5 ms·

IANAL, but while that may be true in general, California (where the author was employed[0]) is an at-will state, and most people reading HN (in fact, most peopl

IANAL, but while that may be true in general, California (where the author was employed[0]) is an at-will state, and most people reading HN (in fact, most people working at startups in general) are likely to be employed at-will. AFAIK, that means that they are not entitled to any severance unless their initial contract stipulated otherwise. [0] Actually, where the company was based we don't know which employment laws applied to his contract without reading it. You can be a California resident employed by a Delaware corporation operating out of California and your contract can still be subject the the employment laws of a third state. I'm not entirely sure how this actually works in practice, but I know it is done. EDIT Some quick Googling found this website, which has some interesting information (albeit a rather terrible layout): http://www.careerprotection.com/severancepay.html http://www.careerprotection.com/severancepay.html

logfromblammo 13y ago
While working in at-will states, the severance agreement may in fact be the first document you sign that is actually legally binding upon the company in any way. Most offers I see are clear that the letter is not a contract, and no contract can even exist without direct and explicit intervention by the CEO. And that seems to be a left-handed way of saying that if you do try to get an actual contract, you will not be successful, and the offer of employment will be withdrawn. I would very much like to see more at-will workers do same-day resignations when they change jobs, possibly even writing their own severance agreements. It isn't unprofessional to abruptly walk out on the job if giving notice was never in the requirements. And most of the time, all that you get for the courtesy of making it easier for the employer to replace you is a payout for your accumulated vacation time, if anything.
- cbr 13y ago
  It isn't unprofessional to abruptly walk out on the job if giving notice was never in the requirements. While you would be fully within your legal rights to quit without notice, and they would be fully within theirs to fire you effective immediately with no severance, both would be rude, contrary to custom, and unprofessional. It's reasonable and healthy to have customs that are not fully backed by the law, and trying to set up the law to fully match our senses of justice would be massive overengineering.
  - bradleyjg 13y ago
    That's true in general, but conditional severance isn't the same thing as unconditional severance. Conditional severance, depending on the conditions, may well be a quid pro quo. If the money is compensation for e.g. a non-disparagement clause than it isn't also customary two weeks severance. If such practices are widespread in a particular industry than that industry in practice doesn't provide severance. In those circumstances, it makes sense to withdraw the corresponding practice of giving notice. Or perhaps instead substituting a practice of conditional notice.
  - logfromblammo 13y ago
    Having recently experienced such rudeness from an employer, I feel fully justified in recommending tit-for-tat retaliation from employees. Holding to human standards of decency is no longer warranted when your employer no longer views you as a human being. Given the behavior of my current company towards all of its employees, I am looking to go elsewhere, and when I do, I won't worry overly much about burning those bridges behind me. The at-will sword is two-edged, so let the other guy feel the backswing occasionally.
- wpietri 13y ago
  > It isn't unprofessional to abruptly walk out on the job if giving notice was never in the requirements. I disagree. One of the things that distinguishes professional behavior for me is having professional standards. That is, no matter what your clients or employers do, there are certain ways you plan to behave. For me that would definitely include a good handover. Of course, my professional standards also include refusing to build things that are obviously dumb, dangerous, or destructive. But a disturbing number of developers feel that they should just do whatever their bosses tell them, no matter the disaster that they set in motion. So one could argue that a lot of IT-related jobs are more trades than professions, in which case a "take this job and shove it" exit could be more acceptable. Not because it isn't unprofessional behavior, but because professional behavior isn't expected.
  - logfromblammo 13y ago
    When an employer treats the employee unprofessionally, is that not an indication that professional behavior is not expected? If you have an expectation that your employer will provide notice and severance before termination, as might be specified in an employee handbook and verified by departing colleages, then giving notice before resignation would be appropriate. If, on the other hand, your company has in the past terminated people without cause, notice, or severance, and the handbook states in no uncertain terms, "You LOSE. Good DAY, sir," then I think any gestures for your personal honor will be lost. We have no union or professional association to protect our interests in my labor category. We have only the willingness to be faithful and courteous to those who treat us well, and to be stubborn and vindictive to those who would abuse our good faith. Bite the hand that beats you.
    - wpietri 13y ago
      No. If ethics are purely determined by how other people act, they aren't ethics. I think that professionals have to be careful in who they choose to work for, but once they start, they should act professionally. That includes leaving professionally.
      - 13y ago
- auctiontheory 13y ago
  It isn't unprofessional to abruptly walk out on the job if giving notice was never in the requirements. I don't think "unprofessional" means what you think it means. It is not, for instance, a synonym for "illegal."
- mcv 13y ago
  > t isn't unprofessional to abruptly walk out on the job if giving notice was never in the requirements. Depends on circumstances and the details of your profession. If you're just a badly-treated wage slave, then definitely: walk out as soon as you find something better. But I'm an independent contractor/freelancer, and I'm currently working on a project that would probably take about a year. But my contract is always to the end of the quarter and gets extended by a quarter. I could probably refuse such a contract extension, and I considered it, because a previous client where I really, really enjoyed working, asked me if I was available. But I didn't because I felt it would be unprofessional to leave at this stage.
  - logfromblammo 13y ago
    It seems to me that a project that should take a year should have contracts that last for the entire duration. If we're talking about professionalism, at what point did you bring up to the client that their quarterly contracting strategy leaves them extremely vulnerable to losing critical personnel before the work gets finished? I think what happened there is that they leveraged their project management flexibility against your sense of integrity, and you lost.
    - mcv 13y ago
      They're big. The people I talk to don't control the policies regarding contracts. In any case, I didn't lose anything. As long as I get paid for the hours I work, I'm happy. I'd be totally fine with the contract getting terminated tomorrow. I'm also fine with working here for another half year. But at more than a year, I think I'd get itchy.
DannyBee 13y ago
"California is an at-will state," California is an odd example of an at-will state, for various reasons. There have been a lot of implied-in-fact exceptions to the at-will doctrine (see Pugh v. See’s Candies, Inc. ) essentially holding that your employment contract would not control if the employer gives you a different impression. The general legal view is that california is not really an at-will state anymore, because of the routine exceptions that get made. IE cases holding "evidence of a “long and distinguished career” supported finding of implied contract not to terminate without good cause", etc. See http://ainleylaw.com/2012/10/25/avoiding-the-at-will-bar/ http://ainleylaw.com/2012/10/25/avoiding-the-at-will-bar/ for a random list of cases and holdings. Suffice to say, i would not hold up california as a typical example of anything employment law related :)
vidarh 13y ago
> and most people reading HN (in fact, most people working at startups in general) are likely to be employed at-will I'm not so sure about that. While Silicon Valley particularly, and the US in general, has a disproportionate number of high tech startups, you also have some of the weakest workers rights in the world, and while I don't know the exact demographics of HN, I'm not so sure it is that focused around California. Pretty much all of Europe, with a population of about 800 million, for example, have protections that are vastly stronger. A substantial majority of countries have 1-3 months notice periods that are hard or impossible to get around, in some cases with a legal right to actually continue to show up to work and carry out the contracted work during that period even if your employer would like to pay you to stay away.
- nwzpaperman 13y ago
  The European Union is only hanging on by a thin fibre. These values are certainly admirable, but that doesn't make them scalable from a systems engineering perspective. Like natural resources, it's called human resources for a reason.
- leoromanovsky 13y ago
  wow 1-3 months of notice, that's insane.. seems impossible to let go of a poor performer.
  - klausjensen 13y ago
    It is quite common with a 3-6 month trial period, where you can be fired with shorter notice.
robterrell 13y ago
IIRC, the author lives in NYC, so I assume he was working remotely. If that was the case, which states laws apply? What if one of the states is an at-will state and the other isn't?
- steveklabnik 13y ago
  I've often seen contracts explicitly contain "Disputes will be handled in CA and I waive my choice of venue."
  - danielweber 13y ago
    If it's a small company in California they really don't want to take a bus to Texas to get into a legal fight with you. This is one of those cases where you can't have both sides compromise. They want things jurisdicted (izzat a word?) in one state or the other. And the company is the one with the lawyers who have crafted things specifically for their home state. You should give them this, perhaps in exchange for something else.

logfromblammo 13y ago

While working in at-will states, the severance agreement may in fact be the first document you sign that is actually legally binding upon the company in any way. Most offers I see are clear that the letter is not a contract, and no contract can even exist without direct and explicit intervention by the CEO. And that seems to be a left-handed way of saying that if you do try to get an actual contract, you will not be successful, and the offer of employment will be withdrawn. I would very much like to see more at-will workers do same-day resignations when they change jobs, possibly even writing their own severance agreements. It isn't unprofessional to abruptly walk out on the job if giving notice was never in the requirements. And most of the time, all that you get for the courtesy of making it easier for the employer to replace you is a payout for your accumulated vacation time, if anything.

cbr 13y ago
It isn't unprofessional to abruptly walk out on the job if giving notice was never in the requirements. While you would be fully within your legal rights to quit without notice, and they would be fully within theirs to fire you effective immediately with no severance, both would be rude, contrary to custom, and unprofessional. It's reasonable and healthy to have customs that are not fully backed by the law, and trying to set up the law to fully match our senses of justice would be massive overengineering.
- bradleyjg 13y ago
  That's true in general, but conditional severance isn't the same thing as unconditional severance. Conditional severance, depending on the conditions, may well be a quid pro quo. If the money is compensation for e.g. a non-disparagement clause than it isn't also customary two weeks severance. If such practices are widespread in a particular industry than that industry in practice doesn't provide severance. In those circumstances, it makes sense to withdraw the corresponding practice of giving notice. Or perhaps instead substituting a practice of conditional notice.
- logfromblammo 13y ago
  Having recently experienced such rudeness from an employer, I feel fully justified in recommending tit-for-tat retaliation from employees. Holding to human standards of decency is no longer warranted when your employer no longer views you as a human being. Given the behavior of my current company towards all of its employees, I am looking to go elsewhere, and when I do, I won't worry overly much about burning those bridges behind me. The at-will sword is two-edged, so let the other guy feel the backswing occasionally.
wpietri 13y ago
> It isn't unprofessional to abruptly walk out on the job if giving notice was never in the requirements. I disagree. One of the things that distinguishes professional behavior for me is having professional standards. That is, no matter what your clients or employers do, there are certain ways you plan to behave. For me that would definitely include a good handover. Of course, my professional standards also include refusing to build things that are obviously dumb, dangerous, or destructive. But a disturbing number of developers feel that they should just do whatever their bosses tell them, no matter the disaster that they set in motion. So one could argue that a lot of IT-related jobs are more trades than professions, in which case a "take this job and shove it" exit could be more acceptable. Not because it isn't unprofessional behavior, but because professional behavior isn't expected.
- logfromblammo 13y ago
  When an employer treats the employee unprofessionally, is that not an indication that professional behavior is not expected? If you have an expectation that your employer will provide notice and severance before termination, as might be specified in an employee handbook and verified by departing colleages, then giving notice before resignation would be appropriate. If, on the other hand, your company has in the past terminated people without cause, notice, or severance, and the handbook states in no uncertain terms, "You LOSE. Good DAY, sir," then I think any gestures for your personal honor will be lost. We have no union or professional association to protect our interests in my labor category. We have only the willingness to be faithful and courteous to those who treat us well, and to be stubborn and vindictive to those who would abuse our good faith. Bite the hand that beats you.
  - wpietri 13y ago
    No. If ethics are purely determined by how other people act, they aren't ethics. I think that professionals have to be careful in who they choose to work for, but once they start, they should act professionally. That includes leaving professionally.
    - 13y ago
auctiontheory 13y ago
It isn't unprofessional to abruptly walk out on the job if giving notice was never in the requirements. I don't think "unprofessional" means what you think it means. It is not, for instance, a synonym for "illegal."
mcv 13y ago
> t isn't unprofessional to abruptly walk out on the job if giving notice was never in the requirements. Depends on circumstances and the details of your profession. If you're just a badly-treated wage slave, then definitely: walk out as soon as you find something better. But I'm an independent contractor/freelancer, and I'm currently working on a project that would probably take about a year. But my contract is always to the end of the quarter and gets extended by a quarter. I could probably refuse such a contract extension, and I considered it, because a previous client where I really, really enjoyed working, asked me if I was available. But I didn't because I felt it would be unprofessional to leave at this stage.
- logfromblammo 13y ago
  It seems to me that a project that should take a year should have contracts that last for the entire duration. If we're talking about professionalism, at what point did you bring up to the client that their quarterly contracting strategy leaves them extremely vulnerable to losing critical personnel before the work gets finished? I think what happened there is that they leveraged their project management flexibility against your sense of integrity, and you lost.
  - mcv 13y ago
    They're big. The people I talk to don't control the policies regarding contracts. In any case, I didn't lose anything. As long as I get paid for the hours I work, I'm happy. I'd be totally fine with the contract getting terminated tomorrow. I'm also fine with working here for another half year. But at more than a year, I think I'd get itchy.

DannyBee 13y ago

"California is an at-will state," California is an odd example of an at-will state, for various reasons. There have been a lot of implied-in-fact exceptions to the at-will doctrine (see Pugh v. See’s Candies, Inc. ) essentially holding that your employment contract would not control if the employer gives you a different impression. The general legal view is that california is not really an at-will state anymore, because of the routine exceptions that get made. IE cases holding "evidence of a “long and distinguished career” supported finding of implied contract not to terminate without good cause", etc. See http://ainleylaw.com/2012/10/25/avoiding-the-at-will-bar/ http://ainleylaw.com/2012/10/25/avoiding-the-at-will-bar/ for a random list of cases and holdings. Suffice to say, i would not hold up california as a typical example of anything employment law related :)

vidarh 13y ago

> and most people reading HN (in fact, most people working at startups in general) are likely to be employed at-will I'm not so sure about that. While Silicon Valley particularly, and the US in general, has a disproportionate number of high tech startups, you also have some of the weakest workers rights in the world, and while I don't know the exact demographics of HN, I'm not so sure it is that focused around California. Pretty much all of Europe, with a population of about 800 million, for example, have protections that are vastly stronger. A substantial majority of countries have 1-3 months notice periods that are hard or impossible to get around, in some cases with a legal right to actually continue to show up to work and carry out the contracted work during that period even if your employer would like to pay you to stay away.

nwzpaperman 13y ago
The European Union is only hanging on by a thin fibre. These values are certainly admirable, but that doesn't make them scalable from a systems engineering perspective. Like natural resources, it's called human resources for a reason.
leoromanovsky 13y ago
wow 1-3 months of notice, that's insane.. seems impossible to let go of a poor performer.
- klausjensen 13y ago
  It is quite common with a 3-6 month trial period, where you can be fired with shorter notice.

robterrell 13y ago

IIRC, the author lives in NYC, so I assume he was working remotely. If that was the case, which states laws apply? What if one of the states is an at-will state and the other isn't?

steveklabnik 13y ago
I've often seen contracts explicitly contain "Disputes will be handled in CA and I waive my choice of venue."
- danielweber 13y ago
  If it's a small company in California they really don't want to take a bus to Texas to get into a legal fight with you. This is one of those cases where you can't have both sides compromise. They want things jurisdicted (izzat a word?) in one state or the other. And the company is the one with the lawyers who have crafted things specifically for their home state. You should give them this, perhaps in exchange for something else.