FiveFingerDiscount.com? 418
phillippaxton writes: "According to this link, dot-bomb victims are creating their own severance packages, no doubt walking away with the typical office tchotchkes (staplers, tape dispensers, etc.) but also big ticket items such as plush furniture, copiers, high-powered network servers, etc. One anecdote cites someone who lifted $445,549 of equipment, then tried to sell it on eBay as a company liquidating their assets." On the other hand, the fact that it's illegal to stiff your employees out of wages due them, even in a bankruptcy, isn't mentioned in the article...
Getting wages owed you (Score:4, Interesting)
I have been a victim of this, and am owed approximately $7500 by my former employer, who one day decided not to pay anyone (not lay us off, just not pay us; then offered no explanation for two weeks). Does anybody know what recourse there is for people like me to get the money owed them? And what to do if the corporation for which you worked is dissolved? Can you go after the assets of the CEO and/or other executives? How? Through the Department of Labor (this is New York state) or through a private attorney? What has worked for people in the past?
If the company is so broke... (Score:5, Interesting)
Reminds me of a story:
There was this coffeeshop where the owner was really bad at paying the employees on time. So the employees started taking their wages out of the register, and leave a note about how much they took.
Pretty soon they were always paid on time.
The moral of the story: if you want loyal employees, dont treat them like shit. And if you treat them like shit, dont be surprised when little acts of sabotage start happening.
-J5K
Gettting stiffed by the boss (Score:3, Interesting)
IANAL
Simple reasoning. (Score:4, Interesting)
The company I work for at the moment is going through chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, before I started they had a history of missing paychecks which many feel will never be payed.
They have not missed any of my paychecks, however they have provided a few hundred dollars worth of equipment so I can work from home instead of relocating to them.
And if I do end up being owed money I may very well choose to take, AS PAYMENT, that equipment, at whatever the market prices are for those parts new at the time (which seems more then fair).
Some may consider that theft, but I honestly can't see how, IF you are honest about it and actually tell the company that you are taking said assets instead of cash if they don't want to pay you.
I do have to wonder how many companys turn around and report such as theft though.
A programmer, who hopes for the best but keeps reality in mind.
Thievery. (Score:4, Interesting)
Nothing quite like making your employees feel like criminals when it comes to making them want to steal things.
--saint
(I know, this is probably chock full o' poor grammar. I just got to work and I'm working on my first cup of coffee. Deal with it.)
Bankrupt Companies (Score:2, Interesting)
Same thing happened a t a company I worked for about a year ago. The owner gave me a couple off nice office chairs, a computer desk, some monitors and a bunch of other stuff. They know people are giving it away as a kind of extra severance pay.
That's probably the main reason insurance companies won't pay for stuff.
Saw this so many times... (Score:3, Interesting)
-Aeron Chairs
-Dell Servers
-Compaq Servers
-Dell desktops
-Cisco hubs and switches
-Sun desktops
-A pool table.
-Microsoft Natural Keyboards
-Speakers
-Electronic foot massagers (Really.)
-Books
-Any software package known to man
-Laptops
-DLT Cartridges
-Any SCSI equipment you could imagine.
I could probably make this list longer, but I doubt anyone wants to read it.
Fault?!?! (Score:2, Interesting)
Huh? Since I've never been in the 'executive chair' how exactly could it ever be my fault that I am being laid off? Its called being FIRED if I screw up. Seriously, this is passing the buck. It sounds like a consultant selling consolation to management and investors -- you f'd up but its someone else's fault.
Having played this game twice now, I think I have some experience -- first time gouged three weeks pay (I worked it, but never got paid). The second time I was given a 20% pay cut and told that I would still be expected to work overtime for free and then was laid off two weeks later anyway (no I never worked the overtime, I'm not that dumb). The second incident was very recently (last two weeks) and caused primarily because I work(ed) in the travel sector. My fault? I don't think so.
While I certainly don't advocate outright theft of large and expensive equipment. I have no trouble whatsoever understanding why people 'take stuff'. The investors and management never have a second thought about protecting their interests -- so why should you?
Re:The nerve of these geeks... (Score:3, Interesting)
There was that article on F**cked Company and here on Slash about the guy who sent out the memo detailing his rage at people who were only putting in 40 hrs a week on the job. (can't find the link quickly, but I remember it)
How many weeks can you run at 80+ hourd a week before you start to burn out? even if you have been sold on that dream of the company going big?
Reminds me of one gal I know who was hired at a company at big bucks, and went max out for the first month or so. When she cut back to more human levels of effort, people had gotten used to her level of production, and had started to depend on it. This was not a good thing.
So some companies can also get used to people producing at maxed out levels of production. This is not a good thing.
So I can understand people making the justifications they do. But it was sort of a trap of the spirit, baited with greed. Once you are in the trap, it is hard to find a way out, even if you wanted to.
Re:The nerve of these geeks... (Score:4, Interesting)
I went through this at a dot-bomb. We got paid monthly and the last month, we didn't. Our VC (Andy Evans, the dirtiest son of a bitch alive) did some corporate paper tricks to make it so that the company didn't have any assets, so there was no recourse for us. He effectively got out of
paying 30 people with a totally clean nose.
So, we took the equipment, to make up for our lost wages. I feel that I'm more than justified, because
a) this company OWNED the equipment I took [which was much less than other people took - I didn't even take my laptop] and
b) you don't not pay me. Period.
There are few judges that are going to throw the book at you for just keeping the gear unless you attempt to do something fraudulent with it later. And furthermore, it's just the right thing to do, all you Kohlberg-4 "I'm scared of the law" 'people' notwithstanding.
Re:Getting wages owed you (Score:3, Interesting)
Strong words. How about offering to take assets at near-cost prices in lieu of wages instead? Formalise the arrangement.
That said, if they work anything like my employer, they'll be too dumb to take the offer. I've actually been told that the fact of obsolete laptops being taken out of service through theft is tacit company policy. It's easier than Facilities and Information Services fighting it out to avoid administrating an employee purchase scheme.
I personally have been stopped and searched by security as I carried an obsoleted desktop to my car. It took me and my friendly local IS boss half an hour to convince them that it was going to be thrown in a dumpster if I didn't take it (along with the half dozen identical boxen already in there), and they actually made me write and sign a statement to this effect.
This is the kind of mentality that we're dealing with here. Assets left gathering dust or fire saled for peanets because nobody wants to be responsible for doing something sensible with them.
Re:The nerve of these geeks... (Score:4, Interesting)
Hear hear. As long as you're sure that your employer actually owns the equipment, and that you're not going to get paid what you're owed or have been promised (written or verbal, and your immediate boss does in fact represent the company, so her bullshit promises are binding*), then I have no problem with swiping hardware.
The way that I'd prefer to do it is to agree to take hardware at a reasonable price, below retail but way above fire sale, in lieu of wages, bonuses or benefits. But I have no illusions that the survivors in my company will have the basic shred of common sense to agree to that, as they refuse to do it right now for obsoleted hardware. It's (confidentially expressed) company policy to retire hardware through theft, as it's easier than selling it on to employees!
This isn't an abstract issue for me. It looks like my reward for finishing my current project will be to have my office closed as being surplus to requirements. We're already training our (younger, cheaper, more gullible) replacements. Meanwhile, management exhorts us to work harder to deal with the problems of moving more and move responsibility and control to the parent office. People are putting in 80 hour weeks, and many of them are in denial that we're going to get cut. The decision will be made by accountants in a board room 3000 miles away, and it won't involve anyone we can impress with our hard work and dedication. This isn't a dot-com, it's an established tech company that's screwed up big time and has grasped further than it can reach.
My response? Work the 40 hours a week that I'm paid for, goof and surf for 20, and keep track of where the good toys are, for when the "We regret to inform you" announcement comes. While everyone else is wailing and gnashing in betrayed anguish, I'll be slipping a Sony Viao and hard drive into the bag I keep ready under my desk, then I'll scoop up a flat panel monitor and an 802.11b access point while I wait for the 200 copies of my resume to finish printing**.
I have no illusions that this is theft. But, you know what? I really don't give a fuck. I trusted my employer, and they've already screwed me over with impossible demands, tortuous contracts, and farcically worthless stock options. If they make the final betrayal, I'll loot the office without hesitation then sleep very soundly in my bed, believe me.
* I live in a jurisdiction where verbal contracts are legally binding. You should try it, it's very refreshing.
** If you think this is the actual list, or that I'm going to store my loot anywhere findable, dream on. Find another point of idiocy to deride.
Re:The nerve of these geeks... (Score:4, Interesting)
Heroic effort is not a sustainable business strategy.
Burn out your best people and you'll crash the company.
Death March Projects (Score:5, Interesting)
I just came out of a Death March culture/company. 2.8 years of ever increasing fantasy expectations (what they wanted us to do) combined with ever decreasing fulfillment of contractual obligations (what they did with respect to their contracts to their employees).
Vacation became regarded early on as "theft from the company" - and was denied. Taking a sick day was regarded with significant suspicion.
Performance incentives (rewards for completing impossible death march projects) were tossed out - and amazingly, the teams would nail them. At the last second, the company's controller would interfer with one of the last steps (like authorizing a leased line to be ordered) and wala... the team would miss the deadline by hours and lose the bonus. Typical 'Lucy taking the football away' behavior.
Then salaries were reduced by 25% "to make the business plan look better to investors" (while senior management still drove leased bullet-proof mercedes, lotuses, ferarris and such) with the 25% to be paid at year end as a balloon payment (don't ever try this, friends!). Except guess what never showed up at year end? Then that was used to string you along to stay at the company - sort of a reverse option: "Quit and you'll never see the $50K+ we owe you!"
Then payroll started slipping. Most of the sane left then. Those who stayed worked for several months without paychecks - buying the promises of great riches. They got booted finally - firing the entire technology office in another part of the country without leaving anyone to control the assets. Their plan? Threaten the just-fired employees to work for free and inventory and package up the goods for shipping, or be accused of stealing anything that goes missing. "If you don't come in next week and ship it to us and something is missing, you know who the investigators will believe kept it."
Many of the former employees held onto items for collateral. Can you blame them? "Pay up the cash you owe and we'll release the equipment back to you." In the various colo centers the company used, the colo venders are using the same approach with respect to getting the past-due bills paid: pay us and we release your equipment.
So what's wrong with this?
*scoove*
Re:The nerve of these geeks... (Score:1, Interesting)
Even when treated well, people steal (Score:1, Interesting)
For example, I work for a dot.bomb (the biggest of the bombs), and when they laid off the majority of the company, they gave people a pretty generous four week severance package. Does it make a layoff somehow more palatable? No, but as one of the remaining employees, I'd hoped I could finally get a decent laptop so I wouldn't have to take my own on the road.
Nope, all the laptops were stolen, as were all desktop machines faster than 500MHz. So those people going out the door basically screwed the people that are left, because we don't have the money to upgrade or buy new equipment.
How these things happen ... (Score:2, Interesting)
The guy who was actually in charge was an idiot though and things soon got to creeping up and biting us. One day a factoring company (do you have these in the states?) can take a dislike to you and the first thing you hear about it is a winding up petition and freezing all your bank accounts. To get round this we had to resort to some pretty dodgy (legally) measures - like having another company with a very similar name and using the bank account for that one - to be able to pay anyone (or even trade).
I bailed out in the end because I just couldn't stand the dishonesty - telling clients that "yes of course it's a legit copy of Netware - we just forgot to bring the manuals with us" and telling employees that "it'll all be OK - you'll get paid next week". I learned a lot in 2 years of working 120 hours a week - mostly about computers, but quite a lot about how not to run a company. At least one of the companies we'd registered went down within 3 months of me leaving. The idiot probably just went on trading and starting up new ones.
As a director (or whatever) it's OK to take risks (you have to take risks to succeed) but you shouldn't mess around with other people's lives. Your employees have rent to pay, kids to feed and lives to live.
Re:Lawyer: not quite (Score:3, Interesting)
[Completely irrelevant aside: if somebody claims to be a "lawyser", shouldn't they be dispensing "legsal advice" or maybe "legal advuice" or something like that?]
OK, so how high a standard do you need for "intent" here? Here's what I think is an ordered list of possibilities as enunciated by a typical dot com executive; where would a judge start to laugh in your face?
I'm guessing you have to get all the way to the chapter 11 filing case to nail down intent; am I right?
Re:Voila (Score:2, Interesting)
A few weeks ago here I saw someone use the phrase "by enlarge" where they obviously meant "by and large". Before I went and anally nitpicked this post, I had to go and look it up to make sure I was actually right.
Turns out this phrase has a nautical origin. I didn't know that. I picked this up, just like everyone else, by hearing it in a context meaning "for the most case" and just started saying "by and large" without knowing what it meant. Fortunately, there are abundant resources on the web to satisfy my anal-retentive nit-picking research needs:
Nautical Expressions in the Vernacular [io.com]
"Captain Harris was already explaining by and large. With a piece of fresh Gibraltar bread and arrows drawn with wine he showed the ship lying as close as possible to the breeze: '. . . and this is sailing by the wind, or as sailors say in their jargon, on a bowline; whereas large is when it blows not indeed quite from behind but say over the quarter, like this.'
The origin is nautical, and had a very precise meaning. It was an order to the man at the helm of a sailing ship, meaning to sail the ship slightly off the wind. A similar command was "full and by" which meant to "sail as close to the wind as it can go."
From a 'smaller' point of view... (Score:3, Interesting)
The articles of incorporation (Canadian law, BTW) clearly state that in the event of a bankruptcy, or similar, all money oweing to directors of the company (me), will be paid in full before other debitors.
So, technically, if I declare bankruptcy, I could state that the company owes me $xxx,xxx.xx and hand over the company assets to myself personally, leaving nothing for the debitors.
IANAL, but I think I've got a good one! =-)
Does anyone use something similar, and has anyone had any personal experience putting similar rules into force? I'd really love to know what sort of a leg I have to stand on. Stuff in writing is only worth the paper it's printed on until you test it!
mindslip
Re:Advocating theft is "interesting"??? (Score:1, Interesting)
Yes, and one who will cash in his dignity for the price of a laptop computer.
So tell me, when your kids get old enough to understand, how are you going to explain that theft is wrong? I mean, by your acts, you've found some cheap justification for it.
As for your mortgage, you'll never pay it off with stolen goods unless you really crank up your operation, in which case you've moved from disgruntled employee to full-time hood.
There's no justification so stop trying to provide one - you're stealing, its wrong, and claiming its to support dependents, besides being bullshit, does not make it right.
employee theft vs. employer theft (Score:2, Interesting)
Man, this topic is so chock-full of good targets, er, topics, I hardly know where to begin. So here's my ramble:
My view as an employee:
As an employee, I am expected to work X hours in exchange for X dollars. Even if I am on contract, or a full-time salaried employee, that is the contract to which I agree with my employer. When my employer doesn't pay for services rendered, for what ever reason, I am owed compensation.
There are two cases of "employers not paying" that are relevant here:
I make the distinction because one case can occur independently of the other. That is, "my employer has no money and can't pay me" can happen without "I've been terminated/laid off" happening, and the converse is true (when terminated or laid off, the employer may or may not be able to pay you what ever monies are owed to you).
In the first case, you usually can, via legal action, get monies owed to you. In the second, the likelihood of seeing monies owed to you is slim to none. Why? because as an employee (unless you fall under special legislation such as WARN act, and such items), you are an unsecured creditor.
Why does this matter? Because if your company cannot afford to pay you any monies they owe you, they most likely are also having difficulty paying thier other creditors. And if some of those other creditors are secured, that means "they get first kick at the can".
Much of the hardware, software, furniture and other assets are bought with monies acquired by a loan (unless your VC is generous) or via leasing. Those financial arrangements that were made to acquire those assets are almost always secured. So your hardware loan for $300K is secured by the hardware itself. When the company has to pay other bills, aside from salaries, or has to pay up becuase of a default situation, those assets are the first thing to go... to the bank, to the landlord, and any other secured creditors. So even legal action on your part will not get you elevated to the stature of secured creditor, and you'll still be stuck at the end of the line up, waiting for your now-small amount of $ (think: cents paid out on the dollar owed). (I suppose that if a secured creditor and your former employer could prove you had company assets that were part of a security arrangement for financing, the financing company could come after you for those assets! Zoinks! Being sued by a bank? Imagine what that would do to your credit rating!) Because of these security arrangements, your employer will be loathe to actually give you any of these assets in exchange for monies owed to you - these assets already are earmarked for other secured creditors.
So what does this mean in the context of this discussion? Does this change the fact that people who are pissed about being short-changed should stop stealing? You're likely not going to get all that's owed to you. Deal with it. Then decide what's important for you. Sometimes it's better to walk away from a couple of grand, avoid the hassle and headaches and move on.
That being said, I am sympathetic to people to decide to "get creative" with their severance packages - some people cannot afford to throw away several thousand dollars.