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Comment by throwawaycuriou | Hacker News Reader

Related question I've always been too shy to ask until now: assuming you work whatever US hours expected and perform at a high level and are regularly reachable, in this situation what are the stakes and implications (as a US citizen) of lying and saying you're US based when you're not?

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I think the ramifications would be around the more general tenets of being a good employee which are "trustworthy" and "never making your boss look bad". For a hypothetical example, your boss and your company thinks you live in Vermont. One day, your boss' boss is impressed by your work (so efficient, so responsive during work hours) and asks her directly to bring you in for a look at another struggling project on the West Coast. He wants you to come in for an emergency triage/kickoff meeting tomorrow with herself, her boss, your boss, and the management of the current project. Problem is you live in Thailand... There is no good way out of the situation. You have been dishonest. Your make your boss look really bad by not being able to get you to communicate honestly (your location). You went to elaborate lengths to pretend to be in the US. In fact, to disguise your timezone difference, you were using photography lighting to make night look as day in your office in Thailand. You even scheduled your annual medical checkups to coincide with visits to the States. You will likely be fired or worse (sued) and blackballed in the whisper, word of mouth immediate network.

Thanks for that scenario. Those potential ramifications are significant. In that specific case, one could imagine ponying up for a steep same day ticket from Thailand to keep up the ruse. One would expect there would be innumerable psychological tolls to live this way.

What about a subtler case? You begin working as a US based employee, but after enjoying your work and proving your mettle, you take the risky choice to move abroad without informing your company? Or, you have a US based apartment but periodically for a month here and there operate abroad unannounced?

Additional wrinkle: while the expectation is more clear informally, it's not clear to me what US based employment is from a legal standpoint. Is it merely filing your taxes from a US based address?

No, don't do this in any shape or form. If you want to work remote from abroad, tell them. Set expectations as to your performance and availability. Negotiate on their concerns. Don't do it on the sly. Like you mentioned, the mental overhead of lying will impact on your life. Think of it like cheating on your significant other.

In the very slight chance you are already doing this (cannot tell), you need to come clean with your boss immediately, preferably face to face.

You can be fired with cause.

I thought US companies didn't need cause anyway...

That varies state to state. The primary difference in most states is that employers pay I to an unemployment insurance pool that is used to fund unemployment payments to employees that are fired without cause (I.e layoffs). The employers costs for this increase with the number of people they lay off. However if someone is fired with cause, they generally don’t quality for unemployment payments and the company’s rate does not increase.

TLDR yes you can get rid of an employee easily but the costs vary depending on with cause vs without cause.

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