
I'm a former Miso engineer and the founders screwed me out of 10k  - rremoncake
http://jzhwu.blogspot.com/2012/05/im-former-miso-engineer-and-founders.html
======
patio11
First step after an employer says no to paying you money owed should ALWAYS be
a letter on dead tree saying exactly what your email said, signed by your
lawyer. You'll come out $9,700 ahead because folks understand that fobbing off
lawyers has consequences.

Your lawyer would have printed out email #2 ("You nuked a DB. Screw you."),
called it a pretext to deny you rightfully earned _wages_ , and told the
company to have their legal representative suit up because he'd be happy to
take his chances with any judge in the state. (Edit to add: Technically, that
is a couple of increasingly pointy $300-a-page letters later in the sequence,
but the threat of it is implicit from the first time he signs his name with
Esquire.) A check would shortly arrive in his mail.

~~~
jroes
This is great advice.

I just wanted to make the typical legal fees clear to keep things realistic.
I'm not sure if it's the same with this type of case, but for personal injury
claims, the typical lawyer contract entitles the attorney to 1/3 of the
dollars won plus fees.

Of course, 2/3 of 10k is still > 0.

~~~
patio11
Lawyers typically work personal injury on a contingency basis because they
have a high percentage win ratio and because, all things being equal, the
person injured is likely to be poor. There may well be lawyers who take
employment law cases on a contingency basis, but there will also be ones who
simply hire out their services in formal letterwriting on an hourly basis,
broken down into six minute increments. That is, overwhelmingly, the most
common billing arrangement in the profession. You might even find a lawyer
willing to do that and defer the payment until after the check had been
received, but I do not anticipate the legal bill here being a prohibitive
amount of money for an American professional.

------
jtchang
Thank you for posting this. As a community of entrepreneurs and hackers it
helps all of us know what happens behind the scenes. Some people may view it
as airing their dirty laundry but I see it as a way to keep people honest.

The fact that you dropped the production database sucks. However you stayed
around and fixed it. I can't really say anything more. My bet is we all handle
lots of sensitive data around here. Our worst nightmare is to drop that data
by accident. Stuff happens...fix it and move on.

I understand we are a litigious society but if your knee jerk reaction is to
bring in lawyers something is wrong. My hope is this post will make it around
to Somrat and Tim (I've never met either of them) and you two will resolve it
amicably. Maybe I am delusional but good character still counts for something.

~~~
backspace
I disagree. Handling things professionally and keeping people honest are two
different things.

There is no "service to the SV community" that this guy is doing by airing
dirty laundry. If you've been wronged by your former company, handle it on
your own. Shaming the company is not going to help you, the company, or anyone
else. What you're effectively suggesting is that your "service" is to warn
everyone to stay away from Miso.

Unfortunately, as a hiring manager, I'm going to stay away from you. While I
wholeheartedly agree that you should have gotten your $10K referral bonus, I
also believe it should have been while you were still an employee there. Once
you leave, you're not entitled to anything more from the company.

~~~
cconroy
I argue that if he didn't do it -- it would be a _dis_ -service to the
community. I look at it like if it were simple assault involving you and an
assailant. Since you were not really injured you decide not to press charges
against them.

Let's say the assailant does this again in the future -- hurting somebody
marginally. And they do press charges.

To the court this looks like a first offense and they let the assailant off
gently.

Now suppose the assailant attacks again and this time causes significant
injuries.

Had you originally reported your attack, then it is reasonable that the court
would see a second minor attack more seriously and could bring more severe
charges, deterring the assailant from subsequent assaults and improving the
not only the assailant's life, but also the _community_ (as a whole).

This is a specific instance of _the more data a deciding entity has, the
better chances their making the right choice_.

~~~
backspace
I agree with your central theme that more data is better. That's why as I
suggested, he should have handled it on his own and taken legal action against
them, so that there was a clear legal record of such behavior by Miso.

~~~
creamyhorror
Whether or not he should have taken legal action against them, the important
thing is to get the data out on a _wide public forum_ like HN. Information
benefits us when it's widely distributed, not when it's only confined to a
private lawsuit.

------
fleitz
Stop calling it a bonus, it isn't, it's payment for your services of
recruitment. The offer came as part of a written agreement from an officer of
the company in relation to the duties required by employees (adding the
optional duty of recruitment) and their remuneration for performing said
services (your payment for recruitment). Looks like a duck, quacks like a
duck.

Bonuses are when you receive additional pay for performing your required
duties as an employee. eg. you were hired as a programmer, you've doing great
work, here's an extra 10K.

Not only did they fail to pay your wages within X days of termination, an
egregious violation of the labour code but now they are misrepresenting the
employment agreement as not including written amendments made by officers of
the company.

Furthermore this policy they speak of has altered the employment agreement
with out consent from the employed, and failure to disclose the policy at the
time the offer was made constitutes negligent misrepresentation of the
contract. I'm sure if you had known that you would have only received payment
while still an employee, the offer would not have induced you to perform said
services for the company. Failure to inform employees of changes to the
employment agreement is also likely a violation of labour law.

File with your local labour board for unpaid wages, dealing with this should
cost them easily more than $10K. The last thing they want is bureaucrats
around their business.

Then file in small claims court for lost wages and breach of contract.

Attach the directors of the corporation personally to the suit as directors
are liable for unpaid wages. (This may not be true in your jurisdiction)

Find the statute that says that all unpaid wages must be paid within X days of
quitting / termination, add damages.

Add up all your time spend dealing with the recovery of this money, as well as
reporting this to the authorities, add costs.

Hopefully after this you've reached the max allowable for a small claims suit.

I am not a lawyer, this isn't legal advice.

~~~
arbales
It actually /is/ a bonus – because you're already employed, and salaried,
there's no obligation for your employeer to pay you more for services
rendered. I'm no lawyer either, but Google seems to think "Referral Bonus" is
a common thing.

~~~
fleitz
Then they should stop creating an expectation of pay in relation to the
referral and make it clear that the company pays these in capricious manner
which will depend on how much the CEO likes you that day instead of relating
it to the performance of your job.

If the CEO sent an email about new "Capricious and Arbitrary Referral Bonus"
then I'd tend to agree with you that the OP should have expected to be treated
in a capricious and arbitrary manner in regard to the payment of the bonus.

For example in my options contract with my last employer it stated that the
options were part of an employee retention program and should not be construed
as remuneration.

After reading those lines I knew the options were a ploy to retain employees
and not to actually expect to make a cent from the options. Upon quitting and
being offered to buy out my options I said "The options contract states that
it's for retention and not remuneration, why would I buy something that you've
warranted as worthless?"

It's no different than an employer offering a 'bonus' for hitting a certain
date for code. If I quit day after delivery it should make no difference as to
whether I'm paid.

------
mgkimsal
Ugh.

I had someone not pay me $9k, and have filed a lawsuit. We're closing in on 4
years now (aug 2008) and still no court date. Courts take time.

I wrestled with 'name and shame', and in some respect, wish I had named. I
found out that this company/person had done this to others, and one of the
guys 'named' him publicly on a blog. He got a threatening call, telling him to
take it down and he'd get paid. Of course, he took it down and didn't get paid
- that was < $1k from what I remember.

I hear this a lot - "don't go public with these sorts of things, you'll get a
bad reputation, blah blah blah". I'm really torn. I _get_ it, but... if more
people started doing this - going public when BS like this is perpetrated -
there'd be far less resistance to hiring/contracting with people who have air
this sort of stuff.

I've been self-employed for 5 years, have contracted on dozens of projects,
and have _2_ instances where I got shafted out of money owed. If I was to
publicize those, but also have, say 25 other projects under my belt with fine
referrals, wouldn't that say more about the 2 shafters vs me? And again, if
everyone was doing this, it would seem a lot more normal.

Yeah, if I publicly trashed every company I worked with, my 'trashing score'
would be pretty high, and people would want to stay away from me. But really,
I'd prefer people know that I publicly praise good clients and trash bad ones,
and if they think they're going to be a bad client, to not bother reaching
out. I'd rather there be a filter there which keeps crap clients away in the
first place.

The thing is, we all have to start doing this at the same time. I do agree
that legal proceedings are worthwhile in some cases, in many cases, people are
getting shafted out of hundreds or thousands, and it's often not worth the
time to 'go legal'. The habitual scumbags know this and take advantage of it,
continually rolling through contractors. They know most of them will just
leave and won't make a public fuss, because they want to be 'employable' and
not be known as a 'troublemaker'. Someone who doesn't pay me for contractual
work done is the troublemaker, but somehow that seems to get lost.

~~~
droithomme
Thanks for sharing your personal experience with this, I've also been through
similar things.

On the "take it down and he'd get paid" issue, one has to be very careful.
There have been a few news stories where this has happened, the ex-employee
agrees, and then the company goes public with a "employee was attempting to
extort $10,000 from us" angle, painting the employee they cheated as some sort
of criminal. The spin is they try to make it seem like the bad report was
false and the employee was extorting money to take it down as some kind of
protection racket.

~~~
mgkimsal
Yeah that would suck, and I wouldn't have put it past that individual in
question.

In my particular case, I had all my documentation in a row, but still didn't
choose to 'go public', tho in retrospect I somewhat wish I had.

------
DanBlake
First off, Screw those guys. Anyone who holds back money like that is someone
you dont want to work for anyways.

Employees make mistakes and to punish them for it is insane. If you were
purposely trying to screw things up and were fired for that, of course thats a
different story- but it sounds like you were just trying to do your job and
made a mistake, it happens. Also, seeing as you were supposed to have been
paid the bonus while you were there, it makes it twice as awkward.

This should be a lesson to other founders- Treat people good and they will
speak highly of you and may stay with you forever, to your next startup or
company. Dont and they will do the opposite. That alone is worth more than the
10k you save.

Penny wise but pound foolish, as the saying goes.

~~~
rhizome
They also don't have any systems people who know to run backups.

~~~
rremoncake
To my coworkers defense the service was very new and we had plans to put in a
backup system. Bad timing I guess.

~~~
rhizome
You don't have to defend people who made a bad mistake worse. It's nothing
personal, competent systems people are in short supply these days.

~~~
zobzu
Do you claim of never having made any mistake?

Last I checked, humans do mistake all the time. Not related to systems, or
anything really. It's all about being prepared for those and attempting to
make as few as possible.

~~~
rhizome
In order to avoid mistakes, you have to know they exist. So either they didn't
know backups were important or they declined to prioritize and implement them
in anticipation of their launch.

However, I sense you're taking issue with my "bad mistake worse" comment. I
don't think anybody is going to argue that dropping a production database is a
real mistake. Mistakes happen, and companies (i.e. management) should work to
ensure that all the bases are covered, which weren't in this case.

------
rb2k_
Honestly, the answers that the Miso founders gave seemed very professional and
I think am a bit on their side in this one.

If OP had asked for the bonus while still being at Miso, it seems like he
would simply have gotten it. Seeing as a non-contractual bonus is an
investment in the employee that the company does in addition to the usual
compensation, and seeing as OP quit on his own and doesn't have a compensation
anymore, I can see that this would seem like a strange investment.

These informal bonuses shouldn't be seen as something you're entitled to, but
rather as a nice extra that might disappear any second. If you really want
something, it should be in the contract. If it isn't in the contract, you
apparently can also live without it.

edit: Oh, downvotes. I really should stop posting my opinion if it might be
controversial.

~~~
unreal37
I tend to agree with @rb2k. There are payments you are entitled to by law
(salary, vacation, personal expense reimbursement) and payments that companies
do out of the goodness of their hearts (annual bonuses, lieu days, extra days
off, referral bonuses). Don't quit under bad circumstances and expect to get
money you're not by law entitled to. Should have gotten the money first.

~~~
ajross
That's not how the law works. The company advertised and promised a bonus. The
fact that it didn't become a signed contract doesn't make it non-binding. It
was payment for a service which was rendered.

Obviously, yes: you should get the money before quitting. But Miso doesn't
have a leg to stand on here unless they're hoping that pursuing the money
isn't worth the poster's time (which might be a good bet, given that he didn't
ask for the money originally).

------
bking
Miso should just pony up the $10k and move on.

1\. They promised you would get the bonus at 6 months, and THEY did not
deliver (their fault for not keeping their written agreement). \-- They were
in the red before you left. You are just collecting on their past dues.

2\. They didn't have a backup before production and you happened to blow it
up. You woked hard and recovered most of the data. (their fault for not having
a backup) \-- Kudos to you for fessing up that you screwed up, but everyone
does that and it is their fault for not having a backup

3\. You confronted them about their debt, and they tried to find "sneaky
language" that sounds like a solid reason to not pay you for your service.
(their fault for shady business)

Sounds to me like they are trying to kill two birds with one stone by using a
made up on the spot loophole to save $10k and bury a mistake they made in not
fulfilling their pledge.

------
nostromo
Taking this "public" seems like a lose-lose. Miso doesn't come off super
awesome obviously, but as a disgruntled employee, you're not setting yourself
up for success either.

For example, should some future employer decide to Google your name before
making an offer, they're likely to come up with an old spat between you and
your employer. Even if you're in the right, it will make them think twice
about hiring you. This disagreement may follow you forever (Google doesn't
forget) and cost much more than $10k.

A better tactic may be to try and leverage your relationship with your friend
who is still employed there. If this quarrel is detrimental to his morale,
they may be willing to come to an agreement.

~~~
altxwally
Otherwise what you are saying is to be afraid of the status quo because they
have many ways of monitoring your past so you should behave, isn't it? If your
'future employer' gets biased by this kind of stuff then it would make sense
to reconsider applying for work there, and whether it is really worth it to
keep on supporting such kinds of disciplinary systems. What he is claiming
sounds reasonable, and there should be no lose-lose when facts are facts.

~~~
j_baker
I respect what you're saying, but it's a bit naive. First of all, how do you
know that the facts that were mentioned were facts? Were you CC'ed on any of
the emails? For all we know, the author made the conversation up.

Secondly, nobody really likes hiring someone who speaks negatively about a
former employer. _Especially_ when there's no way to verify whether what they
are saying is true.

~~~
rremoncake
I'd rather not post original emails and screenshots supporting my claims. If
verification is demanded by the majority I'll comply.

~~~
j_baker
I think you're missing my point. :-)

I personally could care less whether you posted screenshots or not. But if you
were considering employing someone and found that they had posted something
like this (with little to no evidence), what would your reaction be? Heck,
what would your reaction be if it _did_ have screenshots?

~~~
marekmroz
It's "could NOT care less", unless you actually care a little and in fact
could care less if not for that bit of care in your heart. If that is case,
accept my sincere apologies.

Pardon my pet peeve.

To answer your question: if it were me hiring a person, absence or presence of
screenshots would not make any difference. A contract is a contract and the
person is owed $10k.

~~~
dwwoelfel
j_baker called it sarcasm. More generally, "could care less" is an idiom. It
has a figurative meaning that is different from its literal meaning.

Here's a link to "could care less" in _The American Heritage Dictionary of
Idioms_ , [http://books.google.com/books?id=9re1vfFh04sC&pg=PA137&#...</a>

------
justjimmy
I'd like to point out something:

I'm pretty sure the OP is smart enough to know this move could cost him dearly
in the future. He's basically setting himself at the 'stake', next to Miso,
with his post.

This is why we have to pay a bit more attention than just dismissing his claim
and label him childish. Doesn't matter who's right/wrong, the OP felt this was
an issue worth risking his rep for (just by posting, he's already a blip on
HR's radar). The tech startup circle is pretty small, made smaller by internet
and LinkedIn. Definitely a big decision to take something like this public.

I'm surprised at his move taking it public so quickly, and more surprised at
Miso going back on their words and expect no repercussions/fallout.

~~~
rhizome
Even saying that it could cost him seems like empty threats from the peanut
gallery. On what basis, that someone might not want to hire him because they
plan to rip him off?

~~~
zem
as someone who has been in charge of tech hiring for a startup, this would
definitely not be a red flag for me. as you say, it's not like we would be
planning on ripping him off, and blacklisting him for what is after all
nothing more than human disgruntlement over getting screwed would be petty and
childish.

~~~
catch23
Well in this case, it seems that the company is acting childish. I wouldn't
hesitate to hire someone who honest about what he believes in.

------
moocow01
I applaud this.

I'm really tired of this one way street where employers get to be sleaze-balls
behind the mask of a company name while an employee doing anything that skirts
the line of not being upstanding is 'irresponsible.'

We need more of this IMHO in that there is way too much practicing of sleazy
business techniques in SV if you ask me

------
ghshephard
This part sounds dubious: "For example, we don't pay people outside of Miso
when they refer us candidates that we hire."

Any recruiter worth their salt is getting a minimum of 15% on first years
salary right now, and many are getting 20%. On a typical $150K Salary that
would be $30K if the same candidate comes through a recruiter.

Perhaps it's just the case that Miso doesn't use external recruiters, and so
the statement is accurate - but to suggest that bonuses are paid for good
referrals as part of "Team Building" and not to get the lead on great talent
would not be consistent with current market conditions.

~~~
eli
I would think very few startups use recruiters -- who has that much extra cash
laying around?

~~~
ghshephard
I've worked at three startups in the valley since 1999, and all three used
recruiters. Typically they have 1-3 internal recruiters, and do try to avoid
external staffing agencies, but, in tight employment conditions (right now) -
hiring managers tend to working with staffing agencies to get some
acceleration in hiring. One of the tasks of HR, in fact, is in the growth
phase from 30 to 300 employees, is to run interference and keep costs from
external staffing agencies down and use the internal recruiters as much as
possible.

~~~
eli
Well, shows how much I know. I guess the fact that most recruiters I've
interacted with have been terrible might be coloring my opinion of their
value. How does one go about finding a good recruiter?

------
jes5199
> During my last 2 weeks at Miso I accidentally blew away one of the
> production DBs for a service that was launched 2 weeks prior. No, we didn't
> have a backup.

Step 1) Make bad engineering decisions that make accidents like this possible

Step 2) Blame employees who knock over your fragile infrastructure

Great strategy, Miso!

------
underwater
While publicly posting about this probably feels good, it reflects badly on
you as well as Miso.

* The lack of backups is partly your fault. You were an engineer there after all.

* Nuking a production database can happen, but the default assumption is that you are sloppy.

* Based on the timeframes one could assume you were fired from Miso.

* You have no problem revealing confidential information about your former employer's infrastructure and operations.

* You publicly post private emails between you and your former employer.

~~~
ckdarby
* So you can tell me the exact backup times of everything at Facebook for your machine right? You're an engineer at Facebook therefore under your broad assumption you should be performing the exact same of your statement. If tomorrow everything was to fail at Facebook & there was no data recovery you're saying that everyone in the company should come blame you because well, hell, you're an engineer there after all...

The more reasonable point is that he's an engineer not a sysadmin or ops guy
this isn't his responsibility directly & more so this falls on the CTO
shoulders of failing to assign someone to this task.

* If they point directly to production this really isn't unheard of.

* Why are we making any assumptions if the guy is fired or not; This has nothing to do with the fact of the bonus not being paid out on time while he was an employee.

* You're going to argue that the company failing to perform backups is confidential information about infrastructure and operations especially after the company mentions it in an email after his employment :|?

* These are emails after his employment & the company is or should be well aware that these emails from that point on can publicly be posted because he's not bound by anything to keep them confidential any more. This is why most companies follow strict HR policies of no further communication & very strict emails to former employees.

Come on, I expect a bit more from an engineer working at Facebook other than
broad assumptions & statements.

~~~
underwater
According to their site Miso have four engineers. At that scale there each and
every engineer is responsibility for how things are run. If you want to only
do what is assigned to you then you shouldn't be working at a startup. I've
worked at small companies who'd punted on revision control and backups, and I
made sure those things were put in place. When I haven't had the knowledge or
access I've bought up the issue with those who did.

I wasn't trying to ad hominem the guy by suggesting he was fired. For all I
know he may have got a better offer elsewhere. I was pointing out that in his
attack on Miso he's made himself look bad. If a future potential employer
reads this his comments are vague enough they could draw the conclusion I
suggested. The same applies to publishing the emails. He may be within the law
but to me it's a major red flag.

I shouldn't have to have a disclaimer; this is very obviously my personal
opinion. I don't see how my employer is relevant to the discussion. Am I
supposed to refrain from commenting at all in case someone tries to tie my
professional life to my personal opinion?

~~~
ckdarby
Oh! Just to clear things up a bit more... it just earned him $10K :)

~~~
underwater
Except he's donating it to charity.

I have to say he's handled the attention and criticism really well. His
updated posts have addressed a lot of the points I bought up in my original
comment.

------
cletus
"Name and shame" is a thorny issue.

Opponents are right in the same way you shouldn't badmouth former employers in
job interviewers. It's not fair but it makes you look worse. You just kind of
have to suck it up and move on.

When companies screw you out of money, you should name and shame them (IMHO).
Trust me, over the years I've probably lost out on all told $50,000 or more
that people never paid. In some cases it was a clear breach of contract. I
never pursued it through litigation and reading stories from those that have
I'm kinda glad. Such a thing is a mental burden and a distraction. Your best
bet really is to move on unless the amount is really huge (maybe even $50,000+
for a single claim).

All that being said, this scenario is not one the company should be ashamed of
IMHO and were I Miso I wouldn't have said a damn thing about it.

He forgot to claim a referral bonus. They didn't pay it after he left the
company. Technically, they are correct: referral bonuses are paid to
employees. He is not an employee.

Sure they could've paid it to him and maybe they should've but I sympathize
with their position.

No matter what anyone tells you--and this is important--when you get a bonus
of any sort it is forward-looking even though it's for what you've done. If
you've left the company or are leaving, you are no longer of value to them.

If he's made the claim and pushed back on it finally reneging, that would be a
completely different story.

This is a textbook example of "nothing to gain" and "makes you look bad"
rolled into one.

EDIT: to answer one point brought up by a commentor (chasing): yes, you are
correct. This is not a bonus in the strictest sense.

It is not however automatic compensation like your salary is. You need to take
action to claim it (by submitting the form or whatever to get the referral
bonus). Miso admits he did not do that. He is no longer an employee and thus
can't file forms an employee otherwise would.

I imagine if this were a case where he expensed something and failed to claim
the expenses the employer would pay. From this you can (reasonably) view the
two as similar. The difference (IMHO) is that if an employer doesn't pay
outstanding expenses, you may continue to own or you have a pretty cut-and-
dried case against them for breach of contract.

Failing to file a referral bonus form while you were an employee is really
your fault.

I'm not saying the employer is completely in the right here but honestly I
think they're more right than he is and certainly come out of this looking
better than he does.

~~~
mikeash
The company agreed to pay him a certain amount of money if he referred
somebody who stayed for at least 6 months. He referred somebody who stayed for
at least 6 months. The company thus owes him the money. His employment status
with the company has nothing to do with it, unless that was stated as part of
the deal up-front.

I'm pretty sure this would last about five seconds in front of a judge.
Produce whatever documentation is available (an e-mail about it should be
plenty) showing that they promised the money, and it's done.

It doesn't matter that he forgot to claim it. Unless he let it go for so long
that the debt passes the statute of limitations (7 years or so?), it's still
owed to him.

This is little different from spitefully withholding an employee's last
paycheck, a practice which is wrong and highly illegal.

~~~
blantonl
I wholehearted agree, but..

 _I'm pretty sure this would last about five seconds in front of a judge_

This whole issue would probably cost 50k just to get in front of a judge.

~~~
mikeash
Why? This would work pretty well in small claims, which costs not much at all.

~~~
dhyasama
Not sure about his location, but in New York small claims is limited to $5k.

~~~
mikeash
It's stated elsethread that CA is $7,500. So that adds $2,500 to the cost,
still well short of the claimed $50,000.

------
menocchio
The comments are really interesting on this story. They break out into a few
types:

\- this is a good/bad way to get your $10K

\- this is a good/bad way to have a job in the future

\- this guy who's out $10K is a douche/everyday hero

\- this is really/really not a bonus, and that is relevant because [ ]

\- bonuses are forward/backward looking and therefore [ ]

I also see some, but not enough, in my opinion, of the following:

keep your promises, whether they are tacit or formal, expensive or cheap,
connected or not connected to some other issue, defensible or not defensible
in court. Just keep your promises. Regardless of spin, regardless of how you
feel emotionally, regardless of how busy or distracted you are. If you forget,
or lag, and then are reminded, apologize and pay up. You can still say the guy
is a douche if you want to, or scold him for his bad taste, or bad skills, or
whatever. That's really a separate deal.

~~~
javajosh
I feel like there should be a meta-HN app that allows people to categorize and
collect HN discussions like this (I often find myself doing that myself). But
your analysis is spot on, and it bothers me that so much of the conversation
seems to miss the central point: the company promised something, and then
broke the promise. This is wrong, and should not be encouraged in our society.

(Reminds me of the gay marriage debate, which too-often ignores the simple
fact that these "defense of marriage laws" are _exactly_ like Jim Crow. It
doesn't matter if you like gays or not, or why you do/don't like them. You
can't discriminate, period.)

------
SeanDav
Notice that Miso is not actually denying that they pay the money: "However, we
only pay bonuses to employees." They are being hard-nosed about paying someone
that is not employed at the current time, even though he was eligible when he
was employed.

Fail for Miso.

~~~
unreal37
To be fair, most companies in North America would not pay any sort of optional
bonus after an employee has quit or been fired.

If you quit Dec 31, and the company usually pays out annual bonuses on Jan 30,
don't expect a check.

~~~
moe
The bonus was due _before_ he left the company.

Pretty clear cut for me. The conditions were met, they owe him $10k. Maybe not
legally but certainly morally.

~~~
pyoung
No, he fulfilled the minimum requirements for the bonus before he left the
company, however the company did not specify at what point the bonus was due
to him. For example, my company rewards annual bonuses based on the calendar
year, however they do not pay out the bonuses until April. If you leave the
company between Jan 1, and April, you do not receive the bonus. While it might
not be the most moral practice, it is a well established practice.

~~~
moe
_however the company did not specify at what point the bonus was due to him._

Of course it did. Quote from the article:

 _the payout was contingent on said employee staying for a minimum of a 6
month period at the position_

If that's the really the full text of the agreement (which seems plausible to
me, I've seen similar e-mails) then there is nothing unclear about that. Even
if he had quit immediately after referring that other guy he'd still get the
bonus. Period.

 _well established practice._

Certainly not around here.

------
cookiecaper
This is a good illustration of the integrity of the company's founders. You
should feel lucky to have gotten out. Hopefully your referral is planning on
leaving too.

------
rdl
Actually, in California, an employer is penalized if late paying wages after
termination of employment. Employee wages continue until they make the payment
(this is a little less clear in this case, since it was a referral bonus).
(IANAL of course, nor is this legal advice)

I still wouldn't have gone for the "nuclear option" of naming and shaming --
it makes your next employer more wary of hiring you (which probably costs you
more than $10k in wages, even though anyone minimally competent can get a job
in the current market in the Bay Area), and costs the employer way more than
$10k (I doubt any HN readers will blindly trust Miso or the founders, at least
for a while).

Just like the namesake, the "nuclear option" is negative sum. I prefer to
stick to positive sum games when possible, or zero sum when unavoidable.

------
tptacek
Well, this is now the only thing I know about Miso.

Good call, Miso.

~~~
wglb
A better call: [http://jzhwu.blogspot.com/2012/05/im-former-miso-engineer-
an...](http://jzhwu.blogspot.com/2012/05/im-former-miso-engineer-and-
founders.html?showComment=1336703821164#c2706415837740343447) Apparently they
have decided to pay after all.

------
9999
Naming and shaming is not in this guy's immediate interests at all. It does
not change the chances of him getting compensated, and future employers may
view the act negatively (although this may act as a useful filter for
rremoncake, the kind of people that wouldn't hire him because of this are
probably not the kind of people he'd want to work for anyway).

The founders of Miso will now be perceived by many people (myself amongst
them) as highly unethical and shortsighted individuals. Being either of those
things makes them undesirable as employers/employees/coworkers.

I'm reminded of the altruistic primates that run shrieking through the forest
to warn their clan of an approaching predator, at the risk of being eaten
themselves... If rremoncake saved some hackers from putting in a few years
with these guys only to be hosed after an acquisition, then I think he's done
something pretty positive, and should be commended. Sorry if you get eaten.

------
robomartin
Lawyer-up. Get paid. Don't get screwed.

I say this as a founder many times over. An agreement is an agreement. I've
had to do things like put salaries on credit cards and mortgage my house to
make payroll during bad times. I don't appreciate business owners that behave
as you described.

The data loss event you mentioned has no relevance here. Yes, you fucked-up.
And you own that. Lesson learned. The $10K was not conditional to you being a
perfect employee, it only required you to bring someone in that would stay for
at least six months. That, you did.

------
Anonomoose
If Somrat had not said:

    
    
      "After you lost our data and caused our entire 
      company to scramble for 3 days, I am hesitant",
    

everything might've been fine for Miso. It's too bad he never learned to keep
his mouth shut.

~~~
adgar
That was what kept me reading the entire article.

Somrat started the conversation by making it personal.

------
rdl
Somrat is actually a friend of mine (former coworker...), and I emailed him to
point out the HN explosion over this, and ask if they'd consider paying the
$10k.

Apparently he'd already done so, and commented on the blog:

[http://jzhwu.blogspot.com/2012/05/im-former-miso-engineer-
an...](http://jzhwu.blogspot.com/2012/05/im-former-miso-engineer-and-
founders.html?showComment=1336703821164#c2706415837740343447)

Somrat NiyogiMay 10, 2012 9:37 PM I'm CEO of Miso. Let me start by saying,
this was our mistake and we apologize. We reached out to Joshua Wu and we are
paying his referral bonus.

Let me dig into this further. We have a policy in place where if a Miso
employee refers a full-time hire to Miso, after the referred employee has
worked at Miso for 6 full months, the referring Miso employee will receive a
bonus. Pretty standard stuff. What we didn’t make clear is what the timing is
and other requirements for receiving the referral bonus. We did not have a
clear and complete policy and it was our responsibility to communicate fully
with our employees. This is clearly our fault.

Our referral program is still in place and we will continue to encourage our
team to refer the best candidates to Miso. Moving forward, we have established
the following clear criteria to explain how employees will be eligible for the
$10K referral bonus: \- The employee must provide a referral for a full-time
hire. \- The referred employee must work at Miso for 6 full months after hire
date (excluding any leaves of absence) \- The referring employee must be
employed at Miso and not have given notice to depart the company prior to the
date of the bonus payment.

If the above has been met, the referring employee will be eligible to receive
the referral bonus in the first full pay period following the 6-month
anniversary of the referred employee.

We are human and we make mistakes. We’ve learned something from this.

------
cgag
I'm happy to see you name names. I've seen too many posts where people mention
being wronged but then let the guilty parties of the hook. I can't imagine any
company wouldn't hire you because of this is a company you'd want to work for
.

You made a mistake with the db, but I don't see how that entitles them to
essentially fine you 10k.

------
timo614
Contact the CA department of labor and ask them how strong your case is. CA's
department of labor will handle the process of arbitrating any unpaid wages
and can likely tell you about labor law much better than most people here.

<http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/HowToFileWageCLaim.htm> "Unpaid wages, including
commissions and bonuses." "A claim based on an oral agreement must be filed
within two years from the date the claim arose."

Personally I think they lost their case as soon as their executive mentioned
that the reason they would withhold payment was because of mistakes made on
the job. By doing such they appear to acknowledge the debt and state their
reasoning for not complying with payment is related to such reasons.
Regardless of any future emails that kind of breaks CA labor code as far as I
know. I'm not a lawyer though so what do I know.

------
dudeguy999
I appreciate you doing this and I hope my employees would do the same if I
were to act unethically in any future startup. There's a million sociopathic
megalomaniacal assholes in Silicon Valley and that won't change unless people
fight back.

------
ChristianMarks
Expert witness in forensic computing evidence here.

Remember when the too-big-to-fail banks were bailed out to the tune of $700B
USD and bank executives insisted they had to be paid their bonuses because
their employers were contractually obligated to do so? A lot depends on who
the payee is.

In this case, I imagine I would argue (in an affidavit) against the CTO who
admitted that there was no backup in place. Also, there was an email
suggesting that the verbal contract (now confirmed in writing thanks to the
exchange of email!) would be honored except for a database mishap. That's an
admission of liability. The emails do not state that the (potential) plaintiff
was responsible for backups. They don't say, "you were responsible for backups
and you did not implement any." They simply admit there weren't any, which I
would count as a failure of management to implement backups.

A good labor lawyer could do a lot with this.

------
teyc
10k for a start up looking for a revenue model is a lot of money. It is
effectively another month's runway.

If an offer has been made, and the person is still with the company, then it
is not only a contract, but a business necessity.

Obviously, from an ethical perspective 10k promised is 10k owed, and
regardless of how unhappy the CEO is with gaining one employee only to lose
another one, we all recognize the value of keeping our word. The CEO should
chalk it up to be more careful about these type of terms in the future.

~~~
aaronblohowiak
>. It is effectively another month's runway.

With half an engineer, maybe

------
veyron
"I was entitled to a $10k referral bonus offered by the CEO through internal
emails."

Can you produce this email? (IANAL)If so you may actually have legal grounds
for taking action against Miso ...

~~~
justjimmy
IANAL - I am not a lawyer.

Just incase there are others like me wondering what the heck that acronym
stood for…

~~~
debacle
On the Internet, IANAL is I am not a lawyer.

On a bumper sticker, it means something completely different...

------
rhizome
Something similar has happened to me twice (different scenarios), and the only
commiseration I can offer is that they are life's learning experiences. Now
you know a little more to get everything mentioned down on paper before you
sign. I find it hard to believe that the referral bonus wasn't mentioned in an
email or other notification-level policy statement, but aside from that you're
probably just going to have to eat it.

They certainly did weasel out of it, though. Obviously they were looking for
ways not to pay it rather than to avoid bad blood. That's fine, karma, they
stepped on you on the way up the ladder, etc. Not a lot you can do about it,
probably (but I'll be watching the thread ;).

~~~
veyron
FTA: "I was entitled to a $10k referral bonus offered by the CEO through
internal emails." It was mentioned in an email.

~~~
rhizome
Yeah, just saw that :/

One of my life lessons was that I didn't save email from one of the scenarios,
email in which the CEO had asked me how old I was.

~~~
veyron
For posterity's sake I'd like to see you give a more detailed writeup.

------
netrus
I am shocked, not because things like this happen, but because a broad group
of posters at HN seems to justify Miso's behavior, which was legally as wrong
as morally (and strategically wrong as well).

I had never expected to see such reaction from so many HN characters. That's a
long list of people I wish never to do business with.

~~~
drats
I like how they are saying he shouldn't have said it in public but have their
contact information or real names in their profile while stating they agree
with breaking contracts and screwing employees.

------
stephencanon
The correct response here isn't to air your grievances in public, it's to talk
to a lawyer.

~~~
kreek
I agree, yes public shaming is free but he also just told the world he blew up
a production database. That said I'll paraphrase Tom Watson when an employee
of his made a $100,000 mistake "Are you kidding? We just spent $100,000 on
your training".

~~~
mhurron
And again, what does that (blowing up the database) have to do with a referral
bonus?

------
delinka
What's with all the jerks trying to say the only enforceable contract is a
written and signed contract? U.S. Courts uphold _verbal_ contracts all the
time. "He said, she said" is quite a bit more iffy without witnesses, but
commitments and agreements are still legally valid commitments and agreements.
Email conversations are just about as good as a printed and signed contract.

And the employee has to _remind_ the employer to pay up? Let's see how far
that goes when employees have to remind the employer every payday that the
paychecks are due. Why don't you just institute some asinine rebate-style
process for obtaining your referral fee? 1) Clip the UPC code from the new
hire and have it notarized on its date of hire; notarizing on any other date
will void your claim to the fee 2) Hold the notarized code until the new hire
has been employed with the company for at least six months 3) Mail the
notarized original code to an address seven hundred miles away using a
handwritten envelope and first class postage only; computer printed envelopes
and postage in excess of first class postage will void your claim to the fee
4) Pray that the new hire is still with the company at the moment the claim
department decides to process your claim. Claims may take six to eight months
for processing.

------
imroot
I'm in a bit of a similar situation. My last company didn't have any form of
corporate credit, so I purchased everything on my own card and submitted the
expenses to be reimbursed.

Fast forward to November. I purchased over 8k worth of computers, phones, and
software for new hires. I get my reimbursement check in Janurary. Most of
their amazon stuff running was on my amazon account, and I ended up paying for
their Microsoft assurance license costs out of my own pocket with the promise
that I would be reimbursed.

I left in early April.

Guess who's still using his twilio API key for their SMS notifications? Guess
who hasn't migrated their stuff off of his amazon key? Guess who hasn't paid
him for his last expenses, and who held my last paycheck for an extra two
weeks?

It's someone that is getting ready to get a first round of fifteen million
valuation -- and I'm hopeful that when they fund, I start to see some of the
money, but I'm not holding my breath...

Hell, I've sent them emails asking to have them remove their services from my
accounts; even providing detailed instructions on how to do so. I am afraid of
turning them off because I do not want to be accused of disrupting their
services -- which would be a death blow to my career -- and emails sent to the
CTO and VP of engineering go into the ether.

Bonus: the two attorneys I talked to wouldn't touch this with a ten foot pole.

------
silentscope
this same shit happened with me when I worked retail, but I didn't quit until
they told me I would never get the money. I never quit and then went back to
get it. If memory serves, the phrase is "take the money and run" not "run and
then try to go back for the money." seriously dude, you forgot about 10k? who
does that?

now that I'm reading more though, if they didn't stipulate "you have to be a
current employee to redeem your bonus" from the get go, they probably should
have and it was asking for trouble not to do so. if they're casually going to
toss around 10k in informal emails it clearly didn't mean that much to them
anyway. unless there's more to the story, ie an employee contract with a bonus
clause in it. which there probably is because we've only read on side of this
story.

miso has way more to lose here than one engineer, if I was miso, I would've
met immediately with legal counsel and him and hammered out a solution, not
fired emailed back n forth.

dumb moves all around.

------
ams6110
File under: Live and learn.

$10K is an amount that sounds like a lot to many folks but it's nothing you
can ever recover. If you engage a lawyer it'll all go to his fees even if you
"win." Move on.

~~~
ryanpetrich
One could file in small claims court, if $10k is within the limit.

~~~
skurry
The limit is $7.5k in California, but you can voluntarily reduce your claim to
meet this threshold.

~~~
weixiyen
Yup. 10k is not within the limit. This is also a very easy win in small
claims, it should be settled in a few months max.

------
yoav
This is like deciding to leave a company and emailing them a month later to
make sure their product roadmap is still the same.

The bonus was an incentive, which you clearly didn't care about because: a)
you forgot about it, and b) you referred your friend who you would have
referred anyway

Making it "public" now is just vindictive. If you forgetting about your own
bonus for months, and then another month after leaving the company still
leaves you eligible for said non-contractual bonus, then what _is_ the statute
of limitations? Would you email them 10 years later and ask for the bonus?

If Steve Jobs promised you a company trip to Hawaii if you got the Macintosh
shipped on time, and EVERYONE forgot and didn't care, or Steve took everyone
out for sushi instead, would you email Apple inc. tomorrow and insist they
send you to Hawaii??

~~~
lolcraft
> If Steve Jobs promised you a company trip to Hawaii if you got the Macintosh
> shipped on time, and EVERYONE forgot and didn't care, or Steve took everyone
> out for sushi instead, would you email Apple inc. tomorrow and insist they
> send you to Hawaii??

Yes, I would. Why wouldn't I? I just don't get it. Shyness, peer pressure?
Please explain. And, why that appeal to the majority? Screw the majority.

> The bonus was an incentive, which you clearly didn't care about because: a)
> you forgot about it

Yeah, well, would you not ask for one month's unpaid wages? Would you just say
"oh, I guess I forgot to check the numbers this time, sucks to be me"? What if
that happened to one of your friends or close family? If something I say can
be interpreted as though I don't care about my wage, should I work for free?
Asking doesn't count as caring?

> b) you referred your friend who you would have referred anyway

Everyone gets paid according to _the contract_ , regardless of what they
would've done otherwise. Or, fuck it, let's just not pay ethical surgeons
shit. They would've operated on those dying people anyways, the suckers.

------
andr3w321
Sorry but you need to take responsibility for forgetting to ask for the bonus
at the end of six months while you were still employed by Miso. If you had
remembered in all likelihood you would have been paid in full and all would
have been well.

As it is, you left the company on bad terms and decide to publicly shame them.
You will have trouble getting future employment as a result. Your future
earnings has just potentially decreased by substantially more than $10k. How
would you feel if after someone fired you they blogged about all the mistakes
you made on the job publicly referring to you by name? You just don't do this.
It's bad for business.

~~~
creamyhorror
> How would you feel if after someone fired you they blogged about all the
> mistakes you made on the job publicly referring to you by name?

Totally not the same thing. If you make mistakes on the job you have not
broken any contract. In this case, Miso (almost) broke a contract. That's why
the public naming is justified. Releasing details of an employee's performance
is not (unless there's an expectation that the company will do so).

Also, this guy has won a fair amount of approbation from many posters here and
a few hirers. There will be certain employers who would be more willing to
hire him because of his principled stance, even if there are more who are
hesitant because they believe unethical practice should not be outed publicly.
It's a fair risk to take if he thinks it'll filter out dodgy employers in
future and is worth the benefit to the community.

We should be applauding this guy, not criticizing his choice.

------
droithomme
Thanks for letting us know about this Jzhwu, you are doing a service to the
community.

------
jes5199
This probably doesn't apply in this case, but if any of you ever have an
employer fail to pay your _paycheck_ , you probably can get it resolved
without a lawyer. This happened to me once, and I filed a complaint with the
Bureau of Labor in my state (Oregon, at the time), and they leaned on the
company and got me my last paycheck in less than a month, no cost to me.

(On some level, though, I wish I felt like naming names, because that company
is still in business, despite that one quarter where they suddenly stopped
paying everyone. But don't worry - they're almost certainly nobody you've ever
heard of or done business with)

------
drawkbox
While a situation like this totally sucks the bridge was destroyed like The
Bridge on the River Kwai on both sides. Maybe even nuked.

Never heard of Miso (other than the awesome soup) but this is heavily damaging
to the brand (for developers). They really should have paid if the new
employee was working out, not anything based on the employees performance.
Isn't a referral based on getting a good additional asset? Without that
referral would you be less a good developer, then pay the bonus.

For the OP, probably should have just moved on as destroying bridges is not a
good idea, the world is smaller than we think.

------
jasontan
While this is unfortunate and it sounds like you deserve better (I'd like to
hear the other side of the story first), I would discourage against taking
this public. This is an issue between you and the founders, and no one else.
"Warning" your former Miso coworkers should happen privately -- this post
brings them the wrong kind of attention, but they did nothing to deserve it.

Future employers who read this post will think twice about hiring you --
frankly, this is rather unprofessional. Yes, the Miso founders might be in the
wrong, but you can still take the high road.

~~~
DanBlake
I dont agree. 99% of this time this type of stuff stays private because the
employee is fearful of repercussions and as a result, new employees never get
warned about the mess they are walking into. Thats why I upvoted this- It
takes balls to air this publicly and thats the only thing you can do to stop
shit behavior like this from happening and scare other companys into treating
people right.

So long as companys think they can get away with treating you like shit, most
of them will. Stuff like this stops that.

~~~
rgrieselhuber
I think it's worthwhile taking stuff like this public but threatening
beforehand is a big no-no.

~~~
inuhj
I've had customers "threaten" me with the same. Some people get really
unlucky(had a customer receive two defective products in a row and the third
time we were OOS). I've never begrudged a customer for sharing their
experience with others as long as its a factual account. In fact with that
customer I confirmed his account of events and apologized publicly.

------
arbales
Really disappointed by this post. As a long time friend of Miso and the
awesome people there – the people responsible for several awesome open source
projects (Padrino, RABL, to name a few) – it makes me really bummed someone
would choose to bring an issue up in this way.

I've never heard of a former employee receiving a bonus – referral or
otherwise. The idea of a referral bonus is rewarding someone for /growing/ the
team, and if you leave before that term is up, or if you leave before you file
for the bonus, it's ridiculous to ask for it later – especially when you've
already deflated your good will with a company. Moreover, I've not heard of
people receiving a referral bonus after forgetting to claim it. I've forgotten
to claim one! But I'd never think its anyone else's fault but mine, and my
company is backed by an enterprise with a lot of resources.

Hey, I dunno, maybe I'm too busy putting my heart in the work to focus on
stuff like this. People like the `jzhwu` whine, foster negative energy, and
distract our community from focusing on good work.

Or maybe I'm just secure – financially and mentally. I don't need to squeeze
money from former employers or vent my discontent because I'm focused on what
I'm doing now, and what I'll do next, and how I'm growing as a designer and a
person. I hope this guy discovers a more mature mindset before he does more
damage to his career.

Finally, I'm also disappointed by the many people who can't see this for what
it is – I assume they're the same crowd that's taking to badmouthing
"brogrammers."

~~~
accin
>> The idea of a referral bonus is rewarding someone for /growing/ the team,
and if you leave before that term is up, or if you leave before you file for
the bonus, it's ridiculous to ask for it later – especially when you've
already deflated your good will with a company

What is the "term" that you're referring to in "leaving before the term?" From
the blog post, it seems like the author "grew" the team by successfully
referring an employee who stayed for minimum of 6 months, which gives him the
entitlement of the 10k bonus as per email discussions.

~~~
arbales
"or if you leave before you file for the bonus"

my point is asking for a bonus for growing the team /after/ you've left,
thereby shrinking the team, is kinda silly.

~~~
creamyhorror
You are conflating different issues. The only relevant issue here is that he
fulfilled his end of an agreement: to refer an employee who completes 6 months
at the company. That is done, and he is _owed_ the referral fee/bonus. Whether
he left the company after he did the referral is immaterial. By default the
debt the company owes him doesn't simply disappear.

------
chrisacky
Miso shares the same root as Miser.

How accurately suited their name relates after this.

Nuking the database isn't related at all to his entitlement to the referral
bonus. Publicly naming is risky for future prospects as well. Hopefully, your
integrity shines above the perceived lack of loyalty that future employers
will see. I think you made the right call naming, but without legal
intervention, you won't see a penny of that $10k.

------
ryguytilidie
I think the bigger issue here has to be how much one has to get screwed before
they actually come out and tell their tale. I had a former boss and coworker
who were sleeping together and to this day the backlash i got for reporting it
internally absolutely blows my mind, I can't imagine if I had told people
externally as well. While I was right and both people admitted it, it involved
months of stress and lies before everyone realized i was right and they should
stop being dicks to me. Of course, the two in question have never had to face
an ounce of blame while the person who correctly pointed out they were
breaking rules got punished badly.

Just remember that the revisionist history will always go on unless you're on
the best of terms with the founders always. The fact that my old boss had been
there longer than me simply made his he said more powerful than my he said. It
is incredibly discouraging how sketchy this industry is becoming, and I hope
more people speak out in situations like these before it is too late.

------
paulsutter
The author seems to feel powerless against an employer, and may not realize
the choices he has. Disputes happen. What matters is to get a resolution, and
there are a few ways to go about it. Lets compare:

1\. Public shaming

2\. Work with a lawyer

3\. Litigation

I'm taking this purely from the author's perspective, how can he get a
successful outcome?

Public shaming has some downsides for the author:

\- Threatening to publicize may give you some leverage. But you lose all your
leverage once you take action. Losing leverage isn't good in negotiation.

\- The founders of Miso are now likely furious with him, and emotionally
determined to prove themselves right and him wrong. He's just increased their
conviction to the point where they may fight it with irrational determination.

\- It's easy to get a detail wrong, especially on an emotional topic. If the
author made some mischaracterizations (even accidentally) in his post, he
could be opening himself up to litigation. Especially when you think about the
bullet directly above.

My recommendation to anyone is to talk with a lawyer first. I noticed some of
the responses here suggest that going to a lawyer is somehow underhanded. It
is not. I'm not talking about a scum-sucking bottom-feeding accident lawyer.
I'm talking about a business lawyer. Usually you can get a free consultation.
If not, paying for an hour or two of his time is well worth it. Consider it a
form of tuition to the school of hard knocks.

Often, a lawyer could give you some pointers to either help accelerate a
successful negotiation of your own, or point out any weaknesses in your case
that you may have overlooked. If the matter is complex, you could have the
lawyer negotiate on your behalf. This could take the form of writing a single
letter to the employer.

 _Once that letter is on file, the employer will need to disclose it as an
outstanding dispute in their future disclosures for any financing round or
sale of the company, unless they settle it_. This is why the employer may
actually have less power than the employee in negotiating a dispute. And why
you should take the honorable route, with a lawyer to help you understand the
law and take the right actions.

The best way to avoid litigation is to work with an attorney. Litigation is
very unnecessary, expensive, time consuming, and a distraction. I've always
been able to resolve any disagreements without the need for litigation.

Think of an attorney as a guide through dangerous territory. He's been through
dozens or hundreds of similar situations. He's seen how to get resolution, and
he's seen things that have worked out badly. And he knows how the law views
the matter. The law is complicated.

Finally, I cant possibly have an opinion about whether the employer or
employee are right or wrong in this case because I haven't heard the other
side. And I suggest that the rest of you take a similar neutral position.

~~~
rhizome
_emotionally determined to prove themselves right and him wrong. He's just
increased their conviction to the point where they may fight it with
irrational determination._

If Miso is anything but self-funded, it would reflect _extremely poorly_ on
Miso for their executives to act in the way you describe here. It's simply bad
business to dig in your butthurt heels.

~~~
paulsutter
True, but I've seen it happen. More big business decisions are made on an
emotional basis then you might expect.

I'm just trying to consider the matter from the pure perspective of how to get
the best outcome.

~~~
rhizome
It's pretty eye-opening to read this thread and see how much executives are
excused from bad behavior, yet when a little guy acts against the conventional
wisdom, as we see here, his future career is said to be hugely at risk.

Between a butthurt employee and a butthurt employer, why is it that the
butthurt employer enjoys the benefits of a double standard?

------
dkrich
There's a reason he's a CTO and not an attorney. As is probably been mentioned
a million times, it sounds like you absolutely had a contract. It need not be
written. If you have emails or some documentation implying a contract between
you and Miso, that's every bit as good (in some cases better because it is
specific to your case).

If it were me I'd get an attorney to take it up on my behalf. If you have a
friend who is an attorney who can do it, even better. File a small claims
suit. Make them show up or hire an attorney. Settle out of court for five or
six grand or go to court and take your chances. Sounds to me like you have a
very good case complete with emails to show consideration. Split the money
with your friend (or pay the attorney). Move on satisfied that you made them
pay up.

------
rremoncake
UPDATE:

First of all. Thank you. I made this post with hopes that someone out there
can learn something from this. Needless to say I got a lot more than what I
was expecting. I'm humbled by the attention and support I've gotten from
everyone. Strangers and friends alike. The 10k I'll be getting will be going
to charity to celebrate the integrity, compassion and passion demonstrated by
the community at large.

I want to especially thank the Hacker News community for helping this get the
attention I believe it deserved. The discussions it generated in the comments
section was fruitful for everyone. Again, thank you all. None of this would've
been possible without your help.

------
btian
Miso should certainly have paid him the bonus because at the point when the
bonus was due, he was an employee. It doesn't matter that he did not claim the
bonus (it's the company's obligation to pay him, and since it was not paid, it
should now be paid with interest) or there was no written contract (email
and/or verbal communications are contractually valid).

Having said that, I don't think it is correct to name and shame the company
this way because it damages the reputation of the firm, and thus making it
more difficult to claim the bonus. I'd have hired a lawyer and settle with the
company (i.e., claim the bonus and legal expenses) if I were him.

------
jusben1369
Here's what surprises me: Miso - Hey, is $10K really worth having a
disgruntled ex employee out on the streets bad mouthing us in the community
(even if you assume he/she doesn't go public with a post you know the story
makes it around to 50 people in his circle) Ex-Employee: Hey is flaming Miso
for this really worth $10K to me when it could cost me a future opportunity to
work someplace where the salary is 6 or 7 figures over a few years + equity
upside?

Between the two of these sense usually prevails. However, this one appears to
have made it past both barriers and out into the public.

------
salimmadjd
Miso HR department should have automaically paid the $10k as soon as the
criteria was met.

When you work your heart out for a company, you expect the company to look out
for you. Loyalty is a two way street, at least this is how I used to manage my
people and I would go above and beyound to protect them.

All said, the OP harmed himself as much as he harmed Miso. Although I side
with OP on principle, his rash reaction would make me hesitate to ever hire
him. It would have been better to have exhausted all other options, before
trying to burn your old company.

------
readymade
I love it when insane discussions like this come up on HN because it gives you
a great pool of people and companies to remind yourself never to work for, or
with.

------
bitops
Regardless of whether or not this person is in the right, and it seems like
there's some controversy, the Miso founders emails could be seen as typical
for someone who wants to keep their money. It may be that the OP is entitled
to the money legally, but the reasons many people get away with stiffing
others is that once you say "I'll sue" it takes a lot to really follow up on
that. Sadly, I speak from personal experience.

------
quellhorst
"Fuck you. Pay Me." comes to my mind after reading this.
<http://vimeo.com/22053820> [Video]

------
brendoncrawford
This public shaming was immature and unprofessional. The matter should have
been resolved within the legal system.

I would not hire somebody who behaves this way.

------
ChristianMarks
I've been in situations like this and have involved lawyers to no avail. The
reason why I did not complain about former deadbeat clients to the next one is
that a manager that hears that I was taken advantage will say to himself, "If
some other savvy businessman was able to get away with screwing this guy and I
don't, I look like an idiot."

------
dotBen
Awareness of the incident aside, the comments on this thread just remind me of
this well worn mantra:

Asking developers and entrepreneurs _(as awesome as they might be)_ legal
questions is about as useful as asking my lawyer engineering questions.

Name and shame, awesome, now get a lawyer.

------
lawrence
You may want to consider putting the $10K towards a good cause (if Miso
eventually steps up), to show it was never about the money.

Thanks for sharing. Sounds like Miso may have made a business decision, and
you are reminding them of the cost side of that equation.

~~~
rremoncake
Any money that comes to me a result of this post goes straight to charity. You
guys have my word.

~~~
tomjen3
That is your money, you earned them.

And there is nothing bad or evil about going to work for the money and expect
others to hold up their end of the bargin.

It is what allows us to have the society we have today.

------
eavc
Do those that do the hiring communicate with each other about especially bad
behavior by employees?

Then it is equitable that those who seek employment communicate with each
other about especially bad behavior by employers.

I applaud your courage in posting this.

------
dools
This is a legal dispute and your bringing it public reflects terribly upon
you.

<http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_by_media>

------
xtiy
As someone already said, file with the local labor board for unpaid wage, then
take them to small claims court.

Very easy, I've done the small claims court before, piece of cake.

------
accin
This blog post brings up an interesting point. Is it normal for employees to
have to 'claim' (certain types of) bonuses?

------
suyash
Anyways you have to pay around 35% tax on 10K, so think around 7.5k in hand
and on top if there are any legal fees etc.

------
vacri
_Frankly, at this point it's beyond the money._

Any time you see this, you can be pretty much guaranteed that it's entirely
about the money and nothing more. If you want to prove to yourself that it's
about principle of exposing poor business ethics, then give some or all of the
money to a total stranger (or a charity) when you get it. Not going to happen?
Then you're not really in it for the principle.

------
unconed
In this thread: a bunch of sociopathic hackernews commenters fall for the Just
World fallacy.

------
SeanDav
There is apparently a post now on his blog from the Miso CEO that they will
pay.

------
ssx
Ironic part is that Miso I'm sure is loving the traffic this is generating.

------
tomrod
I see this as costing the blogger more than the $10K, in the long run.

------
mrbill
Taking it public like this comes across as really petty and childish.

~~~
buf
Seems to me like he's bringing this unethical decision to attention so that
employers and employees know that it's not okay. I disagree with you. It's not
petty, and certainly not childish.

~~~
slantyyz
> It's not petty, and certainly not childish.

Maybe not, but it's definitely the action of someone lacking experience.
Anyone who has been around the block knows that companies can be very petty.
Just because a work environment is 'friendly' and 'family-like' doesn't mean
you can count on that kind of behaviour when you exit. Companies turn petty
very quickly. Very quickly.

An experienced person would have made sure all the money he/she had coming was
collected before even handing in the resignation letter. Once you've signalled
that you are leaving, things can go south very fast.

I just look at this whole situation and what the OP did and think "what a
rookie".

------
Iwaan
I was an intern at a Startup in Silicon Valley and experienced something very
similar. I got screwed over an even higher amount. The CEO argued, that the
reward does not apply to interns. I took him to court and won. Emails are
legally binding just as any other expression of intent.

------
lucian303
Always collect your money before burning bridges if possible, especially in
this industry.

------
adamsilver
What they did to you is the right thing. I can't imagine rewarding a stupid
employee who wiped my data and left my company.

~~~
jefe78
If your company is too stupid to have backups in place that's your own damn
fault. The fact that he blew the data away is irrelevant. It can happen to
anyone.

And you think screwing someone out of money they're contractually owed is ok?
I'm sure you'll do well..

------
davidu
"Because you are no longer employed by Miso, you are not eligible for this
bonus."

I must say, I completely agree. This is how it works. Your referral bonus is a
perk, and nothing more. You didn't claim it. They weren't on top of it. You
both failed here. But then you quit. And you left without it. That sucks for
you, but they owe you nothing.

~~~
pbiggar
> "Your referral bonus is a perk"

It seems your argument centers on this point, which is conjecture on your
part, at best. Can you explain how you came to this conclusion?

~~~
davidu
At my company, it's a perk. And I love paying it out. And my loyalty is to my
employees. I would bleed for them. But it's not to my former employees. As I
approach 100 employees, many who have been with me for 4+ years, I find my
stance to be entirely in their favor.

~~~
nknight
Your loyalty to your employees should include respect for contracts and the
law. This man satisfied the conditions for payment of the bonus before he left
the company, he is entitled to the money. That you would not give it to him
makes you little better than a thief.

Fortunately, we all now know that OpenDNS and anything else David Ulevitch is
involved with in the future is a company to avoid.

~~~
davidu
Do you always come to these conclusions so quickly? I'm sharing my opinion,
based on my experiences. I also explained that at my company perks are for
employees, a status that the OP no longer maintains at Miso. Neither of us
know the specifics of their deal.

I think you've jumped a few steps ahead of where you ought to be at this
juncture. Perhaps you simply disagree with my point of view. I think HN is
often one-sided, so I sometimes delude myself into thinking I should
contribute. But now you have resorted to calling me a thief and encouraging
others (along with Google indexes) to never do business with me. I think
you've stepped a bit over the line.

~~~
nknight
You have announced to the world, entirely of your own accord, that you will
flout the law and steal money from your employees. This is your doing, not
mine. Is it also your habit to blame others for your own shortcomings?

~~~
pbiggar
I agree with davidu that you crossed the line. I certainly had a bad opinion
about davidu and his company before your comment, but I didn't know who davidu
was, or what his company was. So now I have a bad opinion about real life
stuff, based off one comment with little context (perhaps it was hastily
written, etc).

Taking one comment and trying to tie it to google juice about real life is a
dickish move, IMO.

------
thaumaturgy
It looks like I'm the only one here that's stunned by the chutzpah of asking
for a referral bonus after accidentally nuking the production DB, and costing
the company a lot of time and effort to recover it, while on your way out the
door for a better opportunity.

Regardless of whether or not Miso is right to evade their promise of a bonus,
I'm not so quick to heap sympathy upon rremoncake.

This certainly isn't the kind of dirty laundry that belongs on HN.

~~~
zasz
Aren't these separate incidents? Miso is benefiting from this employee
referral, after all.

~~~
MartinCron
Exactly, coupling those incidents is, if not intellectually dishonest, at
least intellectually sloppy.

~~~
thaumaturgy
It has nothing to do with the relatedness of those incidents. Again, since
apparently people missed it:

Regardless of whether or not Miso is right to evade their promise of a bonus,
I'm not so quick to heap sympathy upon rremoncake.

You hire a plumber to do a major job. You're in a hurry. You tell the plumber,
I'll pay you a bonus if you finish this by (date). The plumber accidentally
floods a downstairs room in the process of doing the job, but he finishes the
work by the date you asked for. The flooding costs you an amount equal to or
greater than his bonus. Weeks after the job is over, he asks for the bonus.

How excited are you to give it to him?

Clearly Miso owes him the money. Clearly it would be right for them to just
pay him and move on. But if I were rremoncake, I would have been so
embarrassed by my screw-up that I wouldn't have ever even asked for it in the
first place.

~~~
MartinCron
_How excited are you to give it to him?_

The scenario implies that the impact of the production db nuke was equal or
greater than the bonus. Depending on the context, the impact could range from
trivial to catastrophic.

The fact that it wasn't backed up only makes it worse. Sometimes I joke that
correctly working yet poorly-written code is "conceptually broken". Similarly,
any important data that isn't backed up is already "conceptually lost".

~~~
thaumaturgy
Sure, but it doesn't take a development team two to three days to recover
"conceptually lost" data (as according to the post).

If you're about to touch the production database in a way that could
potentially end catastrophically, and there aren't backups, you really should
stop and consider the meaning of life before proceeding. Preferably, you
decide that backups are the meaning of life, and even if it's an imperfect
backup, you decide to manually export the table(s) you're working on. Or
_something_.

He didn't do that. It's a rookie mistake. It cost the company two to three
days of development team time to recover from it.

For a community that seems to pride itself on being the best of the bunch at
this stuff, I am super surprised that the response here wasn't, "You touched
prod without a backup first?! Are you daft?", but was instead, "Miso is a bad
company, you need to lawyer up and get what they owe you."

Or, to put it another way: if there were any justice at all, this story would
follow rremoncake around for just as long as it follows Miso around.

~~~
nknight
> _It's a rookie mistake._

It's a mistake I've seen people with 20 years of experience make. If you
haven't done it already, you will eventually. When that day comes, I hope, but
don't expect, you'll remember to apologize to this guy.

> _For a community that seems to pride itself on being the best of the bunch
> at this stuff_

How you get from "Hacker News" to "infallible operations engineers" is beyond
me. Operations is a rare skill to begin with, and even those who _are_ best at
it will make these mistakes.

~~~
thaumaturgy
Of course it's a mistake I've made.

The difference between me and this guy is that I wouldn't've turned around and
asked the company for a bunch of money afterward.

And what, exactly, do you think I owe him an apology for?

~~~
nknight
Insulting him and telling him he shouldn't ask for money he is clearly owed
because of a mistake we've all made. Actually, that second part is an insult,
too. So, really, just being incredibly insulting.

That you wouldn't ask for the money is irrelevant. We're not required by any
law, moral, or ethic to go through life as a doormat. At this point, money has
been stolen from him, just as if they'd taken it from his bank account. He is
owed that money, and entitled to ask for it without you attacking him for it.

~~~
thaumaturgy
Well, now I think you owe me an apology for telling me that I'm being
insulting. Not that I expect to get one.

Whatever. This thread has been an idiotic waste of time. I do think I'll be
saving it for future reference though.

