Ask HN: Hiring scam?
A friend of mine was hired on as a graphic designer for a company in San francisco, last friday, after 4 months of employment - she was told that Friday was the last day of her 4-month evaluation period - that the company will hire someone else into the 4-month evaluation now and then let her know if she was selected.
This was a total shock to her, and they had never mentioned anything about this prior.
This sounds highly suspect to me - that they are using people for 4-months at a time then dropping them prior to giving them any benefits.
What do you think? And what do you suggest she do?
33 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 86.3 ms ] threadMost likely reason for firing is that they did not benefit enough from your friend work (for example because the work is a mismatch between what they need and her passion).
What are her alternatives?
Even if they were legally required to keep her on longer, would she want to work for them?
Even if she could sue, does she want to be involved in a legal battle while trying to find a new job?
b) Treat it like a firing, in all respects. I'd start looking for new employment immediately.
(Even if they came back with an offer, you should not work for a company that has that attitude with regards to FTEs. There is nothing wrong with "OK, now we're going to subject you to four months of unpaid downtime while we evaluate another guy for your job" - it is routine if you're a consultant billing several hundred an hour. If you're not, no, just no.)
c) On the plus side, she dodged a bullet there.
Some time ago, when my wife got pregnant, she was let go from her job and they specifically told her it was because she was pregnant. She filed suit against them (ongoing) because they specifically said it was due to the pregnancy.
Sometimes companies do really shady stuff (like to my wife) and potentially hiring people for 4-month stints. Other times, they could just be using this as an "easier" way to fire someone - which is a bit passive aggressive.
I'll have to find out which it is in this case.
The exceptions are called "protected classes". It's illegal to fire someone for their race, gender, religion, sexual orientation (in some states), pregnancy, or age.
These almost universally include race, sex, sexual orientation, age, disability, becoming pregnant, being required to participate in a mandatory action like jury duty, and I think being recalled to the military if you are on inactive status.
If an employer violates these, the ex-employee has grounds to sue.
And so we have another reason that companies might need to adopt fascist office hours: not doing so might get them sued.
(I strongly believe in the idea of the ADA and am not suggesting that the proverbial baby be thrown out with the &c &c).
The US has very lax employment regulation. You can be fired for any reason at any time.
Most of Europe, the Nordic countries in particular, have stringent regulation. Continuous employment can only be terminated for cause. In the last decade or so, it has become relatively common to try to circumvent this by hiring with back-to-back temporary contracts (usually 6-12 months) which are against the spirit – and often letter – of the law; they're only supposed to be used when there is a specific reason for being temporary. This poses all kinds of problems like vacations, maternity-/paternity leave and a general lack of life security.
Lately legislation has been discovered that allows “trial periods” to be abused: the trials are often of excessive length, 4-6 months, and people can be summarily dismissed without having to give notice (normally at least a month, often longer), vacation &c. This is obviously much more common in relatively low-skill jobs where the actual training doesn't take much of an investment.
I see what you are trying to say, but it's not entirely true. You can be fired for any reason, as long as it's not illegal (discriminatory, because of a disability, a pregnancy, whistleblower, union organizer, etc).
This is why often, when you get fired, the company is better off not telling you why (cover their asses). At least that's what counsel of some companies would say.
I've seen the other side of the coin in countries that have employee protections in place. Where it can be abused (ie, everyone is an independent contractor), employees lose as they have no benefits. Where it cannot, employees lose out because it's not worth it to invest in hiring people. Overall, IMO it is bad overall to give employees too much protection. In this aspect, I think the American system is as close to perfect as it gets.
On the plus side, at-will employment is a huge boon to those of us who start companies, and is one of the major differences between the US and Europe. So there's that.
Like everyone else is implying, the best way she can get back at them is to find a way to make sure the name of this company gets out. I wouldn't do business of any sort with a firm that employed this tactic.
But tptacek is likely correct that there probably isn't any recourse in this case.
http://lawzilla.com/content/noncompete.shtml
Maybe they weren't happy with her at the end of her probationary period, but are too weak to outright fire her?
That company deserves to have their name dragged out into public.