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Yes! At some point, the author even complains about the (weaker) US law for employee on how it's a mess to fire somebody, but easy to let go from an internship.
by MinimalAction 4mo ago
Yes! At some point, the author even complains about the (weaker) US law for employee on how it's a mess to fire somebody, but easy to let go from an internship. So much about stability that employees seek.
- jagged-chisel 4mo agoA mess to fire someone? Every state except Montana lets employers fire without giving a reason.
- mooreds 4mo agoFrom the article: > In the U.S. you generally can’t just up and fire someone, even if they are underperforming, even if it’s at-will employment, without risking a lawsuit and some sort of cash outlay. This is what makes hiring decisions so high-stakes. I've been part of a few situations where someone had to be let go in the USA, and I can tell you it wasn't a trivial decision. There were legal aspects, sure, but there was also a personal aspect. As a boss said once "this is someone's life we're talking about here".
- rustystump 4mo agoThis is why severance even 2 weeks of it is common. To get it, gotta sign that giving up legal action for the money.
- yawnxyz 4mo agoin most states, as long as it's not discriminatory, you CAN fire anyone for any reason the article is wrong here
- mooreds 4mo agoThere's the legal world and then there's the world of custom and ethics. They don't always diverge, but in my experience they do. At least over the last 25 years in the tech spaces I've been part of, I rarely hear of people being dismissed/let go quickly. #anecdata
- sitzkrieg 4mo agois this sarcasm? tech industry has some of the worst layoffs ever. i have personally seen several different employers notify employees day of firing they no longer have a job
- Cpoll 4mo agoNo-one in this thread is talking about layoffs, they're talking about individual firings.
- mooreds 4mo agoNot sarcasm. I guess I've just had different experiences than you. The larger point of the effort involved before the employees' last day still stands. But that's a hard one to speak to generally, since most folks in layoffs or firings don't talk about the process used to arrive at the decisions.
- cherry_tree 4mo agoYou haven’t experienced the last 2 years of layoffs across the tech industry? Do you have any friends in the industry? Do you avoid news about the industry?
- gruez 4mo agoI don't care about the notice period. I care about how much severance I'm getting. I'd be fine with no notice if the severance was generous.
- convolvatron 4mo agoI guess that's the rub. every time I've been involved in firing someone that wasn't defensible as a 'broad structural layoff', there is a whole process, even in at will states. HR starts to collect documentation describing how the employees performance isn't acceptable, at that they were warned on such and such dates, and that all efforts were made in order to rectify the situation before an actual termination. whether that's an excess of legal paranoia or not, that's how it seems to work
- jagged-chisel 4mo ago> HR starts to collect documentation describing how the employees performance isn't acceptable, at that they were warned on such and such dates, and that all efforts were made in order to rectify the situation before an actual termination. I think this is a response to inexperienced, immature, or thin-skinned managers. The company doesn’t want to be on the hook for some manager’s attempt to fire someone and have it be an illegal firing. Since there’s typically no day-to-day log of behavior, HR has to begin documenting things. The only thing they can be certain is “safe” for the company is to fire for underperforming. So let’s begin the paper trail…
- jagged-chisel 4mo ago> … for any reason. If they give a reason, it had better be a legal reason. “Because you’re Mexican” - not legal. “Because we don’t like you/you don’t fit in” - are you in any way different than management? Differently gendered? Differently skin toned? Different faith? Pregnant? Likely not legal. They are not required to give a reason. You can be fired without reason. There’s also mitigating circumstances. If the employee can show retaliation by the employer (say the employee participates in protected activities, like espousing unionization or questioning managerial decisions), they stand a chance of recovering damages from the company.
- yawnxyz 4mo agoyeah that's true, and it gets murky - because employers will just wait til an employee messes up (which everyone does), and use that as an excuse
- Schnitz 4mo agoIn practice, at any larger corporation with an HR department, despite the law saying so, you can absolutely not fire anyone for any reason. As a manager you’ll have to go through a 1+ month process of documented coaching, performance improvement plan, etc to gather evidence in case the employee sues after being let go. So not sure if Steve is technically correct here, but he is very much practically correct. It’s been like this in big tech, which is what Steve is talking about, for a long time.
- cherry_tree 4mo ago>at any larger corporation Like walmart, mcdonalds, amazon, target, home depot? It’s incredible how insulated the HN audience is to the real life day-to-day concerns of workers in the United States.
- Schnitz 4mo agoThese companies do PIPs for software engineers, which is what Steve is talking about. He isn’t talking about a warehouse or fast food job interview. I am not insulated, I am merely staying on topic.
- yawnxyz 4mo agolayoffs happen, and they're firings "without a real reason" - and no PIPs exist for surviving layoffs
- spit2wind 4mo agoDead wrong. Because I see so many people who believe otherwise, here's a direct quote from a prior contract: > I UNDERSTAND AND ACKNOWLEDGE THAT MY EMPLOYMENT WITH THE COMPANY IS FOR NO SPECIFIED TERM AND CONSTITUTES "AT-WILL" EMPLOYMENT. I ALSO UNDERSTAND THAT ANY REPRESENTATION TO THE CONTRARY IS UNAUTHORIZED AND NOT VALID UNLESS SIGNED BY THE PRESIDENT OR CEO OF THE COMPANY. ACCORDINGLY, I ACKNOWLEDGE THAT MY EMPLOYMENT RELATIONSHIP MAY BE TERMINATED AT ANY TIME, WITH OR WITHOUT GOOD CAUSE OR FOR ANY OR NO CAUSE, AT MY OPTION OR AT THE OPTION OF THE COMPANY WITH OR WITHOUT ME NOTICE. I FURTHER ACKNOWLEDGE THAT THE COMPANY MAY MODIFY JOB TITLES, SALARIES, AND BENEFITS FROM TIME TO TIME AS IT IS NECESSARY. Every job I ever held but the unionized ones had some variation of that.
- paulryanrogers 4mo agoWhat did they say is dead wrong?
- mooreds 4mo agoHave you known folks at those jobs to be notified of being let go and sent home on the same day? Have you been involved with letting people go and seen it happen as quickly as the above legal disclaimer implies? I agree that the legal justification is 100% there, but in my experience it is often buffered and takes more time.
- yawnxyz 4mo agoyeah it happens at smaller companies - someone insulted the boss and got sent home (small agency)
- kristjansson 4mo agoWhatever clause in whatever contract is just the starting point for negotiations if things go south.
- QuiEgo 4mo agoYou can, but most places would rather spend months building a legal shield through a PiP rather than risk a lawsuit.
- cherry_tree 4mo agoMost places? Are you a human? Have you been to the United States? Do you genuinely think McDonald’s is building a months long case against a fry cook? That Amazon is building a months long case against a delivery driver or warehouse worker who refused to pee in a bottle? That target is putting a cashier on a pip for months and allowing lost sales or theft?
- QuiEgo 4mo agoThe article is about tech interviews (and tech workers with the resources to sue), not McDonald’s or blue collar? And yes, I’m human? Strange comment internet stranger.
- cherry_tree 4mo agoIt isn’t strange in 2026 to wonder if an internet comment is from a human. Tech workers have been laid off (without pips) en masse for the past 24 months, so it seems like I’m talking to a model trained in 2023 to be so absent of the obvious facts around us in the industry. That’s why I ask. Because you’re either not in the industry and talking bullshit, not paying attention to the world around you, or a bot.
- QuiEgo 4mo agoThe comment chain is about firing people for cause (performance issues), not layoffs. You seem determined to feel attacked ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.