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I was going to critique her for taking on an unsustainable living situation. But by the end of that post, just wow. Yelp is a large company with a lot of resou

I was going to critique her for taking on an unsustainable living situation. But by the end of that post, just wow. Yelp is a large company with a lot of resources, the way they treated this woman is despicable, especially after a family tragedy like that. It's not like they'll be going out of business if she took some time off to be a human being and care for her family. I don't use Yelp as I've heard many other negative things about them and don't see a need to, but after reading this, I'll actively avoid them and tell others to.

diskcat 11y ago
Well Yelp didn't vote for her to be a single mom, or for her BF to go on a risky outdoor activity to get injured, or for her to take a loan @ 300% interest (lol wat?). For some reason people seem to think they deserve special treatment for the choices that they made that didn't turn out so well. Yelp is a company. Its relation with her is that of business, service in exchange for currency on agreed upon work conditions. Yelp might be a horrible company, but she is not a particularly admirable individual either.
- gaur 11y ago
  Firing someone for taking three days off to handle a family emergency is not reasonable. Your opinion of whether the emergency was caused by risky behavior is irrelevant.
  - tanv_nadkarni 11y ago
    That is what she claims. It is her side and we don't know what is Yelp's side of the story.
    - jonesb6 11y ago
      Fantastic point that shouldn't be lost in the narrative.
    - marklyon 11y ago
      Good point. She seemed to have a lot of things happen that required her to be late, take time off, etc. Her manager may have been frustrated by the constant issues and didn't fully believe her reason now. Sad as it is, I've had more than one employee lie about illnesses, deaths, childcare situations and the like for numerous reasons, including to work elsewhere on short-term projects.
  - diskcat 11y ago
    Firing somebody for not working is clearly sensible. Your opinion of whether Yelp's action is reasonable is irrelevant.
    - Intermernet 11y ago
      To completely ignore the tone of your post, and reply to the topic at hand, it isn't "clearly sensible". Even if your only motives are driven by profits, it takes a lot of money to retrain a replacement. Add to that the motivational benefits of providing an employee with support during a time of need, which will statistically provide greater productivity in the future, and it's usually better in the long term for a company to support employees in need. I'm frankly disgusted that anyone would look at this from a purely profit driven viewpoint, especially as this viewpoint is short-sighted and mistaken. Treat your employees well and they will usually treat you well.
    - norea-armozel 11y ago
      Real talk, I've worked for some horrible employers back home in Wichita, but -never- has any fired me for taking time off due to an emergency. If anything, they said, "go and take care of it." And that was that. I don't know what part of the world you come from but even in Kansas (a very socially and economically conservative state) we don't haggle people over three days off for an emergency. We suck it up and deal with it.
    - onion2k 11y ago
      It's really not, because all your other staff will immediately consider leaving, and some actually will. You'll then face the cost of hiring and training replacements, which is very likely much higher than giving the original staff member three days off., not to mention the potential fallout from the negative publicity it might entail (like this thread). There is no benefit to running your business this way. It's only harmful.
- PaulRobinson 11y ago
  Attitudes like this are why trade unions fought for employment laws. I'm absolutely disgusted by the number of people here saying it's her fault that whilst sat in an ICU she was terminated.
  - tanv_nadkarni 11y ago
    It is not the case that people at Yelp find it great joy in firing people. When a person did not turn up for work for three days some HR manager gleefully typed out a termination later and hifived all his co-workers. I don't think that is the case. Hiring someone costs money and so does termination. Unless I know the Yelp's side of the story I wouldn't buy her version. It is possible that she failed to inform her superiors properly. It is possible that she has a long history of staying absent from work. It is possible that she was terminated for entirely different reasons and her being in a difficult situation is a pure co-incident. When terminated people get angry. They say all sort of things.
    - ktRolster 11y ago
      > It is possible that she has a long history of staying absent from work. She did. She'd only been working there from December, used up all her sick-days while still in training, and missed even more days in the following months. One time she missed work because she couldn't find her car keys. It sounds like her manager got fed up and that was the end of it. Being a single parent is hard.
      - sgift 11y ago
        "used up all her sick days" ... the whole idea that sick days are something you can run out of is so .. wrong.
        raverbashing 11y ago
        Well, to be honest some countries don't have unjustified sick days, you can take unlimited ones, but with a doctor's note, otherwise it's taken out of your pay
- tanv_nadkarni 11y ago
  Exactly my thoughts. Also I don't understand the "single mom" part. Society does not owe any special treatment to a single mom, not more than any other mom. Single mother is a choice of an independent woman and if she cant afford it she should probably not make it. Instead of being thankful for an employer to have given an opportunity in first place she is ranting against her employer, this is going to make it difficult for her to find next job. I wont hire such a person.
  - michaelmrose 11y ago
    Employers are people to we expect them to behave both ethically and humanely. Society doesn't owe you much but we can afford to give a little extra consideration to those who might be in need of it. You company wont go bankrupt or fall apart because of it.
  - onion2k 11y ago
    Single mother is a choice of an independent woman and if she cant afford it she should probably not make it. The father of her child might have died, or left 10 years after the baby was born, etc. Saying she shouldn't have made this choice is completely idiotic. It's highly unlikely she chose her situation. I wont hire such a person. You will, because you have to. Deep down everyone is this person. We will all take time off to look after our families and prioritise things above our jobs if they're important to us. An employer has to understand this, especially when you get to the size of Yelp and you're employing call centre sales staff.
    - tanv_nadkarni 11y ago
      She is demanding special treatment for being single mother which in my opinion should not be accorded to her no matter why she is single. She could marry someone for all I care if being single is a handicap for her. Yes, I know people have problems. The kind of people I dont want is who bitch about it and have sense of entitlement.
  - mryan 11y ago
    I agree with your point that writing this post could be a red flag for future employers, however: > Single mother is a choice of an independent woman and if she cant afford it she should probably not make it. With respect, this is a very naive and simplistic view of the situation which displays a lack of empathy. I doubt many women make the explicit choice to become single mothers. There are many reasons she could have ended up in this situation. Perhaps her husband died, or ran away when he discovered she was pregnant. You might as well say that being in a car crash is the choice of an independent driver, and if they didn't want to experience pain they should not have chosen to be in a car crash.
- onion2k 11y ago
  All those points are irrelevant though - they're not part of the story here. The author isn't asking for a pay rise to make up the difference in what she earns compared to what she pays out, or for help looking after her child. She's not looking for any special treatment. All of those things are a distraction from the real point of the post: She wants an employer who's compassionate enough not to fire her for being human. That isn't an unreasonable demand. You don't need to admire someone to believe that they should be able to take some time off to look after a family member who is ill.
  - jonesb6 11y ago
    If we made a list of every large company that violated a reasonable code of human morality.. the wheel was spun and today's public outrage is at Yelp. This stuff happens all the time. Sure we get outraged at the random story we come across every now and then, but largely we are numb to it. I just think the most valuable thing we can do to prevent these situations is have deeper discussions on the macro level instead of micro-analyzing single cases that have all sorts of bias and obfuscation.
    - onion2k 11y ago
      I'm British and living in the UK, so under law I can't be fired for taking time off for an emergency with any of my dependents, and I'm entitled to "parental leave" for things like appointments[1]. This is the absolute minimum I would expect a country to afford its citizens. This is how this problem should be dealt with at the macro level. I find it saddening to see the micro-level impact of not having these sorts of laws in place. [1] https://www.gov.uk/time-off-for-dependants/your-rights https://www.gov.uk/time-off-for-dependants/your-rights
      - Ntrails 11y ago
        But how a company handles it's legal obligations is also interesting. When my father died the company that employed me at the time said, essentially, "Go away and come back when you feel ready". This despite the fact that the only other member of my direct team was the other side of the world and there was no one with domain expertise was available so it would have been infuriating for them to cover support. There was certainly no mention of statutory pay or anything. They also let me leave on multiple occasions at short notice in the preceeding years when he was ill. Their being incredibly generous with compassionate leave allowed me to deal with the personal stuff without worrying about money/job stuff. It also meant that I worked remotely, covered support, and generally made sure that everything ran as smoothly as possible. These choices make business sense, as well as being the decent thing to do.
- michaelmrose 11y ago
  Taking the 3 days off to care for the bf regardless of whether his injury was his fault or half a day to care for a sick kid are not unreasonable requests.
  - WalterSear 11y ago
    Apparently, she had a history of absences.
- raverbashing 11y ago
  You're right However they can't complain when people realize they're paying to work there Oh yeah people get in accidents and get sick, Yelp should hire only perfect human beings I guess
  - diskcat 11y ago
    We all got problems. Why should Yelp be responsible for her problems?
    - raverbashing 11y ago
      Is she asking them to pay for the ICU? It's a sales position, not a firefighting one Besides I bet they also work overtime without being payed
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
- zamalek 11y ago
  There are enough "studies" (Buffer, Gabe N, ROWE etc.) that demonstrably prove that treating humans like humans, and not like machines, measurably increases performance over longer time-frames - instead of eking out unproductive work over the paltry 3 days while she worries about her boyfriend. > Its relation with her is that of business Her relation to the company is that of employee and not slave. Henry Ford dreamed up this current work environment where people are treated like machines. There is absolutely and utterly zero science to back up this business methodology. Managing people with fear is nothing more than a morally bankrupt global religion that people unwittingly buy into.
- anexprogrammer 11y ago
  So by your logic it would be OK to fire her because her partner was doing some risky outdoor activity? Would it still have been OK if he was knocked down just crossing the street? That's also a risk after all. What about if he had been on a bus involved in an accident? Thinking of my own career I've had several occasions to call upon compassionate leave - and each time the employers (one a large US firm) handled it in exemplary fashion. Have you ever heard of a concept called "basic human compassion"?

diskcat 11y ago

Well Yelp didn't vote for her to be a single mom, or for her BF to go on a risky outdoor activity to get injured, or for her to take a loan @ 300% interest (lol wat?). For some reason people seem to think they deserve special treatment for the choices that they made that didn't turn out so well. Yelp is a company. Its relation with her is that of business, service in exchange for currency on agreed upon work conditions. Yelp might be a horrible company, but she is not a particularly admirable individual either.

gaur 11y ago
Firing someone for taking three days off to handle a family emergency is not reasonable. Your opinion of whether the emergency was caused by risky behavior is irrelevant.
- tanv_nadkarni 11y ago
  That is what she claims. It is her side and we don't know what is Yelp's side of the story.
  - jonesb6 11y ago
    Fantastic point that shouldn't be lost in the narrative.
  - marklyon 11y ago
    Good point. She seemed to have a lot of things happen that required her to be late, take time off, etc. Her manager may have been frustrated by the constant issues and didn't fully believe her reason now. Sad as it is, I've had more than one employee lie about illnesses, deaths, childcare situations and the like for numerous reasons, including to work elsewhere on short-term projects.
- diskcat 11y ago
  Firing somebody for not working is clearly sensible. Your opinion of whether Yelp's action is reasonable is irrelevant.
  - Intermernet 11y ago
    To completely ignore the tone of your post, and reply to the topic at hand, it isn't "clearly sensible". Even if your only motives are driven by profits, it takes a lot of money to retrain a replacement. Add to that the motivational benefits of providing an employee with support during a time of need, which will statistically provide greater productivity in the future, and it's usually better in the long term for a company to support employees in need. I'm frankly disgusted that anyone would look at this from a purely profit driven viewpoint, especially as this viewpoint is short-sighted and mistaken. Treat your employees well and they will usually treat you well.
  - norea-armozel 11y ago
    Real talk, I've worked for some horrible employers back home in Wichita, but -never- has any fired me for taking time off due to an emergency. If anything, they said, "go and take care of it." And that was that. I don't know what part of the world you come from but even in Kansas (a very socially and economically conservative state) we don't haggle people over three days off for an emergency. We suck it up and deal with it.
  - onion2k 11y ago
    It's really not, because all your other staff will immediately consider leaving, and some actually will. You'll then face the cost of hiring and training replacements, which is very likely much higher than giving the original staff member three days off., not to mention the potential fallout from the negative publicity it might entail (like this thread). There is no benefit to running your business this way. It's only harmful.
PaulRobinson 11y ago
Attitudes like this are why trade unions fought for employment laws. I'm absolutely disgusted by the number of people here saying it's her fault that whilst sat in an ICU she was terminated.
- tanv_nadkarni 11y ago
  It is not the case that people at Yelp find it great joy in firing people. When a person did not turn up for work for three days some HR manager gleefully typed out a termination later and hifived all his co-workers. I don't think that is the case. Hiring someone costs money and so does termination. Unless I know the Yelp's side of the story I wouldn't buy her version. It is possible that she failed to inform her superiors properly. It is possible that she has a long history of staying absent from work. It is possible that she was terminated for entirely different reasons and her being in a difficult situation is a pure co-incident. When terminated people get angry. They say all sort of things.
  - ktRolster 11y ago
    > It is possible that she has a long history of staying absent from work. She did. She'd only been working there from December, used up all her sick-days while still in training, and missed even more days in the following months. One time she missed work because she couldn't find her car keys. It sounds like her manager got fed up and that was the end of it. Being a single parent is hard.
    - sgift 11y ago
      "used up all her sick days" ... the whole idea that sick days are something you can run out of is so .. wrong.
      - raverbashing 11y ago
        Well, to be honest some countries don't have unjustified sick days, you can take unlimited ones, but with a doctor's note, otherwise it's taken out of your pay
tanv_nadkarni 11y ago
Exactly my thoughts. Also I don't understand the "single mom" part. Society does not owe any special treatment to a single mom, not more than any other mom. Single mother is a choice of an independent woman and if she cant afford it she should probably not make it. Instead of being thankful for an employer to have given an opportunity in first place she is ranting against her employer, this is going to make it difficult for her to find next job. I wont hire such a person.
- michaelmrose 11y ago
  Employers are people to we expect them to behave both ethically and humanely. Society doesn't owe you much but we can afford to give a little extra consideration to those who might be in need of it. You company wont go bankrupt or fall apart because of it.
- onion2k 11y ago
  Single mother is a choice of an independent woman and if she cant afford it she should probably not make it. The father of her child might have died, or left 10 years after the baby was born, etc. Saying she shouldn't have made this choice is completely idiotic. It's highly unlikely she chose her situation. I wont hire such a person. You will, because you have to. Deep down everyone is this person. We will all take time off to look after our families and prioritise things above our jobs if they're important to us. An employer has to understand this, especially when you get to the size of Yelp and you're employing call centre sales staff.
  - tanv_nadkarni 11y ago
    She is demanding special treatment for being single mother which in my opinion should not be accorded to her no matter why she is single. She could marry someone for all I care if being single is a handicap for her. Yes, I know people have problems. The kind of people I dont want is who bitch about it and have sense of entitlement.
- mryan 11y ago
  I agree with your point that writing this post could be a red flag for future employers, however: > Single mother is a choice of an independent woman and if she cant afford it she should probably not make it. With respect, this is a very naive and simplistic view of the situation which displays a lack of empathy. I doubt many women make the explicit choice to become single mothers. There are many reasons she could have ended up in this situation. Perhaps her husband died, or ran away when he discovered she was pregnant. You might as well say that being in a car crash is the choice of an independent driver, and if they didn't want to experience pain they should not have chosen to be in a car crash.
onion2k 11y ago
All those points are irrelevant though - they're not part of the story here. The author isn't asking for a pay rise to make up the difference in what she earns compared to what she pays out, or for help looking after her child. She's not looking for any special treatment. All of those things are a distraction from the real point of the post: She wants an employer who's compassionate enough not to fire her for being human. That isn't an unreasonable demand. You don't need to admire someone to believe that they should be able to take some time off to look after a family member who is ill.
- jonesb6 11y ago
  If we made a list of every large company that violated a reasonable code of human morality.. the wheel was spun and today's public outrage is at Yelp. This stuff happens all the time. Sure we get outraged at the random story we come across every now and then, but largely we are numb to it. I just think the most valuable thing we can do to prevent these situations is have deeper discussions on the macro level instead of micro-analyzing single cases that have all sorts of bias and obfuscation.
  - onion2k 11y ago
    I'm British and living in the UK, so under law I can't be fired for taking time off for an emergency with any of my dependents, and I'm entitled to "parental leave" for things like appointments[1]. This is the absolute minimum I would expect a country to afford its citizens. This is how this problem should be dealt with at the macro level. I find it saddening to see the micro-level impact of not having these sorts of laws in place. [1] https://www.gov.uk/time-off-for-dependants/your-rights https://www.gov.uk/time-off-for-dependants/your-rights
    - Ntrails 11y ago
      But how a company handles it's legal obligations is also interesting. When my father died the company that employed me at the time said, essentially, "Go away and come back when you feel ready". This despite the fact that the only other member of my direct team was the other side of the world and there was no one with domain expertise was available so it would have been infuriating for them to cover support. There was certainly no mention of statutory pay or anything. They also let me leave on multiple occasions at short notice in the preceeding years when he was ill. Their being incredibly generous with compassionate leave allowed me to deal with the personal stuff without worrying about money/job stuff. It also meant that I worked remotely, covered support, and generally made sure that everything ran as smoothly as possible. These choices make business sense, as well as being the decent thing to do.
michaelmrose 11y ago
Taking the 3 days off to care for the bf regardless of whether his injury was his fault or half a day to care for a sick kid are not unreasonable requests.
- WalterSear 11y ago
  Apparently, she had a history of absences.
raverbashing 11y ago
You're right However they can't complain when people realize they're paying to work there Oh yeah people get in accidents and get sick, Yelp should hire only perfect human beings I guess
- diskcat 11y ago
  We all got problems. Why should Yelp be responsible for her problems?
  - raverbashing 11y ago
    Is she asking them to pay for the ICU? It's a sales position, not a firefighting one Besides I bet they also work overtime without being payed
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
zamalek 11y ago
There are enough "studies" (Buffer, Gabe N, ROWE etc.) that demonstrably prove that treating humans like humans, and not like machines, measurably increases performance over longer time-frames - instead of eking out unproductive work over the paltry 3 days while she worries about her boyfriend. > Its relation with her is that of business Her relation to the company is that of employee and not slave. Henry Ford dreamed up this current work environment where people are treated like machines. There is absolutely and utterly zero science to back up this business methodology. Managing people with fear is nothing more than a morally bankrupt global religion that people unwittingly buy into.
anexprogrammer 11y ago
So by your logic it would be OK to fire her because her partner was doing some risky outdoor activity? Would it still have been OK if he was knocked down just crossing the street? That's also a risk after all. What about if he had been on a bus involved in an accident? Thinking of my own career I've had several occasions to call upon compassionate leave - and each time the employers (one a large US firm) handled it in exemplary fashion. Have you ever heard of a concept called "basic human compassion"?