

CEO complaints : employee not motivated after being fired - waps
http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140423114614-44558-shades-of-grey
After firing a person for no good reason, CEO (Inge Geerdens) expects person to be oncall 24-7 after having told him he&#x27;s fired. This, of course, despite there being no mention of any oncall in the contract she signed with this person.
======
jzwinck
I just got a voicemail from my boss. Well, soon to be former boss. Not because
I couldn't hack it at the job, but the business I was involved with had eroded
over the years to the point where there was simply nothing left for me to do.
I had finally given up. It wasn't really up to me. I talked with her about it
a few times, but she wasn't interested in pursuing the sort of clients I used
to work so hard to satisfy. So now my full-time job is finding a new job. I
was in an interview when she called. I think this other firm is pretty lame
but if I don't find something better soon I'll have to take it, so I'm
hustling. Tonight I'm going to polish my CV and email some old contacts. I can
call the old boss back tomorrow morning. What is she going to do, fire me
again?

~~~
chris_wot
Please do a writeup for the following article:

[http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140328120354-44...](http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140328120354-44558-breaking-
up)

And I quote:

"A while later (hopefully a few years), you tell me it is time to talk. You
are not happy anymore and feel it is time to change things. Of course I’ll try
to convince you. See if we can change something in your job description to
make you happier, see if I can get you motivated in different ways. But if we
can’t work things out together, if it is simply time to end the relationship,
let’s talk about it like adults. Don’t come into the office one day telling me
out of the blue that you haven’t been happy for a while, found someone else
and will leave me as soon as possible. And now that you brought it up, why
should I pay your full wage if you are only working at half force since you
aren’t motivated anymore?"

Consistency doesn't appear to be Inge's strong suit.

~~~
waylandsmithers
> And now that you brought it up, why should I pay your full wage if you are
> only working at half force since you aren’t motivated anymore?

I think this is the reason why "openness" is tough to achieve. Most of the
time, the stakes are much higher for the employee than the company-- the
business can probably continue operating after separation, but the employee
might not be able to pay rent without a paycheck. All information is power in
the relationship, so I don't think an employee should ever feel obligated to
share more than what is necessary. I wouldn't expect to be informed that my
department's budget for salaries is $X or that I'm going to be let go,
effective three months from now.

> Don’t come into the office one day telling me out of the blue that you
> haven’t been happy for a while, found someone else and will leave me as soon
> as possible.

Some people just prefer voting with their feet.

------
Arkadir
Most of the reactions both here and on LinkedIn seem to miss a crucial fact:
this story happened in Belgium.

In Belgium, employees must be notified in advance before they are let go: you
send them a letter stating "your contract will end in 12 weeks", they keep
working for you for 12 weeks, and then they leave.

Employees are usually expected to pass on their knowledge to other team
members and wrap up their current projects before they leave. And they are
getting paid for it.

This is not the story of a CEO who fired out an employee on the spot, then
tried to get back in touch later because they found out they still needed him.

This is the story of a CEO who told an employee that they would be let go
three months from now, then asked them to help after hours---something that
they had done previously---only to find that they were not motivated enough to
do it anymore.

And this is what makes the story interesting: it's not a ridiculous caricature
that you can point and laugh at ; it has all the real-life ingredients that
you can easily find in the average company.

\- Employers and employees who assume that "professionalism" means
volunteering to work beyond the scope of a work contract.

\- Employers who forget that loyalty is an essential factor in the motivation
of many employees.

\- A CEO who made the tradeoff of not having a dedicated 24/7 support team,
and whines when the inevitable outage happens and there is no one to handle
it.

I believe the original author herself said it best: "So your best bet is to
hire people who share your passion, willing to 'volunteer' on such occasions."

No one is passionate about staying long hours to fix a production server. But
they might be passionate about building a product that can make them proud.
Their product. And once they feel it's not their product anymore, the passion
is gone, and they'll be home by 7pm with their cell phone turned off.

~~~
cubancigar11
This is not specific to Belgium. Most countries beside USA have a notice
period of 2 to 3 months.

In fact, it is actually much worse for an employee to have such long notice
periods. The most obvious one is already mentioned - boredom and low morale.
But it has an interesting side-effect: Most companies have immediate
requirements and cannot wait for months before it is filled. So they hire from
a pool that is limited to people who have already been laid off. And obviously
the employees are in poor position to negotiate any salary increase.

~~~
waylandsmithers
> In fact, it is actually much worse for an employee to have such long notice
> periods.

You'd really prefer "Clean out your things and exit the premises by 11AM" over
2 to 3 months notice?

~~~
ctdonath
2-3 months of the employee having been completely demotivated, festering
resentment, and likely not doing anywhere close to expected productivity (much
less _overtime_ as the author was surprised about not getting).

"Out by 11AM" sucks, but it's _done_, minimizes suffering, and you can move on
with life. Trust me.

The social (not legal) convention in the USA is 2 weeks (with 2 weeks pay in
lieu of work if the "out by 11AM" happens). That's about enough to, if on good
terms, wrap things up for all parties involved and transition accordingly.

Giving someone 2-3 months notice, and expecting performance as though it's
going to proceed and end as if it were "out by 11AM" (to wit: work full
enthusiastic hours for weeks on end with no distractions, then pack up and
leave one morning) is absurdly unrealistic.

~~~
rmc
What about the suffering of the employee? They have bills to pay, rent or
mortgage to pay, and food to buy. 2 weeks paid notice when you're fired means
you have to scramble to get a job. The company have months of time to play for
when to fire you, but you only get 2 weeks before you stop getting money? No
way.

------
watwut
It seems like someone believed her own bs. Article uses a lot of words to make
situation sound as something entirely different then what it was.

"I know I fired this person, but I considered that merely a technical matter.
I thought we agreed it was the best option for all involved, allowing him to
grow professionally elsewhere."

Agreed as in employee did not put fight when he was informed of the decision?
Good for both of them, but it is still firing. Feel good talk about
"professional grow elsewhere" is just that. Might be even insulting to
employee. Did she really expected the employee to buy it?

"It never crossed my mind that he had been FIRED. We just reached the end of
our partnership, for now. Time to move on for both of us."

I mean, yes, they reached end of partnership by firing employee. He was not
needed anymore. Nothing wrong with that, companies can not afford to pay
people without giving them work. It is still firing.

"I have always valued being open, honest and correct. Even if I wanted to,
there's not much you can hide in a small business. So I embrace transparency
to the full extent."

No she does not. She tries to put spin around things to paint them rosier then
they are. Then she acts all shocked when it turns out that employees are able
read through euphemisms.

EDIT: changed he to she since CEO in question is a women.

~~~
Florin_Andrei
> _I considered that merely a technical matter_

Well, when people are mere "resources", then firing someone is a simple
"technical matter". Akin to shutting down servers. Right?

(sigh)

There are alien, monstrous beings amongst us, and they look just like us.

~~~
wpietri
I look forward to the day when any candidate for a managerial job is tested
for sociopathic tendencies. And then, to be clear, they _aren 't_ given the
job.

~~~
duncan_bayne
That's a great idea. We should screen developers for Asperger's too, and make
sure we don't hire any of those folks. Oh, and ADHD too. And you know what,
people with bipolar disorder are a right pain in the ass to deal with, so
we'll pass on them. Depressed people sometimes kill themselves, so hey, no
hire, sorry.

~~~
wpietri
There's an important difference. If you give somebody power over people and
they are unable to empathize, then they can't be trusted to act responsibly.
Many sociopaths seek power precisely because they like exploiting people. If
you're interested further in the topic, try reading _Snakes in Suits_ or _The
Psychopath Test_.

Similarly, we shouldn't give people with peophillic issues power over small
children.

Broken people deserve our support, and we should work to heal them. But in
doing so, we can't let them break other people.

~~~
duncan_bayne
"If you give somebody power over people and they are unable to empathize, then
they can't be trusted to act responsibly."

Sorry - are we talking about sociopathy or Aspergers here?

It feels like your exception is really a way of saying "well, no, don't
discriminate against any of _those_ people, only these people who I think
really deserve it."

------
jgrahamc
This is why I stopped writing my fictional start-up CEO Brad Bradstone
([http://blog.jgc.org/2013/01/archived-posts-from-double-
steal...](http://blog.jgc.org/2013/01/archived-posts-from-double-
stealth.html)). There was no need to write parody, when the parodies existed
in the real world.

~~~
rmc
Apparently that happened with Dilbert. The author made stuff up and people
kept writing to him saying "That story-line is just like $COMPANY, that's
where you got the idea, right?"

~~~
arbitrage
Sounds like what happened with _This is Spinaltap_. Really good satire cuts
pretty close to reality.

------
Robin_Message
> However, Belgian law makes it very difficult to put such a flexible schedule
> in a contract.

Oh really? I'm not an expert on Belgian law here, but are they really claiming
they offered to pay people extra and/or give time off in lieu for optional
overtime, but they didn't agree to it? Or is it just mandatory free overtime
that is banned?

Belgian law probably makes it hard to require employees to work more than
reasonable hours for no extra reward or choice. Which is a good thing. If you
want 24x7 support, you need to pay for 24x7 employees. This person is wishing
they had the right to specify in a contract that your working hours are
"whenever I call."

Since they don't get that, I'm not surprised they didn't realise firing
someone^W^W, sorry, "agree[ing] to terminate your collaboration" might make
them stop responding beyond the call of duty.

Also, I was reading something the other day that pointed out that, whilst
seeing things in black and white reduces you to only two perspectives (moral
and immoral), the attitude that everything is a shade of grey (and the implied
attitude that this makes moral comparisons impossible) reduces you to a single
perspective (amoral). If you think two perspectives is too few, how is going
down to one perspective supposed to help?

~~~
NicoJuicy
You have no idea how Belgium is.

Inflexible , huge employer costs (highest costs in the world for
employment),...

Because of the taxes, employers don't want you to work extra hours and as an
employee, you don't have much benefit of it (governement taxes that A LOT if
you do overtime).

Some things that are forbidden (or pay extra taxes)

\- Only normal hours (5 days a week, ...)

\- Don't employ people outside of their working schedule

\- forbidden to work on Sundays

\- forbidden to work on Holidays

\- Don't work at night

But there are exceptions (but it's complicated)

~~~
SixSigma
But those things _should_ be forbidden and in the hands of the employee.

That said, I have signed the "I will work more than 48 hours if required"
waiver at my current employer; mostly because I know it will hardly happen and
if it does it will be extra-ordinary and I will be willing to pull with the
team.

There's nothing wrong with a world where :

"We need you to work this weekend"

"No thanks, see you Monday"

Is perfectly reasonable.

~~~
NicoJuicy
I'm an employee, it should also be my right to work more without the
governement always taxing me extra.

I want to work more, but i see no financial benefit from it for working a day
in a weekend (eg. when i have a deadline), nor does my employer.

PS. Overhours in Belgum don't get payed a lot or aren't encouraged because of
the extra cost. Employees don't mind because their happy to have jobs here...
But i shouldn't say that out loud, because it's illegal. But a lot of people
work an hour / day for free (from my personal experience here in Belgium)

~~~
pbhjpbhj
> _it should also be my right to work more without the governement always
> taxing me extra_ //

I don't agree. Partly the government has to be concerned with the entire
workforce. Some people doing more work means that other people may not be
employed, or may be under-employed. Preventing overtime, or at least providing
financial pressure against it, means that those who don't want to work all
hours can avoid it more easily and also helps to make sure companies employ
enough workers rather than simply squeezing dry fewer than they really need.

~~~
NicoJuicy
Lower taxes and companies would hire employees easier. Now we have a very
dificult system. Everyone is on probation for 6 months and the governement
pays this (interns and a system called IBO).

Having 1 full-time employee or doing it all by yourselve is mostly the
difference between loss and profit in Belgium (for an SMB).

Also, the taxes are so high, every company with > 1000 workmen is subsidized
by the governement (most recent example: 7,5 Million € goo.gl/HluVNB for
keeping a company here).

There is not a single car manufactorer, that makes profits here in Belgium
without subsidisement. (a lot of them moved away from Belgium the last years)

~~~
ama729
> There is not a single car manufactorer, that makes profits here in Belgium
> without subsidisement. (a lot of them moved away from Belgium the last
> years)

It's the same in Germany though:
[http://europe.autonews.com/article/20130226/ANE/302269903/vo...](http://europe.autonews.com/article/20130226/ANE/302269903/volkswagen-
govt-subsidy-probe-dropped-by-eu)

~~~
NicoJuicy
It's not the same, in Belgium they got subsidised and they still leave (Ford
Genk, ...) :)

That's not the same, they stay in Germany...

PS. That also costed € 144,000 per employee for firing them :)

------
bru
I cannot access it:

>Sorry, we couldn't find that page. Here are some others for you to explore.

Here's the version from Google cache:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Awww.l...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Awww.linkedin.com%2Ftoday%2Fpost%2Farticle%2F20140423114614-44558-shades-
of-
grey&oq=cache%3Awww.linkedin.com%2Ftoday%2Fpost%2Farticle%2F20140423114614-44558-shades-
of-grey)

~~~
piokuc
I guess Inge Geerdens, author of the text, and LinkedIn "Influencer" (sic!)
removed the page; LinkedIn users were quite harsh with their comments. The
logical development, IMHO, would be that:

1) relevant Belgian authorities launch investigation into employees' treatment
in her company. Apparently they are forced to work after hours and,
unlawfully, not being appropriately paid for the overtime work.

2) Inge gets fired for bringing disgrace to the company she works for as a
CEO.

~~~
Zenst
I read many comments and would not call them harsh, realistic yes. If anything
rather constructive and tame to what could be worded as a reply to her post.

~~~
piokuc
I would say the comments (most of them) were "relatively harsh", because
usually comments under LinkedIn "Influencers"' blogs are limited to "thank
you!", "great!", congratulations, etc. I thought they were pretty honest and
not too diplomatic.

------
sergiotapia
>However, Belgian law makes it very difficult to put such a flexible schedule
in a contract. So your best bet is to hire people who share your passion,
willing to 'volunteer' on such occasions.

Threw up in my mouth a little bit. My 'passion' is making money by providing
services you need. You pay me, I do sh*t. That simple. Let's not kid
ourselves.

I love the mental gymnastics she goes through to paint herself as having done
no wrong in her mind.

~~~
bjornsing
What exactly has she "done" that's so wrong? I mean, sure, her expectations
are perhaps a bit [insert whatever you want here], but her actions?

Or are you saying it's morally wrong to terminate an employment contract when
the business no-longer needs the employee?

~~~
sergiotapia
She did wrong by letting him go _and_ asking him for overtime. You just don't
do that. I'd expect more class from someone.

~~~
TheCondor
It's not a lack of class, it's a lack of intelligence.

Amicable separations aren't quite as rare as unicorns but they make California
condors look ordinary. No matter what people claim, it's remarkably uncommon,
one party always gets the bad end of the deal. If what I've heard about work
in Belgium is true, unless this guy was an elite contractor, short of finding
another position there is no way this was going to be amicable.

------
Aqueous
'It never crossed my mind that he had been FIRED.'

Yes, by the end of most modern firings, which are conducted with an
astonishing degree of cowardice, the goal is to make the employee somehow
leave feeling like they've voluntarily quit. This is how we avoid recognizing
the uncomfortable fact that a firing is actually a confrontation, and that it
is _super uncomfortable_. And we don't want to experience that, right?

Apparently the CEO has somehow convinced themselves that firings are mutual
and that they _aren 't_ super uncomfortable.

Stop couching something in euphemisms and recognize things for what they
actually are. If you are letting someone go chances are 1) it's a one-sided
decision 2) they won't appreciate it very much. Only in the flavor-less world
of detached corporate speak are firings mutual.

------
jrochkind1
The most important line in this one is:

> I am the boss with all the perks and the quirks.

I think this is yet another example of what another HN commenter recently
called "ignoring the considerable power you wield over other people and
expecting them to ignore it too."

Guess what, power matters in relationships.

> It wasn't a decision I made overnight. It wasn't even my decision. We talked
> about it on several occasions.

Is she really saying it wasn't her decision because they talked about it on
several occasions, it was somehow a mutual decision? Bullshit.

You don't get to keep all the power, but then expect that in your interactions
with people it won't matter, it'll be just like relationships between peers or
equals.

~~~
koonsolo
> I am the boss with all the perks and the quirks.

As an ex colleague used to say to his 'boss': You are not my boss, you are my
employer. My boss is at home.

------
bitL
LOL What a parody! With this article she effectively destroyed her business...
Unbelievable! Nobody with a brain would like to work for her after a simple
search for references and her customers must be already scratching their heads
if they can trust that a business with her as a head would stay afloat...
Unless she is linked to EU funds that can keep her business funded regardless
of performance due to political connections, I don't think many people would
be willing to bet on her. This is not about making tough calls when they are
necessary, it's about exhibiting inability to comprehend basic business and
operational issues and inability to at least conceal that fact by issuing
meaningless statements.

------
sgift
> I can be very flexible and friendly, but I always put the company first and
> I value the group's wellbeing over an individual employee.

And her employees do the same: They value the wellbeing of what's most
important to them over her wellbeing .. what a surprise.

------
joeblau
I was laid off along with 25% of our department back in 2005 and I stopped all
work and started looking for a new job as soon as I got the news. I was
halfway though a project, but My number one priority was keeping Myself
employed. Thankfully the company was sympathetic to our needs, but there were
some employees that had worked at the company for 18 years and now needed to
find new jobs. I still came into the office for the following three weeks,
unlike some of my other colleagues. Ironically, I was trying to get out of
that company anyways so for me, the layoff was an amazing opportunity.

One of the saddest scenarios was one of my colleges that had been out of
school for merely 8 months. He had a 2 hour commute to work one way: car/bus
-> light rail -> Metro -> office. He was chipper and gung ho about coming into
work and working on his projects. The day he got laid off (which was about 1
hour before I got my news) he comes in super excited (as always) and runs up
to have a meeting with his Project Manager. Then 15 minutes later, I see him
leaving with his back pack and I ask where he's going. He looks dead in my
eyes eerily and says "You'll find out soon enough." While he was only out of
school 8 months, I think he's now realized that companies aren't all way they
are cracked up to be, but now he works at Goldman Sachs so who knows.

------
bane
American here, I once left a job (quit) because of deep dissatisfaction with
the management's general incompetence and constantly pushing critical
maintenance off. I had been telling them for more than a year that there needs
to be some changes or something bad was going to happen.

Got a call from them a couple months later, something bad finally happened.

"My consultation rate is <some ridiculously huge number per hour>."

"What?"

"You obviously want to hire me as an independent contractor to fix the issue I
had been telling you about. Fair warning, I'm at another job now, so I'll be
doing the work on nights and weekends."

"Your rate is ridiculous. It wasn't going to cost that much for you to fix it
when you worked here."

"I warned you about it for a year and you had your chance to fix it back then
when it wasn't a crisis. You ignored me and deferred the issue and now it's
this is your emergency, not mine anymore. Frankly, I can charge whatever rate
I think is appropriate."

To my surprise, they agreed (at a mildly reduced rate), I came back, spent a
couple weeks fixing the issue and then we parted ways. They never asked me
back again but I got my 1099 from them a while later.

Everybody always says, upon leaving a job, "call me if you need anything"
because we all have friends at work we want to see succeed. But sometimes you
have to stop volunteering our time (our lives) to cover up other people's
failings. I keep hearing about people who leave a job, then come back in on
the weekends to "fix a few things" at their old job. Stop doing that. If it's
worth money to the company, it's worth some of that money to you.

------
jstsch
Not fired in the American sense (you can't let someone go in any short term in
most European countries). She let him know that he should look for another
job, meanwhile he's still employed but unmotivated.

~~~
qwerta
Notice period could be anything from 3 weeks to 2 months. He could be also
hired as a contractor and not to have his contract extended.

~~~
Arkadir
I would expect such an employee to be paid over €35k. This would place the
minimum notice period at 3 months.

~~~
corin_
Entirely depends on which country within Europe, France for example has
employment laws which are incredibly favorable to employees rather than
employers.

~~~
Arkadir
The story happened in Belgium, and the specific duration in this case would be
three months, unless there are some specific details that we are not aware of.
I agree that it would have been different in another country.

~~~
corin_
Sorry, I thought you were writing in the context of the great-grandfather
comment which was just about Europe vs. USA, my bad

------
woof
"It wasn't a decision I made overnight." \- "It wasn't even my decision."

What?

"I know I fired this person" \- "It never crossed my mind that he had been
FIRED"

WHAT?

fuckedcompany.com is dead, linkedin.com lives!

------
petervandijck
From another of her posts:

"Don’t come into the office one day telling me out of the blue that you
haven’t been happy for a while, found someone else and will leave me as soon
as possible. And now that you brought it up, why should I pay your full wage
if you are only working at half force since you aren’t motivated anymore?"

[http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140328120354-44...](http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140328120354-44558-breaking-
up)

Oh my god.

~~~
wazoox
And the comments... All these sociopathic-type managers living in the
comfortable fantasy that employer/employee relationship is equal to equal.
Crazy.

~~~
petervandijck
Yes this really baffles me.

------
bowlofpetunias
This is just one of the many examples of the utter douchiness of hiring people
as employees, but treating them as "fellow entrepreneurs" whenever it suits
the employer.

It seems to be a standard pattern in most start-ups, simply not taking the
responsibility for being an employer.

What this CEO did isn't just a misunderstanding, it's very, very bad employer-
ship, and detrimental to the well being of the employee. Every day that
employee is sitting there, being utterly demotivated and wondering what
they're going to do next with their career and life that person is edging
closer to a burn-out.

Under Dutch law, if that happens, the company is 100% liable and will have to
keep paying the employees salary (for up to two years), and get actively
involved in the employees recovery.

In this case, it is very black and white: this CEO is an incompetent employer
who on top of it has a serious, near sociopathic empathy deficit.

This is not about "leadership style", this is about simple management
competence.

------
lazyjones
tl;dr - clueless CEO fires employee because she didn't know his work was still
needed (and thought she'd fatten the margins), later finds out and regrets it.

Happens all the time.

~~~
cs02rm0
I don't think they even realise this employee is still needed or that they
haven't figured out how to deal with this when the employee is gone. As for
expecting an employee to make themselves available to a level they're not
legally able to contract them to out of some shared passion... naive to say
the very least.

And now they need to hire a communications person to review their social media
posts as well as figure out who's going to be mercilessly on call in place of
the employee in question.

------
emhart
I wish this were extraordinary. President of our company showed up in the
hospital room of the Sr. Developer he fired who had terminal cancer in order
to ask him for documentation on various projects. Showed up multiple times in
fact.

I actually really do wish that maybe this is extraordinary and that next time
around I'll wind up under more human leadership.

~~~
brohee
Seriously...

I'm kinda surprised that no relative of the sr dev made the company president
glad to be in a hospital...

~~~
emhart
That's what finally happened, thankfully. His fiance stepped in and acted as a
silent wall to the president's ongoing requests. Thankfully he finally got the
message and relented.

EDIT: Hah! Just parsed your message correctly =P no violence ensued haha

~~~
ms4720
too bad

------
snarfy
'I'm just being honest' is not an excuse for being an asshole, yet the vast
majority of the time that is exactly what it's about. It's the most popular
justification given by sociopaths.

~~~
Gracana
And when called on it: "oh it's not just you, I'm an asshole to everyone!"

------
blunte
This situation is a good reminder that just because people get themselves in
leadership positions (and especially when they talk as advisors or authorities
on leadership) doesn't mean they're actually any good at it. They may just be
good at generating content that (usually) sounds smart.

She's pulled her post, most likely out of shame. But take a look at all the
other sage advice that remains!
[https://www.linkedin.com/today/author/44558](https://www.linkedin.com/today/author/44558)

~~~
woof
Like this one:
[http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140328120354-44...](http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140328120354-44558-breaking-
up)

"And now that you brought it up, why should I pay your full wage if you are
only working at half force since you aren’t motivated anymore?"

I'm starting to see a pattern...

~~~
blunte
I actually understand many of the reasons why companies need to let people go.
Sometimes it really does make sense to stop having someone as a full time
employee. But if that person did anything significant during their employment,
chances are the company might need a little of their time again in the future.
That extra, on-demand time should be compensated well; and the possibility of
such a need should be discussed before the exit.

------
jeroen
For me the most important sentences are these:

"I had to let go of an employee"

"we need the assistance of our colleague urgently"

Same guy. So there is a bus-factor of 1 and you fired that person. Since said
firing was "a few weeks" ago, all critical stuff should have been out of his
hands.

~~~
mratzloff
This struck me too. I can't fathom why the CEO didn't simply cut a severance
check and wish him well.

------
qwerta
> We have to keep our tools running 24/7, even if that means working the
> occasional nights and weekends.

Does this apply to CEO as well? As JWZ wrote nobody of higher management had
to sleep under their desks.

~~~
megablast
Ok, but to be fair, a CEO can't really help unless they have technical skills.
You don't want people to suffer needlessly.

~~~
rguzman
If I'm the CEO and I'm going to ask some people to work 80 hour weeks for a
few days/weeks/months, I'd be around and find something productive to do just
to show solidarity.

~~~
frak_your_couch
I've been the engineer in that scenario a number of times in my life. Almost
every time there were management people who stayed who just couldn't
contribute. Honestly, I didn't particularly need them to suffer. I'd rather
they go home, recognize the situation and reflect on whether something should
change if this is a semi-regular situation..and then act. That action _is_
within their capacity and it would have been impactful to me.

As it was, they just _didn 't_ act, treated the suffering as a badge and
pretended they were in the foxhole with us. If they could handle it, why
couldn't we? Why were we bitching so much? They were right there next to us!
Needless to say, I don't work in those kinds of places anymore.

~~~
rguzman
It is not about just suffering for the badge of it. I guarantee you that there
is actually something productive and useful to do. At the very least, as you
say, you can reflect on the current situation and write-up the plan to avoid
it in the future.

------
ceautery
This reminds me of an encounter with our department's director recently at an
"all hands" meeting at my current gig. My company has been under financial
pressure for the past few years, and there have been reorgs, layoffs, fewer
promotions, and weaker merit raises. To answer complaints about all of this,
particularly in the case of those who didn't get promotions they felt they
deserved, he said, bluntly:

"You are responsible for your own careers."

To paraphrase Lone Watie from The Outlaw Josey Wales, I thought about his
words. "You are responsible." And when I had thought about them enough, I
decided to find a new job.

------
kefka
Sounds like a great case of charging $500/hr, with a 4 hour minimum, of
course.

How bad do you need his information?

~~~
crusso
Right, so she's cool by letting him keep his job for some period of time while
he looks for new work with minimal expectations from her - but then when she
could use his help just once in exchange for paying him thousands and
thousands of euros for doing nothing, she should have the hammer brought down
on her?

It's amazing how little empathy this thread has for people that create
companies and struggle through the employer's side of trying to be decent to
people while trying to run a thriving business.

~~~
trevelyan
It's too bad you're getting downvoted. Even though the business owner's
expectations of continued work out-of-hours are unreasonable, her method of
letting this guy go actually seems pretty empathetic to me too.

Honestly, I would much rather be treated this way than walked to the door and
told to wait for security to come by with a box of my stuff.

~~~
ctdonath
Nobody is (or few are, I'm not gonna count) criticizing the termination
process, as it's about as empathetic as can be realistically expected.

The heat is coming from how she disavows that decision (and process), and is
somehow surprised that he's not enthusiastic to not just put in the contracted
paid-for time but won't go above-and-beyond to provide free services for her
sole benefit. That's not "trying to be decent to people while trying to run a
thriving business", that's expecting people to consent to be taken advantage
of.

BTW: being shown the door _with a check for 2-3 month 's pay_ (not unusual in
the USA) is quite palatable. Shows due appreciation without expecting someone
to labor under a dark cloud when they should be out looking for work.

------
mortov
Sounds like someone really wanted to set up a UK style '0 hours contract'
where you get to avoid paying an 'employee' unless you ask them to do
something and then only need to pay for the actual time they spend doing it
but you have the advantage of stopping them getting another real job since
they are already reserved by your 'employment'.

UK companies do it all the time - sounds like this Belgian needs to move to
the UK to get the desired outcome of slaves on standby.

~~~
rmc
Or that the employer really wanted a 24x7 contract. "You must be available to
work at any time". Which is the other end of the scale.

------
fab13n
Nice and funny example of Poe's law
[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law)].
Failing to realize when you ought to STFU is part of what being a sociopathic
boss is about. That her companies seem to revolve around HR and hiring is just
the icing on the cake.

But from what I understand, LinkedIn somehow featured this article; I'd love
to have them explain why and how they picked it...

~~~
mattgreenrocks
Probably something to do with being an "influencer" and "thought leader."

Gag me.

Actually, when I'm feeling masochistic, I read articles on LinkedIn's Pulse
section. They're so, so, SO bad. It's either "work harder, and you might
become like me!" or "it turns out your employees are people too!" Strangely
enough, never anything about workaholism.

------
praptak
Article seems offline now. Google cache:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:rLPq67G...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:rLPq67GBnzYJ:www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140423114614-44558-shades-
of-grey)

Edit: Summary, by me: a CEO complains that someone who has been fired is not
motivated, i.e. does not provide "urgent assistance" outside office hours.

------
bprieto
The post might not be as shocking as it appears. In most of the EU you seldom
can fire an employee without weeks of notice. The way she tells the story, it
seems as if the employee was told his contract would terminate, but he was
still working for the company when he was needed.

Still, I don't find strange that an employee who knows his days at a company
are counted is not willing to respond to an after-hours phone call.

~~~
CaptainZapp

      In most of the EU you seldom can fire an employee without weeks of notice
    

This is true. What you can do, though, is let an employee go immediately and
pay his salary for the notice period.

Banks do this quite often on employees, who could create huge damage for the
bank. For example traders.

~~~
Nick_C
A friend of mine was a trader of some long term with a particular bank and,
because of his length of service with the bank, had to receive a few month's
notice of termination.

They terminated him and _made him come in_ to work to sit in a featureless
room with only a table and chair -- no computer, nothing. He'd rather stay at
home and garden or whatever, even it meant finishing up early, but they
wouldn't let him. He always said that he must have seriously pissed someone
off in HR.

------
noja
From the way the last paragraph is worded, I would suggest that this lady take
some time off. It's all over the place, she has a lot going on in her head.
Perhaps she should see someone professionally to talk through things.

------
wil421
>It never crossed my mind that he had been FIRED.

What would you call terminating someone? You can be fired and still be on good
terms and have a healthy relationship but you still let that person go or
_fired_ them. Please dont be so naive next time you let someone go. We dont
get a job to make friends we do it to make a living.

If my company fired me and gave me x amount of time till I had to leave, I
would probably not being going above and beyond any longer. My body may be at
work but my mind is focus on the new job or job search.

~~~
collyw
I speak British English, and I see a distinction. "Fired" (or "sacked") to me
is getting told to leave. Now. Usually because your work is crap, or you have
done something wrong.

Letting someone go like this (when the work is fine, but not needed) is
usually referred to as "making the person redundant".

~~~
wil421
I guess there would probably be that distinction in American English as well.
In casual conversation I may say I was fired because they didnt have anymore
work left when in fact I was more likely laid off.

Either way I wouldnt me motivated no matter how I was let go. I am still
losing my job.

~~~
collyw
Yes, "laid off" is another term I would put in the same category as "made
redundant". I work in Spain now and I am used to non native speakers using
sacked or fired when I would have used "laid off" or "lost his job". Like I
say, I still have the connotations of incompetence or poor work when I hear
"fired".

------
downandout
This CEO is actually an even worse person than her post implies. This was just
a way of avoiding severance pay. They wanted to squeeze every hour they paid
for out of a fired employee.

------
tech6
I am a 2 year old.My brain thinks everyone in the world wants what I want.When
I grab some other childs toy I dont understand why the child cries instead of
being motivated and jumping with joy at having done what I want.

Apparently this startup ceo has not outgrown the terrible twos

------
tommo123
Can't wait 'til she discovers the wonders of forced casualisation and then
gets super upset when employees choose not to come in for 3 hours at
20-minutes notice. "How dare they treat my business so flippantly?" I wonder.

------
downandout
tl;dr:

 _" I don't think we'll be able to get a hold of him," says the colleague.
Why's that? "Well, he got the sack. He's finding it hard to stay motivated."
Right. I didn't see that one coming.......I know I fired this person, but I
considered that merely a technical matter._"

Comedy ensues.

------
mtarnovan
"It wasn't even my decision" vs "I may be the bitch and the witch, but trust
me: people want me to take decisions, even harsh ones."

~~~
namenotrequired
The latter was in the context of explaining their general leadership style.

------
kokey
Looks like this is not the first time she got noticed through her LinkedIn
ramblings, here is something from 2012 [http://www.cmswire.com/cms/social-
business/earth-to-inge-you...](http://www.cmswire.com/cms/social-
business/earth-to-inge-your-employees-dont-need-you-018279.php)

------
stuaxo
I love reading articles on linkedin, you couldn't parody them.

------
TallGuyShort
>> I value the group's wellbeing over an individual employee

There's the problem. Yes, you should not value an individual employee over the
group's well-being, and yes, if he agreed to work until he found another job
he should work until he found the job (although I don't know when he's
expected to find that job in any hurry outside of work hours). But it's like
she has no idea what that conversation would sound like to an employee. Your
CEO brings up the fact that things aren't working out. You hear a prelude to
being fired. In some situations, maybe you just agree rather than argue. If
you've actually been under the impression you've been working hard, it looks
like you can't win and you would be better off else where. Now that's a
motivating thought isn't it?

------
duiker101
I really don't see a single reason why he should have answered your call at
all without charging you A LOT.

------
jasonwatkinspdx
The amount of narcissism in this article is revolting. "Oh, silly me, it
didn't even occur to me that what's a voluntary decision for me might feel
entirely different to the person loosing their source of income. But that's
ok, cuz I'm the boss with Quirks and Perks!"

------
blacktulip
tl;dr - CEO thinks a previous employee she fired should be standing ready
helping her 24/7

~~~
abritishguy
Employee was still working there, in most European countries you cannot just
"fire" someone unless they have done something, you have to give them notice
(which is a reasonable length of time).

~~~
piokuc
Yes, but she wanted him to work after hours. So, btw, apparently this what she
normally demands from her employees - IMO this is wrong in itself, but to
expect that from someone who was just fired is, just... well, totally stupid
or just infinitely arrogant, not entirely sure what is the case here.

------
vicbrooker
tl;dr - don't fire people if you need them

~~~
laichzeit0
That's incorrect. The actual tl;dr would be "don't give people notice if you
need them".

He's technically still employed until the end of the notice period. How does
"firing" work in the USA? Do you literally pack up your desk and walk out the
moment you're "fired"? That sounds, well... illegal?

~~~
zrail
Typically, yes. Most states in the US are "at will" states, meaning both the
employer and employee have the right to end employment at any time. It's
customary to give your employer two weeks notice that you're leaving, but it's
by no means a legal requirement. There's no such custom when the employer
takes the action.

~~~
Dewie
> It's customary to give your employer two weeks notice that you're leaving,
> but it's by no means a legal requirement. There's no such custom when the
> employer takes the action.

That seems incredibly unfair. Sure, by law neither party is required to give
notice, but a sufficiently ingrained social more can be just as much of a
burden (for the employee, in this case).

It's brilliant, though - lull employees into an informal gentleman's
agreement, then pull the rug out from under them if things don't work out. If
verbal agreements aren't legally binding, then the employee can't even appeal
to the law, since the law is _fair_. And maybe the former employee blames
herself for not agreeing to get this in writing, instead of blaming the
overall culture of this kind of asymmetric relationship.

~~~
rondon2
I don't see how this is a burden on the employee. If he gives 2 weeks notice,
he still has the option of not finishing the 2 weeks of work. You can give two
weeks notice and if the employer treats you poorly anytime during those 2
weeks you can stand up and walk out the door.

~~~
Dewie
Like I said, the burden is in a form of a social more, not any concrete law.
If employees are expected to give their notice, and put up with their employer
in the same way as they have for the normal duration of their employment, then
that is a burden since the employer does not have the same social expectation
when _they_ are letting the employee go.

The employer can say _You wouldn 't walk out on us now, would you? That would
be a dishonourable thing to do_ (probably in a less direct way). An employee
doesn't seem to have that same kind of social more leverage.

EDIT: This includes the circumstance that you mentioned - the employer is
being somewhat unreasonable - since they can still guilt the employee into
pushing through it. Another thing to consider is that, while the employer
might not be treating the employee worse than he used to, the fact that the
employee feels that he has to stay for the extra two weeks may be an
inconvenience to him. He may have things that he want to take care of, etc.

------
porker
> I can be very flexible and friendly, but I always put the company first and
> I value the group's wellbeing over an individual employee.

While difficult decisions have to be made for a group's wellbeing over an
individual's, if you're managing people frequently you need to be perceived to
put their wellbeing over the company's. Sure, most of the time your hands are
tied (a capitalist company exists to make money) but botht he perception and
some action are important.

> I have accepted that, on the short term, it does not necessarily make me
> nice or likeable. Many would even say on the contrary.

Here's the real cause of problems with the employee. You are a person who
values logic and results above people skills. So am I. But - despite not
running a company like you - I've learned that others don't, and people skills
are infinitely more valuable to have and _have to be developed by me_ , else I
fail them.

Inge Geerdens, sort yourself out and then take your employees to task.

~~~
moron4hire
"Logic and results" is orthogonal to "people skills". I've worked with so many
other programmers who act like this. Being smart does not excuse being rude.

------
niels_olson
I was at a conference with the graduating class at the Naval Academy in 2004.
The Chief of Naval Operations was speaking, and my bosses, the Superintendent
and the Commandant were with him on stage. He walked into the crowd and
started asking people why they thought sailors got out of the Navy. To a T,
every soon-to-be Ensign said it was the money, to murmurs of agreement from
the crowd of 1000.

Then he saw me. "Let's ask this Lieutenant, back from the fleet, what he
thinks. Tell me, Lieutenant Olson, why are sailors getting out of the Navy?"

"They're unhappy people who haven't achieved their goals."

You could hear a pin drop. He quietly, slowly, walked back to the stage and
waited a bit. I thought I might be fired. He started talking about the value
"division officer records", which is basically Ensigns keeping track of the
progress their sailors are making toward their goals.

------
danielweber
The headline and the comments prepped me for a major oblivious idiot-storm
when I read the article, but this is about a person at least self-aware enough
that they botched something up and were asking for something inappropriate.

Or maybe this is a commentary on social media -- you don't need to write
something every day.

------
yummyfajitas
As a consultant rather than an employee, and someone who takes a similar
attitude to employment, I totally get where the author is coming from.
Employment is a transaction of money for work, not a marriage. I'll get
annoyed is my hypothetical wife leaves me when my skills atrophy, but I'm not
going to act butthurt just because my employer no longer needs a data
scientits.

Additionally, it sounds like the employee was treated well. "eventually we
agreed to terminate our collaboration _as soon as he would have found a new
challenge._ " Maybe I'm misinterpreting the corporatespeak, but that sounds
like a "start looking for something, we'll pay you until you find it." Not a
bad deal at all.

And it sounds like the employee was _still employed_ (albeit being paid to
look for new work) at the time this occurred.

~~~
crusso
I'm increasingly stunned at the lack of empathy for what it's like to be an
employer here on HN where, ostensibly, people are trying to learn about what
it takes to become a successful startup and employer.

As an employer, I've dealt with helping people transition out of a job that
has disappeared or turned out not to be right for them. I tried to do what
this woman did - give the employee some extra time on my dime to find new
work. If during that time that I'm paying them to hunt for a job (which costs
me thousands of dollars a week, typically), if I need them to lift a finger to
do something, I should feel guilty to even ask?

If I took the flip side of the attitude of a lot of people in this thread, I'd
just fire an employee with minimal severance the moment he isn't making me
money. That would suck.

~~~
wigsgiw
As an employer, I'd consider it out of line to ask an employee to help in a
crisis out of hours, unpaid. More so if they'd been effectively fired weeks
before. As noted, the time to find other work isn't out of the goodness of her
heart; it's the law in Belgium.

Employees giving their time for a panic, outside of their normal hours, is a
privilege earned by employers through treating people right. Expecting those
who've been shown the door to do so is twisted.

------
pshin45
Not to nitpick, but doesn't changing the title of the article like this (from
"Shades of grey" to "CEO complaints : employee not motivated after being
fired") go against the HN Guidelines?

> _[...] please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait._
> [1]

I guess you could make a case that the original title ("Shades of grey") was
misleading, but seems to be more a case of the OP disagreeing with the
angle/implication of the title, and wanting to change it to something that
aligns more with the OP's point of view.

(FWIW I agree that the original "Shades of grey" title is pretty bad in that
it's both uninteresting and uninformative, but bad != misleading)

[1]
[http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
ececconi
Seems like this CEO understands everything but people.

------
al2o3cr
"I can be very flexible and friendly, but I always put the company first and I
value the group's wellbeing over an individual employee."

Translation: "Of course I'm not a narcissist - I value the whole group of
people that make me money!"

------
dkersten
I agree with what most people here are saying - there is certainly a lot of
WTF's in what she wrote that doesn't quite add up.

BUT!

When someone is leaving a job (ie is working during the notice period and is
still being paid), I would still expect that they fully do their job until
they've actually left - doesn't matter if they quit or "were let go". Doing
otherwise is, IMHO, very unprofessional.

Having said that, in this story, he was expected to work after hours, so he
had absolutely no obligation to respond. So, given the circumstances, what I
said above doesn't seem to apply in this case, _unless_ it was in his original
contract to be on call like this.

~~~
dkersten
Really? Downvote even though I'm generally agreeing with the crowd? Not even
an explanation or counter-argument?

------
matt__rose
Wow, between mojombo and his wife, the "Don't fuck up the culture" rant, and
this woman, it seems like the world is teeming with clueless CEOs.

------
ryguytilidie
The volunteering line really reminds me of the post from the github founder's
wife.

In both cases, a founder essentially guilted someone into spending extra,
unpaid time working on a "world changing" (read: not at all world changing)
new startup idea where they would retain all ownership while the people
working for them were expected to "volunteer". How do founders get so
sociopathic that they do stuff like this?

------
mangeletti
Unbelievable... I can't tell if Inge is trolling the Internet or just her
employee, or if she's just a sociopath.

------
bnastic
Apparently, we're now calling it a "challenge". "Job" was getting a bit stale
so we changed it.

------
colemorrison
So, just in my opinion and in my experience. The more I work with clientele
who are successful, the more I find that....

...the more successful they've been, the more detached from reality they are.
Because they've been so successful, who's to argue with their view point in
life? They must be right.

Again, just in my opinion and experience.

------
claar
Appears to be removed now.

Mirror: [http://pastebin.com/uUGfWnjf](http://pastebin.com/uUGfWnjf)

------
marpalmin
From her writing I cannot derive if she really agreed with this person to find
a new challenge, and this person did find a new challenge, or if she just
fired this person and it was not that amicable after all. Is this perhaps of
language/culture misunderstanding?

------
subpixel
Since I can't understand it, and it sounds a bit humorous to my ears, I can
easily imagine this interview with Ms. Geerdens is a Vooza.com video
[http://vimeo.com/82075734](http://vimeo.com/82075734)

------
james1071
You couldn't make this up.

------
chalgo
This sounds more like he was made redundant than fired. If his role at the
company is no longer required that is redundancy and there should be a
severance package in his favour. Assuming laws are similar to the UK.

------
idorube
a quote from this particular CEO's twitter feed sounds appropriate: „If I
wanted to kill myself, I’d climb up your ego and jump down to your IQ level."
(@netlash)

------
dimman
"I know I fired this person ... It never crossed my mind that he had been
FIRED."

I could think of less logical reasons to be surprised.

------
washedup
It reads as if English may not be her first language which could be causing
some confusion.

------
edgarvm
>So your best bet is to hire people who share your passion

Seems like the PHB still does not get the idea

------
GhotiFish
wow. Read the article. Sounded like this CEO was actually coming to terms with
the ramifications of firing someone, rather than acting exasperated that
someone acted this way after being fired.

This story is pandering to outrage where there is none to be had.

------
brokentone
Link is down, mirror anywhere?

~~~
claar
Google cache:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Awww.l...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Awww.linkedin.com%2Ftoday%2Fpost%2Farticle%2F20140423114614-44558-shades-
of-
grey&oq=cache%3Awww.linkedin.com%2Ftoday%2Fpost%2Farticle%2F20140423114614-44558-shades-
of-grey)

Pastebin: [http://pastebin.com/uUGfWnjf](http://pastebin.com/uUGfWnjf)

------
PhilipA
Apparently the article backfired and it has been deleted.

------
seivan
"So your best bet is to hire people who share your passion, willing to
'volunteer' on such occasions."

Reminds me of Passion Versus Professionalism
[http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/6523/the_designers_not...](http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/6523/the_designers_notebook_passion_.php?print=1)

The SaaS in question (I think)
[http://company.cvwarehouse.com](http://company.cvwarehouse.com) Do we know
one that's run by technical founders that can compete?

------
facepalm
I have to side with the CEO here. As a freelancer, I wouldn't let my work
slide just because my contract is ending. What about acting professionally?

Employed = lazy and feeling entitled? Where do the privileges of employees
come from anyway?

~~~
jackvalentine
You'll note that the CEO at no point says that the after-hours work is
actually a part of the employee's job description, she's just expecting them
to do it because... "your best bet is to hire people who share your passion,
willing to 'volunteer' on such occasions".

The key thing about volunteering is that it's voluntary.

~~~
facepalm
OK granted I didn't read that she expects volunteering. That's of course
completely ridiculous.

------
raheemm
Surprised at all the hostility towards the CEO. She did the right thing by
giving him notice and paying him to look for another gig.

~~~
james1071
Are you serious? She expected him to do unpaid overtime.

~~~
raheemm
But he is getting paid to look for another job, instead of getting fired
without any notice, which is the usual norm.

