
An employee whose job was to be sacked (2010) - hodder
https://henrytapper.com/2010/01/09/an-employee-whose-job-was-to-be-sacked/
======
wolfspider
Yes, while working a telemarketing job for quick cash secretly I encountered
just this sort of thing. I had spent all of my graduation gift money meant for
my first apartment right after high school and had to take a night shift
somewhere. I found this telemarketing place and they had a dead simple test
they used for prospective hires. My friends told me they would hire anyone no
matter what. Surprisingly, someone failed the test and left angrily. Later I
found out that they hired someone specifically to stage this event night after
night. The reason was because if a group of people witnesses somebody fail it
makes them feel they need to hold onto the opportunity. I saw this work time
and time again- every single person who showed up for the job took that job
and didn't question it. They also did this because they cashed every last
check of every employee that left and there were a lot of those. It was
grueling and I would even leave on a bike and ride through the woods to get
there just so my family wouldn't notice. Made my money back and then some then
quit all in time for college. You see, I learned that fake employees are just
a part of growing up and growing wiser.

~~~
jstanley
Sorry if this should be obvious, I've read it 3 times and still don't
understand this bit:

> They also did this because they cashed every last check of every employee
> that left and there were a lot of those.

"They also did this" \- Who also did what? The candidates accepted the job?
The company hired the fake guy to get sacked?

And who cashed whose checks? Did they cash them before or after they left? And
why does that mean the first set of people did the first thing?

~~~
hdctambien
The company kept the "last check" of the employees who quit (probably by no-
showing which is why they didn't pick up their last check) so the company got
a few hours of free labor from each employee.

"They did this" means they had the actor convince the applicants to take the
job. The more employees they hire, the more free hours they get (since the
quitters don't pick up their last check)

~~~
ensignavenger
Is that legal? Don't they have to mail the check to the employees if they
don't come in to pick it up? And why wouldn't some one pick up their check? If
they are working a job like that, I imagine they need the money?

~~~
ender341341
A lot of people don't know their rights, or know their rights but think
they'll need a lawyer to deal with it and don't have that sort of money.

In reality a call to the Department of Labor or whatever the local equivalent
is will get the money, though usually with a pretty big lag time (a threat to
call the DoL can be faster).

------
SteveGerencser
Many years ago I delivered pizza while in college. When it was time to move on
my manager and I decided to have some fun. For the last three days I was there
I delivered to every terrible customer we had, then had a little fun at their
expense. Like the guy that routinely refused to tip a single penny and said 10
pennies make a dime. I handed him a dime and told him now he didn't have to
wait for 9 more pizzas.

It was terrible, but fun at the same time. Every call back to the store was
greeted with an "Oh that's terrible", "we've had a few other complaints about
him" and "I promise he won't be here tomorrow".

~~~
jstanley
I understand that it's a bit impolite not to tip, but surely it's much more
impolite to hold a grudge against someone for not tipping.

If you want more money, put your prices up.

~~~
rkangel
I'm guessing you're not american? Their attitudes towards tips are different
than, for example, those in continental Europe.

The way I understand it, service staff are criminally underpaid (by our
standards). This is workable because they make up for the income using tips,
which works because tips are larger (I'm not sure which way around cause and
effect is here).

This means that when someone in the UK might withhold a tip due to bad service
we're just removing a bonus, whereas in the US we're effectively removing
their pay for serving us. Not tipping is a _much_ stronger action.

To respond to your 'prices' comment directly - the person delivering the pizza
doesn't get to set the prices. They have to take the job that they can in a
service industry that pays peanuts on the basis that people will earn tips.
And the business doesn't have any incentive to do anything about it - they get
to pay people less and therefore keep margins high and/or charge lower prices
to compete.

~~~
bkor
> I'm guessing you're not american? Their attitudes towards tips are different
> than, for example, those in continental Europe.

It's not attitude, they do underpay certain people. But at the same time
various US pizza places do include a service or delivery fee which still
doesn't go to the driver. As a result you might pay a delivery fee which is
isn't a delivery fee.

In a restaurant if they don't get tipped enough the restaurant has to make up
the difference / pay them minimum wage (though this rule to differ per state).
So not paying still should result in minimum wage.

From what I understood in US it's rather arbitrary whom you pay extra and
which persons you do not (e.g. even pay extra to get a haircut). Once you
travel more you'll notice these rules are rather arbitrary (custom in one
country, totally unexpected in another). For restaurants I often don't go back
to the same place twice so I don't see the point of randomly paying more. As
result I'm trying to stop doing that (it feels impolite, this despite me
sometimes being unique in adding giving a tip). Paying by bankcard helps to
avoid tipping.

Going back to pizza delivery, in my country (not US) the delivery fee is often
included in the pizza. This is done by offering a pretty huge discount for
picking up a pizza.

~~~
emodendroket
> In a restaurant if they don't get tipped enough the restaurant has to make
> up the difference / pay them minimum wage (though this rule to differ per
> state). So not paying still should result in minimum wage.

In principle this is true; in practice it is rarely honored.

> From what I understood in US it's rather arbitrary whom you pay extra and
> which persons you do not (e.g. even pay extra to get a haircut). Once you
> travel more you'll notice these rules are rather arbitrary (custom in one
> country, totally unexpected in another). For restaurants I often don't go
> back to the same place twice so I don't see the point of randomly paying
> more. As result I'm trying to stop doing that (it feels impolite, this
> despite me sometimes being unique in adding giving a tip). Paying by
> bankcard helps to avoid tipping.

All customs are arbitrary to some extent, but the rule of thumb is that if
you're getting a personal service from someone who's not a professional you
should tip.

~~~
JBlue42
My barber has been cutting hair for two decades and a masseuse I go to has
various certificates. I assume they're all professional yet still have to tip
on top of the regular prices. I don't tip at the dry cleaner or after having
clothes altered. Working as a barista in various cafes, tips were few and far
between, vs pouring beers. Not much difference in the actual experience.

Good rule of thumb but I think it can still trip up non-Americans to some
degree.

Best tipping I ever had was working at a fancy hotel - paid a decent service
industry wage and would regular get tips of $10-20.

~~~
emodendroket
Well, the idea of "professional" is a bit slippery, I guess, but let's say the
exempted categories are mostly tradesmen and white-collar professionals.

~~~
JBlue42
Yeah, I think that works. Honestly, one of the 'surprises' of American
adulthood was finding out how many different categories of folks are expecting
a tip. I would much rather have prices up front - whether it's someone doing a
job or taxes (like a VAT) be included with prices so you actually know what to
expect to pay.

~~~
emodendroket
A handful of restaurants have gone no-tip but I think there's a pretty clear
disadvantage to being a first-mover here.

------
sametmax
That's the beginning of the excellent book "au bonheur des ogres", where you
learn that the hero's karma is to be a scapegoat. It's his job. It's his
relationships.

Also when a bomb explodes, of course, all evidences point toward him even
though is the very definition of innocence.

Wonderful work from the great Daniel Pennac, which can stand on it's own, but
has follow up tomes that are just as nice.

And I just looked it up, it's been translated to english.

The title, is, well, "The scapegoat".

~~~
chepaslaaa
Daniel Pennac certainly stands among the many great french writers.

------
Consultant32452
This reminds me of the jobs in China where you can get paid literally walk
around being white. For example, being a white guy who cuts the ribbon of a
factory opening and walks around shaking hands can make $1k/wk.

[http://www.chinawhisper.com/the-5-weirdest-but-best-jobs-
for...](http://www.chinawhisper.com/the-5-weirdest-but-best-jobs-for-
foreigners-in-china/)

~~~
monocasa
Apparently that's going to be a lot harder as the Party starts looking a lot
closer at foreign work visas over the next few years.

~~~
Consultant32452
Maybe we should revisit our immigration policy that punishes China for having
"too many" immigrants to the US and also our University policies which
racially discriminate against the Chinese for being over-represented. If this
trade/economic war is going to keep heating up, we might as well try to steal
as many of their best and brightest as possible.

~~~
Retric
I do think we get their best and brightest. Gaming credentials is an art form
in China and can't be taken at face value.

~~~
Consultant32452
East Asians have some of the best outcomes of any demographic: higher income,
more educated, lower criminality, lower divorce rate, etc. In a country that
is arguably designed to maximally benefit whites, they are beating white
people at basically everything. This goes far beyond gaming credentials, it's
real world outcomes. We could stand to lower our bar with them a little and
still get ahead.

~~~
bruceb
or you could say we are for the most part only taking in a certain segment of
the population from these countries. Educated and already middle class or
higher. You are not comparing apples to apples.

~~~
Consultant32452
Do you suppose we're selecting East Asian immigrants in a special way compared
to other regions?

~~~
bruceb
One need not suppose anything. Look who has a majority of the H1-B visas or
who comes here for higher education.

Those who are not educated from East Asia can't easily come to the US
illegally as those who can cross overland (Mexico and central America) can.
Poor Chinese villagers are not boating to America.

~~~
Consultant32452
How is that significantly different from Western Europe? Or the Middle East?
Or Sub-Saharan Africa? Are the poorest of the poor there making it here? Why
are East Asians over-represented in higher education or H1-Bs compared to
other places?

~~~
Bartweiss
Two thoughts, to begin.

First, much of East Asia has extremely demanding placement tests for elite
high schools (and sometimes lower schools). You might reasonably say that
we're only taking students from good high schools around the world, but that's
a comment about school quality, not students. As people often point out,
Harvard dropouts are almost as successful as Harvard grads - merely getting in
represents a powerful filter. So it's plausible that we're taking
rich/educated elites worldwide, but in East Asia we've got a talent/skill
filter comparable to college admissions being applied in advance.

Second, your point: there's a non-trivial penalty for being a Chinese
applicant to a US college, and it's not particularly obvious what impact that
has. I suppose it could be that the harsher requirements for acceptance are
driving the difference, and we don't have any real evidence on how responsive
outcomes are to changing that restriction. (Is there a good breakdown of
outcomes for a given group by visa type? That might show whether nation-
specific admission rules on some visa types are changing outcomes.)

(The third thought, of course, is "it's a huge multifactorial mess and there's
probably not enough data to trust any conclusion we come to".)

~~~
Consultant32452
First: Great, so their culture is what is causing them to outperform us in
virtually every positive metric. That certainly doesn't make me want to be
_less_ welcoming to them.

Second: The non-trivial penalty came AFTER Chinese people became over-
represented.

It's not as complicated as you're trying to make it out to be. Something is
causing East Asians to outperform us in basically every positive trait. They
have higher IQs, higher incomes, lower criminality rates, lower poverty rates,
etc. And these stats hold true even generations after immigration. Maybe it
feels complicated because you're concerned about the root cause analysis. I'm
not. They're doing great, we should want great people here.

~~~
Bartweiss
I wasn't the same person you were replying to upthread, and I'm certainly not
arguing against offering more visas. I just thought your "given that we're
taking elites, what's different?" question was interesting, and wanted to
raise a possible answer.

(I agree that if the penalty came after better outcomes, it's not a relevant
factor. I wasn't familiar enough with which restrictions were in place when to
say.)

But yes: the complicated part is root causes, and that's not relevant to
whether we should expand our visa/citizenship program; we certainly should. If
someone in the thread disagrees with you there, it's not me.

~~~
Consultant32452
It's almost certainly IQ. IQ also correlates to all those other positive
traits. East Asians have higher average IQs than most other people,
particularly spacial reasoning and math which explains their over-
representation in engineering. Conversely Ashkenazi Jews have higher than
average verbal IQs which explains why they appear over represented in media.
But that doesn't get us very far because it just gets us back to East Asians
outperforming us on IQ tests created by mostly white people and is supposedly
culturally biased to have white people outperform. There's something
definitely going on here. Maybe it's genetics, maybe it's diet, maybe it's
culture. Possibly a combination. It's not really helpful to try to have a
discussion on IQ, so I just focus on the positive traits that are derived from
IQ. It tends to trigger people less and raw IQ isn't actually important to me
compared to things like criminality and economic output.

------
cyberferret
Not surprising that large companies would have 'stooge' employees in place for
just this sort of thing. I have heard of it happening in at least one major
store chain here many years ago.

Kind of reminiscent of one of the first episodes in the series 'Suits' where
Louis Litt is interviewing a new junior employee for the firm, and he pulls in
another junior mid-interview to dress him down and dismiss him in front of the
new employee, just to put the fear of his authority and power into the newbie.
The 'fired' employee then just goes back to the bull pen to await being called
in for the next new recruit interview so he can walk past and be 'randomly'
called in.

~~~
whoisjuan
I also heard the story of a digital agency that rented a huge space, painted
the walls with bright colors and hired a bunch of actors to pose as employees.
The idea was to deceive and close a deal with a potential big client that
insisted in visiting their offices.

~~~
cyberferret
Uh, a good friend of mine did that a couple of years ago when he started a new
design agency. He was going for a large government contract and they insisted
on an in-house meeting as part of the pre-tender process.

He had a large office space already, in preparation for growth, but only 1
employee at that stage, so he got his high school aged daughter in, as well as
some of her friends to sit in the empty desks and pretend to work. A couple of
the PC's at the back facing away from the meeting room weren't even plugged
in, and were just screens on the desk and keyboards attached to nothing.

It worked - he got the contract, and as a result, now has REAL employees at
those stations, and in fact has to look at a bigger space to expand into.

~~~
pimlottc
> pre-tender process

If that wasn't intentional, it should have been.

------
godelski
Ticketmaster the employee

There's actually a good Freakanomics episode on this[1]. How tickets are
undervalued and part of Ticketmaster's value is that they take blame for the
high prices.

[1] [http://freakonomics.com/podcast/live-event-ticket-market-
scr...](http://freakonomics.com/podcast/live-event-ticket-market-screwed/)

~~~
KozmoNau7
There are a lot of assumptions in that piece, especially regarding the motives
of artists and the fan/idol relationship.

It is absolutely not a normal type market, and it shouldn't be treated like
one. The way forward is not to inflate ticket prices, ensuring only the
richest fans can afford to go to concerts, and screwing over the ordinary
people.

The way forward is to make it illegal to resell tickets at higher than face
value. That was implemented some years ago here, and scalping is a minor issue
now. Fans are generally very good at self-policing and reporting price-gouging
scalpers. Ticket prices did increase slightly over time, but certainly not on
the level of $50 becoming $500, as posited in the article.

They do touch on that, but I don't think the solution is to completely stop
resale. Just limit it to face value or less.

If artists were only interested in short-term profit, they would jack up the
prices and only sell to their richest fans. But most of them look at the long
perspective, the fact that there's a lot more to be gained in the long run by
having a loyal fanbase that doesn't feel exploited.

For the fans who were complaining that they couldn't get tickets for low-
seating high-interest events, well that's just too bad. You had the same
chance as everyone else. I've sat in ticket queues (offline and online), I've
furiously refreshed ticket pages for events with room for less than 100 people
just to be sure to get a ticket, 5+ months in advance. I really like the
system we have here, where a big wallet is not some kind of guarantee that
you'll get a ticket.

If events get sold out, the onus is on the organizers and artists to either
book additional shows, or come back again in 6 months or a year, possibly at a
bigger venue.

If someone is a true fan, they'll be bummed about missing out, but also
adamant to not miss out next time. And they certainly don't fly across the
Atlantic for a Broadway show without having somehow secured a ticket
beforehand. That's just silly.

~~~
jdmichal
> For the fans who were complaining that they couldn't get tickets for low-
> seating high-interest events, well that's just too bad. You had the same
> chance as everyone else. I've sat in ticket queues (offline and online),
> I've furiously refreshed ticket pages for events with room for less than 100
> people just to be sure to get a ticket, 5+ months in advance. I really like
> the system we have here, where a big wallet is not some kind of guarantee
> that you'll get a ticket.

These same arguments are / were used in favor of unpaid internships. Except,
of course, that it takes a certain level of financial freedom or support to do
things like wait in lines for concert tickets. Just because your paying time
instead of money in these queues, does not mean that it doesn't carry a cost.

~~~
KozmoNau7
I don't it's the same as unpaid internships. You can never completely
eliminate the cost, as there is a limited supply and you can't give away the
tickets for free. But you can certainly minimize the costs.

The tickets have to be put up for sale at some specific time that is usually
advertised well in advance, which allows (most) people to plan for it. For
some artists, a number of tickets are sold earlier to members of the official
fan clubs and so on.

What is the alternative? Putting the tickets up for sale as a slow drop? I'm
pretty sure that would significantly harm sales.

~~~
jdmichal
Use a lottery system with prepaid authorizations? Pretty much any system where
people can put up some money and walk away. Fixed price, no queues.

~~~
KozmoNau7
Then it's just random chance. People usually don't like that sort of thing,
outside of literal lotteries.

~~~
jdmichal
That's the entire point. Anything other than random chance means that someone
has "priority". Priority which is typically decided by spending resources.
Either time by waiting in queue. Or money by buying at higher than face value
from a scalper -- who probably waited in queue, thereby exchanging their time
for money.

If the principle being striven for is _fair_ , then most fair to me would be
to allow all potential attendees to participate in the sale. If there are more
participants than tickets, then the most fair mechanism which does not reward
time-rich participants is random lottery, not a queue. A queue rewards those
who happen to be available for registration the moment it opens.

~~~
KozmoNau7
Fans don't want a lottery, though. They want to be 100% sure they have a
ticket to the show. It's a gratification thing.

Not everything can be 100% optimal and profit maximized. The current ticket
sales method works great, if you eliminate the rent-seeking scalpers, through
simple regulation.

However, ideally we should also consider it shameful to buy from scalpers. You
run a high risk being scammed, they can resell the same ticket multiple times,
and you have no recourse.

~~~
jdmichal
Your original response was that there wasn't a similarity between unpaid
internships and concert ticket sales. And now your response is that more
optimal systems are less desirable, which is a fine answer. But it's certainly
a _choice_ to choose the less-optimal system, with the understanding that that
choice is going to lock out some people due to resource constraints. And the
current method rewards time-rich people in a very similar way as unpaid
internships. They receive access to experiences that others can't "afford".

~~~
KozmoNau7
That only goes for very high-profile shows. The vast majority of shows do not
sell out in minutes, or even at all.

~~~
jdmichal
The bit quoted in my original comment called that out already. Of course it's
not an issue when it's not an issue...

------
epx
I had a boss that used to scold me in front of others to show that he was
tough and impartial. It took two or three times to see the pattern (he
expected me to see by myself). Too good I didn't overreact...

~~~
tyingq
Urgh. That's such a basic leadership thing (scold in private) that it just
infruiates me that someone wouldn't get that.

Hopefully your boss figured that out or was moved out of a leadership
position.

It's roughly the equivalent of a developer that writes shit code with
concurrency issues, basic code smells, etc...that would be drummed out in
short order. For some reason, we don't hold leaders to the same standard.

~~~
jacob019
It's shocking how many people with poor leadership skills end up in positions
of power.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
It's because positions of power attract people who desire power, not people
who have leadership skills, and there aren't good metrics for what makes
someone a good leader that you can use to filter out the bad ones.

See: Politics throughout the entirety of human history.

------
bradknowles
Isn't that kind of what a Chief Compliance Officer is there for?

So that if something goes so badly wrong that the CEO would otherwise be the
one put in jail, in this case the CCO goes instead?

------
dictum
A pipe-smoking ficticious entry.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictitious_entry](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictitious_entry)

~~~
gberger
I don't see the connection?

------
seekler
This job exists today and it is called CISO (Chief Information Security
Officer) or other variants :D

~~~
gaius
You need to be highly qualified for that job

~~~
royroyroys
OP is jokingly referring to the FB/Cambridge Analytica scandal

~~~
gaius
Or Equifax

------
notahacker
I imagine that in companies imposing the requirement that managers
periodically purge the "bottom" x% of their workforce, "to be sacked"
accurately describes the real purpose of many of the new roles hired for.

------
banned1
I worked at a startup where we had a floor of empty offices. We sometimes
would paid people to walk around the office floor and sit in offices when
major customers wanted to come and visit. When the customer was in the boss'
office discussing the deal, one of the "employees" would always stick his head
in the office and say "Hey, I needed to ask you a question. Should I come
back?" and the boss would be like "yeah, why don't you come back in an hour
after I am done with John here."

------
potta_coffee
Sometimes it feels like I also have this job. Except for some reason, my
employers only sack me once, and for real.

------
discoursism
No less an authority than Danny Baker . . . the comedy writer, born in '57? Or
else who? How would he know about this?

~~~
exelius
I think that’s the authors way of saying the story is unverifiable in any way.

------
jtwaleson
From the title I expected a procedure to test if management & HR will act on
unacceptable behavior. The story makes more sense, but could still be a good
idea, seeing as how many underperformers and bad apples there are in some
companies.

------
DoreenMichele
This works as long as he doesn't get fired twice in front of the same
customer.

~~~
squiggleblaz
The point is to discourage the customer from complaining because of the harsh
treatment the customer will receive. Therefore yes, if it comes to that, it
has failed.

~~~
Moru
Some people complain just so they can watch the boss chew out some employee.
That's satisfaction for being badly treated/buying something that was faulty.

~~~
DoreenMichele
It's also satisfaction because you failed to get laid, you are going through a
divorce, your own job is a shit experience or your life otherwise sucks in
some fashion and you are the kind of asshole who enjoys taking your crap out
on other people.

------
golergka
I'm pretty sure I saw Friends episode with almost exactly the same premise.

~~~
jaclaz
Yep:
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0583611/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0583611/)

"In order for her kitchen staff to acknowledge her authority, Monica hires
Joey so she can fire him in front of them."

------
ars
Is there some reason this worker can't actually also work? Presumably in the
backroom, where customers will never see him.

------
m1sta_
I thought this might be about a company testing whether it was any good at
getting rid of bad employees.

------
dmckeon
Sounds a bit like: "Send this jerk the bedbug letter!"
[https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-bedbug-
letter/](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-bedbug-letter/)

------
clueless123
If I made a penny for every time I accepted blame for a managers dumb mess-
up..... (As an over paid IT contractor)

Oh! now that I think about it.. guess who always gets called back by those
managers for new projects! :)

------
vortico
Why don't they have a normal employee play the "be fired" role? Unless he gets
fired 8 times a day, I don't see why he's idle...

~~~
megablast
It is a bit embarrassing when they keep shopping and see the guy that was
fired working in the store, or see them the next day or the next week. They
might just catch on.

~~~
vortico
Ah, I was imagining a sales warehouse, where the customers typically only talk
to the sales employees by phone.

------
oaiey
Does anyone remember P.L.E.A.S.E.

~~~
mcphage
I do!

 _P_ rovide

 _L_ egal

 _E_ xculpation

 _A_ nd

 _S_ ign

 _E_ verything

------
bryanrasmussen
what happens the next time lady ponsonby waffles has a complaint?

~~~
VLM
That's why in the real world you fake fire the next guy going to lunch, so his
reward for being yelled at a bit and fired was an extra long lunch hour.

Also when I worked retail back when high school kids held the minimum wage
jobs, annual retail turnover often exceeded 100%, so if lady waffles is having
multiple problems in a couple months, your store has a problem far beyond
angry waffles.

The American version at the store I worked at both as a labor drone and
eventually as a night shift manager while in school, was to send coworkers to
the office to be yelled at. The store was urban and near the bar district so
at night, customers were generally drunk and guilty until proven innocent.
Drunk people usually don't want to draw attention to themselves, mostly, so we
had few complaints.

Its a mid to high skilled workplace thing to assume employees are yelled at.
For manual labor work, the cost of replacement, either of the job or the
employee, is very low, and most firing offenses had legal involvement
(stealing cash or product from the store, for example) so discipline never
went much beyond asking someone "WTF?".

------
racl101
Now that's funny.

