

Ask HN: When your non developer friend wants to work in your startup.. - bo_Olean

You are a struggling startup.<p>You are busy. you may lose bucks each wasted hours.<p>Your friend don't knows coding.<p>Your friend wants paying job. Even if you can't pay him, he is ready to work for free for learning.<p>He asks you same code often than search google, he doesn't know what he wants to do with coding. he just _needs_ a job.<p>He wants you to give him work because he thinks you are smart.<p>i wonder whether you hackers have faced such situation. i want to know how you would handled such scenario ?
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RiderOfGiraffes
My $0.02, YMWV

Sometimes when you say things, you need to word them in a way that conveys the
correct information to them, even if the same phrase when spoken to you would
mean something different. I believe this might be one of those cases.

Your friend needs a job, and sees you as having a company. He needs to be
told, perhaps quite bluntly, that you don't have a company. You have something
which may eventually pay off, but at the moment, it's a stuggle to make ends
meet even just for you alone.

Putting someone on won't increase your revenue, so you can't pay him. Taking
time away from what you're doing will decrease your revenue, so you can't
mentor him.

In short, he needs to be told that you don't have a company, and in some
senses you don't have a job. You have an activity that you spend all your time
on, with none to spare, and you don't make enough money yet for yourself.

All the above may not quite be true, but you need to get that message across
in terms he will understand. You may want to say something like "As a friend
I'm sure you'll try to see things from my point of view" but that message
might not be heard.

~~~
bo_Olean
he yet has not been told that we are not interested in hiring him. actually he
is getting some wrong idea that we are "wow" since we are trying to work
something out on our own. we want to work more and without any non interested
learning/teaching sessions. telling him what you said here would work, i
guess. thanks for the tips.

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maushu
Bad idea. Never, ever, give a job out of compassion when the only reason is
sympathy.

You will end up frustrated with a worker that doesn't bring much and your
friend will also end up discomfited with a job that doesn't fulfill him.

Be a great friend and help him find a job, you are the smart one.

------
wirebane
I like to put here the Rework from Jason Fired quote "When you don't need
someone, you don't need someone". Don't give a job just to give a job to
someone, wait for a position that fits him properly an then, if you wish, put
him on your company.

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MichaelStubbs
While I have never faced such a situation, from what you have described I
would have to say "no".

I just don't see where this turns into an employment opportunity. Some people
wake up in the morning and say "today I want to be a chef", but they are not a
chef until they learn how to cook - no company would employ a chef that
couldn't cook. The same analogy can be applied to coding.

While he's willing to work for free anyway, I'd say there needs to be some
independent learning and thinking before moving forward. To me, it sounds like
he is very desperate for a job and making decisions without fully thinking
them through. For example, what if he turns out to hate coding? He may be
willing to work for free, but time most certainly isn't free and he could end
up wasting a lot of your and your companies time.

My final advice to you would be to say if he's serious about becoming a coder
then start coding as a hobby, then get serious if he finds he enjoys it and is
good at it. He can look for other jobs in the mean time, he can even get
another job in the mean time and practice coding on evenings/weekends, but
there has to be knowledge and understanding before there can be employment.

~~~
bo_Olean
>> Some people wake up in the morning and say "today I want to be a chef", but
they are not a chef until they learn how to cook - no company would employ a
chef that couldn't cook.

what the analogy.

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AngeloAnolin
You did mention already that you are a 'struggling startup' and it would be
unwise to take your friend, who may add burden to the finances of your
entrepreneurship.

You can't hire someone in the first place who does not know what he wants to
do except get paid. What I would suggest is for you to simply help your friend
realize where s/he is good at help him/her find work which would unlock that
potential.

If hiring him does not make things better for both of you, then it would be
best not to do it. Sometimes, doing the right thing may be a bit painful on
the 'friendship' side of things.

~~~
bo_Olean
yes. hiring him is sure a burden, financially + time killer too. we won't be
able to do both, neither teach him nor could do our work. it is distractive
when someones interrupts your work asking something so stupid, you never
thought that silly even when you were just - printf hello world. i will rather
be referring him to other suitable works.

i am getting more confidence that i would handle the situation with ease,
thanks.

------
mapster
You might tell him to stop coding and think long and hard about how he could
be help with a goal. Tell him the goals of your work. Let him come up with a
plan for himself, and if it doesn't work, then he will be OK with it.

It is easy to be harsh and curt, but taking a little patience to deal with
this is worth while. You may learn something yourself.

