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Yelp Employee Posts Open Letter About Cost Of Living And Low Wages, Gets Fired (modernreaders.com)
whoever57 writes: Talia Jane was employed by Yelp in San Francisco but after posting in an open letter to Yelp's CEO, Jeremy Stoppelman, that her after tax income of $8.15 was insufficient to provide basic necessities like heating, food, etc., she discovered that she had been fired. How did she discover? Her work email stopped working. Even her boss did not know what had happened. Stoppelman denies having a hand in her firing, making the claim "(There are) two sides to every HR story so Twitter army please put down the pitchforks," replying to the criticism. He didn't personally turn off her email, perhaps he did not even make the decision to fire her, but as the person who ultimately sets the culture and policies of the company, his claim to not be directly responsible is unconvincing.
I truly hope none of us here will express amazement that someone who criticized their employer, and blamed them for what are essentially her own poor life choices, got fired.
This is how the real world works, jr. You are not owed, or entitled, to shit.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Her code of conduct infractions were making sexual jokes comments online (I forget if they were in Yelp or not), posting about internal company stuff, etc. combined with complaining about her wages while Instagraming photos of drinking, comments about drug use, and complaining that she couldn't take he provided snacks home, complaining about wages while simultaneously talking about making eggs Benedict.
Yeah, I'd love to see her get in front of a jury and talk about how she was fired for retaliation. She literally provided photographic evidence against her case.
"So ma'am, you said in your oct 13th post that you were too poor to afford a loaf of bread, correct? And that it was unfair that you were not allowed to take a company provided break room loaf of bread home, correct? Can you read the text of your post dated xyz? How much does a bottle of that whiskey run these days? And can you read the post from xyz date? How much does a joint run these days? How much did you spend on the ingredients for eggs Benedict? Okay, so your rent was $1300, and your biweekly checks were $730, correct. So that leaves you $150:month for food and entertainment. In this one month you blew your entire budget on making yourself a brunch while high, correct? Now can you identify the signature on the Yelp code of conduct here? That's yours, correct? Can you read section whatever about drug use? Social media stuff? Would any of those things be consistent with those codes?
Well, are the yelpers going to rate yelp one star now?
This has been covered elsewhere, and never with so much horseshit bias. No editorialization should be needed for news, which is why no one likes Bennet Hasslehoff either.
Didn't we reject this nonsense about the time Glenn Beck refused to deny raping and murdering that girl?
There's the right way and the wrong way to do things. Did she have a beef with her employer? or with the cost of housing in the Bay Area? or with the level of minimum wage? or with a minimum wage that is not tied to regionally tied to housing costs?
The wrong way to handle any of the above is to write an "open letter" to your CURRENT EMPLOYER and call them out.
I feel for her and for all like her in the same situation, but this wasn't the way to handle it.
And I am sure it had nothing to do with her getting alcohol delivered to her while at work or bragging about making sexual jokes to the companies twitter account. It's either quite a coincidence or she knew she was in trouble and wrote the letter to try and make the company look worse.
Don't like your employer-employee relationship and want the world to know? There, fixed that for ya.
Plenty of people want your job if you don't.
She publicly tried to bring her employer to ill repute. I suspect that that is specifically outlined in her employment contract as it has been in every single employment contract I have ever had.
There is no case for whistle blower protection here.
If you can't afford to live there, don't. Leave and have a better quality of life elsewhere.
I read Talia's essay and thought it was very well written. Yelp's CEO sounded like a real air-breather trying to transform the conversation into one about his sympathy for the high cost of living in the Bay area. There are still stupid people in this world, but Yelp seems to drastically over-estimate their ability to weave a tale.
Why is anyone making barely above minimum wage trying to live in San Francisco, one of the most expensive cities in the U.S. without even getting a roommate to split the rent? Also, the low temperature doesn't get below freezing so there's no need to ever run a heater. Yes, that means you'll probably want an additional heavy blanket to sleep under, but you're not going to die.
"...as the person who ultimately sets the culture and policies of the company, his claim to not be directly responsible is unconvincing."
Whether it's unconvincing is simply a matter of your opinion; and your reason for holding this opinion is invalid. If the CEO's only action was to "set the culture and policies of the company", then no, he is not ~directly~ responsible for the firing. He is ~indirectly~ responsible. The person who is ~directly~ responsible is the one who, you know, decided to fire her.
If you make waves at your employer, getting fired is certainly a foreseeable consequence.
There are a lot of people who want a job, any job, your job, so if you have qualms about your employer then their severing that tie should not be a surprise.
Where is the link to this story/open letter?
This is a known medical condition :SMACSS
Social Media Assisted Career Suicide Syndrome.
Researchers are still searching for a cure!
So much for an open door policy at Yelp. If there is such a policy at Yelp, it probably pays lip service to politically correct HR.
... because of "with a computer."
Got it.
News at 11.
Thanks for that scoop /. !!
Sent from my ENIAC
If Jeremy Stoppleman had any shred of humanity he would have prevented this and, at least, addressed the letter. But these days, any threat to the wealthy or establishment is quickly and quietly quashed.
The person is making $10 per hour (before taxes) and working in San Francisco. That's a bad combination right there. I wouldn't work in San Francisco unless I was making $30+ per hour.
Talia Jane was actually fired 4 years ago, but they forgot to stop her paychecks and email. They just "fixed the glitch".
Her red Swingline was also confiscated.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
The US really is a toxic hellhole of everything bad about capitalism. I will laugh when you die starving in the streets.
Talia Jane, I have news for you: even people with far more worthwhile skills than you have, or will ever have, get roommates after college, don't buy cars right away, and live frugally. And if you keep doing the kind of stupid things you're doing, you will indeed end up bankrupt and homeless. You have nobody but yourself to blame.
I wish we were responding to her actual letter, rather than your portrayal of her letter, and your spin on the situation.
I'm going to respond to her letter, rather than to you.
===
Starting wages for her position at Yelp are nearly $10/hour over minimum wage. Assuming she worked a full 40 hour week, she was making a minimum of $35,360/year.
That yields, given California and federal tax rates:
$680.00 = Weekly Gross Pay
$086.59 = Federal Withholding
$042.16 = Social Security
$009.86 = Medicare
$017.79 = California
$006.12 = SDI
$517.48 = Net Pay
$26,908.96/year gross income
Accept her "80% goes for rent" number as fact. That yields:
$21527.168 / year
= $1793.93 / month
This is a quite high rent, and implies she's living alone, with no roommates. We'll get back to that.
$5,381.79 = non-rent disposable income/year
$448.48 / month
$103.49/week
This is low, but it's livable. She does not qualify for SNAP (food stamps), even after income deductions: she is not below 200% of the federal poverty level. In other words: 30% of people live on less than that.
Let's revisit the rent.
A ForRent.com search (not the best site, but representative) shows 6 apartments in Emeryville -- a nice area, near Berkeley, but across the Bay Bridge from San Francisco, for less than $800/month. All of them near public transportation; 2 of them have pools.
That's without taking a roommate. So she could have halved her monthly rent, if she was willing to live somewhere *not actually in San Francisco*.
That's another $993.93/month in her pocket... ...which covers everything she complains about in her letter, plus adds some spending money. She'd have more if she split the rent on a more expensive apartment with a roommate.
= $229.36/week
+ $103.49/week
= $332.85/week
I'm not feeling very sympathetic right now.”
Did she not do the math? Gross income, less federal and state income tax, social security, medicare, and benefits = net pay.
If her net pay doesn't cover rent, food, utilities, and discretionary spending then this obviously isn't the right job for her.
We can probably safely presume that since she got her degree in English Lit that math is probably not her strong suit.
I would have found a way to supplement my income. I see people selling Yelp 'reputation management' services all the time, being an inside /(wo)?man/ on that would be profitable indeed.
In my contract it is forbidden that i discuss my salary with anybody, especially in public in connection with my employer.
he certainly did not do anything to reverse the firing....
This asshole absolutely told his assistant to fire them.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
A better written response, with link to the letter
Here: https://medium.com/@StefWillia...
I refuse to link the letter in question directly. It's crap.
You're a human being. You're owed food, shelter and healthcare. Otherwise wtf is the point of civilization? Why shouldn't I just sell your organs on the open market or crack your skull open and feast on the goo? Stop acting like dog eat dog is just how it should be because you got yours (fuck me). We band together as a species to make life better for all of us. You're more vulnerable than you think you are. Wake up before it's too late.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
After reading the posts in this thread, re-read them in either Trump or Bernie Sanders' voice.
Looking online, I see that Jeremy Stoppelman's personal net worth is estimated at between $110 and $220 million dollars. Of course he only has to pay his workers what the market will bear, but he certainly could afford to pay them more if he wanted to.
Clearly shows the callousness one ??O needs to have to fill his/her chair and how many of those acts and conditions happen remain undisclosed and found necessary to keep the wheels humming.
Here's the open letter, since tfs doesn't seem to include a link: https://medium.com/@taliajane/...
Her observations are valuable, and Yelp will be wise to pay attention. Its not in their interest to have frustrated employees.
But the part where she posted a link to her bosses home address? That was creepy and unnecessary.
This article could be an interesting one to use to model different moderation models. There is a real mix of conflicting moderation so far with insightful mixed with flame bait and over rated mixed with interesting.
Could be a good example to work with putting in a "contentious" filter.
If you desire to live in a desirable place then find a job where the utility you provide your employer is higher than the utility you're providing Yelp in your current position.
The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers. -probably not said by Socrates.
as a small business owner i can tell you all yelp is a disgusting piece of shit, worse than facebook, all they want is money for basically not removing you from any and all search results, they have no interest in helping consumers find what theyre looking for.
https://medium.com/@taliajane/an-open-letter-to-my-ceo-fb73df021e7a
Sample
Let’s talk about those benefits, though. They’re great. I’ve got vision, dental, the normal health insurance stuff—and as far as I can tell, I don’t have to pay for any of it! Except the copays. $20 to see a doctor or get an eye exam or see a therapist or get medication. Twenty bucks each is pretty neat, if spending twenty dollars didn’t determine whether or not you could afford to get to work the next week.
Did I tell you about how I got stuck in the east bay because my credit card, which amazingly allows cash withdrawals, kept getting declined and I didn’t have enough money on my BART Clipper card to get to work? Did I tell you that my manager, with full concern and sympathy for my situation, suggested I just drive through FastTrak and get a $35 ticket for it that I could pay at a later time, just so I could get to work? Did I tell you that an employee at CVS overheard my phone call with my manager and then gave me, straight from his wallet, the six dollars I needed to drive into work? Do you think CVS pays more than Yelp? I worked a job similar to one at CVS. A manager spends half an hour training you on the cash register, you watch a video, maybe take a brief quiz, and you’re fully trained to do the entire job. Did you know that after getting hired back in August, I’m still being trained for the same position I’ve got? But Marcus at CVS has six dollars in his wallet, and I’m picking up coins on the street trying to figure out how I’ll be able to pay him back.
Amazing.
The first several lines of the article are very important. It usually contain the main point. But you are talking about your dream as a child. Is it a novel?
That's what happens when 99.5% of jobs are paying slave wages and parents only get to see their kids 1 hour a day because they have to work 2 full time jobs each.
The boss of the company whose (successful) business model is (borderline legal) extortion stomps on a lowly peon because he feels like it and is annoyed when called out on it.
Dog bites man.
I did the website for a new shop and submitted it to Yelp and searchengines.
It got some 5 star reviews and immediately after that calls started from Yelp sales persons to advertise on Yelp.
Every time a sale was rejected one of those 5 star reviews was removed.
The last call I confronted the sales person with this fact, he said that it is his right to flag bad reviews but promised not to do it if an advertisement was bought.
Unconvincing, untrustworthy, unbelievable, without merit.
Ha ha
Another probably mid forties to mid fifties asshole, who has no idea of how difficult it is for young people these days to get to the comfy position you're in.
I would suggest she try and move to a civilised country that pays a decent minimum wage, and provides health care like a civilised country should.
For the most part there is nothing wrong with the moderation on Slashdot, trolls sink to the bottom reasonable comments float to the top.
I surf at the 2 threshold, seems to avoid most bullshit.
There is the pesky problem of "group think" and having engaging comments modded down because they don't fit with the "group think" - subjects like Assage / Snowden, RMS, Microsoft, and so on can be tricky. But there probably isn't a solution to that...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
How do I post a review of Yelp?
I posted one on Yelp!, but it was soon deleted.
I'm just saying it's what WILL happen.
Indeed, history teach us that people revolt when they do not have enough to eat. But on the other hand, I cannot think about a democratic system been thrown away this way.
Therefore we are stuck with this alternative: either convince people to vote for someone that will fix the problem, or convince people the system is not democratic (which may be the case or not: what matters is how it is perceived) and they should revolt.
This is very true. I understand why in the 90s, companies chose to be there - 80% of the world's VCs were there, and so that was where companies got started. Plus if you were a semiconductor or software company, usually the people you needed would be more likely found in the Santa Clara Valley than anywhere else.
After leaving the Bay Area and returning there on a visit after 10 years, I just couldn't recognize the place. Most of the tech companies that could be seen from the Bayshore Freeway in the 90s and even early 2000s were gone. The Microcenter near the AMC Theater in Santa Clara, which could be seen from the same freeway, had been replaced by a Walmart. Unlike previously, where the big offices used to be that of various tech companies, like the Intels, the Suns and so on, now it was mainly the consulting companies - KPMG, Accenture, et al.
I know that a whole bunch of the geek crowd w/ goatees love loitering in San Francisco to be in 'The City', but still, this fetish of basing their companies there totally escapes me. Particularly a company like Yelp, that could easily have set up shop anywhere else in the country.
Have gnu, will travel.
If you're going to San Francisco
Be sure to have some money in the bank
If you're going to San Francisco
You're going to meet some large expenses there
For those who come to San Francisco
Payin' the rent will be a worry there
In the streets of San Francisco
Young people, grey showing in their hair
All across the nation
Come see that abberation
People in trouble
There's a whole generation
With really no explanation
People in trouble
People in trouble
For those who come to San Francisco
Payin' the rent will be a worry there
In the streets of San Francisco
Young people, grey showing in their hair
When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
If Yelp is under paying that much maybe there is a better opportunity out there. Though I'm guessing that is not the case after reading that blog. Sometimes the problem isn't in the employer.
Said every ageing generation ever. What a fucktard.
Yes, I know, Yelp not Yahoo... When thinking of shitty companies, for some reason Yahoo always pops into my mind...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Where is your criticism of the sentence fragments to be found in the letter to which you provided a link? Is it possible that you are loath to crtitcize the grammar of someone whose views you endorse?
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
She HAS health care. Full. She also has her own car, and her own place to live in one of the most expensive city in the World. She also earns over $35k a year.
It is an old observation that the best writers sometimes disregard the rules of rhetoric. When they do so, however, the reader will usually find in the sentence some compensating merit, attained at the cost of the violation. Unless he is certain of doing as well, he will probably do best to follow the rules.
She was certainly exposed to that exact quote and chose to ignore its sage advice. Forgive us for inferring that her situation is the result of ignoring other good advice she has been offered.
TIL why they're called Yelp. It's the noise they like their employees to make.
Sometimes we don't realize we are in a bad position and it takes a kick in the butt to improve your situation.
I do feel bad for her, but I am not surprised. If she is worth it, I truly do hope market forces work their thing and she finds something more meaningful and pays enough.
I recall working a job for $11 an hour in college in Hawaii and thinking, I just need to make $30k a year as a manager and I will have my life set, then I graduated from college and a lot of classmates were making $80k some $100k a year.
I tried it out took a chance and moved to the "Mainland" and financially and spiritually I am in a much better place. I miss Hawaii, but am at peace with the choice I made.
So like I said, hope she will find something better, but she needs to be worth it.
Where is your criticism of the sentence fragments to be found in the letter to which you provided a link? Is it possible that you are loath to crtitcize the grammar of someone whose views you endorse?
I stated that it was "better written", not "well written". If you want a point by point critique of either for their linguistic skills, I would, perhaps, be willing to provide you one -- provided you refrain from being accusatory and offensive.
If you are writing an essay in a way that conceivably, or to be honest: most likely, result in your being fired, and you are claiming credits as someone with an English Literature degree, you are, in fact, providing a writing example to potential employers.
The complaint essay had a number of themas, but the major ones were:
- Hey, I'm unhappy
- Hey, I think I'm not being paid enough (the position is $17/hour to start is nearly $10/hour above federal minimum wage)
- Hey, look at me!
- Hey, the snacks are gone for people who work weekends
- Hey, I've complained to my bosses bosses boss about other things in the past, because I do not respect my management chain
- Hey, working at Yelp sucks!
- Hey, I deserve to write, tweet, and so on for Yelp in less than a year after being hired
- Hey, even though I write, tweet, and so on for free, and Yelp wouldn't have to pay me to be sure I'd continue doing so
- Hey, I have an English Lit degree, so I'm qualified as a writer, as evidenced by this writing sample I'm currently presenting
- Hey, I buy into a stupid stereotype called "Millennials"; although it's really a marketing bucket, I think it's a cultural group
- Hey, I spend way too much on my apartment, because I apparently do not know how to use Google
- Hey, I'm starving to death, even though my social media accounts have pictures and posts of me making, eating, and drinking expensive food
That's not a millennial, and it's not a mature adult, it's a spoiled child with a liberal arts degree. And that degree will generally never land you a job unless you are either willing to "Pay Dues", as the essay I referenced indicated its author did, or you pursue a graduate level degree. And perhaps even a graduate degree will not land you a job, in that particular subject: Geoffrey Chaucer knowledge is not high on the list of things I look for when considering job candidates.
So yeah: she's been pissing off management for a while, violating her employment agreement, and living above her means.
I'm surprised, nay, astonished!, that she lasted as long as she did(*)(**)(***).
====
Footnotes:
(*) The exclamation point before the comma was an intentional breakage of the rules; it works as a pun on two levels; firstly it better indicates degree of incredulity, and secondly, official branding for "Yelp!" contains an exclamation point.
(**) I am neither claiming a literary degree, nor am I providing a writing same to a prospective employer, nor am I claiming in an essay that I should be promoted to a writing position with less than a year in a position to indicate my willingness to actually do work.
(***) These footnotes themselves indicate that I'm aware of the rules, the fact that I broke them, the fact that she should be held to a higher stndard, and this footnote in particular is deliciously self-referential
I read the letter and I'm tempted to offer a rebuttal. However, I'm particularly lazy today. I have my reasons.
At any rate... Suffice to say, there's a lot to be said about this. Like most things, it's complicated. There's even more than one way to look at it and a variety of "facts" still in debate. One of those facts includes sexual innuendo whilst representing the company on a public forum, drinking at work, and recreational drug use - on her own time. (I'm obviously not a fan of a company giving a shit what you do on your own time but, ya know, you don't have to *tell* them that in a public forum with your own username attached to it.)
'Snot even very well written. My grasp of the English language is quite poor. I can do better than that. But, what is the message? Oh, yes... Now I remember. Heh, no - that's not even worth rebutting. There's a level of accountability missing. I suspect that would fix a few things up but she's bound to come to a realization - eventually. And, as I'm skipping all the fluff, the sooner she reaches that realization, the better. Don't blame me, I didn't set up the system. I do know that I must work within it - if I want the benefits from it.
So, save us both the time and assume I said something witty and insightful. *nods* Insert it here and pretend it was another seven or eight paragraphs. That's my thoughts on the subject. Make sure to finish it off with a nice personal anecdote and call it good. 'Cause I'll write you a novella if I really gotta... I suspect I'd be preaching to the choir and I am lazy today.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
What makes you think it was easy for those guys to get that position? Why does she deserve that position without having put any effort into it? What does that look like in your head? 'Cause if it's anything like I envision, it's not all it's cracked up to be.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
... that she got fired from Yelp for posting an unflattering review?
Agreed, America would be better off. College drop out with major in english literature screams loser.
"talia jane
comedy - writing - better at thinking about things than actually doing them"
I think we may have found the issue here.
but i still don't care about yelp. sorry, better luck with your next "star turp".
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
While at her income level hiring a lawyer might not be worth it, I'm going to say that 'company email stops working' isn't a proper notification of release from employment.
As such, she should still be paid for her hours until she receives proper, formal, notification.
I don't read AC A human right
She explains this already: the company deactivate all access right away, and tell the person they've been fired when they show up the next day.
She just called her manager right away and got an unofficial confirmation. She was still going to get an official notification the moment she stepped in the office.
CC'ing is usually a dumb thing to do.
Yea provide health care, and dental care, and free food if your too lazy to get off your duff. What the hell is going to ever motivate these people who have everything given to them to ever do anything themselves?
Yelp was never really useful to begin with. Fuck that shit. Seriously, and fuck every idiot who insists on using it.
I get that in a lot of states there is this thing called "at will employment" that allows an employer to fire an employee for almost any reason (or no reason), as long as the reason does not violate federal rights, but is it legal to fire someone without actually communicating to them that their services are no longer required, apparently letting them somehow figure it out on their own?
While the situation with Milton in the movie Office Space was funny, I can't imagine it is remotely legal in real life.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Look at the bright side. She'll be force to find another job, or leave the bay area wher even tech workers have difficulties to find an appartment. May be she'll be lucky to find a rich husband.. Or just try to collect money from a gofundme page.
Imagine if you're rich and protected by automated weaponry from the rest of humanity.....
There could come a day when the 1% doesn't need to keep the masses sort of happy anymore, and the 99% would have no recourse except to try to subsistence farm on whatever marginal lands the 1% allows them to occupy.
This seems to be the future that certain parties in the USA want to bring about.
A better written response, with link to the letter
Here: https://medium.com/@StefWillia...
I refuse to link the letter in question directly. It's crap.
U read this one https://medium.com/@optimiseor... (I got half way through, guy just didn't know when to stop). It's a "I share your pain, but..." reply.
There's no article here, it's just some moron pushing an agenda.
To be fair, when I lived in SF I was a network admin and I made OK money, so I could afford to eat out all the time. And to be equally fair, I eat a nice big fat steak semi-regularly now and I feel grateful for the opportunity, too. But when I was starting out, I ate a lot of goddamned ramen, not steaks. And I didn't live by myself, I shared a house with five other people. And I didn't use Lush products, I used Suave, or whatever I got out of the dollar store.
Yes, the cost of living in SF is high, but what do you expect to do about it? I sympathize with people who were born poor in SF; how do you save enough to escape? There is only so much SF to go around. This nation is founded upon the principle that might makes right, not that whoever was there first gets to stay. If you lack economic might, you don't get to run things. If one is opposed to capitalism, okay, just say so. But don't complain about cost of living, or gentrification, or scarce housing if you choose to move to someplace. There are other less exciting places to live which are considerably better deals. We have to decide who gets to live in SF somehow. Money is the arbiter of all such decisions under capitalism.
I was reading a blog post on gentrification recently where the author was whining that tech companies had come into SF "a few years ago" and blown the economy out of proportion. Talk about a total lack of perspective; it happened decades ago, not "a few years", or at least that's when it really began to take off. The tech proliferation in SF corresponded to the dot-com boom. They had office space and proximity to an international airport, what did people expect?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
the point is, that working for yelp as it is, is stupid.
the company will have problems as result.
and just ducking behind hr doesn't really help.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
"If ask any professional you'll ever meet about how they find their jobs, almost none of them will tell you they use any kind of job search. By far the best way is to network with people you know."
For very high wage post like CFO, CIO, or C level manager you are right, for the rest of us ? Bullshit. The crushing majority of "middle" class or white collar job are found through want ads or similar.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
And I was just watching another stories about Yelp:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Most of the comments here are about whether the woman in question is a whiner. That isn't the important point. The National Labor act makes it illegal to fire employees for "discussing terms and conditions of employment with fellow employees". The NLRB has ruled that social media is a way to discuss conditions with other employees. Unless she was discussing company secrets not related to things like salary she can't be fired for that. More detail can be found here: https://www.nlrb.gov/news-outr... If Yelp fired her because of this post, then they are going to owe her back wages and maybe a lot more.
How did she discover? Her work email stopped working.
I assume there was at least one more step to it than that. If I discovered my email had stopped working, I wouldn't automatically assume I'd been fired and not bother coming into work. I'd go to work as normal, ask around, and then someone would tell me I'd been fired.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Yelp! is finished
Girl ought to be glad she has a job at all after "having majored in English literature"
A millennial using the word millennial as a derogatory term. That's kind of cute in all its awkwardness.
-SR
Ridiculous....not happy with your pay or can't make ends meet.....find another job!
Now you have a go fund me page since you were fired.......support yourself and get a job like everyone else!
What is the news here? If you violate the policy of the company you are working for, and you get fired, should you really be surprised?
I don't know much about Yelp, but every company I've ever worked for has had strict rules about a) disclosing your rate of pay and b) speaking negatively about the company in public.
The reasons for each are pretty obvious. Being an employee carries the public perception of "speaking for the company," and so it is important that employees are careful what they say in public.
Yelp is useless. They delete bad reviews. Amazon has a sycophant army marking bad reviews as unhelpful, but Yelp goes one further and just deletes them.
We're not handing out tax breaks to the rich, we're handing them out to the cronies. Just ask the rich who are not cronies how much tax they're paying. You'll see them beefing at how cronies get the nice tax breaks while they are the ones paying.
In addition, the middle class pays most of the taxes anyway. See, they're not cronies, so taxes hit them the hardest.
When corrupt government stops being corrupt, maybe we can actually stand a chance of having a society.
"And the positions I’d be offered would all be unpaid internships."
This is something that needs to be killed, with fire.
The rest of it is fairly solid though. Most young people expect the hard work is all in school and that a magical, high-paid job is waiting at the end of all those cram sessions and exams. Hell, my wife is going through this right now while studying for a new field, and the one thing I have to stress to her is that - while I personally make a good wage and a lot more than her current - that's based on over a decade of experienced gained and ladders climbed, including jobs with crappy pay.
But while even a decade ago one could start at the bottom and climb, an oft-overlooked factor is that that the bottom hasn't moved much, but the water your ladder is sitting in has. The *cost* of living (and no, I don't mean bourbon, but rent, heating, food, and possibly fuel) has surged and is outstripping wages at the middle let alone the bottom.
There are problems at both ends of the spectrum: People at the top who make obscene amounts of money and see those under as menial subservients; and people in the working pool who frankly lack either the work-ethic or take their employment seriously. Both problems also tend to feed each other, with workers feeling beaten down and thus "why try", and corporations who want to both sell us (or better yet, rent us) expensive products and pay us low wages.
this should not be marked troll. this is dead on the money
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
citations? because you are full of shit
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
like Greece?
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
The National Labor act makes it illegal to fire employees for "discussing terms and conditions of employment with fellow employees". [...] If Yelp fired her because of this post, then they are going to owe her back wages and maybe a lot more.
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In a word, no. The post wasn't disseminated only to other Yelp employees. It was aired on the open internet, which is a clear violation of her employment contract. Nobody is going to pay their employees to badmouth them on the internet. That's just not how it works.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Your logic presupposes two assumptions that I do not agree with, and draws a conclusion that ignores the downside. On the whole, $25 minimum wage is unsupportable.
First, someone on minimum wage should not expect to be living in an apartment on the own - driving a car. I'm not sure when it came to pass that minimum wage was equated to a living wage, but Pres. Obama seemed to draw that conclusion with his $10.10 minimum wage - the figure he uses that would provide a worker with the funds for themself and two dependents.
Second, life in Tennessee is different from life in San Francisco. The folks in Knoxville chose to have lower taxes, less social services, etc. to fit their life choices, just as the folks in San Francisco choose to have very high taxes. The people who own the buildings there choose to offer their apartments at high rents because people are desperate enough to pay them. Food is expensive there because the workers want exotic food.
Your conclusion that $25/hour fixes a lot of things is short sighted. Sure, it would make some of the lowest paid workers there happy for awhile, but Yelp and other employers would do one of two things: either reduce their workforce or move it entirely somewhere else. And rents for everyone would go up. As would tolls, gas prices, etc.
For evidence on layoffs, look what's happening in Seattle - as there minimum wage goes up (beyond what the market used to support), unemployment is going up. That's right - while the national and even regional unemployment numbers are approaching record lows, unemployment in Seattle is increasing.
It's all supply and demand. If more workers can now afford the $1600 rent, there will be a shortage of apartments and owners will charge more. They will have to charge more because their burger prices went up so that the restaurant can pay their busboys $25/hour.
I live in the southern US. I am amazed at the cost of living in big cities. I pay around $1000/month mortgage on my 3000+ square foot home on almost 4 acres of land. I can't even imagine paying that for something smaller than my laundry room.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
If they did indeed fire her because of the letter she posted, it could easily be in direct violation of CA labor laws which prohibit retaliation for an employee discussing his/her salary information.
The problem will come in that the company will claim "right to work" and most of the state agencies charged with enforcing these provisions are, giving them the full (and likely undeserved) benefit of the doubt, so overwhelmed with cases that unless you have a smoking gun, they're not going to lift a finger. Yelp's HR department would come up with some kind of BS excuse for why she was fired that had nothing to do with the letter and the state agencies will tend to accept it without even doing any kind of investigation if it means they can close out another case. That or they'll hire some employer side law firm that hires sociopaths (people who have no empathy) with law degrees to draft a character assassination file for the person.
I was retaliated against for complaining about being harassed by my coworkers and not only did the state not even bother with any kind of investigation beyond just sending a form to my former employer, even though they had a field office about 10 miles away from my former employer, they closed my case in very direct violation of the agency's own rules. Sadly, that's likely what would happen to this young woman if she tried to file a complaint.
that's your problem right there
How long was she employed that she has only made $8.15? If she's been at Yelp a year, she's averaging .68 cents a month! Yeah, no wonder she's struggling.
I made it on 22k/yr in SF just 15 years ago. That paid for rent, food, utils and a DSL line. That's it. No eating out, no cell phone, few nights a month go out for a beer with friends. Gotta start somewhere, and that's where I started. This dope goes to college to get a mostly worthless degree, and immediately want to live like her middle-class parents. She believes she is entitled to it NOW. She will be that person that is 45 working a register at CVS moaning about how unfair it all is.
Unions: Organized enterprises dedicated to the extortion of employers.
Labor laws: Known framework within which a business must arrange its affairs.
In the US, it has often been the case that, the business having complied with the latter, the former destroys the business model.
In the cases where the business is not complying with labor laws, it is the government's job to remedy the situation.
In cases where the public is not satisfied with the labor laws, it is the job of their vote to see to it that their representation corrects the situation.
Unions are an end-run around the failure to utilize the political process correctly and see to it that the labor laws reflect the general population's idea of how things should work. As such, they have no legitimacy - even though it is true that at times, the end results may provide worthy benefits to valuable workers. Such benefits are akin to me being able to feed my deserving children because I stole your money.
When you take a job, do the math first to ensure that it reflects a practical solution for your lifestyle. If you won't, or can't, do the math, the odds are hugely in favor of the fact that you are to blame. It is grade-school simple. Sum expenses in one column; income in another. Subtract expenses from income. Positive? Ok, good to go. Negative? Unacceptable job.
"I want to live in/near San Francisco" does not magically change how those numbers come out.
"B.A. in English" does not make her useful to a business unless they have a shortfall of required skills in English.
"I put a bunch of debt on a brand new credit card" is a very solid indication that she failed to even try to do the math.
TL;DR: She established a must-fail set of circumstances and now is reaping the consequences. But I am neither surprised or particularly inclined to think she has any legitimate complaint to make other than about her own decision making process.
. . . .when the same regimes that prefer low-wage labor also prefer that their near-slaves also lack the means to successfully prosecute a religion.
Silicon Valley: good luck taking on the Elites with their armed Security, when all you've got is, at best, Molotov Cocktails, zip-guns, and the occasional legal weapon.
Plus Walled communities, control of the telecom infrastructure, and increasingly ubiquitous surveillance. . .
The general rule of thumb is 30% salary for rent. She made her own poor judgement but tries to pin it on Yelp.
1. Roommates. If her collegues are also struggling she could have roomate with them.
2. Find a cheaper place farther away
3. Get a second job
4. Look for better paying job that can afford the rent
5. Live with her dad and look for job around his neck of woods
6. Putting yourself in debt moving isn't called affording.
Lastly, don't write public letter to shame your own company. Welcome to the world of being an adult.
I have a tech PhD, and worked in tech for decades. I can't afford to live in San Francisco.
She seems to think she can major in English -- not clear what kind of school -- live and work in the most expensive place in the country, and have the same standard of living as 37 year old programming wizards. She forgot to mention what her phone bill is. How many hundreds of dollars? She thinks it outrageous that she should have to work in her current job for a WHOLE FUCKING YEAR before she can be promoted to a job that she was not hired for!?
My job is an industrial manufacturer and makes us work 60 hours a week (10 hour shifts 6 days a week). Night shift employees such as myself never get to see our families. 3:30pm to 2am. Everyone is asleep when we get home and everyone is at work and school when we get up.
With that said, the reason we work so much is because of the insane turn-over rate. Every week a few people quit or get fired. New guys that were trained by new guys that are training new guys. Low qaulity products are the end result. It takes a few days to push out one of are machines. When no one knows what they are doing, it's impossible to be efficient.
Last guy that wrote a letter stating "we need a break" was fired immediately. Less than 50% of the factory has employees that have been there longer than 1 year; 20% more than 3 years employment.
It's not Union and no one trusts anyone there... So a strike will never happen. They focus more on "Active Shooter" scenarios instead of fire alerts. We have never had a fire drill nor are there any maps to tell us we're to go. "We are working on that" is the answer i got dozens of times. I walked out on the safety committee. Work us until we fall asleep running machinery. That will be fine.
Yelp doesn't sound like a hard job. Asking for a promotion via bitching to the CEO is something a kid would do. Not professional.
I got fired for a 100k/yr job for telling my manager (a 21 year old kid) that I didn't like how he was talking to me. I had a question about the chemical he wanted me to put my hand in without proper safety equipment. "Now that I'm in charge, I make the fucking calls. I demand some goddamned respect. I will fire you right now goddammit. Man up and just do it." I called the EPA and OSHA but since this was on a military installation, nothing got done and I went home.
Yelp is a desk job. Probably an at-home gig. I dunno. I just care about this story. There's plenty of people that get fired at my job and no one writes an article on them.
Wow that sucks... wonder what all these are about then?
http://alotofrice.pixieset.com...
We can help!
5 EMPLOYERS = ["YELP", "UBER",
10 I = I + 1
20 CUR_EMP = EMPLOYERS[I]
30 PRINT CUR_EMP + " Employee Posts Open Letter About Cost Of Living And Low Wages"
40 PRINT "Employee Gets Fired"
50 GOTO 10
"He didn't personally turn off her email, perhaps he did not even make the decision to fire her, but as the person who ultimately sets the culture and policies of the company, his claim to not be directly responsible is unconvincing."
As CEO, everything he says is pretty much a lie. It's how it's done in "America".
Life is hard. Be happy you have something and some place to complain about it, there are others not as fortunate as you.
-==- Buy a Mac and leave me alone!
High high cost of housing if the bay area is not the fault of Yelp, but due to the policies of local government. The only way to make it more affordable it to bring down the cost by adding supply. This includes the nearby suburbs.
Says the Microsoft shill :)
She probably wanted to be fired. I expect it works out better financially for her than if she just quits.
She seems relatively rational about the rest of it, and I can't really tell from here if she is paying way too much for housing. For all we know she has a spare bedroom in somebodies basement.
I hope she has a bit of a social safety net in her net work of friends, because she won't be getting any sympathy from slashdotters. And she needs to find a better job. You need a bit of breathing room to be able to do that.
$8.15 after taxes?
Where I live in Arkansas you can rent a nice one bedroom apartment for under $500 a month. Lots of places around the country like that once you move away from the major cities. Plenty of 3-4 bedroom houses to be found for under $100k. If you want to live small, you can have a modular home built on a small plot of land for much less.
So yeah, that's a "living wage" with money left over to eat out and go to the movies every now and then.
I read all the sentiment about living wages. It's amazing how inhuman people are. Yes we all fight for the things we have but lets be real here for a moment. The people who own Yelp are making massive amounts of money. The reason they won't pay a living wage is nothing more than pure greed. They are building their wealth on the backs of people who can't eat because of the rent prices.
These people over a period of time have turned customer service jobs into a commodity. The same is happening in the computer world. Eventually all of our jobs will be replaced with automation and wages will be driven to all time lows. The people who want those jobs will just have to accept the pay they get. It may eventually fall to the point of it not being a living wage.
So to all of you psycho McNerdy Nerds out there. What are you going to do to survive when this same thought process rolls your way? I'm sure all of you have "skillz" and will survive at least in your own minds. The harsh reality might be a bit different. When that time comes and believe me it's coming sooner than you think take a moment to think about the people you talked about and said they don't deserve a living wage. All technology jobs will eventually become the digital equivalent of a fry cook on a long enough time scale. It's just a matter of time.
I don't know the lady that wrote the letter but her story was well written and I was once in her shoes when I was first starting out in life. I donated to her. While I agree what she said was not the smartest thing in the world she at least had the courage to stand up and say it. More courage than most of you guys have accepting contract positions rather than full time for lower wages just so you can have a job. Over time the wages will go lower and lower if you don't say something. It takes courage to go against the grain and the people on the top of the food chain are counting on your fear and submission as part of their plans. As much as you don't want to pay for overpriced groceries they don't want to pay for overpriced nerds. Many of you idiots out there are writing your own pink slips with automation software and aren't even smart enough to realize it.
If everyone was willing to work for stupid low wages in a stupid high-cost area. Then they (The company) have no incentive to offer more money to attract good people. You do research on if it is beneficial to work in that location for those wages. If not, you don't accept that position. I don't blame her though. She was hoping to hit it big doing something she enjoys for a job. That is pretty commendable. But no one said doing what you love pays all your bills.
"...whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive...it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it..."
In a way that makes sense to me. I've generally had any sort of electronics stuff of any worth (say over $100) delivered to the workplace, because both the UPS and regular post persons have a tendency to randomly drop shit in plain view on my front stoop (often with labelling proclaiming it to be electronics/worth stealing). I'd imagine ammo might similarly be something that less scrupulous persons might want to steal, so the workplace is a safer place to get it dropped.
I've never had alcohol or ammo delivered by mail though, let alone at work, so not sure how that would go over. I suppose it depends on the packaging.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income can fix it
Casteism
All I hear is the boilerplate of "poor life choices". This is nothing but Darwinism. Eleven men were hung after the Nurenberg Trials for applying Darwinism. That was evidence of a generation devoid of a conscience, imperious, relentless and cruel.