[SoftTalker]

Sounds like an FMLA violation. Did you specifically say you would be taking leave? Not already on a "performance improvement" plan of any sort? Was anyone else let go on Friday?

I don't know how hard this sort of thing is to litigate, "at will" employment covers a lot of abuses, and honestly why would you want to stay at an employer who treats you like this? Probably best to spend your energy finding a new job.

Edit to add: You could report this to the Department of Labor. Not sure you'd personally get any restitution but if your employer was willing to do this kind of thing, you are probably not the only one they have screwed over. If an employer has a record of complaints they might get audited which could cost them a lot in penalties if they are violating the law.

[maire]

FMLA only covers companies with 50 or more employees.

A friend was fired in the US when she told her boss she was pregnant and discovered this limitation. Her previous work experience was in France so she did not realize this could happen.

[borski]

In CA, it’s any employer with 5 employees, thanks to the CFRA.

https://www.rigginslaw.com/cfra-vs-fmla-difference-between-c....

CA really is by far one of the most employee-friendly states, on nearly every issue.

[berniedurfee]

And thank you! Many companies follow CA regulations by default if they do significant business in the state or have even a small footprint there.

[tnmom]

Except taxes.

[borski]

Dno. The roads here are way better than other places with lower taxes, it’s beautiful, the air and water are clean, and so on.

Everywhere has plenty of things to complain about. I’d like to spend less in taxes, always.

But at least it does feel, objectively, like we live in a mostly lovely place that actually does protect employees, have access to great healthcare, great roads, great charging infrastructure (relative to the rest of the US) and so on.

[ensignavenger]

Anecdotal, but I have driven across a majority of US states, from Florida to Alaska (and also, on both the East and West sides of Canada) and haven't noticed any strong correlation between the quality of the roads and how high a states taxes are.

[smokeydoe]

Did you drive between Texas - Louisiana? It is a massive difference almost immediately. You go from 55mph top speed limit with many potholes in LA to smooth 75mph Texas roads. Texas roads are much better and I have heard the same opinion many times from people making that drive. Louisiana makes their roads cheaper by making them much more thin, and they don’t get repaired often in rural areas.

[jmknoll]

There's probably a lot of noise in the data. Off the top of my head, climate (whether roads are exposed to freeze-thaw cycles) and population density/clustering (how many miles of road do you need to maintain per person), are probably more strongly correlated with quality than taxation levels.

[seanmcdirmid]

Since you mentioned Florida, the roads go from good to bad as soon as you cross the border into Alabama, which is a really interesting experience on the interstate. But yes, the roads are bad in Deep South states, although the taxes aren’t really that low either (just people don’t make much money to get much out of them).

[jrockway]

I grew up in the suburbs. My town had pretty much no commercial base. The next town over had a huge mall. They had much better roads, a much better library, a sports complex, a swimming pool complex, the list goes on. It was obvious to a 10 year old how much of a difference the tax base made.

Of course, we just got a library card in their district and I enjoyed the use of the nicer library as well. But still.

[borski]

In my experience, it correlates fairly well, with Florida being the notable exception. I have no idea why their roads are so good.

[lettergram]

Most of what you’re driving on could be federal highways.

I’m in the same boat, have driven just about everywhere and I haven’t seen any major correlation.

[SoftTalker]

It's because they don't have winter. Winter, freezing/thawing, and salt is what destroys roads.

[asadotzler]

Tell that to Mississippi which has s*t roads and no winter freezing/thawing or salt to consider. Broke ass red states can barely afford to keep their roads passable for the most part. There are a couple of exceptions where the states are willing to starve their children to keep the roads up, but most red states fail at both feeding kids and maintaining roads. If it wasn't for the cash infusion from the well off blue states, the red states would literally be third world.

[borski]

Tell that to Tahoe or any of the many mountainous regions of CA. :)

[vondur]

Roads in California are good? We must live in different states.

[sushid]

It truly depends within CA. San Diego or suburbs of LA? It's pristine. Bay Area? The roads flood with the slightest bit of rain and have potholes the size of a basketball.

[borski]

Where are you from? To be fair, I mean relative to other states. Not that they’re perfect.

[wolverine876]

Don't forget the world-class higher education system, with the two of the top universities in the world.

[borski]

Oh yeah, and spectacular public schooling - the state schools are top notch, as are many of the lower education public schools.

[nullc]

My experience is that the Florida roads are significantly better than the roads in the bay area. And Florida has no income tax and lower sales taxes than California.

[borski]

I mentioned Florida as the notable outlier. They have a lot worse other things, but I agree the roads in FL are great.

[Tostino]

They make up their tax revenue in other ways.

[borkt]

What part of the state are you in with good roads? Sonoma county here, miserable roads

[borski]

Bay Area, but I’m from NYC, so my standard for “bad road” is relatively high - there are a lot of potholes right now from the rain, but in general they get fixed quickly, the roads are wide and many-lanes, and generally don’t do insane things like loop back on themselves or anything like that.

[kelnos]

> The roads here are way better than other places with lower taxes

I live in San Francisco and absolutely disagree with this. The roads are garbage. And lest we think that's just a city thing, whenever I leave the city and drive out on local and state roads they range from garbage to ok-ish.

My family moved to Maryland when I was a teenager, and the roads there were pristine (90s, not sure about nowadays). It felt like some section of some road or highway near me was always being resurfaced.

[jon_richards]

> Though Texas has no state-level personal income tax, it does levy relatively high consumption and property taxes on residents to make up the difference. Ultimately, it has a higher effective state and local tax rate for a median U.S. household at 12.73% than California's 8.97%, according to a new report from WalletHub.

Obviously there are more than two states, but it’s not so simple.

Plus, someone’s got to pay for everything:

> [California] receives $0.99 in federal expenditures per dollar of taxes paid, which is below the national average return for states of $1.22 per dollar paid, according to its review of a 2015 New York Comptroller study.

[wolverine876]

> Plus, someone’s got to pay for everything:

Bizarrely, even experts miss this obvious fact. If not income taxes, then how does government pay the bills? Income taxes are usually the most progressive tax, so no income tax usually means less wealthy people pay more. If government spends less, what services are cut?

No income tax != free lunch. Someone has to pay.

[dillydogg]

Yeah it's very funny hearing my dad talk about how nice it is to have no income tax in Washington (he's a dentist). But when you tell him that the relatively higher income tax is worse for poor people he doesn't seem to agree. Washington is certainly a progressive state on the whole, but the taxation is horrible.

[lobocinza]

Governments can do less and spend more wisely.

[pandaman]

Texas levies property taxes now?

[dmitrygr]

> for a median U.S. household

Please, not more of this nonsense

Show me a SWE who makes median ($40,480 in 2023) money or less. That quote does not apply. For people making SWE money, Texas is a LOT better tax-wise

[fzeroracer]

I lived in Texas making six figures as a SWE. Texas was not far better tax wise. Texas does a lot to ding you in ways that aren't taxes, and buying a home that doesn't involve an hour and a half commute one way is unrealistic.

[wolverine876]

> For people making SWE money, Texas is a LOT better tax-wise

How do the people of Texas pay for things, then, if not through income taxes?

[tomrod]

Former Texan here. Property taxes cost quite a bit, far exceeding incremental tax load in areas I've lived out of the state.

Anecdata, but a counterpoint to your general claim.

[dillydogg]

Do you not care about people who do not make SWE wages?

[zoklet-enjoyer]

Nonsense? Most people aren't software engineers.

[aeturnum]

Arguably, it's better to pay higher taxes on a job that's protected than lower taxes on a job that you can't count on.

[chefandy]

Yeah. I totally get why people conceptually hate the idea of paying taxes, even if my values lead me to a very different conclusion. That said, most of the arguments I've encountered about places with higher taxes being worse places to live strike me as either glib and uninformed, or in bad faith. That's not a partisan-specific folly by any measure, but it's a folly nonetheless.

[johnnyanmac]

It is an honest argument. No point in a secure job that can't even pay rent. But people with families can't exactly engage in multi job hustles and expect to remain a healthy unit.

[xyzzyz]

It depends on how high the taxes are and what protection is offered exactly. The extra protections I would get in California are not worth nearly enough for it to be worth for me.

[borski]

And that’s ok! But those protections are worth it for a lot of other people. :)

[jjallen]

Totally agree. When taxes are the highest in the country and take almost 40% of your income and the only people who own houses are the ones that bought them 20-50 years ago that is very employee unfriendly.

[acdha]

Exaggerating like that doesn’t help your argument. California’s top tax rate is 12.3% and you’re only paying just on income over $680k:

https://www.ftb.ca.gov/forms/2023/2023-540-tax-rate-schedule...

This means that in practice, California isn’t even in the top 10:

https://www.npr.org/2023/03/30/1166970506/tax-burden-by-stat...

Now, the housing market is not great but again, greatly overstating your case is not an effective strategy, and it isn’t a uniquely California problem even though prop 13 makes it worse there than many other places.

[jjallen]

Show me a married couple both working in tech in California which is what this website is for and show me their average tax rate. It will be almost 40% at the lower end of this income range. This stuff is not rocket science.

Then do the sales tax as well. I’m not exaggerating anything. This is why my family and so many others moved from the state during COVID.

Have fun buying tiny $2-3 million dollar homes paying 40%.

[ipaddr]

These are the rates and includes a over million 1% tax for mental support.

California 13.3% Hawaii 11% New York 10.9% New Jersey 10.75% District of Columbia 10.75% Oregon 9.9% Minnesota 9.85% Massachusetts 9% Vermont 8.75% Wisconsin 7.65%

Tax burden is a different measurement including property. Parent poster has no property.

[borski]

I have many friends who have bought homes. Some in Gilroy, some in Mountain View, me in Cupertino, and so on.

None of us were born with money, and none of us bought them 20-50 years ago. None of us were even alive 40 years ago.

It’s doable, and while a number of people bounced during the pandemic, a lot of people took advantage of lower home prices. It’s about priorities.

[asadotzler]

We bought a home 11 miles from the Googleplex in 2009 and paid it off in 15 years and did it on a single salary working in non-profit tech. Your assumptions here are deeply flawed or your reasoning is broken.

[gunapologist99]

So, two years after the nearly existential crash of 2007 and only one year after Sequoia's famous "RIP Good Times" memo, when housing prices were at their absolute lowest and investment in the Bay Area was at its lowest ebb since at least the dot-com crash.

Just not sure how relevant that anecdote is.

[SoftTalker]

Yes this is one of the risks of working for a very small employer. A lot of the normal rules don't apply. But if a company is big enough to have "HR" I'm guessing they likely are bigger than 50 employees.

[euroderf]

I perceive yet another motivation for companies to aggressively classify employees as contractors.

[fn-mote]

> why would you want to stay at an employer who treats you like this? Probably best to spend your engergy finding a new job.

While this is all true, doing that also allows / encourages the employer to continue their abusive actions toward others.

It's a big decision to fight something like this in the legal system. It might affect your future employement prospects, depending on details.

Grim.

[sumeno]

> I don't know how hard this sort of thing is to litigate, "at will" employment covers a lot of abuses, and honestly why would you want to stay at an employer who treats you like this? Probably best to spend your energy finding a new job.

It's not very hard to imagine why someone who is expecting a new child would want to continue to receive a paycheck and health insurance.