SSH007

I don't think its accurate at all. Which senator or congress-person said/implied this? I've never heard for anyone saying that people that have paid a lifetime of taxes, are taking advantage of everyone else, just because they receive Social Security and Medicare benefits. I have heard of people complaining about those that misuse the system, but certainly never about those that have paid a "lifetime of taxes."

What are you talking about? Which "force that run this country" shames anyone that is poor?

So, you got some tremendous help at a very key point and you were able to use that momentum to continue doing well for yourself. Now, imagine you are so poor that you need some help to move up in the world, but that help never arrives. How long would you have done that shit job if the truck driver didn't point you somewhere better. Or, how about if you weren't able to scrape up anything after that one month of rent and were thrown out on the street? I'm not saying you were the luckiest guy on the planet to get that help. Most people could count on some good fortune. But someone considerably more unfortunate than you may not have had that experience, or perhaps they had shitty situations happen to them, at a point when they were most vulnerable. Don't discount those things that you didn't have control over that helped you get somewhere, and recognize that someone may not have been that fortunate. Regardless, I hope you paid it forward.

How do I go about using this advice? I feel like if I don't help my kids with their work, and make them do it, then they would not care at all and it would not get done. My parents were busy working and didn't care about me doing my school work and now I feel like I missed out on a lot of opportunities, if my habits were better and if I had done well in school.

With that experience under your belt, if the same thing happened again, would you do the same thing? Wait 'til you couldn't stand it anymore and then go off? You aren't the first and you won't be the last person that gets hired and the client tries to get more work out of you. There are lots of other developers that would try to get more money out of the clients too. Its not one sided. Most people don't stick exactly to the contract. Developers try to get more money for performing less work, and clients try to get more work for less money from the developers. Are either of them "bullies"? Nope, they just protecting their interests. Everyone tries to get a better deal, there's nothing wrong with that.

BTW, nothing you wrote in your article seemed like he was "treating you like garbage". He was aggressive, and perhaps thats the way he works. He won't change until he gets push back. Terminating the contract was not push back, that was just quitting. He hired someone else, and lost nothing and learned nothing. He probably has a story about a Developer he hired to do work and after a couple days the developer blew up at him and quit.

In either case, you posted this online to share with others. Are you just sharing a story that happened to you? or are you trying to teach them something? Whats your goal? The way you wrote the story, it seems like it happened several years ago. Why are you still thinking about it? He was a jerk, you quit. So what?

I can't tell what purpose your article serves. You are a contractor, you work your own hours, and if you don't like work with someone then you don't have to. I don't think there are any new information that is contained within your article that people don't already know.

I guess it could have gone differently, and you may not have had to "fire" your client if you had confronted him the first time he was out of line, instead of assuming that he was having a bad day. You waited and your irritation and anger grew inside until it boiled over and you snapped.

You could have told him right from the get-go that nature of a contractor's schedule is that there are no set hours. You have a timeframe of delivery you agreed upon (probably listed in the contract), and that's the deadline you'll honor. Also, that if he's having a bad day due to something else, the relationship between the two of you needs to stay professional. He may not have been aware that his behavior was out of line, and when you mention that to him at the first occurrence he'll know that you've noticed his behavior. When you waited so long, and then just went off at him over the phone, he probably thought you were the nutcase and continued the same behavior with others. You could have made him aware, professionally, and made a difference. You chose to be just as unprofessional as he was, and neither of you made money.

Biggest lesson in your article was that nothing changed, both of you have a story, you are still bothered about this years later, and you both wasted each others time.

I don't think anyone is saying that. There's plenty of proof that lots of businesses that function...even thrive by paying people poverty wages. The question however is...is that right? Are you okay climbing to the top on the back of someone else? If you are, then you'll do well. If you aren't then your hike up will be difficult and slow.

I hope you don't take this the wrong way but this sounds like a much better advice than the one you gave above. I would not have guessed that both comments came from the same person, until I checked the username.

I think you absolutely did the right thing by removing their name. I hope you see a positive end to this situation.

Can't tell if you are being sarcastic, but just in case you are actually serious, perhaps consider just for a second that the company did not fire him because of his depression.

I'm not saying he's lying, but assume for a moment that he got caught up in the emotion and felt that was the reason they fired him. What if it wasn't? What if it was something else? You are telling this young man to start a revolution against a company that may have no malice in their intentions. Naming/Shaming companies have real effect. This company doesn't seem like a multi-national huge corporation with deep pockets, atleast from their webpage I didn't gather that they were. Publicly shaming them may do real damage to the company and people that work there. If the person really was discriminated against, then go the legal route, sue them and settle it that way. If he was wronged, then law is on his side. Once you win that lawsuit, then feel free to blog and start a revolution because then you have a guilty party. Right now, its just his word against no one else's word, they can't defend themselves.

While you have my sympathies for what you are going through, it really comes off petty when you name your employer. In my experience, there are always two sides to each story. I won't even try to speculate why they might have let you go. If they were discriminating against you because of your depression, then there are legal protections that are provided for you. Naming and shaming your ex employers, does nothing but harm to your future prospects. Prospective Employers, if they hear about how quickly you publicly shamed/named your employer when you two did not see eye to eye, will be hesitant to hire you. In all honesty, I would not.

All We(HNers) have, is your side of the story, there is no defense from the company that let you go. There is very little upside to publicly naming the company, unless you do it in legal proceedings.

I'm not sure if its possible, but I'd highly recommend you deleting the comments where you named the company, or delete this post. It does nobody any good, especially you. Think about it, what did you gain from naming them. I was with you until I saw that you named the company. Again it comes off petty and childish.

You seem fairly young, since you mentioned your experience, so remember that professionalism goes a long way, and also that Life is not fair. Sometimes you'll get blamed for something you didn't do, other times you'll be fired for something shitty like this. Your job is to keep moving ahead all the time, and don't go down to the level of jerks and become a jerk yourself. Stand up for yourself, but don't talk behind other people's back. If they wronged you, then confront them, but give them a chance to defend themselves.

Good luck to you.

The problem I had with this article was that there was no substance on what they actually did to create the product and start a company. How did they arrive at the idea of AnyPerk, what did they do? Did sleeping in the TacoBell parking lot or sharing a bed in a $10/night hotel do something for their startup other than low burnrate. How did this help them? Seems they had a (wrong) idea in their mind on what you have to do to start a business in America and in the end they contributed more to that idea by only telling a story of sharing a bed/sleeping in a car. Someone naive may come along and think if I sleep in a car in a parking lot, and sacrifice my privacy I'll have a successful business. There was more to this story and this was their opportunity to state that. I wanted to hear about how the idea came about, how they created a site, then they spoke to and contracted with x number of vendors to provide these perks that they are essentially reselling.

Pretty weak article. I would have said that its not worth being on front page of HN, but comments are interesting.

Speculating here, but probably data collection, usage tracking. App makers probably want to send you updates/emails on why you should buy the pro version of the app etc, but I think your question might have be rhetorical.

Mail doesn't get blocked because of the mail server you are using, but rather what you are sending and who you are sending it to. If you/your clients send spam mail (unsolicited emails) then no matter what you use, you'll get blocked. Even if you use Google/Yahoo or anyone else's services, you'll get your account suspended if you send spam. You can setup your own mailserver but make sure you have relays turned off so others can't use your mailserver to send unsolicited emails.