5 ms·

What in the world do you mean exactly?

roncesvalles 3y ago
Better legal repercussions. In most parts of the world if you went to the cops and said an ex-employee deleted your codebase and wrote mean things on your Intranet, they would chuckle and go back to work. It's probably a huge hassle to file a civil suit against someone who did that either, if it's even possible.
- reactordev 3y ago
  Not true. Company code repo's are company property. They have a case in pretty much all of the EU.
  - hartator 3y ago
    You won’t go to jail over this in the EU. Could you find a case?
    - bberrry 3y ago
      And how does that translate to lower pay in your mind?
      - filoleg 3y ago
        Each hired person carries massively more potential cost to the employer, due to the employer being unable to do much if the employee does things like watch porn on their work equipment, sabotage the company’s tech infrastructure before leaving, or just plainly suck at their job. That extra potential cost has to be paid from somewhere, which is typically coming from the total compensation, which translates to lower factual pay. Kind of like how working in software dev as a contractor typically nets you more raw money than working in a comparable role doing a similar job for someone else. However, as a contractor you are responsible for paying for things like health insurance yourself. As a hired employee, you will typically have those things provided to you by your employer, but you will get paid less in raw money, because those things get priced into your salary (sidenote: which your employer probably has a discount rate for anyway, so even if it was paid out to you in cash and you paid your own insurance, you would have had net less money, so it is kind of a comparative win-win for both sides here). For me personally as an employee, I would rather my employer be able to fire me for watching porn on my work equipment or be able to go after me for intentionally sabotaging company’s infra. Because I do not plan on doing either of those things, so just having that extra money in exchange for not being able to do those things unpunished is the easy choice, personally.
        ffgjgf1 3y ago
        > due to the employer being unable to do much if the employee does things like watch porn on their work equipment, sabotage the company’s tech infrastructure before leaving, Except that’s not really true throughout most of Europe. Yes firing someone for sucking at their job might be more expensive. All the other stuff? Not really, as long as you can prove it
        filoleg 3y ago
        That’s good to know, thanks for clarifying. I am not from EU, so I was mostly going off the comment in this thread that was lamenting how “terrible” employment in the US due to employees being easily fireable for watching porn on employer-provided equipment. What you said makes it sound way more reasonable.
    - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
      You won't necessarily go to jail, but you will have to pay compensation to your employer for the damage you caused if there's proof it was intentional malice on your part, sometimes even if it was accidental. There are loads of cases like that in the EU. Going to prison I never heard of, but depending on jurisdiction, I assume it's also a possibility if the damage is large enough and affected other parties not just the business of your employer. Better workers' rights protect you from employer abuse, but don't absolve you from responsibilities of your own actions at work.
  - roncesvalles 3y ago
    Ok fine, EU. What about other parts of the world? You're going to navigate the legal system in India or China because some kid you hired for cheap decided to vandalize your codebase and database? Good luck.
    - kbenson 3y ago
      Probably most the world, since as a company they're probably larger and more wealthy than the individual, so where there's a strong rule of law the legal system handles it, and where there isn't they can just grease the wheels of justice with cash. It probably won't take a lot to get them to come down on an individual that also happens to be guilty.
mistrial9 3y ago
American here - I believe that the comment means "you cannot fire an engineer from their job for this reason (connecting a USB device with porn to a work computer) in the EU"
- freedomben 3y ago
  That's what I would guess too. In general it is much, much harder to fire somebody in the EU than it is in most US states where you can fire for pretty much any reason as long as it's not for being a protected class.
- filoleg 3y ago
  I couldn’t interpret it as anything else as well, but that still leaves me severely confused. Like, is that supposed to be a brag that in EU it is nearly impossible to fire an employee for watching porn on the employer-provided work equipment? If anything, I would consider firing them for being so stupid as to not consider one of many easily accessible alternatives that they almost certainly had access to, like a smartphone (just hopefully not an employer-provided one).
whynotmaybe 3y ago
I guess it means that you're paid more in the US so that you can do illegal stuff and pay your lawyer and the fine?

Better legal repercussions. In most parts of the world if you went to the cops and said an ex-employee deleted your codebase and wrote mean things on your Intranet, they would chuckle and go back to work. It's probably a huge hassle to file a civil suit against someone who did that either, if it's even possible.

reactordev 3y ago
Not true. Company code repo's are company property. They have a case in pretty much all of the EU.
- hartator 3y ago
  You won’t go to jail over this in the EU. Could you find a case?
  - bberrry 3y ago
    And how does that translate to lower pay in your mind?
    - filoleg 3y ago
      Each hired person carries massively more potential cost to the employer, due to the employer being unable to do much if the employee does things like watch porn on their work equipment, sabotage the company’s tech infrastructure before leaving, or just plainly suck at their job. That extra potential cost has to be paid from somewhere, which is typically coming from the total compensation, which translates to lower factual pay. Kind of like how working in software dev as a contractor typically nets you more raw money than working in a comparable role doing a similar job for someone else. However, as a contractor you are responsible for paying for things like health insurance yourself. As a hired employee, you will typically have those things provided to you by your employer, but you will get paid less in raw money, because those things get priced into your salary (sidenote: which your employer probably has a discount rate for anyway, so even if it was paid out to you in cash and you paid your own insurance, you would have had net less money, so it is kind of a comparative win-win for both sides here). For me personally as an employee, I would rather my employer be able to fire me for watching porn on my work equipment or be able to go after me for intentionally sabotaging company’s infra. Because I do not plan on doing either of those things, so just having that extra money in exchange for not being able to do those things unpunished is the easy choice, personally.
      - ffgjgf1 3y ago
        > due to the employer being unable to do much if the employee does things like watch porn on their work equipment, sabotage the company’s tech infrastructure before leaving, Except that’s not really true throughout most of Europe. Yes firing someone for sucking at their job might be more expensive. All the other stuff? Not really, as long as you can prove it
        filoleg 3y ago
        That’s good to know, thanks for clarifying. I am not from EU, so I was mostly going off the comment in this thread that was lamenting how “terrible” employment in the US due to employees being easily fireable for watching porn on employer-provided equipment. What you said makes it sound way more reasonable.
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    You won't necessarily go to jail, but you will have to pay compensation to your employer for the damage you caused if there's proof it was intentional malice on your part, sometimes even if it was accidental. There are loads of cases like that in the EU. Going to prison I never heard of, but depending on jurisdiction, I assume it's also a possibility if the damage is large enough and affected other parties not just the business of your employer. Better workers' rights protect you from employer abuse, but don't absolve you from responsibilities of your own actions at work.
- roncesvalles 3y ago
  Ok fine, EU. What about other parts of the world? You're going to navigate the legal system in India or China because some kid you hired for cheap decided to vandalize your codebase and database? Good luck.
  - kbenson 3y ago
    Probably most the world, since as a company they're probably larger and more wealthy than the individual, so where there's a strong rule of law the legal system handles it, and where there isn't they can just grease the wheels of justice with cash. It probably won't take a lot to get them to come down on an individual that also happens to be guilty.

mistrial9 3y ago

American here - I believe that the comment means "you cannot fire an engineer from their job for this reason (connecting a USB device with porn to a work computer) in the EU"

freedomben 3y ago
That's what I would guess too. In general it is much, much harder to fire somebody in the EU than it is in most US states where you can fire for pretty much any reason as long as it's not for being a protected class.
filoleg 3y ago
I couldn’t interpret it as anything else as well, but that still leaves me severely confused. Like, is that supposed to be a brag that in EU it is nearly impossible to fire an employee for watching porn on the employer-provided work equipment? If anything, I would consider firing them for being so stupid as to not consider one of many easily accessible alternatives that they almost certainly had access to, like a smartphone (just hopefully not an employer-provided one).

whynotmaybe 3y ago

I guess it means that you're paid more in the US so that you can do illegal stuff and pay your lawyer and the fine?