4 ms·

This happens everywhere. Employers let the flotsam sit around for months, even years, configuring servers or generating a slide deck and when time comes to shel

This happens everywhere. Employers let the flotsam sit around for months, even years, configuring servers or generating a slide deck and when time comes to shell out cash as either a reward or through compensated attrition, they'll pull out that long-dormant knife and stick it into an unsuspecting recipient's back. That way the don't have to over-compensate the performers beyond what they've already promised them.

ohyes 15y ago
This is totally true. Your employer is not there to do you any favors. Most likely, they will knife you in the back the minute they get the chance.
- lemming 15y ago
  This is utter bullshit. And if it's not, anyone reading HN has better options. Let's stop with the all-employers-are-out-to-screw-you rhetoric because it's clearly not true.
  - Androsynth 15y ago
    Most companies will never be in this position though. What if you were an executive and you suddenly found yourself in a position to pocket hundreds of millions of dollars simply by firing a few employees. At the very least, that's a moral dilemma. It would be very easy to go from 'upstanding and moral' to going flat out existential in that situation. It's a scummy thing to do, but the human brain can justify a lot of crap in those types of situations.
    - jsavimbi 15y ago
      You can always hire a relative/mistress to a no-show/do-nothing job and further dilute the option pool in your favor. It's easier on the conscience as you effectively cancel the stealing out by adding to the employment rolls. Beware the shuffling of chairs, granting of titles, lateral promotions, unannounced appearance of new employees cutting back on company snacks. These are all clues that lead to a financial event where unless you're in the driver's seat, you're bound to take a hit. For those of you with the altruistic bent, please watch the Spanish Prisoner. It's a classic example of fuckery.
    - nknight 15y ago
      It's only a moral dilemma if you believe pocketing hundreds of millions of dollars is a moral imperative. If not, you have exactly two choices. One is moral, one is not. The dilemma is between your greed and your morality, not between seemingly contradictory moral imperatives.
  - api 15y ago
    If that's true, then the business world needs to do a better job internally policing itself. Behavior like this (and worse... honestly this story is like a 4 on a 1-10 scale) creates exactly this impression. Clean your own house, or it'll be cleaned for you.
    - davidtyleryork 15y ago
      Except when the regulatory laws or agencies in charge of cleaning house get gutted. Hooray, modern American politics!
  - ohyes 15y ago
    I agree. It is a bullshit situation, and you should be mad about it. Employers have a responsibility to maximize the profits of their shareholders/investors. They are not there to be your friend, take care of you, or compensate you beyond the minimum that they have to. Companies that offer bonuses/'benefits' are doing so as an incentive to retain you. The minute the market indicates that they can pull any of those benefits, they will. MegaCorp does not give a holiday bonus out of the goodness of its heart. It doesn't have a heart, it is an inanimate object. It can not possibly feel a loyalty to you. It may bullshit you by telling you this, but that is really just to embiggen your feelings of loyalty towards it. It has rules and structures, carefully laid out towards its goal... maximizing profits. An optimally designed corporation will fire you the minute that there is a cheaper alternative to your employment. If it were human, it would be a sociopath.
    - sbov 15y ago
      > Employers have a responsibility to maximize the profits of their shareholders/investors. Somewhat shortsighted statement for this topic, considering the people they're harming here are employees who are... shareholders. > If it were human, it would be a sociopath. It may not be human, but they're ran by humans, and legally in many ways Corporations are people. In fact its a meme running in US politics lately. People with a lot of money, and a lot more power than 99.99% of humans. I'm getting sick of reading humans say Corporations, considered people and ran by humans, can do anything in the name of shareholder value, but for some reason, people with less money, power, and connections, have moral values applied to their actions. It's complete bullshit, and if people weren't so brainwashed they couldn't get away with this shit.
      - ohyes 15y ago
        > Somewhat shortsighted statement for this topic, considering the people they're harming here are employees who are... shareholders. I think it is pretty clear I was referring to the general case, rather than this particular situation. Anyway, until they vest, they technically aren't shareholders. (And after they've lost their rights to vest, they certainly aren't going to be shareholders). > It may not be human, but they're ran by humans, and legally in many ways Corporations are people. In fact its a meme running in US politics lately. People with a lot of money, and a lot more power than 99.99% of humans. I'm getting sick of reading humans say Corporations, considered people and ran by humans, can do anything in the name of shareholder value, but for some reason, people with less money, power, and connections, have moral values applied to their actions. It's complete bullshit, and if people weren't so brainwashed they couldn't get away with this shit. I agree completely. It is a crock of shit that corporations aren't held to the same basic moral and ethical standards that people are. (In my opinion, they should be held to greater standards, being that they are in practice immortal, and can wield greater sums of wealth than any single human being). As an employee in the current environment, however, you have to keep the reality of how corporations are expected and allowed to behave in mind.
  - _delirium 15y ago
    I can believe we get a skewed view of anecdotes at HN, but stories about how employees got screwed out of equity by investors/founders when an exit loomed do seem like the norm around here. People even routinely give the advice that you should treat equity grants as having cash value ~$0 if you aren't a founder or maybe one of the first few key hires, because apart from the risk of the equity becoming worthless if the company folds, there's always some way to cut you out of the deal even in the case of a successful exit. Zynga's notable because of how brazen it is, not because the screw-employees-at-exit story is never-before-told...
    - alex_c 15y ago
      >stories about how employees got screwed out of equity by investors/founders when an exit loomed do seem like the norm around here. Well, "everything went as planned" doesn't make for a very interesting story.
      - georgieporgie 15y ago
        On the contrary, I think HN would respond pretty well to stories of IPOs that went well, and employees who succeeded. They would likely have a lot of good advice. Personally, I can think of three people I've met who did well at startups. One was at Google, one was at Amazon, and the third was at a company I don't remember. But I can think of an awful lot of stories of public and pre-IPO companies screwing over their employees, including myself being shafted at least three times by employers.

ohyes 15y ago

This is totally true. Your employer is not there to do you any favors. Most likely, they will knife you in the back the minute they get the chance.

lemming 15y ago
This is utter bullshit. And if it's not, anyone reading HN has better options. Let's stop with the all-employers-are-out-to-screw-you rhetoric because it's clearly not true.
- Androsynth 15y ago
  Most companies will never be in this position though. What if you were an executive and you suddenly found yourself in a position to pocket hundreds of millions of dollars simply by firing a few employees. At the very least, that's a moral dilemma. It would be very easy to go from 'upstanding and moral' to going flat out existential in that situation. It's a scummy thing to do, but the human brain can justify a lot of crap in those types of situations.
  - jsavimbi 15y ago
    You can always hire a relative/mistress to a no-show/do-nothing job and further dilute the option pool in your favor. It's easier on the conscience as you effectively cancel the stealing out by adding to the employment rolls. Beware the shuffling of chairs, granting of titles, lateral promotions, unannounced appearance of new employees cutting back on company snacks. These are all clues that lead to a financial event where unless you're in the driver's seat, you're bound to take a hit. For those of you with the altruistic bent, please watch the Spanish Prisoner. It's a classic example of fuckery.
  - nknight 15y ago
    It's only a moral dilemma if you believe pocketing hundreds of millions of dollars is a moral imperative. If not, you have exactly two choices. One is moral, one is not. The dilemma is between your greed and your morality, not between seemingly contradictory moral imperatives.
- api 15y ago
  If that's true, then the business world needs to do a better job internally policing itself. Behavior like this (and worse... honestly this story is like a 4 on a 1-10 scale) creates exactly this impression. Clean your own house, or it'll be cleaned for you.
  - davidtyleryork 15y ago
    Except when the regulatory laws or agencies in charge of cleaning house get gutted. Hooray, modern American politics!
- ohyes 15y ago
  I agree. It is a bullshit situation, and you should be mad about it. Employers have a responsibility to maximize the profits of their shareholders/investors. They are not there to be your friend, take care of you, or compensate you beyond the minimum that they have to. Companies that offer bonuses/'benefits' are doing so as an incentive to retain you. The minute the market indicates that they can pull any of those benefits, they will. MegaCorp does not give a holiday bonus out of the goodness of its heart. It doesn't have a heart, it is an inanimate object. It can not possibly feel a loyalty to you. It may bullshit you by telling you this, but that is really just to embiggen your feelings of loyalty towards it. It has rules and structures, carefully laid out towards its goal... maximizing profits. An optimally designed corporation will fire you the minute that there is a cheaper alternative to your employment. If it were human, it would be a sociopath.
  - sbov 15y ago
    > Employers have a responsibility to maximize the profits of their shareholders/investors. Somewhat shortsighted statement for this topic, considering the people they're harming here are employees who are... shareholders. > If it were human, it would be a sociopath. It may not be human, but they're ran by humans, and legally in many ways Corporations are people. In fact its a meme running in US politics lately. People with a lot of money, and a lot more power than 99.99% of humans. I'm getting sick of reading humans say Corporations, considered people and ran by humans, can do anything in the name of shareholder value, but for some reason, people with less money, power, and connections, have moral values applied to their actions. It's complete bullshit, and if people weren't so brainwashed they couldn't get away with this shit.
    - ohyes 15y ago
      > Somewhat shortsighted statement for this topic, considering the people they're harming here are employees who are... shareholders. I think it is pretty clear I was referring to the general case, rather than this particular situation. Anyway, until they vest, they technically aren't shareholders. (And after they've lost their rights to vest, they certainly aren't going to be shareholders). > It may not be human, but they're ran by humans, and legally in many ways Corporations are people. In fact its a meme running in US politics lately. People with a lot of money, and a lot more power than 99.99% of humans. I'm getting sick of reading humans say Corporations, considered people and ran by humans, can do anything in the name of shareholder value, but for some reason, people with less money, power, and connections, have moral values applied to their actions. It's complete bullshit, and if people weren't so brainwashed they couldn't get away with this shit. I agree completely. It is a crock of shit that corporations aren't held to the same basic moral and ethical standards that people are. (In my opinion, they should be held to greater standards, being that they are in practice immortal, and can wield greater sums of wealth than any single human being). As an employee in the current environment, however, you have to keep the reality of how corporations are expected and allowed to behave in mind.
- _delirium 15y ago
  I can believe we get a skewed view of anecdotes at HN, but stories about how employees got screwed out of equity by investors/founders when an exit loomed do seem like the norm around here. People even routinely give the advice that you should treat equity grants as having cash value ~$0 if you aren't a founder or maybe one of the first few key hires, because apart from the risk of the equity becoming worthless if the company folds, there's always some way to cut you out of the deal even in the case of a successful exit. Zynga's notable because of how brazen it is, not because the screw-employees-at-exit story is never-before-told...
  - alex_c 15y ago
    >stories about how employees got screwed out of equity by investors/founders when an exit loomed do seem like the norm around here. Well, "everything went as planned" doesn't make for a very interesting story.
    - georgieporgie 15y ago
      On the contrary, I think HN would respond pretty well to stories of IPOs that went well, and employees who succeeded. They would likely have a lot of good advice. Personally, I can think of three people I've met who did well at startups. One was at Google, one was at Amazon, and the third was at a company I don't remember. But I can think of an awful lot of stories of public and pre-IPO companies screwing over their employees, including myself being shafted at least three times by employers.