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Just wanted chime in with second a second anecdote that I was going to post. We needed a Django developer. Put an ad on Upwork at the high end of the recommend
by a_simm 4y ago
Just wanted chime in with second a second anecdote that I was going to post.
We needed a Django developer. Put an ad on Upwork at the high end of the recommended salary range. The ad specified US Eligible worker for legal reasons.
Of the 10 or so applicants, seven flat out refused to appear on webcam so I decided to talk to the eighth.
This person claim to be in Seattle. Having lived there I asked them two relatively simple questions. First, can you see the space needle from where you’re sitting? Answer: Yes.
Second, what color is the bubbly music museum next door? Obviously, this is a trick given it’s multicolored. My candidate, who did not lack bravado, guesses white.
I get that being born into particular circumstances is luck of the draw. On the other hand there’s a reason that people are willing to pay more to hire US-based workers.
I believe this has become a general societal problem. People running so called two-sided marketplaces regularly fail to take responsibility for gaming by one side. I would further argue that Upwork has even more responsibility given the monitoring of and commission they take from an ongoing relationship.
The US probably has too many regulations - in my opinion - concerning immigrant workers; however, no temp agency could get away with what Upwork is doing without facing severe repercussions.
I’d like to see Upwork punished.
- throwawaysleep 4y ago
- ActionHank 4y agoCurious what you put on LinkedIn. Do you list all 3?
- bberenberg 4y agoCongrats, you're the problem.
- lelanthran 4y ago> Congrats, you're the problem. You're agreeing with him. He is making the judgement that actions such as his is a problem, and then he makes the point that there is no feedback to prevent such actions.
- throwawaysleep 4y agoI fully agree. But society sends no signal that I am a problem beyond outrage when I admit it. Nobody would admonish me for being exactly the same without me mentioning it to them.
- refulgentis 4y agoSure, but, frankly? That is a form of psychopathy. Please don't take that offensively. I'm not throwing the word around. I don't mean "evil". I don't think it's "evil", I'm even jealous. Not just of money. Of the rationality. The rest of us don't do this stuff because we'd feel horribly bad for doing it, to the point benefits would outweigh the costs. I'd hazard a guess that most people would also say it was fine given a sufficient trolley problem set up "is it okay to take 3 jobs and not do the work I can't be held accountable towards given...I have a trust fund...versus...my kids wont have food"
- throwawaysleep 4y agoLet me give you a new perspective. You get to see your dying father for just one week as that is all the vacation time you have left and you cannot just walk away from your job due to house/kids/etc. Happened to a friend. Father had 6 months to live. He got 1 week with him in that time. Pile of cash lets you walk away. How horrible will that make you feel to not get to spend that time with him? My employer, who I will end up leaving in a year anyway (if they do not lay me off as every company I have been with has had layoffs) as the best way to get a raise is to leave, is way, way, way, way down on the list of people it hurts to disappoint.
- MacsHeadroom 4y agoSince you mentioned taking time off, how does that work for you with three jobs? I would do the same as you if oprimozimg for income. But I tend to optimize for free time rather than income. So I take 4-5 months of PTO a year at one "full time" job which takes ~15 hours/week. (TC > $400k)
- 4y ago
- wisty 4y ago~10% of people are dishonest to a fault and are lucky to stay out of prison, they're the kind who will have a judge tell them they'll do hard time the next time they are caught and just nod and think "yeah maybe he's bluffing". ~80% of people will push the limits until they see people are punished for breaking the rules. ~10% of people (often a little on the ASD spectrum) will follow the rules even if they don't really matter. If your wallet is stolen from your locked home, it's the thief's fault. But if you leave your wallet in a crowded nightclub for an hour and it goes missing, maybe it's also your fault.
- a_simm 4y agoDefinitely is a societal problem; to me that means we need a societal solution. Namely individuals have to call out bad behavior to the point it’s regulated. Not so much in this case by the market but by government regulation to hold two sided marketplaces accountable for almost literal fraud by one party. In this case it’s easier as more a legal question as opposed to a skill question. I would penalize Upwork for the wage differential times three. Notice Upwork would be responsible, not the other side. It should also be easy for the ”wronged” side of this transaction to pursue such a claim. The non-irony here is the tremendous amount of effort, ie periodic screenshots, logs etc. that make sure Upwork gets paid.
- ChildOfChaos 4y agoThis is an interesting read, i'm thinking more and more about how to play the system a little better because I feel like if you don't you are the one getting played. In most big companies, unless you actually do something wrong or there is a hardcore metric they are monitoring you by, then it's very easy to do a fairly poor job and slip underneath the radar, because there are only a few things people see you doing, everyone else is too busy trying to deal with there own life and not get fired themselves.
- jamiek88 4y agoI’m starting to really believe in life there are only screwers and screwees. The complete lack of consequence at the top of society can only lead to us at the bottom ignoring the rules too and frankly? There’s waaaaay more serfs with pitchforks than castles to storm.
- SheinhardtWigCo 4y ago> Eh, a lot of it is simply that society doesn't really punish non violent bad behaviour and gives you nothing for integrity. I assume you're not religious, then? The prevailing view seems to be that the punishment for an amoral life will come when it's too late for apologies or take-backs.
- throwawaysleep 4y agoI am not, but unless the religion is corporatism, I am a fairly unremarkable sinner. Doing a poor job in adtech doesn't seem like a burn in hell offense.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Cognitron 4y ago>adtech If you really work in adtech, then keep up the good work (that’s a sentence I never thought I would type) :) EDIT:(Yeah, I know it would be an obvious thing to throw out to try to turn the tide of the comments on HN :P)
- marviel 4y agoHow do you justify the morality of this action to yourself?
- throwawaysleep 4y agoI don't view it as a moral question. My employer doesn't view hiring or firing me or rewarding me as a moral one. I just treat myself like top shareholder of my own company.
- jamiek88 4y agoI admire your anonymous candor.
- reaperducer 4y agoI'd call it cowardice since he's hiding behind a pseudonym. Let him tell his employers what's going on and see if he feels the same way. As my grandmother used to say, "If you have to hide it, it's probably wrong."
- camdat 4y agoWould you expect the same level of candor from your employer? If the answer is no then you owe them nothing.
- alasdair_ 4y ago>As my grandmother used to say, "If you have to hide it, it's probably wrong." "Anne Frank? Why yes, she's right upstairs..."
- CJefferson 4y agoLooking at this like the recent Uber leaks, plenty of employers keep a lot of things secret.
- shreyshnaccount 4y agoyou're confusing bravery and stupidity.
- svnpenn 4y ago> Honest people with more skill are trying to get basic entry level jobs This is me. Can you please help? srpen6@gmail.com
- ActionHank 4y agoAccording to OP you could just pretend to be senior.
- throwawaysleep 4y agoLiterally just make stuff up on your resume and use defunct companies so it is hard to prove that you worked there.
- danesparza 4y ago"forging a resume and doing the interview for him" Um ... surely when he showed up to work and he wasn't YOU ... there were some questions?
- throwawaysleep 4y agoHe shows up for the interview. He just opens a 2nd Meet call on another computer and as he is asked questions, I feed him the answers and he types them in or repeats them.
- streetcat1 4y agoSo you do not mind committing a fraud. Not sure how this is different from any other crime.
- ActionHank 4y agoIt’s only fraud if you sign a contract that states their job is your only form of employment and that you are working 8 hrs a day for them.
- prepend 4y agoAlmost every job I’ve taken stated it was a full time position. Full time in the US means 32+ hours. They also had posted core business hours we were required to work. My current org has core hours of 7am-530pm that we must work 8 hours within. So I think it’s pretty common.
- throwawaysleep 4y agoMy contracts have that. My contracts also lay out the consequences for not following through, which are merely being terminated. It is like parking fines. As long as you are willing to pay $40, park anywhere you want.
- technick 4y agoPeople like you is why I gatekeep candidates off my security team. Everyone that I hire is vetted and vouched for by someone.
- throwawaysleep 4y agoA past employer of mine said this and accepted me vouching for a lot of people. Referral bonuses skew incentives there though... However, you care as a manager. What I am doing works best with managers who do not care.
- coconuthacker42 4y agofair enough, either keep vigilant or be played. that's how capitalism works now
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- bgibbons 4y agoRefusing to be on web cam without a compelling reason is a huge red flag by itself.
- gumby 4y agoThere have been good A/B studies showing significant changes in response rate to resumes with and without photos. How someone looks doesn't seem like it should be correlated with their ability to draw a picture or choose a search algorithm.
- kalupa 4y agoI'm unsure if this is at all equivalent. I'm pretty sure I'd see someone in person before covid forced remote work (thankfully), physically, and that confirms the identity of who I'm talking to to a huge extent. How you interact with someone is just as important, if not more important, than if they can choose the correct algorithm.
- DoneWithAllThat 4y agoWe’re not talking unconscious bias silliness here. We’re talking about literal fraud/misrepresentation and needing verification that someone is who they claim to be. Using our eyebulbs isn’t inherently problematic.
- leereeves 4y agoYes, unconscious bias is a silly thing to talk about when so many still people face outright discrimination and hostility, but I don't think GP meant unconscious bias. The A/B studies are also used to prove discrimination that people usually won't admit to, not only to reveal unconscious bias.
- Woden501 4y ago"unconscious bias silliness" so you're telling me that an interviewer is just as likely to hire someone who has visible issues sitting still/focusing on a video call as they are someone who sits perfectly still and gives their full 100% attention to the call? No, not a chance. When there are two candidates for a position at approximately equal skill levels when performing a video interview but one has ADHD that comes along with the inability to remain solely focused on one small screen and voice for an extended period of time you can guess which candidate is going to be picked the vast majority of the time. Dismissing such a huge issue as silliness is exactly the reason why many people who have issues similar to that do not want to perform video calls for interviews.
- gwbas1c 4y ago> Second, what color is the bubbly music museum next door? Obviously, this is a trick given it’s multicolored. I went to the Space Needle three years ago and I wouldn't be able to answer that question. I wouldn't assume that someone who lives in Seattle goes through the Space Needle area on a daily basis; it's quite touristy. This comes from someone who lives in touristy areas. Ask me what color a building is next to my statehouse (just walked by a few weeks ago,) or next to the famous place that Elvis was photographed by that I drive by almost every day, and I wouldn't be able to tell you.
- valdiorn 4y agoThe point is, if he can see the needle out his window right now, he can just look out the window to look at the building next door.
- danesparza 4y agoOr use Google street view.
- markdown 4y agoThat would be noticeable via webcam.
- fredophile 4y agoThe space needle is over 500 feet tall. I'm assuming that the building they're talking about is the Chihuly exhibit which is about 40 feet tall according to their website [0]. There are plenty of vantage points around Seattle where you can see the space needle but not see what's next to it on the ground. [0] https://www.chihulygardenandglass.com/about/exhibition https://www.chihulygardenandglass.com/about/exhibition
- grumpitron 4y agoThe music museum next door to the Space Needle is MoPOP (formerly known as the Experience Music Project): https://www.mopop.org/ https://www.mopop.org/ That being said, it's definitely much shorter than the Space Needle.
- alasdair_ 4y ago>Second, what color is the bubbly music museum next door? The EMP isn't a music museum any more, it's now the Museum of Pop Culture. I can get being confused by that one :)
- neighbour 4y agoIf someone answered what you just answered, it would be a good enough answer to know they are somewhat legit.
- rcurry 4y agoWhat is the color of the boathouse at Hereford?
- throwaway488933 4y agoThe color of a hot cup of joe