HN: I was fired today, is this even legal?

[wturner]

Hi,

I've been unemployed for a while and recently got an $8 an hour job through Kelly services. The name of the company is called Juno Pacific in Santa Cruz. I did excellent work, got along with everyone and had nothing but praise from my immediate supervisor. She jokingly said 'good job ,you deserve a raise' and other such comments regularly. When I was quizzed at the little testing stations I worked at I did fine. It was easy rote work.

We had a meeting yesterday where the upper management ( who I had never met ) called in all the workers in my shift and told us about the productivity incentive program.

The productivity incentive program is this: If you give the company any ideas that make them more money you are rewarded with a pizza party and you get to spin a cardboard cut out wheel that has 'big prizes' like a $25 amazon gift certificate. The grand prize of the cardboard cut out wheel is an ipad.

The manager mentioned one example of a single employee that thought up an idea that saved them $5000 a month. Presumably this person was rewarded with a pizza party and got to spin the cardboard cut out wheel and claim their prize.

The manager said that he would like to see each employee come up with at least 3 ideas.

I raised my hand and said that "if anyone here can make the company an additional $5000 a month you should treat them as a consultant and simply write them a check for $1000". I also said that the incentive program as is is a bit "maddening" and silly. I also mentioned that I've seen this kind of thing before at companies while implying that its simply not fair. After the meeting was over a few other employees expressed gratitude because its what they were thinking as well.

Today I was fired without notice. The person that was given the responsibility to notify me didn't give any reason except that my 'outburst was inexcusable' and that the decision came from upper management.

[noonespecial]

I know it sucks because you probably need that $8/hour right at this point but in the grand scheme, the "pizza party" and "wheel of fish" is about the most humiliating ridiculousness I've heard in quite some time. Life is too damn short.

Just reading the small amount you've written about the situation, I can tell you that you simply write English at a greater than $8/hour level. Probably much greater.

I'm continually shocked at how aggressively companies court mediocrity and failure. They probably think they are extremely progressive even for listening to employees in the first place, double plus points for giving token rewards. Unless, of course, that the employee input happens to be about how ridiculous and juvenile the whole exercise is.

[mironathetin]

I agree, the pizza parties and Amazon stuff is ridiculous, no question. I guess, the management did not fire vturner, because he pointed out a better idea. He was fired, because he openly embarrassed the management in a meeting. This is very undiplomatic. Apart from proper english, it is also important to have social skills and develop a feeling for rudeness.

It is very hard to find good ways to turn criticism into something positive and productive, though. This is all about how to put things and about the right or wrong moment. Not easy but worth trying.

[ForHackernews]

Welcome to the New Economy: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/11/surviving-p...

There are many very educated people who write English (and other languages) well struggling for $8/hour jobs. This state of affairs will be coming to the tech industry, too. We're not special, we're just behind the curve because tech was "uncool" for so long.

[joebo]

Spinning a wheel with token prizes (upwards of a $300 item) is not necessarily a terrible, humiliating idea. I have participated in a similar exercise at a previous company and it was well received. In that case, we all wanted to improve the company already so it became a fun contest.

Some companies have idea boxes that don't get used. I don't see the harm in making a small contest out of it.

It sounds like the OP is dissatisfied with his compensation and lost some control and lashed out in a meeting. If the OP was my temp worker I would probably fire him too. Juno Pacific is probably paying the agency 2-3x which might be upwards of $16-$24/hr. Often, it's the temp agency that is taking more than a reasonable cut.

The idea of writing a check for a portion of the improvement is more ridiculous and can quickly become complex. Is that paid for eternity? How are ideas with softer benefits calculated?

[giarc]

I personally think people should appreciate any reward, even if it is just a pizza party. Why do people think they should get a cut of the savings? If you work for the company, you should want to see it succeed for the sake of your own future with the company. If a company has a policy in place for 10% cut of the savings, sure that's great. But don't be greedy and expect more.

[3am]

It's completely legal, and probably a reasonably good life lesson for you in how communicate in the workplace.

I don't disagree with what you said necessarily, but if you think about it from the manager's perspective you basically shoved their nose [edit: and even worse, publicly] in an effort to make employees feel their opinion was valued and a small incentive program for it (the budget for which may not be under their control).

Realistically, you were an $8/hr temp. You were extremely replaceable, and you made yourself a net negative in someone's mind.

I sincerely hope you find new and meaningful employment in very short order.

[davidw]

Yes, it's reasonable: you should not waste your life in a place with silly pizza parties. Aim for something better.

Edit: BTW, he links to his resume in his profile if anyone wants to do a good deed: http://helpknow.com/resume.pdf

[wturner]

I am but in the meantime I need to have food and shelter. I have some freelance work that can sustain me but I really wanted a reliable paycheck. I actually didn't mind the work and the company made a good product. I think the problem is that in the mind of the manager I attempted to plant in the head of the other employees ( many of which English is a second language and its hard to find work and they want to keep it) that you shouldn't just give away what is in your head for some one else to benefit. Its bad enough that they pay these people nothing but trying to scrape whats in their heads in exchange for remedial trinkets is really just seriously gross. If I was still in my 20's I would have just thought the whole thing was racist but I've been around enough to know that its really just corporate culture.

[noddingham]

If you were a temporary worker through Kelly Services you probably won't have much recourse. I temped in my twenties and I don't think there's much you can do. You are a Kelly employee, not an employee of the host company, and as such your work assignment with Juno Pacific was ended so you head back to Kelly for a new assignment. IANAL.

[lawtguy]

Just to reinforce what Noddingham said: if you were a temp working for Kelly, you didn't get "fired": Juno Pacific called up your staffing manager at Kelly Services and told them that they didn't need your services anymore. Yes, that's a lot like getting fired, but if you were a temp, you were never an employee of Juno Pacific.

[jeffmould]

IANAL, but unfortunately there is probably not much you can do in this case. Many states are right to work states meaning that the employer can terminate your employment without reason as long as it is not discriminatory based on age, sex, race, etc... I am also going to assume that this was a temp position that was fulfilled through Kelly services in which case the employer has even more leeway presumably in their contract with Kelly. There is probably a clause in there somewhere that says that since it is a "temp" fulfillment they can terminate their relationship with you at any time without cause.

[wonderyak]

1. That is not what right-to-work laws are for, nor is what you described any definition of right-to-work.

2. CA is an at-will employment state. You can be terminated for cause, no cause or just cause.

[bane]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment

[Xdes]

Well this is a life lesson learned: don't mess with upper management. What they are doing is exploiting their workforce (I mean c'mon a guy saves them $5000/mo and he gets a $50 pizza party?) and the only thing you can do is privately share your discontent behind their backs. Most companies are not open to disruption especially by petty labor.

[lvs]

Before you get a management position, if someone around you challenges your ideas or critiques things you do, you deal with it. After you get a management position, you fire them.

[MetaCosm]

I have some honest questions.

Do you have any sort of social disorder? On the spectrum, etc?

How would you assess your cost versus value at the company? How much extra money (in savings or profits) do you think you generated for the company?

What did you imagine to the be the best outcome, and what did you imagine to be the worst outcome?

Obviously, you didn't think you would get fired over such behavior... why do you think you were unable to see this as a possible repercussion?

Why did you decide to do this in public, rather than private?

Do you often have issues filtering your thoughts before speaking?

Did you realize that your behavior might create a disincentive for other employees to contribute ideas to the company?

----

I am just very curious when situations like this occur, what the internal thinking is... because from an outside perspective, it seems like you getting fired was the obvious (nearly the only) possible outcome.

[ManFromUranus]

You made them feel stupid, so they made you feel unemployed. Do not criticize management openly in front of others, this was your mistake. I've also made this mistake, I was right, I was also ended up unemployed. You were right about everything you said, but it's probably small consolation. It may even have been illegal to fire you, however how likely is it that somebody who makes $8 an hour can afford a lawyer to right that wrong? You can go to some kind of labour dept lawyer and make a case for wrongful dismissal, but the bureaucracy behind such organizations is slow, by the time they act (if they ever do) you will be long past caring.

[mildtrepidation]

As others have pointed out, it's unlikely the company did anything illegal. That aside, I have been in the same situation as you and the OP, and it's far more important to learn the obvious lesson here than to waste time trying to find recourse.

[jimmydddd]

You should reconsider what you were trying to accomplish with your remarks. If your intention was to change the policy, it may have been better to offer your criticism after the public event, in a less confrontational manner. No one likes to be shown up. Consider making suggestions that allow the other people to save face. While it might feel good in the moment to complain in public and humiliate your boss, the end result will often be counter-productive to your goals. This happens at all levels of management. You got to learn it when the stakes are relatively low. Good luck!

[rguzman]

Put a way to contact you in your HN profile and on your other profiles (GH, SO).

While it sucks to be short on money, it really seems like you dodged a bullet and you're better off not working there. From what I can tell from your writing and your online presence, you are far above making $8/hr.

[taurath]

Thats what really gets me about this, either this is truly a fucked up situation or something isn't getting through - if you're in the valley and you can write a jquery selector/do a few frontend customizations, you can put your resume on dice and have 10 phone calls the first week. I don't really know what to say, I have no degree but have just a few contacts and taking a job at a company like that for less than I'd get at an in-n-out seems way out of line.

Suggestion to OP: post your resume on a few sites and get recruiters calling if you haven't. Maybe put your teaching job on the bottom and emphasize coding ability. There's no reason you shouldn't be getting a few interviews very quickly unless you only speak in Klingon irl.

[munimkazia]

Yep, I see no discrimination based on sex or race, which we know is illegal for sure. They can simply fire you if they want to, otherwise. I wouldn't be too beaten up about it though.. Doesn't look like the best place to work.

[larrik]

You can contact the Department of Labor (http://www.labor.ca.gov/), but I seriously doubt what they did has any legal consequence.

I don't know about CA specifically, but Departments of Labor usually LOVE aggressively defending employees' rights. Something I don't see much on HN, but I saw a LOT when I worked in HR.

[mhurron]

> Departments of Labor usually LOVE aggressively defending employees' rights

In my experience this is only true if it is easily proven that you were fired because of blatant racism or sexism. If it isn't either of those two reasons or it is harder to prove, nothing will happen.

To the OP, yes it seems perfectly legal, you can be fired at any time for any reason that isn't one of a handful of protected reasons (sex, religion, race etc.). You can be fired for wearing blue that day if they so feel like it. It's just not usually so petty because it can be a little bit of a cost replacing a person.

[toblender]

Dude you have more rep than I do at Stackoverflow. Where are you located in the world that you are unable to find a web development job?

[shadowcats]

Yeah, that is a blatant imbalance.

Why, OP, are you not working as a developer?

Honest question, not trying to be negative or anything.

[grecy]

It's a shame, but something I've learned in the last few years working for a bigger company with layers and layers of management is that they genuinely are not interested in your ideas or input.

Some middle-manager somewhere in the chain came up with the "spin the wheel" idea - and no matter how stupid you think it is, they have a vested interest in it working out, so they look good to their boss. As soon as you point out how stupid it is, you're undermining them, and that's something no middle-manger will tolerate.

It's a shame, but the best thing you can do is keep your mouth shut.

(Yes, I'm looking for a new job)

[intherdfield]

I'm really sorry to hear about what happened. I wish you the best of luck in finding a new job. The pizza party idea sounds demeaning and silly.

Now is not the time for advice on communication, but I can't help but comment on this, sorry. Take this with a grain of salt because I wasn't in the room. Should the manager be able to handle your questions better? Yes. But, consider this rhetorical question, was your aim to embarrass the manager or improve the situation? Even though you were presented with something ridiculous, from the manager's perspective, you embarrassed him in front of his reports. Criticizing someone (or an extension of them such as their work) in a group setting can be very destructive. In a situation like that, I recommend talking to the manager one-on-one afterwards. That gives the manager the opportunity to do something that fixes this and to be a good manager that listens to his employees and comes up with incentives that might actually work. If the manager doesn't want that outcome, don't waste your time there. Your manager might be childish and unprofessional. He might just lack the empathy required to understand your perspective without it being explained to him. If he is the former, and you don't want to get fired, you have to act in a way that is acceptable to someone childish and unprofessional. I think a good manager would handle your points and questions and give you some kind of response whether it be 1) I'll look into fixing this or 2) sorry, I can't fix this. They say good managers are hard to find.

[leothekim]

Employment in the US is "at will", which means you can be fired without just cause (except for prohibitions for race, religion, gender, age, disability, national origin). It may seem terrible, but it's good to remember that "at will" works the other way too, so if your situation sucks you shouldn't feel legally obliged to stay.

[edit] Also, I'm sorry that you got fired like this, it sounds maddening and inhumane. Best of luck to you in finding something better.

[dragonwriter]

In general, it is important to provide negative feedback on a management initiatives in private, except when it is very specifically solicited in a public forum (or you really know all the people involved well enough to know that its acceptable to them), and, whether privately or publicly, doing it in a respectful way that focuses on the benefit (particularly, to the company) of doing things in the way you think is better and/or (really, equivalently) the costs (again, to the company) of doing things the "wrong" way (actually, that's largely true of negative feedback in general, not just up the chain.)

Of course, there is a difference if you have grievances that have reached a certain point -- see, well, the whole of the labor movement -- but at that point you have better already organized with others and be prepared for an extended and escalating series of negative consequences before you reach your objective, and a not-good-enough new incentive program isn't usually the kind of thing where that is called for.

The consequences in this case were, perhaps, extreme (though not surprising, especially in the contract of an assignment through a staffing agency rather than regular employment), but that there would be negative blowback is not at all unexpected.

The good thing is that losing a temporary assignment like this tends to have a lot impact on employability, even in the short term, than being fired. That's not to say it doesn't suck -- I've been there, more than once -- but its probably a "learn from it and move on" situation more than anything else.

[wpietri]

California is an at-will state. You can generally be fired at any time for almost any reason:

http://www.business.ca.gov/StartaBusiness/AdministeringEmplo...

I'm no lawyer, but them not liking how you act in a meeting is probably one of the reasons.

As an aside: yes, you're right, that's horseshit. The purpose of behavior like this is to establish dominance. "Fair" is irrelevant; even "well run" is secondary to keeping the caste system in place. If you're interested in the nature and history of this, you might see if your library has the book Confronting Managerialism: http://www.amazon.com/Confronting-Managerialism-Business-Eco...

[mattm]

Hi William,

I'm sorry to hear about your situation. One thing I've learned in life is that people will ask all kinds of unreasonable things of you. There's no need to get upset with them. A simple "No, I can't do that" is a perfectly acceptable answer.

While your point was valid, I suspect it was the way you said it that lead to you getting fired. You said you mentioned it was "maddening and silly." There's no need to get mad. You can't control what other people will say. You can only control your reaction to it. If you had just suggested that the program might be more efficient if employees shared in the monetary savings and left it at that, I would guess that there would have been some discussion and maybe something positive would have come out of it. Instead, you insulted people who had probably put a lot of thought into this program so of course they felt humiliated and used their power to get revenge.

Yes, I know it's petty but many people are like that.

I was presented with something similar at work once. I won't go into the details but basically the company was hoping we would use our free time to create something that they would basically take ownership of. When the manager got done explaining it and asked me what I thought, I just said "I'll think about it" but I knew I would never do it.

It was never brought up again.

The same thing probably would have happened with this program. In a week, all the managers would have forgotten about it and moved on to one of their other hair-brained ideas.

I know you're in a difficult situation right now. I don't know your area but you could probably get an $8/hr job just walking down the street. I hope this turns into a blessing in disguise for you. It's a good lesson to learn. Better to be fired from an $8/hr job for this than an $80/hr job.