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Throwaway purely so that I can comment. I've had this happen before. Years ago I left a rather awful company - I left on great terms with my boss, though I hat
by throwthescene 6y ago
Throwaway purely so that I can comment. I've had this happen before.
Years ago I left a rather awful company - I left on great terms with my boss, though I hated the company. I was the last person who knew how to release X product. While I documented everything, after I left, the wiki lost its mind, backups apparently weren't a thing, and the director of IT moved to Bermuda.
Fast forward 6 months.. a contractual obligation existed to release the software. They still hadn't successfully built (yup autoconf, make and friends), let alone know where to build it. I got the call you always dream about, 30 days prior to the release being due.
My boss asked me to do him a favour - I reminded him that I quit due to a lack of promotion and raises. He asked what I want, and I asked for 125K, which clearly he scoffed at. Then I reminded him that it was a 10M deal they'd signed, because we had an all hands. The CEO got involved and screamed at me for 'torpedoing the company'. I walked out and calmly informed them both along the way the price was now 250K, non negotiable.
I ignored every single mail (and legal letter) sent me way. With 10 days left, they agreed. I had the company deposit a cheque in escrow with lawyers of my choosing. We signed contracts, and I did my thing. Four days of work. It was well worth it.
Dougie, if you're reading this I hope your cringing.
- tofuahdude 6y agoI love this with all my heart. You did exactly the right thing at every step.
- ycombinete 6y agoFunnily enough it made me sick to my stomach. I manage a small company and the idea of being extorted in such a blasé and psychopathic fashion terrifies me to even think about.
- Judgmentality 6y ago> Funnily enough it made me sick to my stomach. That an overworked employee who had already left the company would stick up for himself? Or that a company would go to such efforts to try to manipulate a former employee? I realize my tone doesn't hide my feelings, but even if we disagree I'd still be curious to hear more.
- ycombinete 6y agoMy apologies, I edited my comment as you were typing I think. I added some more.
- marktangotango 6y agoIMO your edit didn't help and you're not getting a lot of sympathy. The point wasn't that the employee is psychopathic as you say, but that management was incompetent by not ensuring a transfer of knowledge and validating before the employee left. You as the buinsess owner should plan for people to not be available and no one person can derail a $10M contract. This is also called the "bus factor". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_factor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_factor
- jschwartzi 6y agoAlso yelling at someone who is the only person who can solve your problem is not a good negotiating strategy, especially when it reminds them of why they left. Walking away from a toxic situation is not "psychopathic." It's common sense and if we all did it more then the psychopaths who expect us to stick around through it all would finally learn how to treat other people with respect. It's a job, not a marriage.
- HeyLaughingBoy 6y ago> yelling at someone who is the only person who can solve your problem is not a good negotiating strategy Sadly, I've seen this. Not first hand, but it happened to a friend and I have no reason to doubt his version of the story.
- ycombinete 6y agoIt certainly didn’t help at all! But that’s okay, there was a lot of discussion around it. I th
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y agoConsider that you are only hearing one side of the story and taking it entirely at face value.
- DubiousPusher 6y agoThis is not extortion. The company made choices that left significant leverage in the hands of another business. That business correctly perceived the value of the services it could render and priced them accordingly. This is exactly the free market at work regarding labor. Have a problem with the free market if you like, many of us do but do not accuse this poster of criminal action equivalent to a protection racket.
- johnchristopher 6y agoWhat's the rationale for doubling the first price ? Why is it a more fair price ?
- DubiousPusher 6y agoThe market answer to that is, the seller underpriced their services to begin with, regardless of the personal motivation for increasing the price. To clarify, the market would likely not allow this specific work to be sold at this price normally. But the buyer wasn't just buying specific work they were buying specific work to be completed by a specific date. The work in isolation does not have this value but the work completed by a certain day does. Companies use this rationale all the time charging more for expedited services. It's especially common in construction and manufacturing where costs double or even triple when expedited delivery is required.
- johnchristopher 6y agoBullshit. The way the story is told the price doubled after and because of the CEO screaming. The market has nothing to do with that except the good old "The fair price is the one that god paid, uh.” I suppose.
- DubiousPusher 6y ago"Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it." That includes labor. The business was free to try and renegotiate their contract with their customer. They were free to delay the release and offer a discount. They were free to turn down the 125k and the 250k payment on principle and deal with the consequences. They found the most economical solution that met their needs was to pay $250,000 to have the work done on time. Was this poster engaging in rent seeking behavior? Absolutely. But that is a consequence of the market and one companies exploit to their own benefit all the time.
- woofcat 6y agoHow is it extortion? If you need 1 resource in the whole world, the supply is 1. If your demand is great then you get to pay the price. This person left the company, and documented everything. What should they do, come in and save the day for $15/hr?
- 1123581321 6y agoIt's a fair fee for such valuable work done for an apparently abusive, and possibly litigious, company.
- exikyut 6y ago"Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my par--wait did you say $250,000?" If your company were in the hands of incompetents, but still kept going in spite of the incompetents because it had gotten its foot wedged in the door or whatever, and then fell apart in ways you could only scorn, how would you view that sort of situation?
- sufehmi 6y ago"extorted" This is pure slander The company can avoid this if they only care to maintain the documentation / wiki left behind by said person When they failed to do even just basic proper operations, it's their own fault. I'm a business owner and a consultant, and I too charge more for these kind of asshole clients, because of the extra stress. But nowadays I just try to avoid them, it's just too damaging for your own sanity. Their kind of stupidity, self-entitlement, and ignorance is on a completely different level.
- dctoedt 6y ago> This is pure slander <pedantry>It's libel (written) not slander (oral); "defamation" is the generic noun. </pedantry>
- doodpants 6y agoDoes libel magically turn into slander if a blind person uses a screen reader? Asking for a friend. ;-)
- gota 6y agoYour comment made me curious and I checked - it is not the physical channel that matters, it is whether the media is _transient_ or not. It seems that paying to skywrite (you know, small plane making artificial clouds) could be slander but not libel
- dctoedt 6y ago> whether the media is _transient_ or not Citation? By that light, a DVD containing defamatory speech would be libelous, but that's generally not how courts see it. From the (highly-influential) U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, summarizing New York law (which is quite typical): "Defamation, consisting of the twin torts of libel and slander, is the invasion of the interest in a reputation and good name. Generally, spoken defamatory words are slander; written defamatory words are libel. Libel is a method of defamation expressed in writing or print." [0] https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=6017275629956611274 https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=601727562995661...
- BlargMcLarg 6y agoBusiness is business. The right to fire people, deny them raises and form binding contracts in regards to their work comes at a price. GP did not act malicious, rather, they acted in the same self-interest most bosses, CEOs and companies act while trying to stand on the moral high ground. Coding standards, documentation requirements, meetings and code reviews exist for a reason, too. It's not like companies are defenseless.
- snerbles 6y agoThe employee documented everything, but said documentation was not backed up by the company. Furthermore, the company did not train or hire an adequate replacement for said employee for _six months_. This is a gross failure of leadership at the company, and the former employee has every right to negotiate compensation for the inconvenience of having to work for them again.
- arethuza 6y agoThat's not extortion, simply hard-nosed commercial negotiation.
- tcoff91 6y agoThe fact that you'd refer to this as extortion makes me sick. The management/capital class loves the free market except for when it applies to labor, then suddenly it's extortion when supply and demand don't work in your favor.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- draw_down 6y agoGod forbid engineers be paid for their work. Typical HN
- bitcharmer 6y agoExtortion? Wow, you have no idea what you're talking about. Good luck with that attitude.
- heterodoxxed 6y agoHave you tried learning to code?
- rangerelf 6y ago> ...I manage a small company... And you identify with this band of miscreants? That's embarrassing.
- whatever1 6y agoThinking about business continuity is literally your job. Not your engineers’ job.
- burnte 6y agoThen treat your employees better and adhere to best practices and you won't be subject to such "extortion". Once we have elft yoru company, especailly if it was because we were treated poorly, we are under NO compulsion to help you for free. If the idea of paying 1.25% of the value of a deal to make sure the deal happens seems excessive, you're greedy, and that's why his price went to 2.5%.
- yowlingcat 6y agoThe idea of /you/ mismanaging your company in such a "blasé and psychopathic fashion" is more what should terrify you. Remember, /you/ manage a small company, not the person you hire. If you end up in such a mismanaged position, the manager who let it get there is you, not the employee.
- Bud 6y agoYou seem very confused about what "extortion" means, and also about what "psychopathic" means. So I'd suggest starting there.
- leesalminen 6y agoI owned a small company. After selling it, and giving 2+ more years of my life for the new owners to figure out how to replace me, they didn’t. On my last day I told them that if they ever needed anything my rate is $5,000/day, non negotiable. It’s kept them at bay for now. I have no ethical qualms with my decision. It’s business.
- zentiggr 6y agoSounds like your best next step is to become an exemple of software/infrastructure best practices - get everything in the best backup/recovery solution you can, document every detail any time an issue comes up, and above all treat your people like the vaaluable assets they can be. You may be doing any of that already, since I don't know anything about you except your one comment. But the answer to your fear of exploitation is avoid making people hate you/your environment enough to want to protect themselves from it.
- klibertp 6y agoI think this is just flamebait. Uses emotionally charged words without any other substance. Both the comment and responses to it (including this one) add nothing to the discussion.
- acheron 6y agoYou're terrified that you might treat your employees so badly that you would need to pay a lot to resolve a situation? Seems like that's entirely within your control.
- thrower123 6y agoIn this situation, you could always just tell the former employer to take a flying fuck at a rolling donut, and not respond to them. That's probably what they deserve, if they come asking for a favor and then start getting abusive.
- OneLeggedCat 6y agoHopefully you wouldn't mismanage your own company and treat your employees like shit. Probably you are a better person than that, and can avoid this ever happening to you.
- vagrantJin 6y agoI see and understand your sentiment but, in my rather insignificant few years in the workforce - carrots, dipped in vanilla chocolate and honey, generally tend to work better than the stick. The company could have apologised, and do a lot more ego stroking before asking a favour which they can pay for and maybe throw in an all expenses paid weekend with the SO as a thank you. Not only will you get goodwill but future problems are going to be significantly cheaper to solve. Even if you have a bad break up - as a business owner you should understand the value of mending bridges. It's cheaper than losing sleep at night and losing your steak dinner to a bad stomach.
- 908B64B197 6y agoIt's not extorsion. He left detailed instructions how to release the software. The company managed to screw up so bad they lost the manual he made sure to write on their internal wiki.
- xupybd 6y agoI hear what you are saying, but it's a bad place to be in when one person can be so critical they can charge that much for four days work. I feel for them but they failed to protect themselves.
- nextaccountic 6y agoExtorted? If you didn't like his rate, just hire someone else. Or do the coding yourself.
- orestarod 6y agoYou forget it's all part of business. If you hired an external contractor you would not say a word for demanding their money. And the price of the contractor grows by a lot relative to how much and how soon you need their work. Remember, you need their help, not the other way around. A contractor on bad terms with you would not help at all. How is a former employee any different? Do you think you become family after paying for their work? If you do not have the money to pa for someone's services you cannot complain. You say you have a company? Have you ever let a client get your products by paying less than their value or nothing at all? Work itself is a product too.
- ryandrake 6y agoYea, this is one of those "I want to believe" stories! It's practically engineer-porn. Everyone who has quit a shitty employer whose technology was a house of cards resting on the point of a needle is cheering OP on. We all have that fantasy that the house will finally fall over, the company will have its comeuppance, and we're the one person in the world with the knowledge to fix it.
- SteveNuts 6y agoWhat did their legal letters try to pin on you? Did they try to say you were somehow legally required to help them?
- throwthescene 6y agoThe letters stated that I had a contractual obligation to assist. But I noticed at the top they were stamped 'without prejudice'. I asked my friend what that meant, and he said that technically it's not a legal letter - so I ignored them. For a while, I made it game to light the various communications on fire in interesting ways, but it got boring.
- egorfine 6y ago> I had a contractual obligation to assist Did they have a legal reason to think so?
- rolobio 6y agoWhy a check with your lawyers? Why not just deposit into your personal account?
- ghgdynb1 6y agoThe idea is that you want a trusted third party because either of the two adversarial parties could screw the other over. The company could say: we’re going to pay you 125 and you could sue us and spend 60k and two years or just settle for that, after he’s already done the work. The guy could demand the payment directly to his account and then not deliver, and the firm would be in the same situation. By depositing the funds in escrow, they’re making sure that the money is there and in the hands of people whose only incentive is to give it to the correct party upon fulfillment of the contract.
- dqpb 6y agoIt went into an escrow account, presumably until he completed the work
- bityard 6y agoLook up what "escrow" is. When 1/4 million dollars is on the line, you don't take the company's word that they'll pay you afterward, and they don't take your word for it that you'll actually deliver the service.
- kstrauser 6y agoHell. Yes. That's absolutely beautiful, and ethically completely correct. I have bosses at previous companies that I'd help for free today because they were good to me and we parted on friendly terms. One boss helped me move my house once, and I'm not about to charge him to fix some random issue. I have other bosses whom I'd require a cleared wire transfer of money before I'd lift a pinky to help them, because they were not nice people and I don't want to associate with them or assist them with anything. If someone in this camp approached me, I'd have a story just like yours afterward.
- lenkite 6y agoThis is actually not a very rare situation. Unfortunately many of us don't really have the smarts or courage (overcoming guilt) to negotiate a price like the OP did.
- acejam 6y agoThis is my dream. Is that bad?
- m-p-3 6y agoDamn, I'd pay a good part of my mortgage in 4 days with that. You played your cards well.
- toyg 6y ago“A good part”? Lol, I’d pay it all and have enough spare to buy a midrange car...
- deevolution 6y agoAbsolute chad badassery
- OneLeggedCat 6y agoThis is the most beautiful thing I've read today. Thank you.
- Udo 6y agoI know this sounds like an empowering story, and it may even be true, but don't actually follow this example. If you're at the point where they'd rather send you legal threats than pay you, even escrow is not going to help you much. The escrow process may force them to pay, but there is no guarantee you'll be able to keep that money if they really decide to go after you. People like that would much rather spend $2.5M on courts and lawyers than let a worker walk home with 250k, or even 25k. Agreeing to a deal like this is an incredible minefield that may blow up on you even years later.