customer reps at Yelp" She's asking for help because she needs it, as much as the rest. She isn't telling you that you shouldn't help the others. She is even proposing things that would benefit all of them. If you can help them all, great! If you can help just one, help one, either she, or any of the others. Nobody here is telling you "you should help her instead". Not even her. And "if I help one I'm not helping the others" is no excuse to not to help anyone. Not being able to help them all is no excuse to not to help at least somebody.
- makemoniesonlin 11y ago"her", not "she"
- helen842000 11y agoI found this article very confusing. While the wage is very low ($19000) the overall issue is the cost of rent. I could understand if the letter was directed to her landlord. Cost of utilities, travel and food would all be liveable for a year if the rent was halved by a room mate or rent control. It doesn't make sense to get mad at the company providing you with most of what you need to survive. Also surely you know before deciding on the Bay Area that you're going to have either a min acceptable salary or a max acceptable rent. Saying yes to two things that don't add up is a recipe for a cycle of self inflicted misery.
- scottkduncan 11y agoCompanies factor in local cost of living into their salary packages and the author is pointing out the business problems (i.e. high turnover of entry level employees) caused caused when Yelp failed to do this. Salaries in New York are higher than those in Des Moines, and if companies want the benefits associated with locating in the Bay Area they are going to have to pay employees more. Even entry-level and lower-skilled ones.
- helen842000 11y agoCompanies like Yelp will only take notice when they aren't able to hire in the Bay Area for entry level roles. They can already see that it's heading that way, that's why they're moving support to AZ. It's cheaper to move their entire support operation to a different state than it is to provide a Bay Area wage.
- ennuihenry 11y agoLet's assume she was getting $12 an hour to do that work. That salary is ridiculously low for the Bay Area. Granted, they are paying for health, life, and dental insurance premiums. Still, most companies in lower COL areas pay at least $12 an hour for customer service work.
- sova 11y agopardon but what does COL stand for?
- Tiksi 11y agoDepending on how much reach this gets, it may have been a brilliant career move for her, though I don't think it was intentional really. (Edit: That is, I think she was being genuine when writing this and I don't think this was a "PR Stunt" or whatever the individual level of that would be) She has a degree in English and wants to be a writer. She writes a real person's perspective on income inequality during the presidential election debates where it's a major campaign issue. On top of that she even gets fired for it, making the whole thing even more authentic. I wouldn't be surprised if she manages to get a job offer from a left leaning publication relatively soon.
- freyr 11y agoAfter receiving a job offer, she loaded up on credit card debt and signed a lease she couldn't afford. This was an obvious mistake, which led to a situation she should have seen coming. And that's OK. We've all made decisions that look obviously wrong in hindsight. The problem, for me, is that her post doesn't acknowledge any personal responsibility in the situation. It seems more intended to extort her employer by shaming them and placing the blame squarely on their shoulders. I can't imagine this looks good to many employers.
- dudul 11y agoAccording to a Business Insider article, money has been pouring into her paypal account since the publication.
- SilasX 11y agoShe dismisses it as irrelevant, but this part (in italics) really stood out as the important insight: >Coming out of college without much more than freelancing and tutoring under my belt, I felt it was fair that I start out working in the customer support section of Yelp/Eat24 before I’d be qualified to transfer to media. Then, after I had moved and got firmly stuck in this apartment with this debt, I was told I’d have to work in support for an entire year before I would be able to move to a different department. A whole year answering calls and talking to customers just for the hope that someday I’d be able to make memes and twitter jokes about food. If you follow me on twitter, which you don’t, you’d know that these are things I already do. It seems she would have done better to get mentorship in building up awareness of her tweets so she could have a kind of "portfolio" to show off to media companies. This is not to put the blame on her, but highlight a more general problem with the labor market, and how bad it is at connecting candidates with positions they're qualified for, and how employers end up putting unnecessary barriers as a filter. If the labor market were more transparent, we would have less problem with discrimination as well, since employers could see more of the good aspects of candidates rather than judge merely by the bad.
- yuhong 11y agoOne of the reason why I want to limit or remove anti-discrimination laws is that I want to focus on more effective and less costly methods instead. I suggested a compromise to limit the laws to manual labor and the like.
- SchrodingersDog 11y agotest
- SchrodingersDog 11y agoYelp CEO and his HR can bla-blah-blah all they want but reality is this: the company and its executives are making millions while some of their lowest paid coworkers are literally starving. This is f..d up. I think the issue that Talia Jane is raising here is that the company (Yelp) can easily fix this problem for their own low pay employees by raising wages or subsidizing housing but instead the company decides to turn a blind eye on this issue. What will it cost Yelp to raise standard of living for their lowest paid co-workers? a few million a year perhaps? Will it really make a huge difference in profits for the company in the long run? Is it all about making money for the corporations in America today? Is this the world we want our kids to live in?
- hwstar 11y agoIsn't employment-at-will wonderful? /sarcasm It would be way more difficult to fire someone in any other developed country.
- thrillgore 11y agoIt's a real shitty situation. The Bay Area has a very clear rent control issue. But in the real world, when these opportunity costs stop being, companies relocate and allocate resources to regions where living wages and happy workers make sense. But i'm struggling to be sympathetic here. Maybe not being in SF contributes to that perspective.
- tobbyb 11y agoIf we dehumanize others we dehumanize ourselves. We are not objects, we are not economic systems, we are living social beings with all the flaws and all the potential, each and every one of us. The individual clearly has to wisen up, and this reads like a welcome to the real world but that should not detract in any way from the real suffering caused by exploitative wages. If a full time Yelp 'job' does not allow an individual to afford basics like shelter and food, let alone education, healthcare or family on what basis does it qualify to call itself a 'job'? This is exploitation. The individual is not demanding luxuries from life, it can't be 'entitled' to expect basics like food and shelter after a day's work. So is it the individual or Yelp that is behaving in an entitled manner? And to fire someone for pointing this feels fundamentally wrong and boneheaded. There is zero point for Zuckerberg or any other SFO millionaire to have billions in their accounts they can't use while real human beings who work for them have to suffer like this for months on end with rice bowls. How does that make any sense, in any way? The cold and impoverished view on this thread justifies dismissing out of hand any 'concerns' from engineers on threads about outsourcing, work visas or any social thread that requires empathy as simply the market speaking. If you can't empathize with others don't expect empathy when it comes to your own personal situation? You can't complain about outsourcing and also justify the market and unrealistic wages as one logically leads to another.
- instantaneous 11y ago> If a full time Yelp 'job' does not allow an individual to afford basics like shelter and food, let alone education, healthcare or family on what basis does it qualify to call itself a 'job'? It's an entry level position that typically pays about $20k-$30k/year. While this salary may provide every 20-something with no prior work experience the lifestyle they desire, it's definitely a livable wage. Regarding healthcare, she writes: "I’ve got vision, dental, the normal health insurance stuff — and as far as I can tell, I don’t have to pay for any of it!" Did you even read the article? > This is exploitation. Oh, please. She accepted the job offer and salary, and then leased an apartment she couldn't afford. Now she is blaming her employer for her financial predicament, without taking any personal responsibility in the situation. It's hard to muster much empathy. > The individual is not demanding luxuries from life Make no mistake, if you're in an entry level position and have no prior work experience, living without roommates in one of the most expensive housing markets in the world is a luxury. Her claim that she's starving should be taken with a grain of salt, in light of the photos she shared online: http://alotofrice.pixieset.com/thatsalotofrice/ http://alotofrice.pixieset.com/thatsalotofrice/ Traditionally, when somebody wants to live in an apartment/city they can't afford, they find roommates, a second job, or a better job. Publicly shaming your employer online for your own bad financial decisions is a new one to me.