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Comment by saltybytes | Hacker News Reader

This is cruel and heartbraking. Didn't expect this to happen in any European countries the least in Poland where they have strong unions.

Retaliation is pretty common in the US - I announced to HR that my wife is expecting (Tue) and was fired on Friday.

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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.

> 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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Except taxes.

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.

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

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.

I disagree with this. I live in SF and the roads range from terrible to just-ok. And not just in the city; US-101 is just kinda ok (despite vaguely-regular maintenance), and many local roads I see in nearby smaller towns and cities (South SF, Daly City, Belmont, San Mateo) are -- at best -- just ok. Similar situation when I drive north toward Sonoma.

A major issue in SF proper is that crews are constantly digging up parts of roads to work on pipes or whatever, and then patch them in a haphazard, crappy way. Roads get fully resurfaced rarely. As an example, there's a super nasty patched and re-patched and re-patched and re-patched section of 18th St (between Minnesota and Tennessee) that has been a nightmare for at least 4 years now.

A section of Tennessee between 18th and 19th was resurfaced about a year ago (in part because there was building construction along the road that did heavy damage), but just this past week they were digging up a large section in the center of the road to do some work underneath, and when they patched it up, they as usual did a crap job, so the road sucks again.

I grew up in New Jersey (80s) and Maryland (90s), and the roads were much better maintained in both of those places, Maryland especially.

I agree SF has shit roads. I do not find that to be the case almost anywhere else in CA.

I’ll put it this way too: while I’m mindful of potholes, generally, I have yet to have a single issue popping any of my 21” thin sidewall summer tires on my >5500lb EV.

My counterparts in the South have popped between 2 and 10 depending on who you ask. The answer each time is: hit a pothole.

Some of that’s driving. Some of it is also just the roads. They’re far from perfect. But they’re better than most other states.

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.

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).

> But yes, the roads are bad in Deep South states

Interesting! Quite contrary from the prevailing wisdom - snow and salt destroy the roads. Maybe they don’t make them well to begin with.

It’s all the water and the clay they are built on, Florida just spends to get around it.

Since you mentioned Florida, the roads go from good to bad as soon as you cross the border into Alabama

Same thing happens with California/Nevada.

I-15 is wide, flat, beautiful and flawless on the Nevada side. As soon as you hit California, it's like a rural county road with no maintenance.

I’ve driven track cars with bone shaking suspension from LA to Vegas and honestly don’t recall any difference.

I’ve driven track cars with bone shaking suspension from LA to Vegas and honestly don’t recall any difference.

Funny, because it's in the Las Vegas newspapers every six months or so how the mayor of Las Vegas and the governor of Nevada are always begging California to upgrade its side of I-15.

Almost every month there are 14-hour traffic jams on Sunday night as the SoCal crowd scurries home only to hit the bottleneck at the California border where I-15 goes from six lanes to four, then twists its way through the mountains.

I've driven it many dozens of times in the last ten years, and it's well known among people who live in Nevada.

Maybe Nevada could provide the money for it? Building roads on flat ground is easier than a freeway through the mountains is it not? And the primary beneficiary of the road is Vegas? Why would I want California taxes to subsidize Vegas gamblers? A road that is totally fine except Sunday night? Think about the two bits of road you are comparing: they are not representative.

I don’t notice much going between the two on I-80, well except you go from pretty straight desert roads into a freaking mountain range. Are mountains involved in the border at I-15 also?

California is rated poorly on roads on average because they have a lot of rural/mountainous terrain to cover. In the cities where most people live, the roads are actually pretty good.

Except in Texas.

For a state that often bemoans the federal government and its out of control spending, Texas takes an impressive amount of funds and puts it into a very high-quality and modern interstate system.

Texas will receive over $27 billion (with a B) over the next ~5 years in federal funding for highways and bridges alone. $10 billion was allocated across 2022-2023. Many of their roads are quite nice and only going to improve. Thanks, Uncle Sam!

Texas has high property taxes. It's actually not a low tax state as measured by overall tax burden. Texas is also very proud of its massive, well-resourced public schools (and their football teams!), and pours a lot of tax revenue into them.

Worse than California?

It depends on your income since income taxation in California is extremely graduated. If you make less than $60-70k, you’ll pay less in CA, otherwise you’ll do better in TX.

It depends a lot on the value of your property too as that's where the high taxes in Texas are. So it's a two-dimensional comparison.

Cross from IL to WI on 94. The toll road ends and the reads are so much better. Of course WI will pull over any speeder with out of state plates. They even take credit cards to pay your fine on the spot.

Of course, Florida and Texas both have zero personal income tax.

I live in Washington, so I’m not sure what the big deal of that is.

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

Tourism.

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.

I noticed an immediate degradation in surface quality on the interstate when I crossed into Alabama. Aren't the states responsible for upkeep using federal dollars? Some states are better than others at this.

Initial roadway construction is using primarily federal dollars, but long-term maintenance is usually primarily funded by the state or local municipality.

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.

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.

Is that why Texas property taxes are eye wateringly high?

That might be part of it, but far and away the main reason for that is to offset the state’s ability to tout about having no income tax.

There’s a list floating around by some personal finance blog that ranks the states based on effective tax rate across most taxes citizens are subject to and Texas consistently ends up remarkably high on that list due to the other taxes being relatively high.

Texas is essentially the personification of a low sticker price with hidden fees (e.g., “starts at $0”).

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

LA county school system is one of the worst in the nation and it costs nearly the most.

Fair point. I don’t live in LA and was not aware of the school issues there.

But by and large, CA does have great public school, and top-tier public universities.

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

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

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.

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.

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

They make up their tax revenue in other ways.

> 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

> 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.

> 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

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.

> 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?

Property tax, sales tax, toll roads in places they shouldn't be, and so forth.

Property and local taxes, and also simply doing less.

https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/tax-burden-by-state...

Californians pay more taxes but they also get better social services, schools, universities, parks, etc.

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.

Nonsense? Most people aren't software engineers.

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

> 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.

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.

> relatively higher income tax is worse for poor people

How is it worse for poor people?

Poor people spend more of their income on things that have sales tax. In other words, someone who is worried about their 401k is probably spending less of their income each month by percentage compared to someone living paycheck to paycheck.

https://itep.org/whopays-7th-edition/#sales-and-excise-taxes

Governments can do less and spend more wisely.

What solution does that offer? People have been debating what to keep and cut for generations, as well as ways to improve spending; I don't see any low-hanging fruit or big improvements there.

> What solution does that offer?

Really? If people weren't forced to pay as much taxes as they have today they would have more resources to invest in what really matters to them instead of having a bunch of bureacrauts wasting it.

> I don't see any low-hanging fruit or big improvements there.

There are tons of low-hanging fruits, at least in South America, the issue is that government doesn't exist to provide services and seek the interests of the population. Government is just a big mafia and things are corrupt and inneficient by design because their true goal is to fill their pockets.

> Really?

Are you surprised I'm just not accepting the trope as God-given truth? Get used to it. :)

> If people weren't forced to pay as much taxes as they have today they would have more resources to invest in what really matters to them instead of having a bunch of bureacrauts wasting it.

And they'd have less services provided by government.

Anyway, your claim is a trope, but let's actually examine it:

People want government to do certain things; government does things that "really matter". Nobody gets exactly what they want from anything - the restaurant, their family members, employers, etc., or from government.

I know the word 'bureaucrat' has been demonized, but that's not evidence (in fact, it's evidence IME of right-wing propaganda). I personally know some government bureaucrats well, and they are serious professionals, completely committed to their job and to public service.

Government waste is long been a trope of the right-wing propaganda, as a way to persuade people to cut taxes (for the wealthy) and reduce government's influence (which democratically counters that of powerful people), but I've never seen evidence that government is more wasteful than other sizeable institutions - if you've seen the inside of a mid-sized corporation, you would recognize it. Same with churches, non-profits etc etc.

If you have evidence, that's one thing. Just repeating these claims doesn't make them true. It makes them ripe to be challenged.

> There are tons of low-hanging fruits, at least in South America, the issue is that government doesn't exist to provide services and seek the interests of the population. Government is just a big mafia and things are corrupt and inneficient by design because their true goal is to fill their pockets.

Who is there only to provide services? Don't businesses also want to fill their pockets? Also, we are grouping all of South America, from Columbia to Argentina, into one broad generalization?

> Who is there only to provide services? Don't businesses also want to fill their pockets?

Business don't put me in jail if I don't buy their services. Choice, freedom is an important distinction. Also this is nonsense because taxes are a one-way obligation, government has no obligation to provide services just because you paid taxes. There's a distinction between taxes and fees.

> Government waste is long been a trope of the right-wing propaganda, as a way to persuade people to cut taxes (for the wealthy) and reduce government's influence (which democratically counters that of powerful people), but I've never seen evidence that government is more wasteful than other sizable institutions - if you've seen the inside of a mid-sized corporation, you would recognize it. Same with churches, non-profits etc etc.

I have experience working for big-sized organizations including NGOs. The bigger the more inefficient. And you know what are the biggest organizations in the world? Government. e.g. California budget for 24-25 is $291.5 billion.

The truly wealthy are able to circumvent high taxes. They can have fiscal residencies in tax heavens along dozens of other loopholes to avoid taxes.

> If you have evidence, that's one thing. Just repeating these claims doesn't make them true. It makes them ripe to be challenged.

Honestly I think your worldview is limited to "Democratic" vs "Republican" parties. There's ample evidence. Historically socialism and big government lead to poverty. This is explained both by economical and political theory.

e.g.: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_problem * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice

If you want to learn more there's Milei speech in Davos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pfcd0gWNIog

> Also, we are grouping all of South America, from Columbia to Argentina, into one broad generalization?

Yes, because unfortunately this is a broad issue in South America. If you want specific cases look at Venezuela, Argentina and Brazil. I'm Brazilian.

>invest in what really matters to them

You see libraries and schools barely having enough funding to function while consumers spend thousands on entertainment. I don't really trust the average Joe to know "what really matters". Or at least not realize it matters until it's too late.

Not to say government spending doesn't have its share of inefficiencies and outright corruption. But they at least have some checks to keep it from going off thr deep end (both literally and socially via elections).

> libraries and schools barely having enough funding

Probably because they are public and government responsibility.

> I don't really trust the average Joe to know "what really matters".

Average Joe live paycheck to paycheck. It doesn't have disposable income.

>they are public and government responsibility.

My point exactly. They barely get funding by people whose job is to allocate and get people to fund them. How many will actively think to fund these institutions if optional? And how much would they fund? And to which schools? Can't you see all the emergent issues?

>Average Joe live paycheck to paycheck. It doesn't have disposable income.

Average Joe makes 70k and pays 1300 in rent. Average Joe is fine, problem is half the people by definition aren't average and average is only a decent living with no kids and two incomes.

The truly poor Joe isn't taxed much or at all. This would affect them the least.

Texas levies property taxes now?

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.

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.

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.

I don’t know your source. None of the ones I’ve seen support that ranking:

https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/tax-burden-by-state...

Ah, I see that was copied from the list of top tax rates rather than what most people actually pay:

https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tips/fun-facts/states-with-t...

So, yes, if you’re making millions per year in taxable income, California’s top rate is higher. That is not a concern for anyone outside of the 99.5th percentile, which is uncommon even in FAANG circles.

Tax burden is also the best metric to use because the money has to come from somewhere. If you’re trying to decide where to live, looking at state income tax only is as foolish as only looking at housing purchase prices without also considering your commute, utility, and maintenance expenses.

> So, yes, if you’re making millions per year in taxable income, California’s top rate is higher.

But isn't that what "top rate" meant in the first place? It doesn't mean "median".

Seems like you're moving the goal posts over a few percentage points. Whether it's 12% or 14.4%[0], it's very high.

And at some point those very wealthy and highly mobile people start thinking, "maybe we should crunch the data and do what other wealthy people are doing: find a state with a more reasonable tax bite."

0. https://www.wsj.com/articles/gavin-newsoms-stealth-tax-incre...

Remember that I was correcting someone who hyperbolically claimed California “taxes are the highest in the country and take almost 40% of your income” in a thread claiming that taxes were high enough to make California employee-unfriendly. Whether it’s the 2023 or 2024 rate, they were arguing triple the actual rate and very, very, very few employees in the state are paying even that top rate. Even the WSJ editorial board–hardly neutral–clearly state that this only applies to people making over $1M a year (the top 1% starts around $550k, so that’s pretty elite!).

If you want to accuse anyone of shifting goalposts, start with the people trying to portray the concerns of the top .1% as employee issues.

I find it weird that people quote top-tax-bracket rates and try to use tha tto directly compare state taxes.

That's nonsensical. You need to compare the effective tax rate that people pay.

When I was making bank at tech, sure, I was in CA's top tax bracket. But I never paid that rate across all my income. My effective tax rate was quite a bit lower.

> But I never paid that rate across all my income. My effective tax rate was quite a bit lower.

This seems to be a strangely common cognitive pitfall - I’ve seen so many people talk about progressive tax rates that way, even claiming that a raise would cost them money, and it’s not like this is a secret or requires advanced math skills.

But it does require thinking about more than just the headline. A lot of people are lazy (I don’t mean that as a moral issue, just literally) and don’t want to think for themselves, so often they simply parrot.

The top tax bracket is more like 50% all in. So I was not quoting the top one with 40%.

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%.

You’re the one making the claim, why can’t you show us your calculations? I can’t reproduce your numbers unless you’re assuming a truly massive real-estate assessment.

>Show me a married couple both working in tech in California

I didn't know everyone on this site met their spouses at work. Statistics say that's been dwindling for 15 years or so. Then you account for the 20-30% of women in tech (and the fact that not every woman wants to marry a techie)...

Still, congrats on your situation.

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

Well, I'm single (with worse rates) and CA is 9.3% for my bracket + 24% federal. Doesn't seem too unreasonable. Sounds more like a housing issue than a tax issue.

It's also why I live out in a suburb. I know people online these days glamorize walkable cities, but California right now isn't very "walkable", even if we could redesign everything tomorrow. Lot of other deep seeded issues to solve first.

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.

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.

He was responding to the absurd assertion that nobody has bought a house in California in two decades. It’s not cheap but that’s pure hyperbole, and Asa was reminding him of that.

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.

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.

> 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.

At least it has gone to court, and she has won at this point. It's not clear to me whether Magda gets paid for the time between her dismissal and her job being reinstated.

I'll continue to boycott Amazon. Earlier in the week I spent about an hour sleuthing the web to find an obscure item that wasn't from Amazon or China, finally found it at a local supplier.

> I announced to HR that my wife is expecting (Tue) and was fired on Friday.

Did you expect this might happen, maybe the baby is due very soon?

It's awful in any case :-(

I can’t speak to this case, but generally low wage workers are paycheck to paycheck and so get jobs while they wait for the system to do their thing. They only get paid for loss of income, so it actually subtracts what they earned in that time and so by working in the meantime the damages paid are much smaller. There are no punitive damages or anything.

Is that for Poland, or somewhere else?

In Britain you're compensated up to £643/week by default (up to your weekly pay amount), plus compensation similar to what you describe.

I don't speak Polish, so I doubt I could find the situation there.

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/work/employment-tribunals/...

United States, sorry that's what I meant about not speaking to this case. I was very unclear!

My apologies for the confusion.

> I'll continue to boycott Amazon.

You're not the only one. I haven't bought anything from Amazon in the past five years or so.

I discovered recently that some ebay sellers dropship via amazon. Unfortunately I don't think you can tell until you get tracking info, when it's too late to cancel - they are tracked via 'aquiline' which just seem to operate some server api that wraps amazon tracking numbers into ebay tracking numbers, and the delivery is from Amazon. But the actual product page just says 'other 24-hour courier'

Just to clarify: was "fired without cause" (worked "at will" which most of full-time employments are in the US). By asking why they were getting rid of me I heard the pharse "for no good reason, really" like a broken record. This was enough indication that it was clearly in regards to my talk with HR a few days prior.

Also, during my announcement to HR about my wife's circumstances, I remarked I wanted to take some time off to be there for wifey & baby.

The company was 90% lawyers so just in case I wanted to proceed legal action against them, their Armada of lawyers made a possible follow-up rather unsavory.

> their Armada of lawyers made a possible follow-up rather unsavory

Understood, but you should also know that EPLI deductibles are often in the mid-to-high five figures usually, which is an incentive for the employer to settle for anything less than that deductible.

Point being, if you get a lawyer, threaten to make a stink etc and are generally showing you're serious about fighting this abuse, settlement to the tune of 20-70k is a reasonable expectation. IANAL etc

Sadly, and I say this with all the love for my Polish brethren and sisters, Poland and many Eastern European countries still have some catching up to do.

The silver lining, however, is that these countries make significant headway at a steady pace.

Especially the countries that are part of the EU are constantly improving, partly because they have to adhere to the EU-wide minimum baseline.

So I've got faith they'll get there.

But this lagging behind, for lack of a better world, is also, in part, why many US companies that want to expand into the EU set up bases in countries like Poland. It's generally cheaper and is the “least bad” from the corporations’ perspective regarding labor rights.

> Retaliation is pretty common in the US

I agree! And, they say this bluntly and while chest thumping: ‘we have strong laws against retaliation’ :-)

You disagree with your manager and that as*hole will put you on a pip the very next day

Do you have a source describing how common retaliation is in the US? I always thought it was actually pretty rare.

Sorry you lost your job, but I find it difficult to believe that it is solely due to you announcing the arrival of your child. Paternity leave is rarely more than 2 weeks in the US, I can't imagine a company preferring to deal with potential law suit instead of just living 2 weeks without an employee.

I expect most retaliation goes unreported, so going to be difficult to get any numbers that are not full of assumptions. Even if you know someone fired you for X, going to be hard to prove it: time, money, conflicting accounts, potential reputational damage for suing employer.

> I announced to HR that my wife is expecting (Tue) and was fired on Friday

That's so low. Really, your former employer is despicable.

This is so stupid. In Spain even fathers get "paternity" leave. You even get a week off if you get married...

In the USA, everyone gets leave all the time! You just don't get paid.

And your job probably isn’t there when you come back!

In the US too you get paternity leave, it's very fishy to see someone claim they got fired for announcing that their partner is expecting. This is a massive liability.

What parallel universe are you in? There is no guaranteed paternity leave in the US. Some states may have it, and a few employers offer it, but it’s in no way a right.

It really depends on your state and company size: https://bipartisanpolicy.org/explainer/state-paid-family-lea...

In general, it is better for US employees to plan as though they had no rights (especially if they can't afford a good lawyer or wait months/years for the NLRB to process a claim, and even then only during a Democratic administration). Of course they actually have a few rights, but much fewer than in European and many Asian countries, and the enforcement/protection is pretty minimal and delayed. Most employees will just get trampled on with no real avenue for recourse, especially if they have bills due in a week or two.

Why did you announce it?

Presumably because he wanted to take paternaty leave after his child was born. Also why wouldn’t you tell coworkers you’re having a baby? It’d be really weird to keep that a secret.

"Also why wouldn’t you tell coworkers you’re having a baby?"

It was HR, not some coworker. But yes, it is messed up.

Toxic workplace then. HR are people too.

Cynically speaking, HR is an abstraction layer between management and employees, sorry, 'resources'.

When I worked for a huge engineering multinational years ago, it showed time and time again that people went into HR with the best of intentions, but most were as time ground on disillusioned upon finding they were not, after all, employed to help other employees.

The good ones mostly left, the poor ones thrived. Sigh.

(That being said, I do believe HR has a purpose, ensuring (at least in theory) professional, correct and consistent treatment of employees.

Just don't make the mistake of believing they are on your side; they are not.

"When I worked for a huge engineering multinational years ago"

I never was in a huge company, but in a small company, I found they can be nice and on the human side.

Agreed; I believe the tipping point is where the company becomes so large that you no longer know, or at least are familiar with the people you're working with.

I expect you are much more inclined to try to find a workable solution if the case at hand is Dave in accounting whose kid attends the same soccer practice your kid does than if he's just employee #628481.

Well, HR staff are people like any other department, so as with all people there's always potential for asshole behaviour even in a company that generally encourages HR to be employee-friendly, and potential for someone to do a nice thing that's technically against HR policy in a shitty company. Not to mention that the abstracted layer above - whether the company has employee-friendly or employee-hostile policies when it comes to HR team - is also ultimately down to people with the same potential for good and bad.

"HR work for the company not for you, don't trust them" is a reasonable general rule considering the average HR department especially in large companies, but it's not a guarantee that all HR people, or even all HR teams' policies will be evil.

The company gets the best bang for their buck if employees are reasonably happy, healthy and productive. So most of the time your interests and the company's should be aligned.

HR are employer's cops and every cop-related advice applies, starting with "don't volunteer information". At least with managers in a big tech corp you have the same goal to pursue and failures to share. With HR it's either a script or a cop.

"every cop-related advice applies, starting with "don't volunteer information"."

I strongly disagree to that, but that is a different debate. (if you want my take: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34447138)

And with HR it can be the same. If the HR have the guidelines of making the employes happy - then you absolutely can share information with them, making planning easier - with the result of a better outcome for everyone. Like when the wife will give birth. "So hey, concratulations, good to know, so we can plan around it" - if it is a good company. If it is a company who don't give a damn and see every person as replacable in an instant, then this is a different scenario and the rule of not giving them anything does apply.

>And with HR it can be the same. If the HR have the guidelines of making the employes happy - then you absolutely can share information with them

It can be, but it requires a skill of reading the room and knowing nuances in a situation of information asymmetry. The combination of information asymmetry and hr people, being agents of the big corp and not caring about the outcome for you is what makes it problematic.

> you absolutely can share information with them, making planning easier

if they company has a clear policy and is known for following it -- sure. otherwise it's "x days off for personal reasons".

Yes it depends. But the thing with a birth is, that the day is not clearly defined. Which is common knowledge and works in the companies I know(in germany though). With - when it is time, he needs to leaves that moment.

But when you say "x days off for personal reasons" - they would like a date.

Like I said. If it comes to that it's a toxic workplace.

So back when my team was smaller, we used to do birthdays. Lure the coworker into a conference room on some pretense or another, then bring out a cake.

Of course, once it became routine, it's rather hard to surprise someone -- any irregular meetings on your birthday are extremely suspect.

So for one coworker's birthday, a week after we'd just done another's, I scheduled JACK'S BIG ANNOUNCEMENT on his birthday. He, of course, was extremely suspicious, and assumed it was a front for his birthday.

I made my announcement, brought out the champagne (well, sparkling Catawba), went out into the hallway to get a corkscrew, and came back in with the birthday cake.

So he had the whiplash of, wait, is this not for my birthday after all, wait, if it is, then are you not having a baby? And I declined to clarify until after I started my paternity leave, and half my coworkers didn't believe it until after I brought the kiddo in to show off.

It was glorious.

This seems like a very good anecdote in favor of continuing remote work.

Definitely an illustration of how different persons want different workplace experiences.

Replies are an illustration of how people can't respect others preferences as well.

I can't parse what you wrote to figure out what you were celebrating, but whatever it is, this is my idea of a workplace nightmare. It's bad enough being forced to celebrate someone else's birthday, but it sounds like you're also forcing people to celebrate their own birthdays without their permission, and possibly forcing people to celebrate pregnancies and other personal events without their permission?

I would hate you if I worked with you.

> but it sounds like you're also forcing people to celebrate their own birthdays without their permission

I've taken to telling people I don't have a birthday when asked, unless it's clearly for necessary record keeping; especially in a work context. I get a funny look, but whatever.

If I learn someone else has appropriated my birthday, I do let them know, and we can share private birthday greetings.

Kind of harsh without context? I worked for a team that did this - putting your birthday on the spreadsheet was entirely optional, as well as attending any celebratory hallway things. Nobody was forcing anybody to do anything. If you had a conflict or was busy working, or just plain didn't want to participate, everybody understood and wouldn't mind.

FWIW I usually didn't participate nor did I let anybody know my birthday and I never felt excluded.

It's one thing to say "we're celebrating Bob's birthday so there's cake in the kitchen", or "we're going out to lunch for Jill's birthday". You should get Bob and Jill's permission before you do that, but if they're cool with it, then by all means. I can decide for myself if I want to participate, or make a polite excuse not to.

Throwing me a surprise birthday? I hate you. Inviting me to a meeting that I feel obligated to attend, only for it to be a surprise birthday? If it's for someone else, I'll just smile and pretend to enjoy it for the minimum socially-acceptable time and then bow out. If you did that for my birthday I would be pissed off. I'd still smile and pretend to enjoy it, but it would be excruciating torture for me.

And if you ever threw a party for me for anything more personal I wouldn't even smile and pretend, I'd make it publicly known how inappropriate it was.

You seem like a miserable person to be around.

It's cake and a break from work. Even if you hate every single person you work with with a burning passion, it's still cake and a break from work.

I can only understand this opinion if its some kind of forced event after or before work, or worse you're the employer and just want people making you money only. But getting paid to take an extra break and then scolding your coworkers seems a step too far

> You seem like a miserable person to be around.

This is outrageously inappropriate. Coworkers who are so willing to be cruel are exactly what makes me uncomfortable in social situations at work. Bullying is always inappropriate. Social interaction at work should be optional and consent should be obtained before revealing personal information. People have different preferences and those preferences should be respected. I can’t believe I even have to say that.

> It's cake and a break from work. Even if you hate every single person you work with with a burning passion, it's still cake and a break from work.

It’s not about hating your coworkers. It’s about social anxiety, professional conduct, and personal liberty. Don’t lie to me about the purpose of a meeting and don’t use my professional time for your personal entertainment. I have a life outside of work. I don’t appreciate wasting working time because I still have to do the work. Don’t interpret my discomfort in forced social situations as a personal insult.

> I can only understand this opinion if its some kind of forced event after or before work, or worse you're the employer and just want people making you money only.

It doesn’t matter what you understand. Your behavior is inappropriate. I doubt it was your intention to hurt anyone so take the feedback, adjust your behavior, and move on.

> But getting paid to take an extra break and then scolding your coworkers seems a step too far

I am paid a salary. The work has to get done. Social interaction isn’t free. I still have to find time to do the work.

> It's cake and a break from work.

Actually, it isn't.

Since it's happening during work and between coworkers it's work.

I'd rather do actual work instead of pretending to be glad that coworkers are celebrating my birthday. Actually they aren't. For them "it's cake and a break from work".

So they basically have fun at my expense.

That's exactly why I always take a day off on my birthday. To do what *I* want to do on *MY* birthday.

And the cake part : sure, if you like bad food, don't care about your health and don't have allergies, that's perfect. But that's not everybody's case. Having gone through a weight loss journey during my twenties, work was the only place where I felt pressure from other people to stop my efforts and join them in their trash food orgies.

So I completely understand where @caymanjim's comment is coming from.

I'm probably a miserable person, if you say so.

As a coworker, I'll go out of my way if you ask for help around work or personal issues. But I will never impose on yourself something that is not directly related to our jobs.

You like having a party for your birthday at work? Awesome! If bosses are okay with that, have fun with all the other coworkers that share this same feeling! But don't throw a party for anyone else without asking them their opinion about it first.

If you can't understand that different people have different expectations about basically everything, I can see why you are quick to qualify strangers as miserable.

>But I will never impose on yourself something that is not directly related to our jobs.

I see sentiments like this and understand why we lost the workplace as "the second place" in modern times. Part of it is corporate exhaustion, but others just walk into the ironwall by themselves.

It's half your waking life during biological peak of life. And very few people are working their dream jobs. People can help mitigate the lack of passion in the workplace. It's not my job to maximize the company productivity. I'm not getting any extra pay for working harder.

>If you can't understand that different people have different expectations about basically everything, I can see why you are quick to qualify strangers as miserable.

To be fair, this chain started with an experience and then a dismissive response about a different expectation and experience. It takes two...

> It's not my job to maximize the company productivity.

It literally is.

I'm an IC, so no. I'm given a task or a module of tasks to investigate and solve them based on budget. I may give input, but rarely are the approaches I'm told to take after giving options nor approaches the most optimal nor quality route. Nowhere in the contract does it mention "maximize productivity", nor does it happen in practice.

Even if I was a manager, politics in the office would keep me from hiring the most optimal employee if I can't convince HR or whoever to cough up a bit more money to hire them. Nor would it let the manager relax the load on the most productive workers stuck in meetings so they can work. There's a lot more Theatre among the c class to make things look shiny to investors than there ever is among the workers.

So it's not literally nor figuratively my job. nor even my job de facto. It's not even the C class's job: the most productive is not necessarily the most profitable to begin with.

I’d prefer, “Hey, I heard it’s your birthday today, why don’t you knock off a couple hours early and go relax. Happy birthday!”

I'll admit this is ideal

I understand where you're coming from, but please consider that not everyone is enjoying social situations the same way and to the same extent. For some people, being thrown into a surprise party as its main attraction is quite uncomfortable and outweighs the benefits of "cake and a break from work". It's more like "cake and a very exhausting kind of emotional work" for them.

They might not be much fun at such parties, yes; but telling them that they should enjoy them instead or that they are miserable people seems like a very unkind and unhelpful response to me.

Yeah, sounds like someone who never worked in a small team. Probably wouldn't be a great fit anyway.

That is a lot of emotion and politics. How is it important to you? Is it really about birthdays? Relative to most things, IMHO they are pretty innocuous; YMMV of course.

This is the stuff of nightmares. I would take whatever amount of PTO necessary to avoid this abuse around my birthday. Did you at least ask before advertising personal information to coworkers? Surprise party suggests no consent was obtained.

Comparing an impromptu gratitude to abuse is exactly why tech has such a negative stereotype in terms of social dynamics.

Your gratitude is someone else’s abuse. I doubt you meant to cause harm but unsolicited celebrations hurt people. Please stop acting without consent. It’s never ok. You’re hurting people. Stop.

>Your gratitude is someone else’s abuse.

I see the golden rule is dead.

> I doubt you meant to cause harm but unsolicited celebrations hurt people.

I've never thrown a work party. But if my thanking or praising you is abuse then I feel this is a personal issue than a character flaw. Learn to take a compliment and learn to bow out gracefully. There's way too many impromptu abuses of your time and energy by corporate leeches for a random celebration of life to be considered torture.

> I see the golden rule is dead.

You have completely misunderstood the meaning of the golden rule. “Treat others the way you wish to be treated” does not mean “subject others to your personal desires”. It means “respect the wishes of others as you would want them to respect yours.” You have no right to compel the behavior of anyone else.

> But if my thanking or praising you is abuse then I feel this is a personal issue than a character flaw. Learn to take a compliment and learn to bow out gracefully.

Please stop being a bully. You are hurting people with your behavior. Please stop hurting people.

Why wouldn't you communicate ahead of time that you're going to be taking a chunk of time off in the near future, specifically for something so important?

Letting HR know your wife is expecting is that communication.

Is he supposed to let HR know when they are trying to conceive? That seems unreasonable and TMI…

I'm not clear on when exactly he let HR know, but the original post makes it seem like he let them know a week before. I think at least a couple months notice makes more sense depending on the duration of leave.

I read that as he told HR on Tuesday, and then was fired three days later, on Friday. Not that the wife was due the following Tuesday. We don't know how far out the due date was based on what OP said.

I agree that employees should give sufficient notice for something like that. But even if they don't, that's not grounds for firing. It might be grounds for disallowing the leave until the required notice period has passed, assuming that's documented and legally allowed.

Wait. You were fired because you said to HR that you are going to be a father next week? How is this even legal?

I think they're saying that they notified them on Tuesday, and were canned Friday.

So called "right to work" laws that actually give employers the right to fire for no cause. As long as an employer doesn't say what the cause was, employers in those states can fire you for "no cause" even if the hidden reason would be an illegal cause if they stated it. It's only illegal if someone gets caught specifically saying the firing was because the employee is having a kid. Coincidences are not considered admissable evidence in those courts.

I think you’re conflating “at will employment” with “right to work”.

The first allows no-reason, no-notice termination of employment by both parties (which doesn’t really work - the employee usually needs income more than the employer needs a single employer).

The second is related to the ability to unionize.

Right to work is about being forced to be a member of a union.

>reason would be an illegal cause if they stated it.

That's true but it's also exactly what you go to court for. Then the court audits and determines if this was a coincidence or malice.

That's why employers don't often make it this obvious. Like firing an employee 3 days after announcing they are a protected employee.

To earthwalker99: You got downvoted to death because you called out downvotes against you, but to explain more issues with your argument: Capitalism is a system of organizing society based on private ownership of the means of economic production. You're saying capitalism is about prioritizing the rights to capital accumulation by the current holders of capital, which is one specific form of capitalism, often called crony capitalism.

Private ownership of the means of production is more orthogonal to workers rights. There are capitalist economics in countries with very strong workers rights and unions, but where the means of production are still privately owned. Capitalism is fully compatible with strong family and medical leave protections, even though those who own the means of production are disincentived in the short term from giving workers rights. The fact that the US is worse on workers rights isn't a problem unique to capitalism.

Retaliation is not common in the US. Stop spreading misinformation.

Why would an HR department from any reputable organization fire you if your wife is expecting?

Your counterpoint that it's not common has the same level of evidence in it as the original assertion: none.

An absence of evidence for the argument against something being common is evidence.

How would one go about finding evidence that retaliation is common in the U.S.?

Sometimes, absence of evidence is because the evidence isn’t readily available.

Evidence for what, though? An absence of evidence is perhaps evidence that someone who is asserting something is happening didn't do their homework. But an absence of evidence is certainly not evidence that something is not happening. It might be persuasive enough to allow people to reasonably believe that something is not happening. But it's not evidence of such.

IDK if it's very common but it happens, especially at smaller companies who either don't know the rules or those who have gotten away with it in the past and think they are too small to get noticed.

Just recently here a restaurant was fined for not paying overtime by employing dishwashers and kitchen staff as "salaried" exempt employees.

At large companies with in-house legal and HR teams? It probably doesn't happen much, but even there they will know what they can get away with.

Retaliation is abundant in the US. What are you smoking?

If a company thinks it can get away with it, it will. Saving money is more important than a hypothetical, minuscule and temporary hit to their reputation. There will always be consumers looking for a bargain at any real cost, workers desperate for a pay check, and shareholders worshipping the bottom line.

That’s why we need unions

This is the tech bubble talking. Most big tech companies do treat their tech workers well...warehouse workers, not so much.

But for every big tech company there are thousands of smaller non-tech companies, where they do not treat employees well. Also common != majority.

Just read up on how Walmart treats their employees, for example. I just read an article earlier this week about Walmart systematically under-reporting OHSA violations, and retaliating against employees reporting workplace accidents to OHSA.

Its not "retaliation" as such, just that for many unskilled jobs having someone show up everyday is the main part of the job. If you want time off they can swap you for someone who'll be there.

I feel somewhat safe in believing that retaliation isn't common in tech companies (though it does happen sometimes). But I don't think I would feel safe assuming that generalizes to all jobs in the US.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if there was quite a lot of exploitation and retaliation at lower-skilled, lower-income jobs in the US.

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