
Ask HN: Typical Startup or Abuse? - datawalke
Over the past year I have been working for a local startup, in the United States, as the Jack-of-all-trades. We offer a product specialized to a fairly niche industry that is doing fairly well. In the past year we haven gone from 2 to 75 clients, gaining around 3 clients per week in the past two months. The product typically nets $5,000/yr per client. The product itself is web-based running off of an opensource CMS.<p>For the first 10 months I was the only person in the office doing work ~9 hours a day. From client setup, to design, to code and deployment I did it all. Twice a week I would be joined by the other 3 part-time guys who would do what they could in their 4 hours they had. Besides myself and the other team members the founder would do sales two to three days a week part time. Now a year in we have eight full time team members (5 Dev, 1 Sales, 1 CS). My role in the company has now taken on the Jack-Of-All-Trades plus the management of these other team members. Which I consider to be a great accomplishment for myself and I am proud of. However one factor in all of this has not changed in the past twelve months: compensation.<p>I was never a fussy person about money, especially when it came to startups. (I was in two other startups prior to this one.) I understand that you must bootstrap and try to be as frugal and agile as possible in the start. However a year in, and I am still making around $500/week. Which, in the beginning was great. However over the past year I have moved out, bought a car (out of need, the other died), gotten married, and have had a child. (With a second one on the way.) The other two major factors are: no benefits, and the founder seems to refuse to officially employ me (or anyone else in the company.). He still gives all of us a 1099. Yet, he treats us like employees. We have required working times, usually 8AM - 6PM, we only get a half hour lunch with no other breaks, and are on-call 24-7. Honestly, those items don't even bother me <i>that</i> much. However what does is that if I am one minute late from my 30 minute lunch, the founder will immediately call me asking where I am. If I happen to arrive at work a minute or two late I get a lecture. If I don't answer a call, on a weekend, I get a talk about availability. And if I am sick, I am required to work from home for the day. (I was in the hospital and still required to work.) That is what really gets me upset about this situation. I am fairly sure what he is doing is illegal with the 1099 issue. But it really upsets me that for all of the work and dedication that I have put in, that I can't get cut a break once or twice.<p>I am unsure how many of you are in a similar situation or even care. I honestly am not looking for any sympathy on this however I am seeking advice. Two weeks ago a new-hire and I went out for lunch and he asked me about the 1099 situation and asked what he should do. I told him to take some of the money out of his check to save for taxes. He said something to the degree of "But I only make $500/week!". I am not exactly sure why that made me lose my cool. Ever since then I have felt that the founder has not only been using me, but also the rest of the team. And I am letting this issue get to me. I spend each day now hating what I am doing because I have this feeling. I know the easiest answer may be: Well why not just talk to the founder? And I have.<p>The response is always the same: "We can't do that right now."(Benefits/Employ) "Remember I haven't even paid myself yet for any of this!"(Compensation) "It's cheaper for <i>you</i> if we do it this way!" (1099) And he won't budge.<p>I have been doing web work since I was nine. This is my passion in life. I spend all the time I can perfecting my craft and trying the best I can to stay current. I've never cared about money in the past, but the time has come where I have to. I hate myself for letting this job get to me to the point where it makes me burnt out on my passion.<p>This leaves me in the position of asking myself what to do now. My gut, and my wife, is telling me to begin looking for other jobs. Any advice?
(And thank you for taking the time to read this over, I deeply appreciate it.)
======
patio11
I realize that feelings of loyalty to an employer can skew one's perspective
on things. (Oh boy, do I.) You need to hear someone say this, so I'll be a bit
blunt:

1) You are being drastically underpaid relative to your market worth.

2) The fact of you being underpaid will cause material hardship for your wife
and children.

3) Your boss is exploiting you. Illegally, to boot.

4) Your boss will not stop exploiting you.

5) You are being used as a tool to justify the exploitation of other people.

Don't "begin looking for other jobs." Mentally commit yourself to quitting,
and to negotiating (you CAN negotiate, it isn't evil) a salary commensurate
with your worth at your next position. You are a working professional. It is
standard to receive fairly generous benefits, including but not limited to
healthcare. Should you not receive benefits, you get paid an absurd amount of
money to purchase them yourself. $2,000 a month does not even approach the
ballpark of what employees like that cost.

~~~
kls
I have to agree, dude you are making 26k a year. Starting salary for a fresh
junior is 40k and that is just someone who know HTML, CSS and Photoshop let
alone if they actually know a server side language.

He is lying about the 1099 being cheaper, that is only true if you are an
S-Corporation, right now you are responsible for a little over 15% for social
security, something that you are not if you are W2 or a corp. $500 is chump
change to put up with Type-A personality bullshit like be here on the spot and
no sick days. That is fast food management, you need to bail as fast as you
can you have a wife and kids that rely on you to seek as much as you can.

As for the "he has not taken any pay" crap, he has equity, you do not your
only reward is your pay check in that situation.

~~~
derefr
Just as a tangent, because I didn't want to bother with my own Ask HN:

> Starting salary for a fresh junior is 40k and that is just someone who know
> HTML, CSS and Photoshop let alone if they actually know a server side
> language.

I know, like the back of my hand: HTML, CSS, Photoshop (and
Illustrator/InDesign/Premiere/etc), Javascript, PHP, Ruby (not specialized to
Rails, but with a year or two of experience in it), and C/C++. I've had more
than a year's experience in: Java, Lua, IA32 and ARM assembler, Haskell and
Clojure. On top of that, I have years of Windows and Linux sysadmining, DBA,
and tech support/computer repair knowledge.

... _but_ I'm only in my first year of University, and have literally zero
_measurable_ work experience with any of this stuff (no previous employers in
any sort of technical field, no references, no portfolio..) In short, I have
no _proof_ that I can do any of the stuff I can do... what should I do?

~~~
Silhouette
Please understand that I intend this as honest and helpful: you are
completely, wildly deluding yourself.

It is unlikely that someone with your background really knows even one or two
of the tools you mentioned "like the back of your hand" by professional
standards. It is completely implausible that even the most gifted and
enthusiastic geek on the planet knows all of them to that standard at your
stage in your career.

The world is, however, full of people (usually students with little or no
professional experience) who think they have these skills. It just comes
across to experienced professionals as arrogant, ill-informed, lacking in
perspective... amateurish and risky, basically. Would you hire (or even
interview) someone you thought was like that?

My advice to you is this: decide which skills you want to highlight at the
start of your career, and if you really have no demonstrable experience with
those skills, make something. Build a simple game in C++. Write a simple but
well presented CRUD application to show your web skills. Write an interactive
symbolic calculator in Haskell. Make sure the code is clean and you have some
respectable documentation to go with it. You presumably have several years to
go at uni, so you have plenty of time to develop your skills. Just keep the
example programs you develop along the way.

Actual demos of real projects that you have personally completed are just
about the best advert there is for your programming skills. Even if those
projects are just small demos, they still beat beautiful but empty CVs any day
for getting noticed and attracting the right kind of attention from
prospective employers.

~~~
derefr
You're right, of course. I would never list any of these skills on my resume,
or tell any interviewer that I could do them. I would never try to get a
freelance contract that requires these skills. They're completely self-taught,
completely untested, and I have zero confidence that I really "know" any of
them. When I said I have no proof—I meant I have no proof for myself, either,
as an empiricist.

Really, what it amounts to is that when I come home, I spend twelve hours
(that is, 4PM-4AM) "studying": reading programming books, testing out bits of
code, writing scripts and hanging out in places like /r/coding and LtU. It's
basically my sole hobby, and I started when I was 11 (with a website run on a
scrounged Pentium Pro off a Slackware LAMP stack.) I'v continued teaching
myself various skills since then, never producing useful output, just reading
and testing myself. I don't have confidence that my skills are anything more
than a bunch of academic knowledge.

If I recall, these are the most code I've ever actually written:

* Stargazer, an interactive galaxy creation program in SDL/Ruby (you plot and name stars, create flight/jump/trade paths, and classify arbitrary three-dimensional regions with arbitrary metadata; it's for sci-fi writers.)

* Persona, a webapp where you create a user, that _user_ creates several fictional _characters_ (personas), and then, _as a specific character_ , you answer questions out of a user-generated pool in order to flesh out your individual character. It's sort of like OKCupid in reverse—you specify the "factors" your graph of characters should display in advance (love, hate, admiration, apathy, etc.) and then the service helps you answer questions in a way that will conform to those pre-ordained relationships.

* Nameclasser, a Bayesian classifier trained on the details of individual words (sound, length, derivation, etc.) You feed it a dictionary; it spits back a subset of it usable as "interesting" character names.

* Folio, a mark-up language (and reference parser) similar to markdown, but intended for fiction (distinguishes pages, has footnotes, does neat things when it recognizes sections of screenplay-like dialogue, etc.)

* Christmas, a graph adventure (it's a text adventure, but with the interface being clickable words in bubbles—basically an ever-expanding tree of circle-menus.) It's two-player, networked: the client(s) are in C with Lua extensions, server in Clojure. It also features something I've never seen before: network-transparent undo. (Only works under certain world-model-specific conditions, of course.)

* SMS Importer, a little tool to sanitize a copy of your SMS database, copied from your iPhone's backup folder (SMS data has always been stored in 3d0d7e5fb2ce288813306e4d4636395e047a3d28.mddata, if you're curious), and present it as a folder of formatted-text chat logs. (It also keeps its own gateway database, just merging in previously-unseen texts, so you can delete an SMS record on your iPhone—it makes it a might bit faster—and still keep the record after re-importing.)

* An unnamed, unfinished project involving editing timelines of narratives and meta-narratives in time-travel stories.

* Nodepad, a hierarchical outliner (where every "node" was a folder+rtf file underneath, so you could make any node the working root), and Sponge, a visual to-do list (all the tags were importable 16x16 icons), both in C#.

* Wikirei, a wiki designed from the top-down to look as clean, presentable, and non-wiki-ish as possible when you don't have editing rights, and elegantly expose editing features when you do.

And each and every one of those is crap, in my opinion, and I would never
release any of them. ...Having said that, and looking at that list, my problem
might more be anxiety at releasing my work, than actually producing it. I've
been working in a silo for so long, with no feedback as to whether my code has
any quality (except what books say) that I have no idea what others will say
when they see mine.

~~~
Silhouette
This time, I think perhaps you don't give yourself enough credit. There are a
lot of interesting ideas in that collection, things that would grab my
attention and make me curious to ask you more about how you did it. Even if
you never polished those projects to a professional standard, it _is_
impressive if you actually wrote that many useful/interesting things by your
age.

Again, I would recommend picking one or two examples in the area you're most
interested in pursuing first in your career, making some effort to polish them
up to what you would consider a professional standard, and then using those as
your "portfolio pieces". I've done my share of interviewing, and really, not
much shouts "Hire me!" faster than someone who can show that sort of
_interest_ (really important when you're hiring for a position where no
applicants have much experience yet) and who has made the effort to show what
they can really do.

Also, for what it's worth, it's very common to be nervous about showing your
code to others. I've been programming professionally for a long time, and I
still hate it. I'm never 100% happy that there wasn't a better way to do
things, or that something wasn't a little bit untidy. But programming is a
world where the best is the enemy of the good: there is rarely one "right way"
to do something, and there comes a point where you've written code of
sufficient quality that does the job it needs to do. Trying to refine it
further is usually just a form of pride/vanity at that point, and with
experience you will learn to recognise this in yourself (and, in due course,
in those you work with or manage) and to just say something is done and ship
it. You can always see neater things you might have done in the code with the
hindsight from writing something once already, and sometimes that will really
pay dividends later, but adequate imperfection is the world we work in most of
the time and it's the same for everyone.

------
coffeemug
I mean no offense when I say this, but you're a great example of a "smart but
clueless" employee dishonest startup founders prey on. At $500/week, you are
making $26,000/year. Assuming you're a good developer (and now manager), you
could probably pull in $120,000 working for Google or Facebook, which means
you're losing $94,000/year (!) in opportunity cost (not even counting health
benefits or other minor perks). You said nothing about equity, but assuming
you will own 1% of the company after four years, and assuming the company
exits for $50mil, your equity will be worth $500k, while you could have earned
$376k working a stable job (again not counting health insurance, plus Facebook
gives equity too). Considering that a potential exit opportunity is associated
with large risk, the expected value of working for such a startup is
miniscule, compared to opportunity cost.

You are _not_ acting to your own advantage financially or emotionally. One
option you have is to renegotiate your salary with the founder, and
considering how hard it is to find great people, and how little he pays you, I
have a strong feeling he'll budge. But if you have options (and it's your
market now), do you really want to work for someone who has no ethical
standards?

BTW, we're hiring: www.rethinkdb.com/jobs.

EDIT: just read your comment that you do not have any equity. Run, don't walk.

~~~
datawalke
I thing renegotiation is out of the question. I feel even if I renegotiated
and it ended up being the perfect compensation/benefits position the day-to-
day work environment would become hostile -- and that is something I do not
want to happen.

I honestly don't know what I was thinking. -- Well actually I do: Back in
2008, a year and a half into college, I won a local business plan competition
and dropped out. (The competition gave office space and some startup capital.)
The college I was in was a small community college and the classes weren't
that great for the IT field. Going into college I thought everyone would have
the same passion I did. Into the first semester I was helping teach my major
related courses.

Unfortunately, not having any sense about business and being somewhat
misguided by my other founders, the business flopped. I started a second
business which did slightly better, and again won the business plan
competition again. However our overhead was too high compared to the cashflow
coming in. We started working with the company mentioned in this post and I
was basically made an initial offer to work exclusively for them. (Mistake.)

Going back to my reasoning: I felt that if this company did go somewhere, that
there would no longer be a need or a way to get roadblocked by not having a
degree. I am a strong believer in work and passion than a piece of paper. I
know I would have never hired any of my classmates from that college.

Although the justification is/was not sound at all. Getting out know is the
only way for me to continue to seize my potential. I know continuing down this
path will only lead to my own destruction.

~~~
mtodd
You sound like a smart guy. Your failure thus far is an amazing and truly
educational amount of experience that will benefit you short- and long-term.
You really have a great deal more experience than many, and clearly you have
drive and passion.

You're valuable and hardworking, so get the hell out of that shithole.

With your experience, you should be able to make some incredible contributions
to any other startup that has a good product/service and actually cares about
their employees.

$26,000 a year is ridiculously low... absurdly low. Hard-to-fathom low. If you
feel like renegotiating would create hostility then that is far and away the
biggest alarm that you need to get out of there.

As coffeemug said, "run, don't walk."

------
alain94040
1\. This is abuse. You know it (otherwise you wouldn't have asked). What you
didn't realize is how bad it is. It's VERY bad.

2\. Find another job. This boss is hopeless, you can't fix it.

3\. If you want to have fun, quit and tell him that you want to reclassify all
the 1099 income as salary. He'll be liable for all kinds of social security
stuff, he'll be in deep trouble with the other devs... That would be a major
threat to him.

I don't particularly recommend an actual lawsuit, because the money you'd gain
from it is so small based on your salary anyway. Also be aware that making
such a threat would be extremely disruptive to him, as it would sink his
business. So he may resort to more illegal schemes to fight back. Therefore
it's probably not worth it - move on!

And please blog about it. Other people in your situation need to know about
this. Include specific numbers, it helps!

------
hga
The other comments have covered almost all of what I'd say with these
exceptions:

This company will stay alive until someone drops a dime to the IRS, at which
point they'll reclassify everyone as a W-2 employee and demand income tax and
FICA withholding from the boss, with interest and penalties. Unless he's put a
lot in the bank from his exploitation of you all, he's not going to be able
pay this (pity that he's _personally_ liable for this; whatever the corporate
structure is, this pierces the corporate veil).

You want to get out before this happens or before the IRS figures it out in
some other way.

When you give notice he will almost certainly threaten you; it would be by far
the best to ignore it (don't escalate, who knows how crazy he might get,
ADDED: and it's best to keep in reserve, e.g. see the next paragraph), but if
you can't ignore it you could always say "Be grateful I'm not reporting you to
the IRS...."

If he seriously threatens you WRT to your non-compete, point out his
vulnerability WRT the IRS. Unless and until he converts his employees to W-2
status (and I suppose pays his back due withholding), he's exquisitely
vulnerable there.

As some have noted, don't bother to sue. At best you'd receive a pittance, per
the above you might end up trying trying to collect from a bankrupt
company/the owner. What you really need is closure, getting away from this bad
situation which is no doubt slowly poisoning your attitudes towards work,
upper management, etc.

------
elbrodeur
Damn. After reading your post and the comments I want to emphasize a few
things:

\- You are being screwed. This has been amply covered. \- You are worth your
weight in gold. If you really work 10 hours a day, hang out with your family
then work into the late night... you are every CTO/VP of Engineering's wet
dream. \- You have rights. The law, in many places, is built to protect people
like you from exploitative situations like this. Just looking at a glance, it
seems like you could - if you so chose - bring this guy to court and walk away
with a more equitable amount of compensation [INTERNET CAVEAT MACHINE ALERT: I
am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice.] \- You deserve better. With
your work ethic and your attitude I hope the next group of people you work
with give you your dues

~~~
datawalke
Thank you for the kind words.

I think the key to my next situation is making sure the next group of people I
work with give me my fair share.

I think this falls into what a lot of people experience is the doubt in not
knowing what you are worth. In my area typical entry programming positions are
at around 35k/yr. I feel my time and experience puts me well past any entry
based position. I am always somewhat unsure of exactly where I stand.

~~~
Silhouette
I'm not an expert in your local area, so I won't try to advise you on specific
rates. However, your point about time and experience is entirely reasonable:
the job you have been doing, apparently quite successfully, sounds like a
technical team lead. That is probably about the same as "Senior Software
Engineer" in the pay stakes at most businesses, if they're big enough to
distinguish the roles.

One other point that I haven't seen mentioned is that you don't have to try to
fix your entire career in a single jump. There is nothing wrong with taking a
respectable job at a respectable pay rate with a decent company as a first
step, even if it's not immediately at the level of responsibility you were on
before. You'll still get a lot more money and better working conditions. If
it's a decent company they'll see your potential and grow your career rapidly
anyway. Crucially, you'll also have another group of coworkers to ask for
references down the line, if you do decide to move on again in a year or two
rather than move up in wherever you go at this point. Don't assume you have to
try to jump from an awkward position right up to the manager at
Google/Facebook that someone else mentioned all in one go: you probably won't
make it, and you'll be ruling out a lot of potentially useful opportunities.

------
brmore
A couple of thoughts from a bootstrapper:

1) If you were going to get equity you would have it already. It would have
been a condition of your employment, in writing. Anything else is empty
promise, as I fear you are beginning to discover.

2) Even if you HAD equity, that equity is WORTHLESS until the company is sold
or goes public. Equity only has value at exit or if the company is going to
pay some sort of dividend. From the sound of things, both are unlikely.

3) I know you feel like you are invested in this company, that you deserve
better ... and you do. That loyalty that you feel to the company does not
appear to be returned. As an employer, that is a massive failure. One of the
true perks of being a bootstrapper is that I am empowered to give people the
"breaks" that make my place fun to work at and family friendly.

I think that it is time for you to move on. Follow mmaunder's advice
carefully, especially the part about not talking about ANYTHING you're
planning with co-workers. At best your co-workers may unintentionally break
your confidence, and at worst will do so in an attempt to curry favor.

------
brown9-2
Everyone else has already said how abusive this is, and hit the nail on the
head with it, so I won't add to it, but I would like to say one thing:

You are worth far more as an employee than the meager salary and horrible
relationship this guy has given you. Until you realize this, you will continue
to be abused by future employers. You'll only be treated as well or as poorly
as you let people treat you.

Hell, I am a fulltime employee with great benefits and a great salary, and I
feel loyal to my company and team, but if my boss told me I needed to work
from the hospital, I would tell him I was resigning immediately.

You need to stand up for yourself.

~~~
datawalke
_nods_ Thank you.

This experience on HN has been extra eye opening for me.

------
mmaunder
There are plenty of examples of entrepreneurs cajoling employees into working
for little or no pay, sometimes with a false promise of stock options which
are a tiny fraction of outstanding stock. But this is one of the worst I've
heard.

I'm sure the other comments from the smart folks who hang out on HN will echo
the above. So I'm going to suggest a strategy for you that is as exploitative
as your boss is being:

1\. Don't tell him you're leaving.

2\. Don't tell anyone you work with you're leaving. I know you feel lonely,
need moral support, safety in numbers and all that. But DON"T. You need to
take care of your family so it's time to put on your game face.

3\. Start networking with other developers in your city or the city you want
to end up working in. Also, meet with recruiters, employers, even investors in
the kinds of businesses where you want to work. But the most important group
for you to network with is your peers i.e. other web developers. They are your
best route to your next job.

4\. DO NOT tell anyone about your sad story. It may make you feel better, but
people tend to shy away from any sign of weakness. It will not help you and it
will hurt your chances of getting another job. Come up with a generic story
and never go off message.

5\. Don't EVER disclose what your current (soon to be former) salary is. It
will cause your next employer to "level you" and also under-pay you. Again,
come up with a generic (but true) story and never go off message.

6\. Keep interviewing, go to second or third interviews and actually LAND A
JOB before you even mention a hint of what you're doing. No matter how close
you are to signing with your next employer, don't get over confident or smug
and disclose what you're doing until the deal is done.

7\. Once you actually have another job, give your boss notice both in writing
and from a personal email account that you will continue to have access to
once you leave your company. Be brief and to the point. Don't get emotional.
Use as few words as possible.

Now, about that generic story about your current/former position. It needs to
project a positive "employable" image that looks strong and makes people want
to hire you. Something like "I've had a huge amount of fun in my current job,
but I feel I've outgrown the company. I enjoy working with my colleagues and
the work is challenging and fun but I'm ready for my next big challenge."
Practice the message on a few people you're talking to and let it evolve until
it rolls naturally off the tongue and is giving you the body language you want
to see from the people you're talking to.

Employers or recruiters will ask you directly about your current salary.
Simply say "Unfortunately I can't disclose that information." They're sales
guys and they will push but politely stonewall. It will only hurt you badly by
disclosing it. You either won't get the job because they'll smell the stench
of death, or you'll get an awful deal.

The one hole in this plan is the reference you may need at your next position.
They may want to call up your current employer and ask for one. You could just
be honest at this point and say that he doesn't know you're leaving yet so you
don't want them to contact him until you've given notice. This actually makes
you look stronger because you have a current job. You're not unemployed and
looking.

As a general bit of guidance in negotiating:

"Never pass up an opportunity to say nothing." ~Robert Heinlein

"Never let anyone outside the family know what you're thinking." ~The
Godfather

It's time for you to take care of the most important people in your life: Your
family. So put on your war face and go for it! Good luck!!

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6vHOR8lzTg>

~~~
datawalke
Thank you very much for your reply.

I agree with you on all aspects. It would be too risky for me to do anything
but act normal until I settle my future plans out. One mistake I would have
made would have been on the disclosure of my salary -- Thank you.

And admittedly, working at this company has been very fun and a great
experience for me. However the nature of how the founder is and the current
compensation drove me to where I am right now.

Thank you again for your advice.

~~~
rubinelli
After you say you are not allowed to disclose your current salary, they will
ask you your intended salary. You should research your market's average salary
in advance, and if possible, ask other developers in the company to give you
an approximate figure. Aim a bit higher so you have a margin to negotiate.
Don't go too high, or they'll think you lost contact with reality.

~~~
mmaunder
Please don't do that. Get them to throw out a salary first and flinch at their
first offer. Then ask for more. Don't you dare discuss salary with developers
in the company that is interviewing you.

You're going to need to learn to negotiate. This is the only book you'll ever
need on negotiating. Even if you don't use a single one of these tactics (and
I guarantee you will) you'll at least get an education of how much of an art
negotiating is.

[http://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Power-Negotiating-Roger-
Dawson...](http://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Power-Negotiating-Roger-
Dawson/dp/1564144984)

Whether you're hiring, selling a company, getting hired or raising money -
this is required reading for doing business.

~~~
Silhouette
It's true as a general principle of negotiation that the person who states a
number first is at a disadvantage. However, someone has to budge sooner or
later, and as long as you're being realistic there isn't really much to lose
by giving the target. If it's out of range of what they're willing to pay, you
might as well all know that up front and not waste each other's time.

Sure, if it may not get the optimal deal that might have been available.
However, the original poster here is (a) in a relatively weak bargaining
position because he's under pressure to move, and (b) so badly paid at the
moment that any reasonable offer is still going to be a huge improvement in
both money and working conditions.

For what it's worth, I agree with the earlier comment about not disclosing
current salary. It's fine for them to ask what you're looking for, and it's
fine to have negotiation, but there is no legitimate reason a prospective
employer would ever need to know what you've been working on already. I have
_never_ accepted a job from a company that asked me for that information
during an interview and persisted when I politely declined to give it, and if
I were still working as an employee today I would consider it a huge red flag
if interviewers (particularly management/HR types) stuck to their guns on that
one. Also, in this case, disclosing the absurdly low compensation at present
would make the poster look very weak and undermine any otherwise reasonable
and honest story about outgrowing the company and looking for somewhere their
improving skills will be better utilised.

------
mattchew
Lots of good advice here. One thing I would emphasize: think about how you
ended up in this (rotten) situation and what you can change about yourself to
make sure it doesn't happen again.

You seem to have an extreme case of nice guy syndrome. You don't want to get
into a conflict with your boss and you are highly willing to sacrifice
yourself to meet his expectations. My guess is you would feel almost
physically ill at the idea of "letting someone down" who was "counting on
you".

You need to get over that, at least somewhat. If you don't set boundaries, if
you don't have a notion of where _your_ wants and needs are _more important_
than what others want and need from you, you'll always be overworked,
underpaid, and underappreciated. Nobody respects a pushover, and there are a
lot of guys who will use them up mercilessly.

Did I read that you're only 21? If so, hey, you've got lots of time to get
this sorted out. But you might as well start now. :)

Closing thoughts: Get out as soon as possible--there's a lot of ways you could
go about this. Don't try to "get even", just cut your losses. Don't do
anything unethical on the way out. Do not trust your boss if he starts making
promises of change or reform. As soon as possible, start saving money and get
a cushion built up. You'd be in a much better position now if you weren't
living paycheck to paycheck. Good luck.

------
sliverstorm
Just to give you an idea of where you stand pay-scale wise, I am a student
employed part-time. I make about the same as you during breaks when I have the
time to put in full-time hours.

You are making student money for professional hours.

~~~
moxiemk1
Perhaps an even sadder comparison, as an intern at a web development company
putting in similar hours, I'm making more than double that. You are _clearly_
more experienced and skilled than I am; you deserve much much more.

~~~
sliverstorm
heh, now you make me wonder if I too am getting shafted

------
rkalla
datawalke,

I haven't gotten a chance to read some of the other replies yet, but here is
the brass tax: Your time at this company is done.

You know it is too; the language of your post says so.

For more clarification: 1\. Your "boss" (I put that in quotes because no one
needs to be your boss and he sounds like a tool) will never give you more
money and will not care if you step out on the company.

2\. Your "boss" WILL likely threaten you when you go to say you are leaving;
ignore it. Tell him that is "unfortunate" and then leave. Give a proper
notice, like 2-4 weeks to avoid any nasty claims. Please note that he will
make those last 2-4 weeks as unpleasant as possible for you.

3\. Move on. You have developed an amazing skill set, both from the tech side
as well as the business side. Seeing and _knowing_ a startup can succeed from
the ground up like this.

You don't have so much time on this planet that you need to waste it. This guy
is never going to "get better" or change, just step forward and leave this
nonsense behind.

Forget the money, forget the bad feelings. Just push forward.

------
patrickgzill
At the very least, if you are paid with 1099, be sure to document a lot of
your expenses, such as all mileage used to travel, meals you paid for with
another person where you discussed business, etc. Find a decent but cheap
accountant who has experience with small businesses and they will at least
help you greatly reduce your tax burden.

Oh yes, you are being exploited, plan to get out and make a huge amount more
once you find a better position.

------
forinti
To put your salary in perspective, it would be reasonable (not great) in most
of Brazil, but terrible in São Paulo or Rio de Janeiro.

So you definitely got a bad deal.

~~~
forinti
And you would have 1h lunch breaks, 1 month of vacation and a 13th salary
every year.

------
apowell
Since you are an independent contractor and not an employee, did you sign a
contract stating that all your work was a "Work For Hire"? If not, then you
likely own the copyright to all the work you've created -- which means that
while your boss may have a legitimate license to use the work you've created
to date, he doesn't have the right to create derivative works (read: modify
the software) or sell copies of the work.

You may find these articles interesting: <http://www.nolo.com/legal-
encyclopedia/article-29953.html>
<http://www.bitlaw.com/copyright/ownership.html>

If you were an employee on a W2 then this wouldn't be an issue -- your work
would be a "Work For Hire" by default.

Your boss has created a legally perilous situation for himself. If you're a
contractor, then he likely doesn't own the software he thinks he does. If
you're an employee, then he owes a lot of taxes.

So if you're ready to burn a bridge, here's an idea. Find an attorney who will
take your matter on contingency -- many will do a no-fee consult to see if
there's a case. What you want to do is license your code to your former boss
(the code he thinks he owns already) for a reasonable but substantial one-time
sum. Low to mid five figures doesn't seem unreasonable to me.

And as everyone else has said, find a new job. If you're looking for contract
work and you know CodeIgniter, email me (in my profile).

------
starkfist
You're fucked but this type of situation is not uncommon.

This is how most smallish PR agencies, "digital agencies" and other sorta
technical tangential "media" related companies in NYC operate.

You should just get any other sane job as quickly as possible and regroup.
Working at Trader Joe's would pay as much and be less of a headache. If you
can do any sort of web programming at any capacity you can make 70-120 grand
in NYC. I don't know much about PA, but I know there are at least _some_
decent jobs in Pittsburgh.

------
jteo
You're talented and hardworking. Stop taking this crap and ask him to meet
your reasonable demands or leave.

I'm sure someone on HN here would be more than glad to hire you for another
startup.

~~~
datawalke
Thank you for the kind words.

If anyone on HN is hiring or looking to keep some extra talent in mind I would
love to talk to you. I am very good at a select few things: UI Design, PHP
(Specifically CakePHP), XHTML/CSS, and Problem Solving. I am also okay and
very comfortable with Subversion and MySQL.I have a passion for the web and
automation. You can contact me via HN or at: nowjobhunting@gmail.com

~~~
carbocation
May I suggest creating a throwaway Gmail account for this purpose and removing
your real email address in order to prevent your employer from finding this
via a trivial Google search?

~~~
datawalke
Good catch, thank you. The email address was unknown in this realm, but still
could easily be connected to me with a little research. Took your advice and
created one. Thank you.

------
tommy255
ABUSE. Here's how it works in a /real/ startup (I know, because I just went
through this):

At hire, I ask founder "what do you think your exit looks like?" He puts it in
terms of equity meaning for employees, "I am aiming for at least enough for
each employee to purchase a nice home in this area."

A month after hire, at the first scheduled board meeting, I am granted options
worth 0.5% of equity in the company, vesting over 4 years (I'm around the 12th
employee). I am paid a salary commensurate with the rest of the industry in
the area, as well as given full health coverage.

After about 2 years, the company is sold, making my 0.5% worth _almost exactly
what he said it would be worth_ , enough to purchase a nice home with cash
outright.

Your founder is exploiting you. Don't dawdle dealing with this until you are
no longer essential. You should lay it out for him, exactly as-is: you get
your equity grant _and_ a pay raise immediately, or you are walking.

Keep in mind, your founder might be trying to exploit you another way, too: he
may not be planning an exit at all, or for a very long time. Meaning, equity
is worthless (as long as he retains ownership). If he's making a lifestyle
business out of this, equity is a big 0. Don't let him grant you equity but
keep your wages at stupid levels.

------
exit
start-ups are only start-ups to people who hold equity. to you it's just a
company.

------
chrisclark1729
That seems rough. I'm actually going through a similar (albeit not as extreme)
situation, which is why I'm at home on a Saturday night trying to generate
leads for my freelance business.

Two major points from me:

First, you shouldn't get angry. You're there of your own volition and have to
make the best of your situation. I know it's rough to hear, but getting angry
will just waste your time and make it harder to be proactive about improving
your situation. I need to remind myself of this constantly.

Second, I cannot attest to the legality of what's happening within your
company. However, it would seem that if the founder is such a tyrant then many
people would defect (clients as well as employees).

It seems like you could start a competitor business which serves the companies
clients better than they are being served now. Who knows, any illegal behavior
might nullify a non-compete clause (I am not a lawyer so please verify).

At any rate, best of luck. I do believe that businesses who don't value their
employees pay for it in the long run so hopefully these things work out.

Short term, try reaching out to some people for freelance work. It's probably
the best and quickest way to raise your income.

~~~
datawalke
Thank you for your advice. Along with doing this business I do run a fairly
good freelance business to make up for the lack of pay. The freelance work is
what really makes me happy. The clients are always great and seem to love the
attention I give them and the work I generate for them. However it does make
it a bit hard mentally and physically for me and my family. Getting home at
six, seeing my family for three or four hours and then working until 3AM each
night gets daunting.

~~~
RBerenguel
Can't you witch to working full-time in your freelancing? I don't know if you
can get more clients straight away, maybe (if your relation is good enough
with them) you can ask your current clients for work recommendations,
bootstrapping even more your full-time freelancing.

I don't know the legalities and other related things aside, but I would make a
rebellion, although you look in the worst position (you are being paid the
same as a fresh recruit, come on!)... Walking straight to the boss and telling
him either to raise pays or everybody leaves could be quite effective. And of
course, 8 people talking shit about a startup can build quite a lot of
momentum to keep him from getting any more job candidates/clients.

~~~
datawalke
I do believe life is a good deal of weighing risks and taking them at a period
of time. Jumping right off to freelancing would be too uncertain at the
moment. Bills come to around $1,500/mo. Freelancing at the moment generates
around $900-$1200/mo. But I currently only have the bandwidth to handle 1 or 2
projects per month.

On the rebellion side I would not feel ethical doing so. I don't want this
guy's business to crash and burn. It does honestly provide a solution to a
need in the industry and the product is of high quality. As much as I
sometimes wish I was, I'm not that much of a dick to cause trouble. (Plus
there may be some movement there of a lawsuit or something that would make me
overly nervous.) I do have a feeling however that me leaving this company will
have a snowball effect on the others there.

~~~
BobbyH
Why not convert your "1099 boss" into a real freelancer client? This involves
a few simple steps:

1\. Ask him to be "upgraded" to a real employee (he'll say no, as we suspect)

2\. Tell him you understand his decision, and since he wants you to be
freelance, you will work for him as a true freelancer, e.g. for a certain
number of hours, at a certain hourly wage, at your own home, at the hours you
choose.

3\. He may "fire" you. However, if you are as indispensable as it sounds like
you are, he will come crawling back to you. In any case, he won't fire you
until he sucks know-how out of your brain, which he would do over the course
of a month of freelance work. So you have some time to do the transition.

P.S. Leading a rebellion is only needed when you have no leverage. In fact,
you have tons of leverage, you just don't understand or are unwilling to use
it.

~~~
dkersten
3.1) if he fires you and comes crawling back later, charge him double what you
offered him at first ;-)

------
kochbeck
The really unfortunate things about your situation are:

1\. You're probably legally misclassified as a contractor rather than a full-
time employee. You should read IRS Rule 87-41 to understand why that is, but
the really telling part is that you're carefully managed as to work down to
the minute. Dead giveaway - you're an employee.

2\. Since you're clearly an employee, you're subject to the protections of
FMLA. My favorite nickname for FMLA is the "F*ing Leave Me Alone" Act. If
you're hospitalized and your employer knows it, it's really unnecessary to
invoke FMLA to receive its protections. Your employer violated it by requiring
you to work while incapacitated.

3\. Because you're misclassified, you're probably paying self-employment tax,
so you're getting screwed coming and going.

4\. Your employer is too lazy to figure out how to get benefits for small
firms. Going to a trade association like the AeA would easily get you access
to insurance at a good rate. I assume he's covered through his spouse, and, as
such, doesn't need coverage. So he's letting you hang.

IANAL, but I've been an exec who has had to walk in and clean up quite a few
shops doing illegal things like this. Here are some options.

A) Just leave. Easier said than done, obviously. Also, he almost certainly
owes you back overtime as well as back taxes that he didn't deposit consistent
with the IRC.

B) Contact your state's version of the Labor Board. Explain the situation, and
see if they're able to take administrative action on your behalf. This might
be a good option for you, because these actions are usually sealed, and
they'll order the employer to provide null references in the future.

C) Get a lawyer and sue. This can get very messy very quickly, and the real
downside of it is that since your pay rate is only about $12.50/hr, even if a
court awarded you a year's salary, an attorney on contingency would take half
of it, and you'd still be boned. Also, future employers have a way of finding
out about employee lawsuits, and it makes you somewhat more unemployable since
there's nothing that says they can't discriminate against you based on your
past history of litigating against employers.

Now, an interesting side option is that I suspect that you don't have an
ironclad Intellectual Property and Inventions Assignment agreement with the
company, given that he's a management slob. Odds are that it's buried in your
contractor agreement which is, itself, a piece of fiction. There might be a
severability clause in it, but I bet a judge would vacate the entire agreement
if given the chance. That means that you possibly OWN the intellectual
property of the company. Which is to say, in effect, that you own the core
asset of the company since the IP and the client list are probably its only
assets.

I can't speak for you to say whether you WANT to own this company's core
asset, and certainly if you owned the IP and licensed it back to the founder,
you'd have the joy of having to continue working with him for as long as that
went on. But since the company is successfully signing customers and is
turning over about $400k a year, that may well be a lucrative path to pursue.

Anyhow, the way you'd look into that is to contact the local branch of the
nearest major municipality's bar association. Almost all of them have a
referral service, and it's usually cheap or free. An attorney will probably
give you an hour or so to go over the case and figure out if it's a good idea
to act or just jump ship.

I wish you luck, and I hope your next employer appreciates you more than your
current one does.

~~~
Daniel_Newby
The 1099 versus W-2 gambit is dangerous. He could, in principle, claw back the
entirety of the 1099 payments, including whatever you paid on as taxes, then
adjust them to a W-2 and pay you back less W-2 taxes. You'd then have to wait
until the next tax cycle to get a government refund on the 1099 taxes.
Retroactive reclassification of money is a dangerous game unless you have big
cash reserves and lawyers of steel.

The IP gambit is potentially career ending. All he has to do is take out a
press release that insinuates you may have destroyed his business with lawyers
out of purest spite. That press release will hang around on background checks
forever.

If you need leverage, go after unemployment insurance. If you were watching
the clock, then he should have been paying unemployment insurance on your
behalf. The state unemployment bureaucrats are remarkably bitchy and tenacious
about it, but the worst case expenses to the company are not enough to start a
legal war over. They are, however, enough to get the attention of a paranoid
tightwad.

~~~
lkrubner
Actually, the IRS has been cracking down on 1099 abuse. So, he doesn't
necessarily need to get a lawyer, he could possibly just notify the IRS and
let them come in with lawyers.

I agree with you that using the law is always a bit of a gamble. But the mere
threat of calling in the IRS might be useful.

~~~
Daniel_Newby
The IRS has not exactly been cracking down on abuse. A lot of the 1099 stuff
has been double taxation: contractor/employee gets paid on 1099, they properly
pay all taxes including self-employment, then the IRS reclassifies them as W-2
and collects a second round of taxes _and fines_ from the contractee/employer.

Basically the IRS considers the employer guilty unless they can track down the
contractor/employee and extract paperwork from them, even though the IRS
already possesses the documents that conclusively prove innocence. I'm
actually mildly impressed nobody has truck bombed them yet. Crazy as he was,
the airplane dude had a point.

The lesson for contractees is that _you_ pay estimated taxes for your 1099
contractors. If they have deductible expenses, they can take it up with the
IRS on April 15.

------
lkrubner
I am confused by this:

"and I am still making around $500/week. Which, in the beginning was great.
However over the past year I have moved out, bought a car (out of need, the
other died), gotten married, and have had a child. (With a second one on the
way.)"

Why would you have 2 children if you are making $500 a week? Does your spouse
make a lot of money? Do you live in one of the developed countries, or a 3rd
world country?

I'm having a hard time figuring out how it could be rational to have 2 kids
while making $500 a week. And why have children at all if you are working at a
startup? Most of my friends follow the rule that startups are what you try
while you are single, but if you have kids then you should try to find
something more stable.

~~~
lkrubner
Oh, I see this:

"He still gives all of us a 1099."

The 1099 is a form given out by the IRS in the USA. So you are in the USA.
What the hell? Why would you have 2 kids on $500 a week in the USA?

~~~
lkrubner
You write:

"With this job I got myself into this nasty living paycheck-to-paycheck
situation."

No, no. The job is awful, but that is not what put you in a paycheck-to-
paycheck situation. Outside of New York, LA and San Francisco, a single
individual can get by and be minimally comfortable on $500 a week. I've done
it. When I was younger, I actually had some great times living on $500 a week.
I could even save up for trips elsewhere. But having 2 kids changes things. A
lot.

Having 2 kids makes it much more important that you immediately go find
something that pays better.

~~~
datawalke
> Having 2 kids makes it much more important that you immediately go find
> something that pays better.

And that is where I am headed.

------
hippich
I hope you got some valuable experience here. Some bad, some good. Some
development, some software, etc. Be abused and say "No" - is GREAT experience
too. You are set here. It's definitely no reason to work for such
compensation.

1) Silently find a new place to work. (there is no reason to negotiate with
your current employer, since he wont be able to raise compensation 4 times and
give you all other stuff for sure) 2) Tell founder that you are leaving in 1-4
weeks. 3) Tell him why you are leaving. 4) Tell him that he have option to
hire freelancers (you are freelancer now accordingly to way he pays you) on
oDesk.com, elancer.com, etc sites. He will get really good quality on these
sites and in the same time these $500/wk wont be abuse to these people.

I mean, if you are really good, and it looks like you are, you should fight
for much better compensation/results for your - you have wife and kids now!!!
And in the same time if your employer can't pay enough you - he should rebuild
his business to outsource some work to other countries to not abuse local
people.

------
datawalke
Update: Thank you all for your help and blunt honesty in this matter -- I
deeply appreciate it. Taking your advice I am wrapping up a few final projects
I have outstanding and updating my resume. I will keep you all posted on the
outcome of the situation with a blog post that I will post to HN later this
month. Thank you again for your time, advice, and support.

------
tworats
Unless you have significant equity, you need to _immediately_ negotiate higher
pay or leave.

* $500/week is ridiculous. You are way underpaid.

* There is no upside for you:
    
    
      * Say the company is successful and starts generating a lot of revenue: you'll have to crawl your way from $500/week to a decent salary. New employees will immediately make more than you.
    
      * If the company is sold, the founder gets rich and you get nothing.
    

You've accomplished significant milestones: you've taken a product from idea
to production, and you are now managing a team. Play this up in your next
interviews, you've earned it. Get yourself a better position with better pay,
in line with the skills you've honed and proven over the last year.

Btw, I've founded 3 startups so I'm very familiar with what it's like to pay
people little. In every case the counter to the low pay was significant equity
- if the startup makes it, you get a share of the prize. If you're not getting
equity, you're getting used, plain and simple.

------
JVerstry
Hi,

I have a Master in Human Resource Management (on top of a IT degree and an
MBA). For me, your case is a clear case of tacit abuse.

If the product you are working on is now selling, then it means you MUST have
some good skills somewhere. Fact is, you are the one who has the power, but it
seems to me (and I don't mean to be rude) that you don't have the guts to use
it.

If I were you, I would start searching for other positions offering a much
better salary for your skills. Then, come back to your company and ask for a
decent raise. If you don't get it, move to the next job and don't feel guilty
about it. They are not treating you decently.

You have a kid and a family to take care of.

I understand the need for sacrifice in start-up and the need for long-term
commitment, but it still does not add up to me. It does not seem like you have
shares in this company. If it becomes very successful, will you have a piece
of the pie, I mean FOR SURE? Or are there just mere promises?

Take care of yourself and push back on this crappy situation.

That is my advise.

------
MaysonL
While it is not something I would suggest in most situations, this guy seems
close enough to pond scum to deserve it. (Personal note: at my first
programming job, decades ago, I was paid from the owner's wife's personal
checking account for the last few months, after one of my company paychecks
bounced. While I'm sure there was some tax fraud going on there, I didn't see
any reason to cause the guy any more grief than he was already going through.)

 _After_ securing further employment, turn him in to the IRS, with as much
supporting documentation as possible.

See <http://www.bankrate.com/brm/itax/news/20030221a1.asp> for a bit more info
on the IRS bounty program.

If you would feel guilty about the impact on the other "contractors" at the
company, share any eventual payoff with them.

------
ultramundane
I am a close personal friend of datawalke. I consider myself a capable (just
capable) programmer and my abilities pale in comparison to his.

My primary knowledge is of philosophy. What this has allowed me to do is come
to the conclusion that programming is an extension of datawalke's very being.
He doesn't just work as an IT guy. His very existence guarantees both his
programming ability and its perpetual growth.

I know for a fact that he is grossly underpaid and devalued. What he hasn't
mentioned is that even on top of this job he works frequently on side projects
for clients who have never been dissatisfied (to my knowledge). I honestly
believe that he simply sleeps less than everyone else as a solution to his
lack of time.

------
crikli
I'm a founder and I'd like to throatpunch your employer. Everything that has
been already said is true. What he's doing is illegal.

And hey, if the opensource CMS in question is Drupal, shoot me an email, I'm
always on the prowl for good Drupallers.

~~~
datawalke
Just make sure to never treat your employees mine has treated me!

And I wish it was Drupal, he refused to move away from .NET. I will say the
CMS we used is the worst experience I ever had. It is horribly bloated.

~~~
crikli
Oh, I feel for you there. Is it Kentico or DotNetNuke? You may not be able to
answer to protect your anonymity, but my condolences if it is. We've done
cleanups jobs for both of those and...oh, the kludge.

I've been treated (exploited?) in much the same way as you have in the past;
it sucked at the time but I'm a better carer-and-feeder for developers because
of the experience. :)

------
Ben_Dean
You need to have a new job. In so many ways. I got a sysadmin "internship"
right out of college with a studio art degree (painting) and was make $3K a
month. And for a company that I feel is extremely exploitative of its workers.
I completely agree with everyone. You can feel completely entitled to making
4-5 times what you are, salaried with benefits. Also, your boss is obviously
just an ass. Only someone on the megalomaniac end of the personality spectrum
would be calling you to task for showing up a few minutes "late", especially
when you are a contract worker.

------
gommm
I would give him an ultimatum, either quit you job right now (since you're not
an employee you don't even have to give a two weeks notice) or get 2 times
your salary.

After that, regardless of the outcome start looking for another job, because
once you have forced his hand like this the founder is likely to find a way to
not need you anymore and fire you sooner or later...

Because he needs you, he's likely to agree to your terms (as long as you don't
repeat it to another), and you'll be in a better financial position while
looking for a new job

------
poundy
The only way to get paid the correct amount you "really" deserve is to be a
founder yourself. But it is definitely not the easy way.

The founder is clearly exploiting you, but he sure has justifications in his
head. Something like, it was all my idea, I took the risk, it was my
execution, etc.. etc.. I think you must negotiate with the founder. Basically
a bit of everything that you just wrote above.

~~~
philwelch
"The only way to get paid the correct amount you "really" deserve is to be a
founder yourself."

If you make something that it turns out people don't really want, though, you
could get paid nothing. While that's the amount you really deserve in some
sense, I can see the appeal of hedging that by letting someone else take most
of that risk/reward, which is what all employees do.

------
Maven911
Also another piece of advice...I would aim for at least 60k$ a year in your
next job (but tell them 65-70k$) based upon your 2 years of experience and you
are not in a major metropolitain area...but due to the fact that you do not
have a completed degree, especially a university one, I would expect it to be
harder to negotiate salary terms.

~~~
kls
As a hiring manager in at least 5 companies, A degree has never been a
deciding factor in what I pay a new employee. Years of experience played a far
larger role.

~~~
Maven911
Sure..and it shouldn't if you could make them go through your tests. But
regardless, not having a degree can get you easily screened out of a lot of
jobs

------
dalore
As one of the key early employees who took a pay cut to make things work you
really should get stock or stock options.

------
thornad
Trust your gut (and your wife) you will.

Then "...the universe will open doors where there were only walls." \- Joseph
Campbell

------
jister
>> I am still making around $500/week. Which, in the beginning was great.

No it is not. You are underpaid - exploited.

I am making $400/week (4 hours/day for 5 days/week) on my freelance and I am
living in the Philippines. You are in the US and supposed to earn 4 - 5 times
as much.

------
oceanician
Let people know which are of the world or states you are in, and perhaps they
can provide employment for the whole of your team.

It sounds like you are very hard working, so anyone will be happy having you
in their team.

Do you have equity in the company, that keeps you there?

~~~
datawalke
No equity.

I am trying to keep this post fairly generic, however we are located in the
Northeastern United States Lower than New York, Higher than Maryland ;)

------
AmberShah
What everyone else said and also: GET OUT, GET OUT, GET OUT! If you MUST, ask
for a raise to at least 80K per year but most likely he'll never respect you.
Take your hard earned experience as a dev & manager and go get a real job!

------
jesuino
I don't know if my comment is valuable, but in Brazil we have some good laws
to protected the employee, but the salary isn't so high as yours, from outside
Brazil. (sometime those laws work well)

Here, it would be illegal...

[]'s

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midnightmonster
Which web technologies do you work with? Drop me an email or phone call.
Contact information is at <http://letterblock.com/> .

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mgkimsal
To chime in - get out. What the owner is doing is _illegal_ as well as unfair.

As for not wanting his business to fail, I agree taking _intentional actions_
to cause harm would be bad, but I suspect they'll cause themselves enough harm
simply by you not being there soon after you leave.

From the other side of the table, I employed a handful of people in the early
2000s. We had a couple good years, and then a couple bad years. Got the point
where the money wasn't coming in regularly, and I had some people stay well
past the point where it was good for their own financial well-being. While I
appreciated the loyalty (whether to me or solely to the clients, I'm not 100%
sure) but I did tell them to leave if they could find something else, or take
side work, or something.

I would never want to be in a position where I was doing what's happening to
you to someone else. I've been in situations where I've been exploited, but
not to this level, and it sucked, and I got the heck out as fast as possible
once the reality set in.

I would suggest expanding the freelancing. You don't have much time _right
now_ cause you're working 50+ hours per week for someone else. It should not
be hard to replace what is effectively a $10/hour job with some extra
freelancing work. I've had a friend of mine recently jump from 'job' to
fulltime freelance, and while he's not booked up 100% of the time, he's
increased that hourly rate, so just to keep up with where he was before he
doesn't need to bill full time.

Go back to your current freelancing clients, and explain that you'll be on the
market soon. Ask if they have any extra work they need doing, ask them for
referrals to other colleagues they may have who need what you do, and then ask
them to be a reference. Preferably something in writing - a predone text file
that you can use on your website and to include in your email marketing for
new work.

Update your linkedin.com page, and hit up your network there for more work.

Finding work, especially as a freelancer, is very much about your network, and
you have to curate that aspect of your life with intention and purpose.
Happenstance and serendipity are great - they've brought some great things in
to my life - but it's not enough. Hope is not a strategy. :) Start
(re)developing your professional network _outside_ of your current employment
situation, and watch your freelancing grow.

Maybe freelancing only tides you over for a few months, and you manage to land
another f/t job. Don't ever forget that you're still in charge of your own
career and life. Your current situation should help drive that home for a long
time, but don't dwell on it. Use it as motivation to build your professional
network so that you never have all your eggs in _someone else's_ basket again.
Own multiple baskets. Even if you don't put eggs in any for long stretches,
they're still _your_ basket.

Best of luck to you, and I hope things turn around very quickly for you.

~~~
datawalke
Freelance may be my best choice at the moment. I do however have to make sure
I have a little more in the bank before I make the jump if I don't have a full
time position lined up. Instead of killing myself with extra side-work raising
my freelance rate may be in order just to have a little bit more of a cushion.
If I didn't have a family to care for I wouldn't be as worried.

Thank you for your advice.

~~~
mgkimsal
It's hard to raise rates on existing clients in a short time frame - giving
them some notice (3 months?) would be more professional. Your current
predicament is not their problem, really. However, if you could offer _extra_
services (like, you never did DB work for them, now you'll do DB work) having
a different rate for different _types_ of work is more palatable.

~~~
datawalke
Oh, I mean raising my rates on new clients only. The rest of my clients would
receive an early notice.

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nearestneighbor
I think your mindset is that if you leave now, your boss wins (having
underpaid you all this time). Right?

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appl3star
Get them to pay you right or get out. Maje sure we all know the name of the
company - after you left.. :)

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omouse
If you end up quitting, please name the company so that everyone else can
avoid getting cheated.

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jacquesm
How come the asshole bosses always end up finding people that will 'take it' ?

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shareme
You probably already know the answer if you have talked to a tax
accountant..if they set the hours than its employee and they need to withhold
taxes.

First, find some other projects/gigs to cover your expenses and do not tell
the startup.

Second, when those other gigs are secured ..spend $150 on a CPA that does tax
work..have him compose a letter stating that under work conditions at startup
that they need to state you as employee and withhold payroll taxes. Give cpa
any docs that he needs to document this.

The purpose is not to force startup to do anything. it sot protect you and
your family.

From now on, if firm sets working, hours, and has full quality control of the
work than you need to only accept w-2 employee status.

Your local cpa will have a employee/ tax check list as far as conditions make
it employee and which ones do not so ask for that.

if you cannot afford he $150 to $250 ask your local CPA state board or SBA
office to give you a list of those CPAs that sometimes do free advice
workshops on this.

And most important do not under any circumstances let the startup know your
anger..just get the extra gigs so that you can get out of the situation.

S the project manager I am using know states, you have to care about the money
as the right startups will than take that market rate of a freelancer(no not
salary rate) and say well we can do 75% and pay rest in stock is that
acceptable and as employee.

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mkramlich
This type of post brings out the best of HN.

------
jlgosse
I'm sure you're great, but I'm sick of seeing: "I have been doing web work
since I was nine."

What's up with this? I was probably the most technology savvy kid to come out
of my high school, and I'm still not even remotely close to saying something
like this!

I bet that when you were 9, you couldn't even do most advanced algebra, let
alone _real_ web work.

~~~
sliverstorm
> I bet that when you were 9, you couldn't even do most advanced algebra

I'm confused. Are you suggesting that your average 3rd grader should have
already finished linear algebra? You do realize this means they did calculus
and integrals in 1st grade, trig in kindergarten, and algebra in preschool,
and learned long division when they were 3, right? Many 3 year olds don't even
know how to read yet, and some aren't even solid on English. Or wait, did they
learn that in the womb?

