
A culture of beer and overtime - jayhuang
http://www.jayhuang.org/blog/a-culture-of-beer-and-overtime/
======
patio11
n.b.

 _It was time to leave, and the HR lady came to me and said I would have to
sign a release letter and send it back within 2 work days (the following
Monday was a holiday), otherwise I would not get any of the remaining pay_

I'm not familiar with the law in Canada, but I rather suspect that it's
similar to America, so a bit of advice for the young and impressionable:
virtually no threat to not pay an employee wages is worth taking seriously.
Don't sign anything. Say you'll run it by your lawyer. You don't even need to
have a lawyer when you say that, but the prospect of your lawyer going to the
employment commission and saying "My client was denied wages. Do you need me
to say anything else or can we just proceed directly to 'He gets them'?" will
generally make them back off.

I mean, as one point among many, your lawyer is going to say "You think he was
a consultant? We have written representations from you that he was a FTE, and
you treated him as a FTE, for example in attempting to control his working
hours. It is materially against his interests to be a consultant, because this
implies that you haven't been paying employment taxes on him. That's
unfortunate, but it's not _our_ problem, and rather than stick him with the
bill for $X,000 in back taxes we're just going to tell the tax authorities
that he's been maliciously reclassified and that you're delinquent in your
obligations. Given that this will likely trigger an audit and potentially
hundreds of thousands of dollars of fines for you, how about we just agree to
give my client what he has coming to him, and you report an inadvertent
paperwork screwup to the tax authority when you pay your fair share?"

~~~
jholman
Oh, the employment law is a lot employee-friendlier in Canada than in the US.
In particular, BC employment law (relevant to this post) is a lot friendlier
than California employment law. And when you go to take them to court, the
government will, under some circumstances, provide free legal services to the
employee (you can look up the BC gov's Employment Standards Branch).

That said, IIRC, even BC is pretty employer-friendly for the first 3 months,
in terms of notice and so on. And it appears the author thought he was
entitled to stock options after 9 weeks, which is.... not typical, in my
limited experience. And they company sounds like they were dicks about it, but
basically, terminating the relationship and paying out your salary (but not
bonuses or unvested equity) is usually legit.

If he had made it through 3 months, he'd have a right to some severance pay,
and if they tried to terminate-with-cause he'd be able to sue for wrongful
dismissal. Because of this, even in borderline cases, most (many?) companies
go for termination-without-cause.

All the bits about reclassifying a full-timer as a contractor, though? Hells
yes, that's a world of hurt for the company if they try that. Not only work
direction and taxes (both huge issues), but also consider the pay consequences
of trying to get 70-hour weeks out of a contractor. But I doubt that they were
actually trying that; it seems so unnecessary.

The spin of the article is weird, though. He's having trouble justifying his 9
weeks? "I tried an experiment because there were some very attractive aspects
about the opportunity, but it turned out that management had no experience and
very unrealistic expectations, and it didn't work out." What could be simpler?

SHORT VERSION: as patio11 said: don't hurry to sign anything, and spend at
least an hour reading about your legal rights, and as patio11 suggested, drop
hints that you're interested in your legal rights

~~~
reginaldjcooper
It always blows my mind when countries get things right, and by that I mean
providing adequate health, housing, and legal services to all residents.

Paying legal fees for employed persons sounds like a great way to provide them
access to fair(er) representation. Otherwise if they have to pay out of pocket
they can't afford it, and if it's loser pays the risk requires a large reward
before it's rational to pursue.

Well done, again, Canada.

~~~
3pt14159
When you have a smaller population the ratio of constituents to elected member
goes down, making lobbying more expensive. We have just as many MPs as the US
has senators and a tenth of the population.

~~~
tingletech
"We have just as many MPs as the US has senators and a tenth of the
population."

wikipedia says Canada has 308 MPs and 108 senators; and the US has 2 senators
per state and 50 states so 100 senators. US House has 435 reps.

Still a good point re: population per representative

~~~
jholman
Canadian senators are political cronies with expense accounts. It is unclear
what, if anything, they contribute to democracy. Note that they have
essentially no power. Just assume that Canada has one house in the legislative
assembly, and then also a hole that we pour money into. The Canadian system
has several.... "quirks". It is therefore astounding to me that it appears to
work better in practice than the US system, which to my eye looks better-in-
theory.

------
vinceguidry
What in the world?

I don't see how anybody tolerates this crap. I wouldn't have lasted a week
there. And you better believe there'd be threats of legal action on any
withheld pay. It's obvious to me that they're just riding horses into the
ground until they get where they want to go.

I also wouldn't have put up with that "You're not 100% committed here," crap.
I probably would have laughed in his face. "Look pal, unless you have a
specific problem with the job I'm doing, stuff it. Then I'd make a show out of
leaving at 5. A company needs to deserve overtime before I'll give it to them.
Pulling shit like this is the fastest way of losing it.

It's easy to see the psychological tactic they're pulling, preying on your
desire to be part of a team to extract an unreasonable amount of effort out of
you. If they're using them on you, then they're probably using them on
everybody and working there will be misery. Time to call the other shops and
see if they filled their spots yet.

~~~
rfnslyr
I want to be your friend/coworker so badly. I hate management praying on the
modest and kind. At my old job we had a really shy intern and he took all the
shit that came his way and it was really sad to see.

~~~
vinceguidry
It's ugly out there. I think my secret is that I didn't really get into the
office world until my late twenties. By then I'd bounced around dozens of
different jobs, been in and out of the military, college, sales, construction.
I've been fired at as many jobs as I've quit.

Now I see this stuff going on and I'm wise to it. Four months ago I started
working for this company, the understanding was I'd work for three months at
$20 an hour then they'd hire me at $60K.

Three months roll around, nothing. I called my recruiter, told my boss, but
nothing happened for another two weeks. Finally I badger my boss into making
some inquiries. He tells me we're all good, follow me into the CFO's office
and we'll talk about bringing you on.

I get in there and the guy tells me that the recruiter's fee is $8K and they
don't want that going on this year's balance sheet. So they want to bring me
on Jan. 1st.

Fuck that.

I told him, no, that's not acceptable, we need to work something out. The
difference in pay is $400 a week, are you willing to give me that as a bonus?
He tells me maybe they can come up off a grand. I stare at him until he
cracks. Finally he says he might be able to get them to put the fee on next
year and they can bring me on Dec. 1. I didn't react to that.

After I get back to my desk, I'm pissed. After venting to my boss, he lets me
go home at lunchtime. I spent the weekend shoring up my resolve. Monday
morning rolls around, I call my recruiter and tell him to start looking for a
new job for me, and explain to him the heap of bullshit they're expecting me
to swallow. He doesn't want to give up just yet and asks me if I'd be willing
to make a deal. I tell him I want a salary bump to $65K. I leave work that day
feeling better than I had all weekend after finally sacking up and doing
something.

The next day I get a call from my recruiter saying they're going to bring me
on immediately, at $60K. I didn't get the raise but I don't care, it's a
victory and everyone knows it. The CFO looked like a sad puppydog who had his
toy taken away when he came around to drop the news himself. My boss and I are
chuckling a bit as he leaves.

~~~
x0x0
Vince -- I don't want to piss on your parade, but I've worked for dishonest
people and it's never worked out for me: every time I've done it I've come to
regret it. You may want to start looking... Good luck.

~~~
vinceguidry
No, these guys are great, it's just that the CFO decided I needed a few more
months to stew, it's that bean counter mentality. If they really sucked, I'd
have already been gone, it just wouldn't have been worth it to fight.

It wasn't just me bitching to my recruiter. From what I gathered, my boss got
like all the department heads to go by his office and ask him when they're
bringing me on. He didn't want to brag, and I think he wanted to let me have
my victory, but it's as much due to him as it to me.

------
duncan_bayne
In business, people will push for all they can get. That includes you, after
all, I presume you negotiated a good salary and conditions?

Two examples from my past:

The law here in Victoria changed, and I (as a contractor) became a payroll tax
liability to the company that hired me. So their CFO scheduled a meeting with
me and informed me that he expected me to lower my rate to take into account
the payroll tax.

I said, "no - the legislation clearly states that the liability is incumbent
upon the employer."

He said, "yes, that's true" and dropped the matter. I continued there amicably
for another year or so before my contract expired.

Another example: I joined a company as a permanent employee (not a contractor)
with clearly specified business hours in my employment contract, and no
mention whatsoever of on-call work.

Then a few weeks after joining, it was announced that there was a requirement
for 24 hour support from the dev team, and we'd all be expected to
participate. My response was: I'm happy to keep an eye out for problems if I'm
at my computer and not busy, but on-call was never part of the deal, and I'm
not doing it.

Nothing bad came from my refusal in either case; in fact, I suspect my
dealings with the first company was smoother afterwards, once it became
apparent that I was not a push-over.

Some caveats:

\- in neither case were the people involved assholes; rather the contrary in
fact

\- I was in my thirties when both things happened; had I been in my early
twenties I almost certainly would have caved to both requests (self-respect
and confidence both lacking back then)

\- I remained calm and polite at all times

~~~
swayvil
In nature, the animals will push for all they can get - red in tooth and claw
etc.

No thanks, we are above that shit.

------
jmspring
There are startups like this. I left one before a pivotal point that might
have resulted in me making some money for some of the very same reasons:

1) Commitment was questioned -- in my case, I disappeared for a rainy weekend
for my wife's birthday and wasn't online over the weekend.

2) Attitude was questioned -- regular beat the staff meetings in the morning
after pulling an all nighter, I tossed the pen to the next guy (a friend) and
miss threw and it hit the ceiling. "Why are you being an asshole?" It took a
bit to realize that was what was being asked.

3) After a great showing at Demo we launched with no ops/support and engineers
with the knowledge (me) were expected to be on call after 80 hour weeks. I got
grumbled at due to a support issue as I was returning from a morning at the
Legion of Honor and heading down Highway 1 (no signal, peace). Oh, the wife
wasn't happy either -- "why are they bugging you on a Saturday morning?"

That said, the overall product we built was one of the more fun and diverse I
was involved in. It was very hard to make the decision, but sometimes you know
it is just right to walk away.

There are startups that are like that. Sometimes, like the post above, the
signs are there early. Sometimes, they don't show themselves until much later.

A couple of years later when the company had an exit, of the 35+ people that
were there when I left, only four that I new (including the two founders)
actually remained.

~~~
zobzu
I wouldn't stay there more than a day. And I'd also expose the company name.

~~~
jmspring
Things happen and you learn/move on. No need to expose the company. One of the
main focal individuals (not a founder, but not reigned in) has had his own
trials, based on reputation, since. That is enough for me.

It was a learning experience for me -- specifically, not to get lost in the
interest of solving problems at the expense of personal work/life balance.

We all have our faults, professionally, you hopefully learn what those are and
not repeat them.

~~~
zobzu
If nobody's aware of it, nobody is going to "learn not to repeat" them don't
you think?

------
coffeemug
Wow. I'm a founder of a tech company, and the thought of checking someone's
LinkedIn profile or old website to verify degree of commitment would never
even occur to me. The fact that someone would not only think of it, but
actually _act on it_ is absolutely mind-boggling. I've seen new managers do
silly things, but this is seriously new.

~~~
bigiain
Serious question, or at least food for thought:

How are you instilling that attitude in your company? How big would your
company need to grow before misguided middle management might be appointed who
_does_ think this is an appropriate management technique, resulting in this
happening on your watch with you later described as a "detached executive"?

Having stuff like this "never even occur to you" leaves you in the possible
danger of not being aware if it starts happening around you. (Though, in this
instance, the revolving door developer role should have brought some scrutiny
on the manager in question…)

~~~
coffeemug
This is a good point. I've never managed more than 15 people so I can only
speculate, but it seems that the proverbial fish rots from the head (I'm sure
I'll learn many painful lessons when it's time to grow).

The startup described by the OP is smaller than our company, and they
_already_ have this problem. If we were large enough to need middle
management, I would be absolutely paranoid about hiring _good_ people that
understand management. There is a lot of culture around hiring good engineers
and sneering at management, but it seems to me that hiring good managers is an
order of magnitude more important. A bad engineering hire can be a very
expensive mistake, but a bad management hire can be absolutely devastating.
They can derail their own team, _and_ a few other teams they interface with.

If I had a really insecure/misguided manager like that reporting to me, I
cannot imagine not noticing. Here's one simple trick to do that -- have
occasional one on ones with _their_ reports. Most people won't necessarily say
anything bad about their manager directly, but you can quickly gauge people's
sensibility in what they _don 't_ say. It's like doing reference calls on
hires. Few people will say "this guy wasn't good" but there is an enormous
difference between references who say "this guy was ok" and "this guy was
spectacular". You can sense it very quickly if you're looking out for it.

~~~
nostrademons
I think it's really important for startups to promote their first managers
from within, and to do so based on character & social skills rather than
technical skills. The former is what gives you an opportunity to observe the
latter. From what I've heard, Google's culture took a severe dip from
2005-2007 because they hired a bunch of outside managers, and to some extent
the problem self-corrected but not before driving away some really talented
engineers.

Also, I would advise against not having 1:1s with your direct reports'
reports. To a new manager, it can feel like you're undermining them and don't
trust them, and to an individual contributor it can make it very confusing who
they should bring ideas or concerns to.

Instead, hold informal lunches with a subset of individual contributors
without the manager present. This is a great way to get them to know & trust
you as a leader, and you can still gauge the tone of their happiness from how
they react at the lunch. You also sometimes become aware of whole-company
cultural or organizational problems this way, things that really need a
founder/CEO's intervention to get fixed. And if you pull the subset from
across different teams, it also serves as a way for people from across
different teams to get to know each other and strengthens social ties between
different areas of the company.

------
ryan-allen
To me this is less about 'beer and overtime' and more about conformity to pre-
existing culture.

It doesn't matter if it's beer or if it's Star Trek or if it's an religious-
like attitude to Cucumber Testing or even if it's a tech company or not, the
fact is that some potential asshole who's on a slightly higher salary than you
can decide to fuck with your livelihood if you don't tow some intangible line
that matters to them.

I see it as a byproduct of capitalism, bosses will be bosses, and I've seen
people trashed with 'fairness' as often as I have seen them trashed with non-
conformity to whatever the ones in charge (or even the ones in the middle)
care about.

As long as you have a list of conditions attached to your paycheck, this isn't
going to change. It sucks, but it is how it is. You either have to play the
game or find some place to work where the game is tolerable to you and your
values. It doesn't matter how you cast it, but there's always a game to be
played, some will seem more virtuous than others, and that will change from
person to person.

~~~
lsc
Yeah, first? I agree that "cultural fit" is bullshit; It's the result of
people placing the comfort of working with people "like them" over actually
getting things done.

however...

>I see it as a byproduct of capitalism, bosses will be bosses, and I've seen
people trashed with 'fairness' as often as I have seen them trashed with non-
conformity to whatever the ones in charge (or even the ones in the middle)
care about.

I don't see how you relate it to capitalism. This is about valuing 'culture'
over money; you are going to see it even more in a co-op or commune.

Now, you could say in capitalism, this "cultural fit" is more top-down, but I
don't think it's any less ugly or destructive because it's coming from your
peers.

I mean, that's what some people like; some people only want to deal with
people who are like them. But it's not a profit-maximizing move.

~~~
fragsworth
"Cultural fit" isn't bullshit, it's just a euphemism for how reasonable
someone's personality is. It's easier to say "I don't think they'll fit our
culture" instead of saying "their personality sucks"

~~~
marcus_holmes
Agree with this completely. Cultural fit is (imo) the most important hiring
criteria (way way more important than experience with the language).

Employees are going to be part of your team for at least two years. If your
team can't stand them then that's going to be painful.

However, "Cultural Fit" used as an excuse to prevent team diversity is
bullshit. Every study done on it has proven that diversity increases team
productivity. If a team is mostly white middle-class guys and not hiring girls
because of cultural fit, then yeah, that's bullshit.

~~~
aestra
>Every study done on it has proven that diversity increases team productivity

Which studies?

They don't say that, exactly.

[http://www.academia.edu/887990/The_effects_of_team_diversity...](http://www.academia.edu/887990/The_effects_of_team_diversity_on_team_outcomes_A_meta-
analytic_review_of_team_demography)

Over the past few decades,a great deal of research has been conducted to
examine the complexrelationship between team diversity and team outcomes.
However,the impact of team diversity onteam outcomes and moderating variables
potentially affecting this relationship are still not fullyanswered with mixed
findings in the literature. These research issues were,therefore,addressed
byquantitatively reviewing extant work and provided estimates of the
relationship between team diver-sity and team outcomes. In particular,the
effects of task-related and bio-demographic diversity at the group-level were
meta-analyzed to test the hypothesis of synergistic performance resulting
fromdiverse employee teams. Support was found for the positive impact of task-
related diversity on team performance although bio-demographic diversity was
not significantly related to team perfor-mance. Similarly,no discernible
effect of team diversity was found on social integration. The impli-cations of
the review for future research and practices are also discussed.

[http://www.palgrave-
journals.com/jibs/journal/v41/n4/abs/jib...](http://www.palgrave-
journals.com/jibs/journal/v41/n4/abs/jibs200985a.html)

Previous research on the role of cultural diversity in teams is equivocal,
suggesting that cultural diversity's effect on teams is mediated by specific
team processes, and moderated by contextual variables. To reconcile
conflicting perspectives and past results, we propose that cultural diversity
affects teams through process losses and gains associated with increased
divergence and decreased convergence. We examine whether the level (surface-
level vs deep-level) and type (cross-national vs intra-national) of cultural
diversity affect these processes differently. We hypothesize that task
complexity and structural aspects of the team, such as team size, team tenure,
and team dispersion, moderate the effects of cultural diversity on teams. We
test the hypotheses with a meta-analysis of 108 empirical studies on processes
and performance in 10,632 teams. Results suggest that cultural diversity leads
to process losses through task conflict and decreased social integration, but
to process gains through increased creativity and satisfaction. The effects
are almost identical for both levels and types of cultural diversity.
Moderator analyses reveal that the effects of cultural diversity vary,
depending on contextual influences, as well as on research design and sample
characteristics. We propose an agenda for future research, and identify
implications for managers.

That being said, I still don't advocate a monoculture environment, if not for
one reason, it isn't the right thing to do to discriminate.

~~~
marcus_holmes
wow, thanks for the info. I missed this reply completely. Very useful links.

There's also the huge risk of groupthink with a monoculture (something that
doesn't strictly fall under the heading 'productivity').

------
kamaal
>>“I’m not saying you should be working 80 hours a week, but 70 is not
ridiculous to ask, and if you were committed you would do more”.

From when did working 30+ additional extra hours just became a sign of being
merely committed? The way I see these are just mind games played to extract
tons of work for free.

I see this pretty standard these days. The Google 20% time policy is a
standard in many companies to get free innovation out, while your grinding
your bones to dust(sold to you as 'chasing your passion' , 'developers like to
code during late night and weekends', 'world changing problems' etc) working
whole nights to get some thing done, a VP some where is sleeping through his
job. What happens at the end of it is the VP gets a fat bonus and a promotion
for 'driving the innovation' while you are at the very best known to be just
'committed' and given a certification, which isn't even worth the paper its
printed on.

Almost any time you hear some senior guy glorifying long working hours,
demanding free innovation and depicting heroic contribution as just doing bare
minimum job. Know one thing for sure, this guy is going to leech you till the
last drop of blood in your body.

------
avenger123
I don't know what it is about people that are in our field. We seem to be too
trusting and too honest.

I followed this along and there are so many signs that the person should have
realized, "hey, I'm being screwed here or about to be screwed, do something
about it". Instead, he kept going based on what he was told even though his
own intuition told him otherwise.

One thing I have learned is that strong, aggressive and manipulative people
size you up instantly by throwing something at you that puts your own strength
on the line. This could be a request they make of you, a statement or
something else.

If you at that moment don't show that you are just as strong and aggressive as
they can be but choose not to be, then they know they have you and will step
all over you all the time.

Standing up for yourself and calling out the project manager for making you
looking like you were fired instead of quitting is not a question of being
professional or not. The obvious question will be "Why didn't you speak up?
You were already being let go?" The project manager would not dare to do such
a thing if the right boundaries were setup initially.

------
cbryan
What are good questions to ask during an interview to avoid situations like
these? How are other people weeding out employers like this one? This sounds
like a bad situation that I'm sure we'd all like to avoid.

~~~
rjd
Spending years as a short term on site contractor I've picked up one question
I find invaluable. I always ask "what are the pain points you have to deal
with"

I've asked it so often and been in so many different teams I can more or less
tell what the working environment and management will be like now.

Generally they aren't expecting this question so you catch them flat footed
and get a clear unfiltered emotional response. The emotion on there faces
betrays them. Every team has pain points, they have to answer the question
with something negative, but its how they react with them that gives away a
lot about the work place.

From a good teams you'll get a chuckle or story, which indicates to me a
culture of understanding and dealing with things sensibly. Sometimes just a
smile followed by a negative statement like "well releasing is problematic".
But its that initial positive reaction.

From bad teams I've seen panicked looks between interviewers to make sure they
don't divulge something, people turning white/clammy/sweaty, refusals to
answer/insisting to move on/changing topics, silent stars at me LOL anything
thats not openly a positive emotion.

~~~
laughfactory
I agree that's an excellent question. It's not fool proof, but no question is.
Given my experience, I think it'd catch 90%+ of the bad apples.

Thanks for sharing. I'll use it from now on in job interviews.

------
fleitz
Call a lawyer, this sounds super fishy if the location is in Vancouver.

Did they ever deduct taxes from you? Did you give them a GST number? Did you
submit invoices to them?

If they made deductions and you didn't give them a GST number they are likely
in big trouble.

If a judge smells employment he will classify you as such as make sure you get
your due.

------
will_work4tears
Having no experience with startups, I gotta say that I have some sympathy and
it sounds horrible, however, what does this have to do with beer? I read the
whole story and you had one friday night, after hours, with beer, and you
didn't partake as you are a teetotaler. That's fine. I didn't see any other
references to that fact, so I'm confused how it has anything to do with the
story. It doesn't sound like they have beer there every day and you were let
go because you didn't drink. Just one instance where you were questioned about
a single party (which is none of their business, IMO).

~~~
brianpgordon
It's well-known in startup circles that companies provide food/soda/beer to
their developers in the hope that they'll work harder.

~~~
gaius
It's a bargain, from the company's POV. For $5 worth of pizza per person, you
can easily get $200 worth of overtime. That is why it is so hilarious when
CFOs cut perks like that to save money. Actually that is an alarm bell: it
means the management of your company _do not get it_.

------
furyg3
70 hours a week is just crazy. Working 14 hour days for even a week sprint is
a really awful week, and represents serious bad planning, bad management, or a
massive resource shortage. Expecting that kind of workload on a sustained
basis is not just a bad organizational culture, it's borderline unethical.

On our team, if these kinds of workloads start popping up before a product
launch, there is a serious discussion about it. It means that someone over
promised, and that person needs to be taken to task.

------
georgemcbay
“I’m not saying you should be working 80 hours a week, but 70 is not
ridiculous to ask, and if you were committed you would do more”.

My response would be: So I'll of course be getting a 1.75x raise over my
current salary, right?

To be clear, I'm not against really giving it your all for your work, but I
lament how across much of the tech industry putting in insane hours is
considered just the baseline. If I've got _real_ equity in a company and I'm
really a "stakeholder" (a term that gets thrown around to a ridiculous
degree), sure, I'll work my ass off. If you're paying me approximately market
rates and a piddling amount of common shares that are bound to be diluted away
to nothing, sorry but you're going to have to do much better than that if you
expect me to negatively impact my overall quality of life to any degree.

------
weixiyen
At one of my first jobs, I resigned after about a year because I found a job
that offered 2x as much in terms of salary.

Director: "How much is the new place offering? We can match."

I told him the number.

Immediately his tone changed, and said I should take the other offer.

I wanted to give a 2 week notice, which I thought was the norm, but he asked
me to leave immediately and use up my remaining days as vacation days as my
last few days at the company.

At that time I did not realize that I was entitled to my pay for the remaining
vacation days, so I agreed to it without much thought. Part of it was because
I could not imagine this guy doing anything shady in my previous interactions
with him, as he always seemed like a stand up guy.

By forcing me to use my vacation hours, the company saved a few hundred
dollars, which would have been a lot for me at the time as I only had a few
hundred dollars in my bank account.

But looking back in retrospect and reading many similar stories, it seems
common, almost expected, for younger kids to be screwed over like this in the
workplace, especially when departing a company.

~~~
jaf656s
You were treated fairly. Bluntly but fairly.

When you turn in your resignation, your notice is just an offer of a grace
period. They are not obligated to take you up on your offer.

~~~
rmc
Depends. Some countries will require you to work a certain amount of time. And
some contracts will require you to work after handing in a notice.

~~~
ralmeida
Brazil requires one month of work after notice is given by either side. The
employer may give up the additional month if the employee resigns, and the
employee may choose to deduce the pay of this month from their severance if
they don't want to stay. The employer may also choose to terminate immediately
and pay the wage of the additional month even if the worker doesn't work.

------
tempestn
Was anyone else reminded of this?
[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/magazine/dave-eggers-
ficti...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/magazine/dave-eggers-fiction.html)

"Denise’s smile was pained. “But then there’s your absence at most of the
weekend and evening events, all of which are of course totally optional, and
your corresponding PartiRank, which is surprisingly low for a newbie."

"Optional" beer party anyone?

~~~
hamburglar
This isn't about the beer parties, or the linkedin profile, or the personal
website. It's about a petty PM with no legitimate complaints who has the
misguided notion that you should be working 70 hours, and he is casting about
for stupid reasons to call you "not committed." If that PM had any actual
authority, then the author was 100% right to leave. Even if he didn't, that
may not have been an environment you want to work in anyway if that sort of
manipulation flies, so leaving might have been good. But I've been in
situations like this where some clueless guy in a polo shirt and khakis thinks
he's going to jedi mind trick you into working harder, and sometimes the
correct response is to just ignore him instead of deciding the whole
environment is toxic. It's a matter of how much influence this guy really had
over the team.

Nobody else in the office who isn't trying to pull this lame bullshit gives a
damn if you go to the beer parties or not. Some people like them, some people
don't. Some people just want a chance to unwind after work and shoot the
breeze over a beer. Some people want to fuck off at 5:00 sharp on friday and
go home and drink beers by themselves or with their real friends. Some people
don't drink. Nobody cares. Sure, there are brogrammers in the world who are
going to diss you or think you're lame for not doing it, but this is on the
level of people who would diss you for wearing the wrong brand of shoes, so
fuck 'em. Same with the linkedin and website stuff: nobody cares unless
they're trying to use it as a pathetically ineffective lever against you. It
would be like complaining that you haven't posted any Facebook updates gushing
about your new job. You'd just laugh in their faces or ignore them, because
it's just so ludicrously irrelevant.

Through reading the article, I waffled between sympathizing with the author
and thinking he sounds like someone who doesn't have the backbone to say "come
back to me when you have concerns based on something real." The impression
that I got was that the author _accepted_ that these factors were the measure
of his contribution in this particular team, and thus decided that this was
not the team for him, whereas what was needed was to put his foot down and say
"no, you're not measuring me that way." Because unless the whole company
really was toxic, I doubt many others would have gone along with such a weak
bunch of evidence that he's "not committed."

~~~
jayhuang
I definitely agree with you. I've made attempts on 2 separate days to speak
with the PM about his petty excuses to label me as "not committed". Of course,
that includes pointing out that the 3 points he brought up are completely
irrelevant in terms of measuring my commitment, but in the end, it was
impossible to reason with him, and I just didn't want to put up with that
anymore.

~~~
hamburglar
Fair enough. It's easy to armchair quarterback and talk about what we would
have done in your shoes. Good for you for getting out of there.

------
jmgtan
I encountered the same criticism (not doing overtime) when I was working for a
Japanese company even though I'm the only one who is doing 5 projects at the
same time and all ahead of schedule with no major issues. I was actually
passed over for a promotion because of it. This post brings back bad memories
:)

~~~
vadman
Could you elaborate a bit? I know the Japanese generally work long hours, and
would love to hear an eyewitness' account of how things are done there and how
you were dealing with the status quo (i.e. what you told your bosses, did you
experience peer pressure).

~~~
jmgtan
Well we normally have a time in (9am) and this is usually enforced via a
fingerprint scanner and a physical attendance check by one of the admin
person. There are 3 checks a day: morning, lunch, and 3pm tea break. Lunch
break strictly starts at 11:45am until 12:45pm and tea break starts at 3:30pm
until 3:45pm, any tardiness even 1 minute late would be reprimanded by one of
the senior managers. We work until 6pm, well that was the plan, but for the
most part everybody stays an hour late, but the Japanese folks in the company
usually stays in until 11pm. I know this for a fact because one time I came
back in the office around 10pm and everybody (Japanese) was still there (we're
not allowed to access the servers remotely, any critical issues should be
addressed from the office).

For the most part there's no peer pressure from my colleagues (both Japanese
and non-Japanese), but the pressure comes from the senior management. My
probation period was extended because of me leaving on time everyday, even
though all of my tasks are completed.

I left the company for a different reason though. I applied for my honeymoon
leave and got rejected twice.

(This little story is by no means a representation of all Japanese companies
or all Japanese, just a retelling of my experience working for a Japanese
company)

~~~
vadman
Very interesting, thanks.

The fact that they monitor 1-min deviations from prescribed time really seems
outlandish to me. Makes me view my chill startup job (45-55 hours a week) in a
new light.

------
Domenic_S
I'm starting a new policy of not reading posts like this unless they say who
the offending company is.

~~~
kafkaesque
I once created a throwaway account here to post about a company's bad
practices. I named the company, as well.

It was immediately removed from this site.

I'm actually from Vancouver, so I would love to know the name of the company.

The OP's old employer:

1\. Has one (big) claim to fame 2\. Located in Vancouver 3\. Has a product
"dealing with large amounts of money from customers’ bank accounts"

But (3) might not be part of a product already released.

There are a lot of game developers in Van--with, of course, a thriving
beer/overtime culture, but who really knows, to be honest.

~~~
jayhuang
I'm very hesitant to post the name of the company because most of my
experience has to do with the PM, and not the company as a whole. Although I
do have some issues with how this company is run in particular, I do not want
to misguide people into thinking that working at this company will be an
absolute nightmare.

I have seen different dynamics on other teams within the company, but it's
also not the complete picture as I am not part of those teams.

Either way, (3) is a new product, essentially a startup on it's own. There are
many other such projects within the company.

It is also not a game development company.

~~~
potatolicious
> _" Either way, (3) is a new product, essentially a startup on it's own."_

Hehehe, the good old "it's a startup inside a big company!" thing. Here's my
advice for when someone pitches that thought to you: run away.

Here's the thing about "startup inside a big company!" \- it's _never_ true.

------
dfrey
The project manager sounds like a dick, but the author also sounds like a
push-over. The author had a chance to out the manager as a huge asshole, but
based on the post, it seems like he just left silently.

~~~
xentronium
Why would he even do that? Author doesn't want to engage in office politics,
he wants to code. Participating in dramatic events is completely counter-
productive. Also, consider whose side his co-workers would pick, taking in
account whatever happened to the previous two guys.

~~~
hudibras
Well if he didn't want any drama, I'm glad he took the time to write a blog
post about it then.

------
smileysteve
You Were Fired.

When you have contractor status, are brought into a meeting where they say you
are underperforming, not committed, and turn deaf ears on however you try to
justify yourself... and you end up leaving the company... you may have been
fired.

The biggest mistakes you made was a) still being a contractor b) not asking
for severance if you would opt of of claiming unemployment on them.

~~~
jarrett
> You Were Fired.

I don't think you can fairly say a person was fired simply because s/he quit
following a dispute with the boss. Maybe the person _would_ have eventually
been fired, had s/he not quit. But that's pure speculation.

There's the cliched "you can't quit, you're fired"/"you can't fire me, I quit"
scenario. I think the question of who terminated the relationship is less
clear there. But that doesn't seem to apply to the story the author tells.

Why quibble over this? Because the distinction between being fired and
quitting matters for the employee's future prospects.

> The biggest mistakes you made was a) still being a contractor

How do you know the author was in fact a contractor? The author didn't post
his offer letter, tax forms, or other similar documents. So we can't know for
sure. But he _says_ he understood himself to be a full-time employee. Some of
what he describes, e.g. the boss's comments about hours, seem to support this
view.

~~~
smileysteve
Re: Fired / Being fired.

The distinction only matters as to whether the OP has leverage over severance
or goes after unemployment.

OP's future prospects are hurt either way if the next job calls that PM as a
reference -- and slightly by this blog post.

~~~
jarrett
There are times when one must truthfully disclosed previous firings. E.g. a
form that says "Have you ever been fired," and later has a warning that
falsifying the form can result in penalties.

These are the scenarios I was thinking of. They're the reason the distinction
matters.

------
beachstartup
> One would mean I would be moving to Palo Alto, California, where I would be
> joining a well-known, highly successful, technology company. The pay was
> great, and working there would make any future job hunts virtually non-
> existent.

in my humble opinion, the only time you should pass up an offer like that is
to work on your own startup. after all did you not apply, and interview, and
compete fo, and WANT the job? i don't get it.

sorry, it's just too good of an opportunity. jeez. at least someone else got a
shot because this guy passed it up.

~~~
thaumasiotes
I got an offer much like this (though located in SF, not Palo Alto). I took
it, because my only other offer at the time was for roughly half the salary.

I ended up leaving after what was considered a surprisingly short time because
I didn't particularly like living in the area. There are other aspects to life
than having a famous employer.

That said, I'm with you that it's an attractive opportunity. But founding a
company of your own is just one of many reasons to pass. Personally, I value
telecommuting.

~~~
mdpopescu
Ah... yes. I have no idea why it's still so hard to find remote jobs in 2013.
I really, really don't want to move my whole family yet again because you
really like my smell or something.

~~~
thaumasiotes
This isn't a full answer to that question, but I'm pretty sure it's related...

I remember seeing a post by someone asking for advice, his problem being "what
can I do to counter people's assumption that <I am typical of people with the
same credentials as I have>?" (<>s mark my paraphrasing).

This problem is, in fact, a source of great aggravation to almost everyone I
know.

And the best response, which stuck with me, was "nothing; it's an assumption
_by someone you don 't know_".

There really are a host of advantages to dealing with other people in person.
And if you're thinking of hiring a stranger, you really don't know most of
what you want to know. And the connection between workplace and remote worker
is necessarily more tenuous.

~~~
mdpopescu
Very good point, thank you.

------
vertis
I'm all for putting in the occasional overtime, and working on stuff at home
if you're still engaged.

But an expectation that you will work more than the 40 hours a week that
they're paying you for, blows my mind.

------
throwmeaway2525
I love leaving companies like that one. You should celebrate, with a beer,
perhaps? (Kidding)

When you took the job, did you sign an offer letter that outlined your
employment status and role with the company?

Just curious. I would think an offer letter would resolve any questions about
that, should it become necessary.

------
notacoward
At my very first programming job a long time ago, I was criticized for not
putting in enough overtime leading up to a milestone. When the next milestone
was near, I worked back to back all-nighters, careful to leave copious
documentation of everything I'd done and when. When the boss who had
criticized me finally rolled in, I just said "where the hell were you?" and
went home to get some sleep. I didn't hear any crap about not working hard
enough after that.

~~~
justin66
> I worked back to back all-nighters

You don't think this whole scenario you've described represents a victory for
_you,_ do you?

~~~
notacoward
It did in the sense that doing it once stopped the bitching. Since I clearly
had both the ability and will to do such things when needed, my
failure/refusal to do them at other times could not be construed as lack of
those characteristics. Obviously there was a cost, and continuing to put in
long hours under less exceptional circumstances would have been a very
different matter, but that one time had an effect that I considered
worthwhile.

It's kind of funny to look back on that now, when I'm actually on sabbatical
in preparation for a shift to less than forty hours a week. Almost the
opposite action, but toward the same goal of asserting control over my own
time. Different circumstances call for different tactics. It's easier to
refuse from a position of strength and trust, which doesn't exist when there's
no record of one's ability to step up when it's truly necessary.

~~~
swayvil
I have the ability to eat dog shit, but...

~~~
notacoward
So you can eat dog shit and you can troll. Anything else?

~~~
swayvil
I know that you think it's admirable or noble to "work really hard" and you
probably have this whole heroic narrative running in your head; but it's
actually pure bunk.

Your attitude is the product of worker-motivation-propaganda. You have been
brainfucked.

~~~
notacoward
You couldn't be more wrong. I was writing about one specific incident early in
my career, quite likely (judging by your lack of maturity) while you were
still in kindergarten. The whole point of the exercise was to put in the extra
effort _once_ when it really mattered, so that I wouldn't be subjected to the
"work hard all the time" grind that has become such a dysfunctional norm in
the startup world. It worked.

Since then, I've done a lot more than most of my peers to maintain a decent
work/life balance. For example, when my daughter was born I negotiated a shift
from my role as system architect responsible for my company's whole product to
an individual-contributor role that gave me more freedom to spend time at
home. If you think that's no big deal, try it some time. Right this second I'm
on a sabbatical, and when I return it will be at less than standard full-time
hours because life is just too short to spend all of it at work. I've even
written about it.

[http://pl.atyp.us/2013-10-leaning-
out.html](http://pl.atyp.us/2013-10-leaning-out.html)

In a nutshell, you are completely and utterly full of crap. I've done more and
written more to fight the "heroic programmer" mythos than you ever will. You
interpreted my anecdote in almost exactly the opposite of the way it was
meant, and then made up some extra stuff besides, just so you could present
your commonplace (and probably borrowed) observations as insight. Piss off.

~~~
swayvil
You have impressed me and shown me the error of my ways at the same time.

------
fizx
Cache link:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:www.jay...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:www.jayhuang.org/blog/a-culture-
of-beer-and-overtime/&strip=1)

------
laughfactory
Dude, I feel ya. And thanks for sharing.

I'm not (yet) a developer (though that is my long game), but I have run into
similar situations in data science. I had an idiot boss (boss of my immediate
boss) who sat around all day with his feet on his desk, staring off into
space, but demanded that we all work 60-ish hours a week. And this was at a
bank, where the standard was 40 and they made a lot of noise about their
support for work/life balance and having family, etc. Anyway, he was a dick,
too. Passive aggressive, the whole nine yards. So I found another job with a
rapidly growing tech company and received an excellent offer. It seemed like a
fantastic opportunity to really take my skill set (in data analytics) to the
next level. I'd be _the_ data guy and the role would work directly with the
CEO, President, and all the other acronyms at the highest levels. The work I
did would directly impact everything. Seemed cool. And for a couple days, it
was. I went in early, stayed late, and worked my ass off to learn everything.
They had three or four different databases running MySQL and MS SQL, and none
of the data was documented. Which is to say that the only ones who knew what a
given field was in the database were their 3 developers. When I started they
presented me with a list of 114 reports they wanted created for the company.
When I left, after having produced a significant number of those reports, the
list had grown to 124. From the first day it was a constant struggle to figure
out how to pull data from all their various databases, determine which fields
were the right fields (i.e., it's called X, is it X? Or is it called X but it
is actually Y? Or it is called X, it generally is X, but sometimes it's Y?),
and smoosh everything together fast enough for their near-daily meetings.
After a week the President called me into his office and told me I wasn't
coming up to speed fast enough. I was completely stunned. And I attempted to
professionally defend myself against his baseless assertions. I pointed out
that I'd only been their a week. That I had a huge amount of data in a number
of databases for which there was no data dictionary of any sort to make sense
of. That I was making rapid progress in both learning the data and making
effective use of it. That he'd be hard-pressed to find anyone else who could
do any better than I was. I pointed out that I was doing everything in my
power to get up to speed as rapidly as possible: I was coming in early,
staying late, and working weekends. In the week I worked there I put in close
to 70 hours. And I didn't get to see much of my family (wife and daughter). It
sucked. But I thought that it might be worth it.

The clincher came when, in our conversation, I told him that I was rapidly
coming up to speed, but that doing so fully would take time. He told me
(verbatim), "we don't have time. We need to go faster and faster. I don't have
time for you to come up to speed." Then he gave me (implied with a grim smile
full of teeth) a week. "We'll see how you're doing in a week..." he said.

But after he blind-sided me like that, I put in a long day, mulling things
over. Then I went home and talked to my wife. The conclusion I arrived at was
similar to your own. It could've been a great opportunity if the company
leadership (namely my boss the President) wasn't completely unrealistic and
divorced from reality. To this day I have no idea how they expected anything
different than they got from me. Did they truly expect me to come up to speed
even faster than I was? Within a week? Or was our weird and painful
conversation some perverse sort of pep-talk?

Either way, in talking it out with my wife, when it came down to it we
realized that it just simply wasn't worth swimming in the sea of vipers. There
was no way I was going to work 70-84 hours a week for the salary I was making
($57,000/yr). Not when it was working for people who clearly had no idea what
they were asking of their employees and how to treat people. They just didn't
deserve to have my talent, abilities, and work ethic on staff. I wrote a one
sentence resignation letter and dropped it at their office the next day. I
said "This letter serves as notice of my resignation, effective immediately."
I decided that any more long-winded explanation of my reasons for departure
would be lost on a person like the President, so I put all those reasons in a
Glassdoor review of the place. True to form, I received an email out of the
blue from the President a month later. "Abe, saw your Glassdoor review. What
gives?"

Also, similar to your experience, I got the impression after a couple days
that I wasn't the first data guy they'd tried to bring on board. Though no one
would talk about it, I got the impression that they, too, hadn't stayed very
long.

Anyway, I share my story by way of commiserating with you. It's shocking to
find such horrid work environments somehow persist, even for highly skilled
individuals. We expect better treatment, and often get it--which makes it all
the harder to take when we don't. Of course, in your case and mine, I wouldn't
take that kind of treatment no matter how much the job paid, or how much I
liked the work or product.

Thanks again for sharing!

~~~
nostrademons
I worked a bit once with the founders of a tech company that's long since gone
under. They would say things like "We're going to push ourselves harder than
we've ever pushed ourselves!" or "We've got to be working faster!" I ended up
impressing them by being able to keep up with their insane pace, and then
declining to join their company.

I think that statements like these are things that inexperienced, starry-eyed
founders say because they don't realize how stupid it makes them seem. It's
the employee equivalent of saying "We have no competition!" or "When we build
it, customers will come!" to investors. Anyone who's observed how things
actually play out knows that it doesn't work like that, but it seems plausible
to first-time founders who aren't particularly grounded in reality.

------
ztnewman
I don't understand what beer culture has to do with the majority of the post

~~~
redthrowaway
People who don't drink tend to view quasi-mandatory drinking as exclusionary
and indicative of strange priorities. Imagine you were a non-smoker and your
team regularly got together to smoke, then questioned your commitment when you
didn't join them. It would heavily colour your opinion of the team dynamic and
why it seemed broken to you.

~~~
prawn
Bit of a difference between passive smoking and drinking water around
colleagues who are having a few drinks.

~~~
aestra
Not really. Imagine if you had a serious alcohol control problem, alcohol was
a huge trigger for you, you had a family alcohol related death, you were
arrested for drinking and driving, you grew up with alcoholic parents, you
were removed from your parents as a child because they couldn't care for your
because of their alcohol problem, etc.

------
pekk
My interpretation is that you were fired for reasons which would be
embarrassing or illegal to admit, e.g. because you were embarrassing the team
with their XSS bugs.

------
6d0debc071
> “You are not 100% committed.”

I can't remember quite how I responded to that the first time I got it but it
went something very much along these lines:

"To gain big you have to gamble big, if big gains were simple everyone would
be doing them. There is always the possibility of failure, of losing
everything you bring to the table, and being a hundred percent committed to
anything, bringing everything you have to the table, is a bad gambling
strategy. We can work together for our mutual benefit, but if you expect me to
throw my entire life, and potentially all my future options, behind something
that may or may not work out... well, I can see how that's to your benefit but
I don't see how it's to my likely long-term good. The average lifespan of a
company is thirty years, and significantly less in the startup space. I'm
afraid that if you want me to sacrifice my interests for yours you either need
to be paying me a lot more to justify the added risk you're asking me to take
on, or we've reached a parting of the ways."

People like that are, I feel, just looking to take advantage of you. Loyalty
is won by laying the best hearth, not demanded.

------
jamin
I fail to see how a few beers in the office one Friday night is a culture of
beer...?

Did you have conversations about this with anyone other than the PM?

------
slaunchwise
Two things jumped out at me. The first is that the PM had no substantive
complaint and was basically being a bully. Some people do that. Since you had
been really interested in this job, you might have done the second thing,
which is to take your complaint upstairs. I would have told the story to
someone above the bully before resigning. They might have backed up the bully,
to their discredit. But they might decided they can't afford the kind of
turnover this a-hole creates. If this feels like going outside of channels, it
is, but tech isn't big on channels in my experience. You might have saved an
interesting job. At the least, it would have been an entertaining thing to do.

------
kubiiii
Some managers are unable to assess employees efficiency, so they measure
working time and are only happy when everyone is working 70 + hours per week.
They also measure commitment by how hard you laugh at their jokes. Even though
it is infinitely more precious to have someone productive working around 40
hrs a week (i.e. with around 30 extra potential hours to work when there is a
rush) who finds critical software vulnerabilities like you did. Their loss.

------
Maven911
Thank you for sharing your story. I am going through a pretty tough hiring
process where the decision makers in corporate made the decision to hire me,
but the local people in the current office seem to hate me and doubt I am up
for the job, along with local HR joining the bandwagon and complaining about
my hiring. So you sharing your problems gives me a feeling of belonging that I
am not alone in being stuck in bad situations.

------
hoopism
Whether you consumer beer or alcohol or not it's usually enlightening to
attend these events. I've gotten more insight into the companies and dept I
work for by socializing after hours than all the "regular" work hours.

I hear people often complain about communication... they rarely attend these
functions. It's not their fault I guess... but it's a reality.

------
jrockway
The part where they expected him to sign something in order for them to
release his own money to him that he already earned was hilarious.

------
ilbe
What a horror story, I've been at a company with red flags, and left due to
that fact, but have not seen anything to this extent. I will keep it in mind
as a warning. Sounds like the PM has a psychological disorder.

------
guangnan
"You are not 100% committed."

Added to my big-picture_manager RubyGem.

[https://github.com/guangnan/big-
picture_manager](https://github.com/guangnan/big-picture_manager)

------
digitalzombie
Happened to me, total clustered fuck from the start... But I knew half way I
was going to get shafted. So I ask tons of questions and try to learn as much
as I can from my senior peers.

------
brianmtully
"Beer Party"?

------
thejosh
If you were listed as a contractor, isn't that grounds to sue? Here if you are
fulltime you have different employee protections compared to contractor.

------
pcurve
makes me wonder if the PM is part of the mgmt team and this is just his tactic
of extracting cheap labor without diluting founders' shares.

------
anoncow
You still haven't updated your LinkedIn.

~~~
jayhuang
I see what you did there (;

------
lignuist
This was a sect, not a company.

------
mkramlich
before he even got to the first "red flag" I started to see red flag patterns.
a team that small with its own PM and copywriter, detached executives (plural,
and again, with an overall team/copmany size that small, etc.)

disadvantages to getting older, but one advantage is accumulating a set of
observed good patterns and bad patterns you can start doing pattern matching
against. there's a reason some companies specifically going after
20-somethings, folks. because y'all are more likely to fall for the anti-
patterns, not see the warning signs early enough until its too late.

~~~
w0rd-driven
You bring up excellent points. I'm in a very similar situation and I think of
it in these terms. Developers are doers of the work and where the payments
accrue. If I don't work, _we all_ don't get paid. I don't say that because I
don't value sales, which I won't do (because I understand my weakness) but its
hard to divorce this mentality when it becomes engrained.

That's also not to say copywriting or design isn't valid but its severely hard
to justify a PM when there's a total of 3 cats to wrangle. I imagine his
attitude comes from fully understanding he's all but worthless and instead of
bending over backwards to make up for the deficiency, jackass syndrome sets
in.

Bait and switch seems to be pretty prevalent in our field, whether it is
intentional or not. I personally wouldn't name and shame immediately but at
some point when the anger subsides, I owe it to the people that come after me
to be perfectly honest about this point in time. Can company x grow out of the
mire of this? Sure. But this will help others read red flags early before any
major damage is done.

------
michaelochurch
It was time to leave, and the HR lady came to me and said I would have to sign
a release letter and send it back within 2 work days (the following Monday was
a holiday), otherwise I would not get any of the remaining pay, including my
“stock options”. Apparently instead of full-time as stated in my offer letter,
I was a “Contractor” and that the agreement was “terminated”. I guess that’s
to protect them somehow. And the “stock options” that she said I would be paid
amounted to $0 (as expected).*

That shit is highly illegal. Get a lawyer. Even now, after the fact, there are
things an attorney can do for you, like negotiate a settlement. (If they
pressured you into signing a release or non-disparagement agreement, they're
afraid). The release should be voided by the threat of withholding wages. This
reversion to consultant status is fishy, too. It seems like they're afraid of
a constructive dismissal claim (essentially, the argument that the PM's
horrible behavior constitutes wrongful termination).

I'm not saying that you should sue them. That's not my decision to make, and
for a 9-week job it's rarely worth it. Given that they already broke the law,
you don't much to lose, and there is something to gain, by getting an attorney
involved. If nothing else, it'll make that horrible PM look bad to his
superiors, and that's a small win.

You won't get stock options, of course. Typical vesting is 4/1, meaning you
get zero if you leave in the first year. I don't know why they even mentioned
that. Almost no one gets stock options (for obvious, legitimate reasons) who
worked at a place for 9 weeks.

------
rfnslyr
I love reading stories like this. If I see assholes like these being founders,
and I'm not that asshole, it makes me feel every bit capable of being a
founder one day. Sorry you had a bad experience OP, but you sound like a good
guy and I'm sure you'll have loads of awesome gigs await you in the future.

Personally I would have snapped and handled that situation _extremely_ poorly
haha.

