7 ms·

Although for the sake of this discussion I agree with you, I could have a lot of fun making a list entitled, "things companies have done to people that are wors

Although for the sake of this discussion I agree with you, I could have a lot of fun making a list entitled, "things companies have done to people that are worse than firing them."

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
csours 9y ago
And most of those things would also go on a list called "illegal things companies have done". Probably not a good idea to do something illegal in the middle of a lawsuit.
- sillysaurus3 9y ago
  There are many ways to make an employee's life worse without doing anything illegal. You tend to see them in dysfunctional companies.
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    Yes, but usually not in the middle of lawsuits that spell 'doom' in large letters for the eventual loser(s). Uber has one and one chance only to get this behind them: to play by the book and to ask 'how high' when the judge tells them to jump. If they try anything funny they can expect the ROI of that to be substantial and negative.
    - sillysaurus3 9y ago
      I agree, but the topic had diverged somewhat. OT, have you noticed an increase in superfluous downvoting? I'm not really complaining, just trying to figure out if I'm imagining it or if it's randomness doing its thing. Since HN has become so much bigger, I wonder if the mods could scale down the effect of downvoting. E.g. make it take two downvotes to make a comment appear at 0.
      - jacquesm 9y ago
        Happens all the time, I wouldn't worry about it, just ignore it.
        sillysaurus3 9y ago
        Ok, I wrote a tampermonkey extension to hide the effects of being downvoted: https://gist.github.com/anonymous/9d681310f4714277a37832643c2d3b93 https://gist.github.com/anonymous/9d681310f4714277a37832643c... It removes scores from your comments and replaces your karma counter with "(9999)". HN is much more pleasant now.
        jacquesm 9y ago
        Hah, that's a cool solution.
        sillysaurus3 9y ago
        I submitted a better version at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14456200 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14456200
  - tjalfi 9y ago
    Here is an example from a previous job. The location was a factory for a company you have heard of. Temporary employees were 99 and 44/100% of the workforce. One staffing agency, call it Agency A, had the main contract for the site and they were required to give some of the work to their competitors. It was policy to assign temps from other agencies impossible schedules so that they would quit and be replaced by temps from Agency A.
- jmccaf 9y ago
  http://lostinjapan.groth.hm/archives/2010/04/sitting-at-the-window-ledge-the-madogiwa-zoku/ http://lostinjapan.groth.hm/archives/2010/04/sitting-at-the-... http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/17/business/global/layoffs-illegal-japan-workers-are-sent-to-the-boredom-room.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/17/business/global/layoffs-il... Legend has it that Japanese companies, rather than terminate under-performing employees, will seat them "at the window" and not assign them any tasks at all ... This is not terribly compelling short-term, but is horribly boring .
  - kbenson 9y ago
    Played well, that sounds like a good way to get your side project off the ground. Then again, I imagine the cross section of under-performing employees that get this treatment and those that are ambitious enough to follow through on an idea for a side project/business is probably quite small. Also, you probably would have to hide all the work, since depending on your contract your employer would probably have some claim to it, since it was during work hours.
    - huebnerob 9y ago
      I would love to get 'put on the roof' like that, but I think the Japanese policy also states that you're not allowed to do anything outside of the ridiculously mundane task they assign you, and they actually watch you like a hawk to ensure as such. Pretty smart, most people aren't going to stay in that situation for long.
      - marklyon 9y ago
        Could you imagine being the manager assigned to watch such employees? That's a special hell. I once worked at a newspaper, when "online" was new and side project of the marketing department so that they could sell more ads. Until I automated things, we were cutting and pasting a few articles each night from Quark into BBEdit and hand-massaging it into HTML templates for upload. They assigned us an "editor". Poor guy had written pro-civil-rights editorials at a time when that didn't go over well. Got assigned shit jobs for decades to try and force him out. We didn't create new content; there was nothing to edit. But, they made him go to all the meetings and report that each day. Dude used a giant trackball and knew nothing about tech, but somehow landed in the department that would one day rule the newsroom. I wonder how he's doing these days.
ThrustVectoring 9y ago
Companies can do worse things than firing people, but it's hard to legally compel them to do so.

Although for the sake of this discussion I agree with you, I could have a lot of fun making a list entitled, "things companies have done to people that are worse than firing them."

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

csours 9y ago

And most of those things would also go on a list called "illegal things companies have done". Probably not a good idea to do something illegal in the middle of a lawsuit.

sillysaurus3 9y ago
There are many ways to make an employee's life worse without doing anything illegal. You tend to see them in dysfunctional companies.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  Yes, but usually not in the middle of lawsuits that spell 'doom' in large letters for the eventual loser(s). Uber has one and one chance only to get this behind them: to play by the book and to ask 'how high' when the judge tells them to jump. If they try anything funny they can expect the ROI of that to be substantial and negative.
  - sillysaurus3 9y ago
    I agree, but the topic had diverged somewhat. OT, have you noticed an increase in superfluous downvoting? I'm not really complaining, just trying to figure out if I'm imagining it or if it's randomness doing its thing. Since HN has become so much bigger, I wonder if the mods could scale down the effect of downvoting. E.g. make it take two downvotes to make a comment appear at 0.
    - jacquesm 9y ago
      Happens all the time, I wouldn't worry about it, just ignore it.
      - sillysaurus3 9y ago
        Ok, I wrote a tampermonkey extension to hide the effects of being downvoted: https://gist.github.com/anonymous/9d681310f4714277a37832643c2d3b93 https://gist.github.com/anonymous/9d681310f4714277a37832643c... It removes scores from your comments and replaces your karma counter with "(9999)". HN is much more pleasant now.
        jacquesm 9y ago
        Hah, that's a cool solution.
        sillysaurus3 9y ago
        I submitted a better version at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14456200 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14456200
- tjalfi 9y ago
  Here is an example from a previous job. The location was a factory for a company you have heard of. Temporary employees were 99 and 44/100% of the workforce. One staffing agency, call it Agency A, had the main contract for the site and they were required to give some of the work to their competitors. It was policy to assign temps from other agencies impossible schedules so that they would quit and be replaced by temps from Agency A.
jmccaf 9y ago
http://lostinjapan.groth.hm/archives/2010/04/sitting-at-the-window-ledge-the-madogiwa-zoku/ http://lostinjapan.groth.hm/archives/2010/04/sitting-at-the-... http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/17/business/global/layoffs-illegal-japan-workers-are-sent-to-the-boredom-room.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/17/business/global/layoffs-il... Legend has it that Japanese companies, rather than terminate under-performing employees, will seat them "at the window" and not assign them any tasks at all ... This is not terribly compelling short-term, but is horribly boring .
- kbenson 9y ago
  Played well, that sounds like a good way to get your side project off the ground. Then again, I imagine the cross section of under-performing employees that get this treatment and those that are ambitious enough to follow through on an idea for a side project/business is probably quite small. Also, you probably would have to hide all the work, since depending on your contract your employer would probably have some claim to it, since it was during work hours.
  - huebnerob 9y ago
    I would love to get 'put on the roof' like that, but I think the Japanese policy also states that you're not allowed to do anything outside of the ridiculously mundane task they assign you, and they actually watch you like a hawk to ensure as such. Pretty smart, most people aren't going to stay in that situation for long.
    - marklyon 9y ago
      Could you imagine being the manager assigned to watch such employees? That's a special hell. I once worked at a newspaper, when "online" was new and side project of the marketing department so that they could sell more ads. Until I automated things, we were cutting and pasting a few articles each night from Quark into BBEdit and hand-massaging it into HTML templates for upload. They assigned us an "editor". Poor guy had written pro-civil-rights editorials at a time when that didn't go over well. Got assigned shit jobs for decades to try and force him out. We didn't create new content; there was nothing to edit. But, they made him go to all the meetings and report that each day. Dude used a giant trackball and knew nothing about tech, but somehow landed in the department that would one day rule the newsroom. I wonder how he's doing these days.

ThrustVectoring 9y ago

Companies can do worse things than firing people, but it's hard to legally compel them to do so.