| HN Mirror

I have been fired "at will" 5 times. Four times after a corporate buyout/merger, and twice due to the company losing a major customer's contract (two were due to both). I can speculate over the last one, but "at will" doesn't have to give a real reason, and they didn't, so who knows?

The first time, I got a decent severance, probably because the company didn't want me to sue over unvested options. The second time, I got no severance at all, but six months of warning before the ax fell. The third time, 1.5 weeks notice and no severance. The fourth time, 3 days of notice and no severance. (That was right after getting a manager-requested performance bonus, too.) The fifth time, completely unnecessary security escort to the parking lot, and two weeks pay in lieu of notice. Each time, it was a scramble to find anything at anywhere near my old salary before the savings ran out. Twice, I had to take a crap job that I ended up hating because I'm afraid of being broke and homeless. Twice, I had to move to another city.

So when a business owner says "at will" is necessary... well screw you, buddy. Having the rug unexpectedly pulled out from under your whole life makes it really hard to not fall down. Your employees are not machines. They need to eat, and sleep, and some of them need food and beds for their spouses and kids, too.

I constantly hear that "at will" theoretically makes it easier to hire people, but in actual practice, the ease of hiring is probably constrained by benefits enrollment and mandatory paperwork rather than the fear of not being able to easily fire a bad employee. No one will hire you unless they can expect to keep you for at least a year, because of the up-front HR expenses for a new hire. Firing may be zero cost, but hiring isn't exactly gratis.

I understand the reasons why employers like it. But they aren't the only participants in the economy, and labor gets absolutely zero benefit from it. Eventually, laborers will realize that the only way to make "at will" work for them at all is to secretly shop for new jobs on a continuous basis, and then jump ship with no notice the instant a better offer comes in. Businesses are still eating up the last remnants of the "company loyalty" and "professional conduct" ethics, and when it is finally gone, everyone will be "F U, pay me" mercenaries, or Uber drivers. Businesses will find it just as difficult to plan major projects as their "at will" employees find it to plan major expenses, like weddings, houses, and kids. If a temporary contractor can't pick it up with no lead time and be immediately productive, it just won't get done. Good luck running an entire economy that way.

That's why I always dread the "where do you see yourself in five years?" question in interviews. My honest answer is that as an "at will" employee I will be blown hither and yon like a leaf in the wind, and I will probably have two or three more employers appended to my resume by then, but I instead glibly lie and say that it would be an achievement just to still be working for the same company under the same ownership.

I really, really want to hitch my horse up to the same wagon for the next 25 years, and maybe grow some roots that I won't have to cut off next time the job market goes sour. Both of my parents had just two different employers over their 40 years of working, and we lived in the same city, in the same school system, all the way until I graduated high school. But I'm not entirely certain that my own kids will be able to graduate with some of the same friends they made in elementary school--not just because I'm afraid we may have to move, but because their friends' parents are already being shuffled to different cities.

"At will" is most definitely not fair in the current environment.