
What terrible treatment have you seen in the workplace? - jonthepirate
Without calling out the identity of any companies or coworkers, I&#x27;m curious what bad treatment other engineers have seen in the workplace
======
steedsofwar
When i graduated, my manager would often come over to me on a Thursday and say
he needed my work done my Monday. Which inevitably meant i would be in the
office over the weekend. This happened for 6 weeks straight. That's right,
every single day i worked, there were no weekends for naive old me.

On the beginning of the 7th week, i had a twitch in my eye and i could smell
death. I broke and handed in my notice, my ceo refused, then accepted after he
spoke to the manager. The manager had a word with me, and told me that they
were going to fire me anyways. What a nice guy.

~~~
trome
Classy manager, did he give a specific reason? After 6 weeks nonstop I'd
probably do the same as you, no need to kill myself for a company.

------
INTPenis
My account here is anonymous.

I've seen bosses gang up on a 50 year old employee, seemingly to get rid of
him. Where I live it's very hard to fire someone unless you give them three
written warnings.

This senior 3rd line tech was well on his way with two before he found a
better job and quit himself.

Both warnings were completely unfounded, but I only remember the details of
one. The last one was due to consultants in another office, in another city,
registering an internal certificate on a personal e-mail address. So it wasn't
renewed and cost the client some revenue in downtime. Since my senior tech was
responsible for operations of the environment he got blamed and got a written
warning.

Now that I think back, the first warning might have been about when he
replaced disks in a failed disk array and the array crashed as a result of the
replacement.

Either way, me and several other younger techs got the impression that they
were trying to get rid of old blood and get new blood in. We work for a very
large telco concern where employee numbers are regulated from the top. So you
can't hire anyone new unless someone old quits. Or unless the mother company
approves expansion.

Edit: For some perspective, younger techs have made bigger mistakes and gotten
off with verbal warnings.

~~~
osullivj
Sounds like a classic "manage out" process. Staff with long service are more
expensive make redundant. The managers concerned will have engaged HR who will
have advised on how to build the documentation trail to make an eventual
dismissal legally watertight.

------
gozur88
I had a job in which the management had no idea how reliable software gets
developed, and their MO was to hire the cheapest people possible (H-1Bs, back
when you couldn't transfer) and work them to death. Not being on a visa myself
I should have quit after a week, but I was young and naive. They were
perennially going to go public "in six months or so". Every Friday my boss
would walk through the cube farm and we had the same discussion:

Boss: "We're not meeting our schedule, so the team decided we need to come in
tomorrow for a half day.

Me: "The... team?"

Boss: "Don't worry, I'll throw in lunch."

Me: "I really need a day off. I had to buy underwear yesterday because I
haven't had time to do laundry."

Boss: "It's just until we get version 1.3.7 out. After that we'll all have a
chance to catch our breath."

So we'd come in on Saturday, and of course after a half day nothing was
working, so he'd extend, and then ask everyone to come in Sunday "so we can
catch up and not have to do this any more."

It got so bad people started taking Fridays off under the theory that a single
day of vacation plus some mumbling about being out of town was good for three
days off, and you could always tell when someone got his green card, because
that would be his last day.

This is the company that sent a team to a customer site "for a few weeks", and
that team was still there working around the clock months later. So the wives
of the employees in question got together and somehow found them new jobs. The
entire team quit on the same day and flew home, leaving the company scrambling
to explain (by which I mean "lying their asses off") what was going on and
trying to pull people in from related projects to salvage that install.

~~~
romanovcode
Is it even legal?

~~~
gozur88
Sure. As an "exempt" employee, the assumption is your option to leave and find
another job is your protection against mistreatment. Of course there are some
specific things that the company can't do, but demanding longer hours isn't
one of them.

------
throwaway126126
Amazon Lab126

I am using a throwaway account and withholding some tech info as this may
uniquely identify people involved.

I joined a high-profile machine learning research team within Amazon. On my
first day, I knew something was off immediately -- the manager literally gave
me a laundry list of micro-tasks to do with an exceptionally strict timeline.
Of course, the list was unrealistically ambitious to make him look good. This
is a research team -- most research attempts simply aren't successful at first
tries. But he wanted to push with his "perfect" schedule. I frequently stayed
after midnight to meet the schedule. When this schedule wasn't met, I was
publicly humiliated in front of other team members.

He loved to micro-manage, and he insisted on literally sitting behind me for
hours to see each word I am typing into the terminal. I worked at several
companies before this, but this level of micromanagement was not something I
had seen before. This certainly was not a pair programming session (which I
normally enjoy actually), as he was not actively contributing to the problem
at hand. It was just...watching me work for hours in a small room.

One time, a friendly team member saw the difficulties and kindly offered to
give some technical tips. This manager came to us and started to raise his
voice how ignorant people should shut up [his words]. This was in the middle
of large office. I got dragged into a small room after that, and I was
verbally abused for an hour because he thought I made him look bad
(technically incompetent) by talking another team member for technical tips.
He was so upset that he was red and almost crying.

After surviving this environment for a while, I decided to leave. I told the
manager and the senior manager politely that it was not a good fit. Of course,
they can't just let me leave voluntarily -- they have to "fire" me or reject
me otherwise so that it would be them finding a fault in me, not me in them.

The sad thing is, as I was told, how this is normal at Amazon.

~~~
akerro
Readers, enjoy the FACE of Amazon
[https://sites.google.com/site/thefaceofamazon/](https://sites.google.com/site/thefaceofamazon/)

------
IndianAstronaut
I am experiencing this now at Capital One. Routinely berated, intimidated into
better performance, arbitrary judgements, a lot of belittling(e.g. you're no
rocket scientist), and threats (eg you are screwing your reviews, I will hold
you liable, etc.).

~~~
_mythrowaway
As someone currently considering a really tempting offer with them, this
sounds rather alarming. Could you please elaborate?

~~~
IndianAstronaut
Sure. Basically started off there working with analysis teams. You will be
working with some very old school managers who follow a strict hierarchy.
Things may seem golden for a couple months, but then the threats and
intimidation go into full gear. I was told that I would be held liable for
failures even though my manager was making the decisions which were resulting
in failures. I was told multiple times that if a project was not done, I would
be in big trouble.

If I spoke up about a new technology or method, I was told sarcastically that
"oh you're so smart". I have been told that the work I am doing isn't rocket
science.

Micromanagement has been the norm lots of digging into the details of the
project by managers who don't even know the difference between Java and
Javascript.

Nothing is in writing so managers frequently will bring up issues about things
not getting done or taking a different direction. The politics are rotten.

~~~
_mythrowaway
Thanks for sharing your story! I'll try and talk to the hiring team to look
for indicators of such team politics.

------
randycupertino
The CEO/founder was into "The Game" and the Red Pill and he made all the male
engineers go out in SOMA to try seduction techniques, as well as go to strip
clubs. Our married and ltr engineers hated it but still had to show up and
participate in this nonsense in order to fall in line and stay a "culture
fit."

As you can guess, we routinely lost admins and female engineers who were
generally solely hired on attractiveness and not talent, knowledge or skill.

~~~
fsloth
That's outrageously unprofessional. Is the company still alive?

~~~
randycupertino
Yep. They've churned most of the staff except for the CEO's college bros, but
they're still going along... no outrageous IPO on the horizon but they haven't
spent all the VC $$ yet.

~~~
antisthenes
Pretty sure a good chunk of companies are created just to burn through the VC
cash while living it up a lavish lifestyle on the west coast.

At least that's my perception as an outsider from another part of the country.

------
abawany
I worked at a place where the CEO/founder would openly talk about 'young guys'
as a hiring practice to enable him to pay as low as possible.

This same place also expressed a significant preference for hiring H1B workers
because 'they get locked in for 5+ years while waiting for their residency'.

~~~
stevoo
Unfortunately i have heard the same thing from CEO recently.

Hiring you people or people that are married with children so he can pay less
and they wont leave as easily.

It was very disappointing when i heard that.

~~~
trome
Its a common strategy, hence why women of childbearing age, people who are 40+
and anyone with any kind of visible handicap or difference are so commonly
discriminated against. They'd rather a handcuffed worker than one who has free
will to leave, or get pregnant, etc.

Really sickening to see though.

------
mrlyc
At one place I worked, programmers weren't allowed to print anything and
creative accounting was used to calculate our wages, something I didn't
realise until I left as there were no payslips. One time, the CEO came
storming into the programming room, extremely upset that someone had called
the company and asked to leave a message for a programmer. "At my next
company" he yelled, "there will be no phone system!" Another time, he waltzed
into the room and proudly announced that he had taken a whole year to pay a
bill.

~~~
killbrad
Ah, good old American "look at how many unethical and morally questionable
things I can get away with" Republicans. Market economy!

~~~
arethuza
I've seen plenty of that in the UK - what I never understood was the reason
for bragging about being unethical and/or immoral - what does it achieve? Is
it a recognition signal between sociopaths?

~~~
J-dawg
I remember a similar HN discussion, months ago. Someone posed the question -
given there's evidence that people do better work when they're treated well,
why don't more places go out of their way to look after their workers? It
seems to be a no-brainer.

There was one response that I wish I'd bookmarked. They basically said that
there is a sociopathic kind of leader who actually derives much of their
feeling of success from being "above" their workers.

That one comment really changed my view on the subject. One tends to assume
that leaders are rational and will optimise for the success of the company.
I've started to think my old assumptions weren't true, there's actually a type
of person that derives their self-worth from being "alpha" and will even act
against the interests of their company in the pursuit of this feeling.

So I think perhaps these people don't even realise how bad it sounds when
they're bragging about unethical behaviour. To them it's part and parcel of
being "successful".

It's utterly alien to me, but viewing the actions of managers through this new
lens has helped to make sense of some of the apparently irrational decisions
I've seen in the past.

~~~
ironic_ali
"They basically said that there is a sociopathic kind of leader who actually
derives much of their feeling of success from being "above" their workers.

...there's actually a type of person that derives their self-worth from being
"alpha" and will even act against the interests of their company in the
pursuit of this feeling."

I was a senior BA (contract) on a govt project for about $22 million (not a
big deal in the scheme of things). The tech lead, looking back, was the
classic narcissist (CN) and probably on the sociopathic scale - incompetent,
bullying when questioned, believed his crap and had got away with it for
years. One unfortunate day I deigned to question this guy's pronouncement of
take all the low hanging fruit from the design and do them first. There was no
thought of future impact to infrastructure or scale. And disappointingly, the
PM, BA, Dev & Test teams didn't stand up to him - only bitched behind his
back.

Cut a long story short, from then on he ghosted me in meetings and after
spitting my coffee (in what I discovered was my last meeting) at more of his
bs, I was told on the Friday I had 'negative feedback' and had to work my two
weeks notice and finish up. I asked his pet PM how that worked as they
obviously had no confidence and crickets followed - I never returned.

The project failed and made a couple of paragraphs in the papers, I was
interviewed by the minister's team months down the track, explained why the
project failed and watched the carpet get lifted up and $22 million of tax
payers cash get swept under it.

CN is still there as it's next to impossible to fire govt employees in this
country, but apparently he has little or no responsibility now. Small mercies
for the tax payer I guess.

I have many other stories from two decades in this game, but this is the most
recent and the first where I didn't finish my contracted time.

------
davidmr
In the mid-90s, I was 16 and had just started my very first job at a local ISP
after having dropped out of high school (his needing a job with some urgency).
It was right around the time that everyone and their mother started to check
out this information superhighway thing, and mom and pop ISPs were sprouting
up everywhere.

When I interviewed for a job, the owner, who we'll call Frank, seemed like a
pretty decent guy. He was definitely quite smart, and knew what he was doing
on the telco side. I got the job after like 5 minutes of interview and started
the next day.

What Frank failed to tell me in the interview was that he was a completely
batshit crazy sociopath. Within a couple of days, there was a fair bit of
yelling and swearing about my mistakes, then progressively more and more,
followed by genuine emotional abuse and even flipping lit cigarettes at us and
throwing other things when we screwed something up.

I'm only 16 and an idiotic 16 year old at that, so I actually stay there like
6 months before I start to realize this isn't normal. One day, a few of us
just get up and walk out. About a month later, I heard (and saw evidence as I
was walking by) from a friend who was still there, that after hours, someone
had shot up the back windows of the office (4th story office in Chicago, so
it's pretty unlikely it was random).

Anyway, I manage to forget about it and move on with my life. 20 years later,
I look him up to find he had served 3 years in the federal pokey for
threatening a judge who had ruled against him in a tax case. Couldn't have
happened to a nicer guy.

Pro tip: you don't get a warning when you threaten to kill a federal judge via
email. You go straight to prison. Do. To pass go; do not collect $200.

------
iknowhow2pickem
I worked in a ~10 person dev office about 30 minutes away from the company
headquarters. We pretty much had free reign down there to do as we please. But
with that meant that our boss had free reign to do as he pleased.

I saw him berate a coworker whose mom lost her job at the main office because
she "wasn't doing her job." I personally have no opinion on whether it was an
acceptable firing, just that an unrelated divisions boss shouldn't have that
conversation and much less in front of his coworkers. Who would argue with
him?

We had a full-time keg in the office which of course we all enjoyed in copious
amounts. But you couldn't quit drinking there if you tried. He would
constantly pressure employees into drinking with him at 11am when he showed up
with bloody mary mixes.

He was more than happy to tell you about why we shouldn't let immigrants into
this country because they are fundamentally flawed compared to US citizens.
His argument was that bribery was an innate part of them and their culture.
Once again, who would argue with their boss over this?

He would brag about the loaded gun he keeps in his desk drawer at the office.
This may have been part of the culture, there were at least 4 people with
concealed carries at a 10 person office.

Once, while discussing the hire of a female intern (we were an all male
office) he "joked" that it didn't work out and that we would find some
diversity someday. He followed that up with maybe we could even hire a n __
__r.

On a business trip he disclosed medications that a coworker was taking in an
effort to discredit him with me. He also claimed to be reading that employee's
text messages on a company phone. I still don't know if this was true or not,
only that he wanted me to believe it was true so that I would trust what he
was saying.

------
bsvalley
Micro management... treated like a resource. Basic stuff.

~~~
convolvatron
How about extreme narcissism leveraged off the fact that they are signing your
paychecks

------
petermcnister25
We were encouraged by our boss to look up the new hires (international women
doing an internship for free) on Facebook and other social networks to see if
they were hot before hiring them and we did have veto decision based on looks.
Later my boss wasn't so happy that I didn't show my excitement about this even
though I'm a straight young male (my other coworker wasn't so happy as well).

It was my first job, then something similar happened in my second job, but
there I told my bosses that it'd be better idea to hire someone based on their
knowledge and not on looks. I got scolded but stood my ground on this (even
though in this job my coworkers were supportive on only hiring hot women). Now
I've decided never to work again in this shitty country and I'm a freelancer
earning 10x more money.

~~~
mboto
Which country?

~~~
petermcnister25
Spain

------
partycoder
Some rude behavior is widely seen as acceptable in the US: snubbing, status
slaps, insult delivery through jokes/sarcasm, interruptions, slouching during
presentations.

That is the textbook behavior of a jerk. Anyone behaving consistently like
that is a cultural liability that needs firing immediately.

~~~
Bootvis
To be honest, I would not feel comfortable at all with a manager that thinks
interrupting or slouching are a firing offence.

~~~
partycoder
What if valuable ideas are consistently lost or people's productivity is
drained because someone feeds his ego interrupting others or encouraging
people to ignore whoever takes the initiative to present an idea?

------
akerro
We had 3 guys on internship placement. Working hours for them were more strict
than for others. One day on Friday everyone left the office before 5.30pm. At
5.27pm we had a call from important international customer. Boss got really
angry that no one answered the call, while interns should be there, two most
disliked got written warning, everyone got an email with a lot of vulgar words
from boss and he threatened to fire people.

I was wondering, what could interns even say if they have answered the
phone... They didn't even know about the project we had with that customer.

Can I name and shame?

~~~
icebraining
_I was wondering, what could interns even say if they have answered the
phone..._

Adulate the customer, make empty promises and lie about the whereabouts of the
responsible people, implying they're busy working to fulfill their specific
requests. And generally avoid passing the impression that people leave early
(read: "are slackers", from the customer's perspective).

Not that the reaction was appropriate, mind you. It's hardly reasonable to
expect interns to know how to "service the account", as Carlin put it. I've
been answering clients for a few years and I'm still quite junior at it.

------
arethuza
A few years back the company I worked for had an office where we shared a
floor with a recruitment company - they were too cheap to have a meeting room
for their own use so they used to do their staff reviews in the shared kitchen
area.

It was a regular occurrence to see people, both male and female, in tears
being berated by one of their managers (one of their managers was termed "The
Terminator" by one of my colleagues due to his warm and friendly manner).

Almost made me feel sympathetic for recruiters.

------
sophie_around
I got fired out of the blue from my first job for much vague reasons. My boss
never approached to me to talk about anything, so I was super surprised.
Everything seemed to be okay just 15 min before I got laid off. Oh, and he was
super micromanaging, avoided one on one meetings, thought it was okay to have
me illegally employed and passively bash me for everything I didn't know.

------
youdontknowtho
It was back in the 90's in Texas, but I had a manager that used the word
"nigger" casually in conversation. I saw this same guy sit a pair of shoes on
a desk in front of a woman and ask her to get them shined.

That happened.

------
orless
What is the point of the question? Gather workplace horror stories? What for?

~~~
Jaruzel
Because maybe it shows people who are suffering that they are not alone, and
that it is ok to speak up about it and to do something about it.

Workplace harassment in any form is bullying, and needs to be stamped out.

~~~
orless
Anonymous complaints in a HN thread started on premise of "I'm curious" is not
what I'd call "do something about it" and "stamped out".

------
marak830
Hmm let's see. I've had hot pans thrown at me, I've seen an apprenticeship
knives thrown on the floor - tip first.

Pans left empty on a active gas jet, heating the handles up deliberately.

Casual sexisim in relation to wait staff.

Of course homophobia as well.

Screaming at new workers(always young), for not having something perfect when
they were improperly shown.

Luckily I'm experienced enough now that I run the kitchen and can fire those
idiots.

------
markatkinson
I wonder how much of this treatment can be attributed to one bad
manager/CEO/employee as opposed to a rotten culture which has grown in a
company over time.

I think if its the latter it would be a disservice to hide the name of the
company and protect them. I understand for the need to stay anon though.

------
rishabhd
No infrastructure, but expected to buy/create with our own pockets to perform
required task.

~~~
balazsdavid987
I did this and left after the next paycheck. When they realized that an
important part is missing, I was threatened in e-mail with being sued for
stealing company equipment. I replied with the receipt I got from the retailer
and asked them to attach that to the lawsuit as well. Never heard back from
them.

------
smashu
I worked in a start-up where the CEO complained that the employees (4
developers) are spending too much time on the toilet.

