[HN Gopher] The first time I'm aware that Meta is taking back si...
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The first time I'm aware that Meta is taking back signed, FTE
offers
Author : donsupreme
Score : 90 points
Date : 2023-01-09 21:45 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| ipaddr wrote:
| If facebook makes you an offer and then pulls back can you sue?
| Does facebook owe you some form of money lost?
|
| You put a bid om a home and then try walk away usually means you
| get sued.
| drbeast wrote:
| At work so no.
| the_jeremy wrote:
| Promissory estoppel[0] exists, but is kind of hard to get any
| money out of it, and depends on the circumstances and state you
| live in. Note that, in general, if you renege on a job offer
| after accepting, all that happens is the company blacklists
| you.
|
| [0]: https://www.lawyers.com/legal-info/labor-employment-
| law/job-...
| TAForObvReasons wrote:
| This same sort of rescinding happened in 2008 to college
| grads joining bulge brackets.
| arcticbull wrote:
| They probably won't even blacklist you, if they wanted to
| hire you then (and you come up with a good reason for walking
| away) they'll want to hire you later for the same reasons. Be
| kind to your recruiters, have a good justification, and
| nothing should come of it.
| filoleg wrote:
| Genuine question - if I sign an offer with a company, and then
| renege on it before the start date (e.g., because I got another
| offer that i like better), do I owe money to the company for
| some form of money lost?
|
| Not trying to defend Meta, they are gonna be just fine without
| me arguing in their favor on HN, but isn't this just the other
| side of the "you can quit any time you want without a warning"
| coin? Yes, rude and shitty to do, but I feel like it goes both
| ways, and it is kind of difficult to defend one without
| defending the other.
| atomflunder wrote:
| I don't think this metaphorical coin exists in London, which
| is the location that the tweet is talking about.
| gpderetta wrote:
| Employment in the UK is effectively at will (after two
| years you can't be dismissed without a reason, but
| redundancy is a valid reason).
|
| There is some minimum notice period I guess.
| macintux wrote:
| The key difference is the balance of power. If I renege on a
| commitment to join Meta, they'll barely notice. The converse
| is potentially devastating.
| mavu wrote:
| Many countries have different rules for businesses and
| private citizens.
|
| e.g. as a private citizen in germany you have the right to
| return whatever you buy online, for whatever reason within 2
| weeks.
|
| I'm not aware of similar rights if it is a B2B transaction.
| [deleted]
| ollien wrote:
| I'm fairly sure the answer is no.
|
| Yes, this is the result of at-will employment, and you're
| understanding the dynamic correctly. It sucks that it's legal
| googlryas wrote:
| I'm also curious how signing bonuses would work.
| drclau wrote:
| From my experience, you get them with your first salary.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > If facebook makes you an offer and then pulls back can you
| sue?
|
| Generally, an offer that has not yet been accepted does not
| create a contract, so probably not.
|
| If it has been accepted, maybe, though in an at-will employment
| jurisdiction, probably not for the loss of employment, but
| maybe for reliance damages in some cases.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I just hope this emphasizes that individuals should _never_ feel
| guilty or shameful if they need to back out of a job agreement
| that they made.
|
| I've heard stories of folks that accepted job offers, only to
| have circumstances unexpectedly change shortly thereafter, or to
| have a better offer come along. And I've seen these people have a
| lot of stress and guilt about wanting to rescind their
| acceptance.
|
| Just remember, it's just business. I guarantee Meta (and all
| other companies) are just treating it as business, and you should
| do the same. I'm not at all saying be rude, and it's important
| not to burn bridges, but remember that when push comes to shove a
| company will _never_ show you loyalty beyond what makes economic
| sense and what is legally necessary, and you should do the same.
| randcraw wrote:
| Can't agree. A signed contract is a promise. Reneging on your
| promise says only bad things about you.
|
| Meta's management famously lacks character. Please don't use
| them as a baseline for right and wrong.
| fairity wrote:
| > When push comes to shove a company will never show you
| loyalty beyond what makes economic sense and what is legally
| necessary
|
| I disagree. Privately owned & profitable companies have plenty
| of leeway to practice loyalty to their employees beyond what is
| economical and legal. Even in the unprofitable tech startup
| world, if it was all about the money, you'd see people getting
| laid off right before their vesting cliffs, but that doesn't
| happen, which is to some degree an expression of good will.
| lofatdairy wrote:
| * * *
| AviationAtom wrote:
| The first dominos are falling. The others will soon follow. When
| Big Tech makes up a sizable marketcap of the markets, and most
| folks are passively invested these days, it will hit everyone.
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| I think Cloudflare will be alright. That's where I'm investing
| my money.
| qeternity wrote:
| I love Cloudflare, just want to own it cheaper. Fastly seems
| like a pretty obvious acquisition target at current price.
| SQueeeeeL wrote:
| Let's go economic recession 2023, it'll be just like 2008 all
| over again!!! I hope the US Govt bails out Google and Facebook
| with billions of tax payer dollars this time while we all the
| voters realize there's no way to stop the bipartisan transfer
| of wealth to insecure financial ventures
| rafale wrote:
| These companies are widely profitable. Overvalued !=
| insolvent.
| AviationAtom wrote:
| Where do most of them get their money from?
|
| Advertisers.
|
| Who makes advertisers spend?
|
| Consumers.
|
| What happens when consumers are unemployed?
|
| ...
| acchow wrote:
| 2008 hit the economy hard, but Google still managed to
| grow revenue by 31% (year ended Dec 31 2008)
|
| https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1288776/000119312
| 509...
|
| 2009 was tougher, where revenue growth slowed to 8.5%
|
| https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1288776/000119312
| 510...
|
| This all while unemployment rocketed upwards
| kube-system wrote:
| US unemployment is at a 50 year low.
| tempsy wrote:
| Well cost cutting is bullish for stocks
| AviationAtom wrote:
| There's going to be pain, but pain is good.
|
| Economic data just out showed that wage growth is slowing.
| For normal folks that sounds bad, for economists it means
| inflation is finally being tamed.
|
| What good is making more money if your money becomes worth
| less? The hard part is selling people on why stopping the
| status quo is actually a good thing.
|
| The crazy prices of cars and homes was a great example of
| mania that was unsustainable.
| tempsy wrote:
| the market is two steps ahead of economic data.
|
| if you believed inflation was rapidly coming down now it
| would not be the time to get bearish on stocks
| dom96 wrote:
| Wow. I am so sorry to all those new grads affected. I was one of
| those new grads in 2018, I cannot even imagine the horror of
| having that offer rescinded back then.
| Octokiddie wrote:
| > Meta's position until now was that FTE offers are NOT at risk.
| Up to even a week ago.
|
| This is the danger of fixating on the economic rearview mirror.
| And few things are more rearview than hiring and layoffs.
|
| Leading financial indicators such as yield curves and oil futures
| are painting a very clear picture and it's not good.
| mysecretaccount wrote:
| > Leading financial indicators such as yield curves and oil
| futures are painting a very clear picture and it's not good.
|
| Care to elaborate?
| bobkazamakis wrote:
| They know the future, otherwise using the past is a mistake,
| right?
|
| Source: Their ass.
| qeternity wrote:
| They don't know the future, but they are leading
| indicators, so their current state often has important
| correlations to broad economic health in the future.
| kasey_junk wrote:
| The yield curve has been typically inverted for the last part
| of 2022, which is a sign of an anticipated recession.
|
| Oil futures have also been down which is similar.
| westonplatter0 wrote:
| Oil time spreads (1 month, 2m, 3m) indicate oil demand
| lessening as the future curve moves from backwardation to
| contango. More about backwardation vs contango =
| https://mansfield.energy/market-news/what-is-it-
| backwardatio....
| HillRat wrote:
| The Treasury yield curve has been inverted -- that is, long-
| term bond rates are lower than short-term -- for the last few
| months, which has traditionally (n=8) been a reliable
| indicator of an upcoming recession. The market mechanism
| leading to this signal isn't well-understood, but is
| certainly related to inflation expectations. The good news
| here is that the market expects that long-run inflation will
| be brought under control (otherwise, the 10-year t-bill rate
| would be much higher to compensate for expected inflation
| losses), but monetary policy to do so will impact economic
| growth.
|
| The countervailing element here is that the economy is
| slowing down from a very fast clip: unemployment is
| historically low, job losses are pretty subsector-specific
| and tech employees are quickly finding new jobs elsewhere in
| the economy, the financial sector is healthy, and consumers
| aren't seeing the kind of destruction of wealth we saw back
| in '08. As a result, I'm still cautiously optimistic -- for
| whatever my opinion's worth -- that the Fed can manage a soft
| landing, though the ambiguous nature of current economic
| signals means that monetary over- or under-shooting is quite
| possible, leading to either a hard recessionary landing or
| continued inflation (noting that cost-push inflation due to
| factors such as COVID and the Russian war in Ukraine are not
| really manageable through monetary mechanisms, so hang-on
| inflation is likely to continue to eat away at economic
| performance).
| yodsanklai wrote:
| Is that surprising or new? I think they laid off people who've
| been in the company for only a few days or weeks. I'm wondering
| if this announces even more lay offs.
|
| I see some people rejoicing about Meta possibly declining, but
| unfortunately, this is a general trend and is bad for everybody
| in the field. I'm personally very worried about this recession.
| ilickpoolalgae wrote:
| I think roles in LON are considered probationary for the first 6
| months... so technically I suppose they are not considered
| equivalent to FTE roles in the States. You normally go through a
| probation review in which they will decide to terminate, extend
| probation, or convert to full time employee.
|
| This question was also raised when layoffs were first announced
| as it was noted there is difficulty doing layoffs in certain
| European countries and particularly challenging if you're
| actively on-boarding people at the same tie. Not sure how much
| this applies to the UK.
| phphphphp wrote:
| England's employment rights are much less beneficial to
| employees now than they once were: nowadays, in your first 2
| years, you have no meaningful protection beyond what's
| contracted, it's not until 2 years that you have employment
| protection rights that prevent dismissal without cause -- an
| employer must go through the redundancy process to dismiss an
| employee with more than 2 years service without cause.
|
| If you're at a company less than 2 years, your employment can
| be ended whenever, so probation doesn't serve any meaningful
| legal purpose, it's just an arbitrary structure a company can
| use to review employees and delay granting additional benefits.
| While you're on probation, you're still a true full time
| employee.
|
| (Employment tribunals adjudicate whether dismissal is fair, and
| dismissal for protected characteristics is never fair,
| regardless of length of service - e.g: you can't fire someone
| because of their religion)
| ilickpoolalgae wrote:
| Thanks for the that insight. When I was working with folks in
| the LON office they were often stressed about the
| probationary period and relieved once it was over. It sounds
| like they were potentially misinformed about the process.
| rcme wrote:
| Most places in the US are at-will employment, so in that sense
| most US employees are constantly in the "probationary" state.
| ilickpoolalgae wrote:
| That's a fair point.
|
| I think what I was alluding to was that I'm not sure if they
| did any cuts in the LON office during their first layoff
| announcements due to potential labor laws as it relates to
| incoming folks.
|
| With these rescinds, perhaps they are gearing up to do actual
| layoffs.
| snovv_crash wrote:
| I know people a year ago who were being given temp contracts
| after interviewing for FTE positions. Not surprised.
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(page generated 2023-01-09 23:00 UTC)