[Liesmith]

Of course it is, don't be naive. The people he's talking about are in a position to badmouth him right back, end even if they don't he can get a reputation for being a whiner who will turn on people who hire him the moment things don't work out. If you think that publicly criticizing your ex-employers isn't harmful to your future prospects then you're crazy. No one wants to hire someone who might turn around and complain about them to all and sundry if things go poorly.

[Liesmith]

@ davidw: oh yeah I don't mean that this guy actually is whining, or that he didn't get screwed by jerks. I'm just saying that you can get screwed even harder by handling things like this in the wrong way, no matter what the rights and wrongs of the situation actually are. Reputations are important.

[davidw]

At very conservative estimates for bay area salaries, 2 weeks is probably like $5000. Complaining about that is not "whining" in my book - that's quite a bit of money where I'm from.

That said, there are various things involved with the decision.

[patio11]

$5k for two weeks is a pretty princely sum for employees virtually anywhere but, crucially, employees (particularly professional employees) have the reasonable expectation that they will have longer than two weeks of tenure at a new employer. If you can only reasonably expect two weeks of tenure, then you're much closer to a consultant than an employee. Nothing wrong with being a consultant, but COO-caliber consultants charge a heck of a lot more than employees in SF and everywhere else on the planet. A company which extends people standard employment offers but treats them with the no-fault disposability that governs consulting relationships is doing something which is highly irregular.

Conversely, if you're a consultant, you can get constructively fired like this two weeks into an engagement. Happens all the time. It doesn't even require an awkward conversation where they say "Hey, startup life yo, plans have changed." They neglect to schedule you for more work, you follow up, they continue to neglect to schedule you for more work, you take the hint, and then you get paid $50k+ because that is what COO-level consultants cost for two weeks.

[guybrushT]

100% agree. I was a consultant for 6 years. The contract, terms of engagement, and expectations are vastly different as a consultant and as an employee. The sum of all different parts of the 'opportunity cost' are much higher as an employee, than as a consultant.

[beachstartup]

$5000 is peanuts to work two weeks, uproot your life and reject other, more valid job offers, only to get sand kicked in your face for no reason. in fact it's downright insulting, and most importantly, humiliating to an extreme degree. if there's anything in the world that could be classified as being a bitch, that's it.

stop short-changing yourself and technology professionals, you do us all a disservice and it's embarrassing. i am literally embarassed for you by this comment. it doesn't matter where you're from - we're talking about someone who was hired as a chief-level executive with a name brand startup in the first world, funded by billionaires or at least hundred-millionaires, or at the VERY least a bunch of millionaires that manage money for pension funds and endowments i.e. venture capitalists.

a shitty CPA (or lawyer) makes that in a few days of work. a good one can make that in literally 1 minute by signing a few documents. they can do that because they have professional respect, something technology workers sorely lack right now.

a CPA also could not get hired, and let go for no reason, within 2 weeks, without having several avenues of recourse through his professional governing body. a lawyer would file suit immediately, something i would do also even though i lack a law degree.

i would literally not stop reading/learning law except to eat, shit and piss until i learned how to get compensatory damages out of them. then again, i make it my mission in life to not be a bitch. but as it turns out, some people are fine with being a bitch, go figure.

[bentoner]

> a CPA also could not get hired, and let go for no reason, within 2 weeks, without having several avenues of recourse through his professional governing body.

What's his professional governing body going to do?

[beachstartup]

if you can't figure out how a vast, organized dues-paying professional guild full of highly educated, intelligent, like-minded individuals can help you, i kindly suggest that you contemplate the possibilities a while before trying your hand at being a c-level executive because you'll probably be caught in the same position as the o.p.

a professional board is basically a labor union dressed up for white collar people. they'll argue until the end of the earth that they aren't, but let's be real, that's what it is.

also, if you're a vp-level or above, and not a significant owner, negotiate a severence package. ever wonder why they have severence packages? this is why. because if you don't, you're highly likely to become a bitch. in fact it's pretty much guaranteed because the cost of losing you is nothing.