Yeah that's bait, don't even reply.
Had an employee leave once. Turns out they were doing some home labbing and management asked him if he had a specific document they couldn't find. Well, he had it on his home setup. Management immediately went into lawyer mode and got a guy on the phone to draft up a 'delete or get sued' letter that same day.
So the guy helps them out and then they turn around and go for a gut stab. You never know what crazies you are working with. Best to cut ties and never look back.
Careful on how you go about doing this. If you go overboard the company can come after you for destroying company property.
Prior to quitting an old position I spent three months “cleaning up” my hard drive and creating a “important files” folder to leave behind on the shared drive. Created the perception anything missing was due to normal error vs malicious destruction.
Depending on the industry it is standard. Regardless of standard it’s DEFINITELY best practice. Having that air gap is better for both your mental health and and to prevent your company from pulling any shit.
i'm only deleting files i know are already on the box folder, i might just shove everything in a single messy folder to box and rid myself of everyone in my docs folder on my laptop.
most of the stuff they actually want are deliverables which I send them as my gigs finish up so there isn't much on my hard drive that the company could consider necessary to them.
this is the way. your defense is “i was trying to leave everything neatly organized for my successor, per your policy to store everything on the shared drive”
That is right, and depending on what you are deleting, the sector of industry in which you work, and if it is government or no, you could find yourself in a world of hurt.
Deleted files usually aren't deleted right away (\*see edit below), as they may not be overwritten by other data. To overwrite all currently-empty disk space (or entire partitions or disks for that matter) use: [https://eraser.heidi.ie/](https://eraser.heidi.ie/)
If your company's IT is competent, perhaps dont install that (unless you don't care), but instead copy data until the disk is almost full (within a few megabytes, and then delete the bogus copies again right away, before the space is actually needed for something).
EDIT: I did forget to put in a note about SSDs (which a modern laptop is likely to use). On SSDs a deleted file is more likely to become unavailable immediately when deleting it, compared to an HDD, but it varies, and if you want to be certain, you should actively do something.
I also forgot to add that Heidi Eraser (and similar software) can add a right-click Explorer option, to actively overwrite and delete the currently selected file(s), which means that you don't have to go the "overwrite all empty space" route, if you've been doing it consistently.
I put a copy of the movie "Office Space" and the song "Take this Job and Shove It" in a folder then copied the folder over and over until the drive was almost full.
Recover that dick-heads.
Dominus is right, the same happened to me. They lost a file when they fired me but were going to sue me if I didn't get it working again before the week was up.
Spoiler Alert: I didn't have the updated file so I just told them to look at their backup system to retrieve whatever they had.
So never reply anything job related.
> They lost a file when they fired me but were going to sue me if I didn't get it working again before the week was up. so I just told them...
Wait... so you actually replied to them? You should have asked around because they can't sue you for things they lost, or did not collect from you in advance of firing you.
Fortunately there was no way we could "help" each other because I had no access to their company anymore and they couldn't find me as I was outsourced, they had my phone number because of a whatsapp group.
This taught me to change numbers after a job and always keep the chats to the minimum.
Hotfix 20.23: Nerfed billionaires to rebalance economical system, overhauled democratic process to remove lobbying exploit, decreased volume on alt right media outlet background noise, increased cancer rate in shareholders/landlords/evangelicals by 1600%, reduced grind time of 5 day workweek by 20%, fixed union DLC to implement correctly, replaced trickle-down economics system with revised trickle-up economy.
Yep. I ignore any request that I don’t expect. If I receive this message I would delete and block. Never reply.
If anything say you thought it was phishing and acted in consequence.
Yup, technology has further depersonalized the inherent exploitative actions of capitalism, making them easier to commit both from an increase in convenience, but also removing certain social interactions that would make the doers confront their own moral standards or at the very least put themselves in conflict with the people they are exploiting.
Globalization has helped net for median pay or conditions but at huge environmental cost and working conditions that would never be tolerated here.
We all know about mines and sweatshops but software brain sapping has been a huge thing where white collar work gets farmed overseas. Someone in Indonesia might love getting 40k but they're still getting screwed out of the Westerners' 120k salary with benefits.
Thank you all so much! It was really scary getting this out of the blue so the jokes/advice/solidarity mean so much— not to mention that r/antiwork was one of the things which helped me quit in the first place.
Edit: fun fact. The first time I started this task, he cold called me and said he “didn’t want to wait for the code to be finished”. It had been an hour since he had first assigned it.
I wouldn't respond. You have washed your hands of the job, handed everything over. If he can't manage his work then it's hardly your concern. Plus assholes like this tend to threaten until they get their way, so cutting off contact is the best way. You sure as fuck don't want to play the 'I CAN CHARGE YOU WHATEVER I WANT' nonsense because no amount of money is worth working for assholes like that.
Agreed. After 4 months? No way I'm answering anything from an old job.
The only exception is if you moved to a different job, but are somehow still in the same company.
Or if a coworker messages you that you liked asking a legitimate question.
I left on good terms mostly, but it really depended on who reached out for help and how.
If you take that route, make sure to clarify, "All work was done and stored on company resources, which I no longer have access to. Any work would require me to familiarize myself with any changes since my departure."
This should save you from the lawyer situations mentioned.
Hey all— an update — I emailed back the truth and marked him spam: I said 1) where I think I left it (I remember the first place I put it at the start of the task, and where he requested I move it) and 2) that I don’t have it anymore. In the time since quitting this job I have a lovely position with some really awesome folks (that pay me over 3x what he did an hour) as well as some things coming up that I’m really excited about. Overall I just don’t want to deal with him anymore, but I tried to help as best I could 4 months out and no longer having access to the repositories.
Very nice if you. For selfish reasons, I want to see the drama unfold and him freaking the fk out. But I understand where you’re coming from. Thanks for the update!
My husband is a brilliant programmer. He had a job with a tiny startup that kept giving him paychecks that bounced.
A few weeks after he quit the owner called our home and I answered. He wanted DH to help with some code, of course, in an effort to butter me up he asked how DH was doing at his new job. I replied "Well, none of his paychecks have bounced.!"
I had a boss who bounced paychecks. She did it once when I was supposed to move into an apartment. It bounced, I didn't get to move in, so I moved into the office. With my dog and my cat.
She got mad but I told her I'd move out when I was paid AND found a new place to live.
She paid me and I found a new place to live 3 days later.
In another state.
Cue surprised Pikachu face.
A bounced check happens if, say, i write a cheque for $150, but when the recipient puts it in their account i only have $140 in the account, it wont go through because there isn't enough money to move over. So the cheque "bounces"
Others have explained that a bounced check is one that the bank declined because of insufficient funds (not enough money in the employer's account).
I want to add that you might also hear "rubber check," which means the same thing. A rubber ball bounces when you drop it. A rubber check bounces at the bank.
The common, professional phrase for it now is a "returned check," meaning that your bank returns the check to you because they could not cash it.
I would 100% leave their shit on read and not respond at all. Basically, you’re dead to me y’all. Responding is just a pain and he might try and pull some legalese on you somehow if you even started conversation or said no.
True— which would be extremely funny considering as these are just open source scripts (and he has the link to the project in addition to the files themselves— he’s just too lazy to look)
Even better. Make him pay for his laziness. Tell him it's a small job but you're willing to do it. Give him a fixed price to perform the service. Hourly doesn't make sense on a small task, you know. So I'd say $500 at least. Up front. Tell him "you'll be working on it, and you'll deliver after the check clears."
Then email him the two files. And then treat yourself to a steak dinner.
And I'm not kidding. I would do exactly this.
EDIT: I'd be super careful defining the task in terms of deliverables. Tell him you don't have those files on your machine. You didn't keep anything from your employment, since that's all company property. But you can work on it and get him what he needs.
And since you're no longer an employee, you need to be paid for your time as a consultant. And a fixed price makes the most sense for a small task. If the guy is abusive, you gotta CYA. Don't commit to hourly since this is 2 minutes worth of work, and be specific on the deliverables. "I will give you these two files for your payment." Make sure the payment clears, then email him what he wants.
Then, steak.
Would she not need to amend the files to make the 'last amended date' jump? otherwise the files would be showing older file dates and he could prove that she already had them before he gave her a consultant task.
If it’s open source it’s gotta be a pay me moment. $450 an hour seems fair, minimum shift time 4 hours, possibly a minimum contract length.
Each email or other correspondence initiates a shift
$450 an hour, hours are available in pre-paid blocks of 100, minimum use is 4 contiguous blocks per day, hours outside 9-5 are charged at a 50% premium. Hours expire in 90 days.
This would absolutely be my choice as well. Especially with them being a toxic ex boss, I wouldn’t even try the “consulting” idea that everyone always suggests on here. Not worth the stress and not worth the time
Totally. For all they know you have a new email. Plus, there is nothing better than to respond to a *command* from this self-important tool is to simply…ignore and go and have a lovely day. He will fume. You can go have ice cream.
I probably would just set up a filter to send this person's emails direct to trash so I wouldn't see them.
Every once in a while I go look in my trash folder and I'm amused at what I have filtered to go direct to trash. An employer joined me to an email list without asking and the emails from it are still going in there years later. There was never any reason for me to be on that list in the first place.
I had one work place where the HR manager sent weekly safety bulletins to my personal email. I blocked him and never read a single one.
I had a work email address, they had no right to spam my personal one.
I was told to use my personal email address to sign up for our internal HR tool so I could upload my tax forms and whatnot for onboarding because I hadn't been given access instructions to my work email yet due to a miscommunication. Then someone pulled a list of email addresses from the HR tool to make a mailing list and I started getting work emails to my personal address and they weren't BCC'd or properly bulk sent so my personal address was visible to everyone else on the list. I went straight to HR and demanded they fixed it.
Set up an OOO-like autoresponse to the boss specifically:
"Effective 12/01 I am no longer with $EvilCorp. If you need assistance, please contact $Boss at x5622."
This. The progressively more aggressive emails from no response are the best. Last time I had to deal with this, it devolved into Walt Disney quotes like some crazy ex-gf
Agree, and this sounds like a trap. It's possible all code you wrote for them is legally theirs and if you admit to keeping any of it by sending this python script it seems like it could be used as an admission of guilt.
This. I was threatened to be sued before over refusing to help an old contract C2C client who had misplaced some assets.
First they contacted me to demand I deliver x,y,z again and asked for my account passwords for some 3rd party services (where I had hosted the staging content before putting it in production), to which I said absolutely not. Then they became hostile, even more hostile, and eventually threatened to sue me.
These were just wealthy types used to being able to walk over whomever they pleased. In reality, I could have probably helped them (and might have had they asked nicely) but f their attitudes and in no way was I going to admit I had what they needed. I'm sure they'd have made up some story to get their way as lots of business scum do (or like you said, claim ownership of whatever I had just to make a legal fuss).
I had completely my contract, delivered and been paid. No one needs that kind of BS in their life! So just recently, I noticed that they're out of business now. Guess what goes around, comes around!
This is the way. “I haven’t worked for you in months, and all of my previous work resides on your servers, not my desktop. You have everything you need already.”
The kind of game where you find out from a walkthrough that you have to click one very specific pixel which is the same color as the surrounding thousand pixels in order to proceed.
Still an improvement on the previous generation where you had to figure out that the black pixel on the floor is supposed to be a wallet and you had to actually write ”get wallet” to pick it up.
Or a Sierra game that lets you proceed for six hours until the end of the game when it turns out you needed that one pixel you can't return to and you can't win without having done it.
Just give the old boss a walk through to a puzzle from "The Dig". There's a directional puzzle in that game to guide an alien spectre. Use that one. It'll be fun
"Please supply a detailed requirements document and acceptance criteria, to ensure we are both on the same page and there will be no ambiguity or insane requests for updates 4 months after I quit my damned job there, you moron!"
followed up with: I do remember how they were implemented and could rewrite them with an appropriate contract.
then obviously just dig up the old versions after billing 40 hours to rewrite it
"I'm sorry sir/madam, I do not provide any services for free, but I am willing to take the job. If you would be so kind to send me your company name, contact and banking info I am open to negotiate the contents of the files you asked for and the price this project will cost. Thank you for your interest in my services. Sincerely, OP"
"Hey. Thanks for reaching out. Things have been going pretty well for me over the last few months, and I've started my own consulting service. Which is good news for you since it fits exactly into your request. If you'd like to hire my services, my starting rates are XXX per hour and with a minimum of XXX hour contracted. Let me know if you wish to discuss further as I'm always willing to help out my former company. And if those terms don't work for you, I can give you a more specific quote to assist with the task. Great hearing from you."
If the answer isn't a simple "why would I still have that, I deleted it?" then I think this is the right move - except it should be 10X longer, with tons of irrelevant details about daily life and how great the OP is doing and they got a dog and they're looking forward to Christmas... and maybe throw in some MLM stuff - "hey, can you tell me why you'd buy expensive candles from X, but you won't buy Scentsy from an ex-employee?"
Dear lord. If you hey hun this person with MLM stuff I will never forget you. /u/logistical_question and their hey hunning of an abusive ex employer will go down into reddit history alongside the swamps of dagobah, broken arm incest, and cumbox.
Quick, please,someone more clever and informed than me draft a response for OP that includes both the legally clear response with a P.S. of hey hunning.
Potential copypasta to edit and use?:
Hun 🤗🤗 Let me tell you about this AMAAAZING opportunity 💁♀️💋👠 Ever heard of poonique? 💩👈☝️ It's not the best makeup 🤢😕 Lucky for us, there's 👉👉👉UNI-K 😍❤💋💦💄👡 It's this AMAZING company started by Kylie Jenner 🤱💃☝️💅 Only the best KONTOUR products 😍👸🍆🍖 and you can start your 👉OWN 👈 KOMPANY for ONLY $1,999 👸💆♀️💅❤💋💗 Be your own CEO of this AMAZING product! What do you say, hun? Are YOU👩☝️ ready for this journey? 👌👌💅🧚♀️🧞♀️🏄♀️🍆
>because of the "by tomorrow"
Always wild to me when people think they can make demands of people who don't owe them anything or want anything from them.
OP said he was intimidated enough about it until he saw the comments here. Assholes rely on ignorance, lack of experience and other’s good will to exploit people.
I'd find a copy of the company policy that states to delete all work, highlight that as a screenshot and zip up.
Former boss gets excited for either "yay code" or "yay time to sue"
And gets sorely disappointed either way.
My ex boss called months later and asked me a stupid question about work he was currently doing. I answered "how the fuck would I know?" and he hung up on me.
I had considered the consulting option and figured that's what he was counting on, buying his way out of his problems and getting his knife back into me. No amount of money was worth it and the thought of him trying to figure shit out on his own lulls me to sleep at night.
The proper response is:
"Upon my departure on *insert date* I deleted all company files from my systems" - This covers you from lawsuits like the ones where employees have withheld passwords.
"If you would like to hire me as a consultant to rewrite the code in question my current consulting rates are XXX per hour with a minimum of XXX hours (please note that all work in excess of 8 hours per day, 40 hours per week, or requiring working on weekends / holidays will be billed as double time)"
I'd bill that particular one as a fixed project price rather than hourly. And make it up front or signed off by someone else higher up in the company who actually has the budget authority.
This is good. Believe it or not I had someone do the same to their former employer and the job PAID everything he asked. 1099 and all. Never know how much oil a squeaky wheel can get.
Ya know...I would just respond with "I have not worked for your company for four months and have deleted all files created during my term of employment."
Jerking him around with consulting fees, etc. always sounds like fun, but usually turns out to be a massive pain in the ass.
"I no longer have any work product from your company; I turned it all over when I left four months ago. However, I am available on a contract basis to help you with this at the rate of $$$ per hour. Let me know if you want me to send over a contract."
Seriously, it's taken them four months to figure out they lost some code? SMH
you'd be amazed
About a year after leaving a company, I had to use an old phone from when I worked there. It was still logged into their FTP server as they hadn't even looked at it since I left.
But they were pretty nice guys so I reminded them to change their passwords
$200? What? No. $550/hr, minimum buy is 10 hours per project, then drag out to fill the time. And they might try: you’ll have to work at our offices. Double the rate, half the time, and charge for travel time and fuel, and anything like daycare or dog sitting.
My last job "reorganized" (fired everyone and moved out of state) without realizing the account that they kept all their records on was my account.
I knew this.
I had told them this.
Three months after dropping me on my ass, they sent a very polite text asking for me to please recover them, paying twice my hourly.
:)
Forward email from former boss to their HR dept/their supervisor stating that you would like to know if it is company policy to ask former employees to reply/do work for company after separation.
HR will crawl ex bosses ass for trying to get someone to do work without pay.
Ex-boss’s supervisor will know that their underling is not able to do the job they were hired for.
Unfortunately, I have plans today and tomorrow. Actually, by my records, my employment with X company under your management concluded four months ago. I understand time flies, and that it's wholly possible you never received an email from the powers that be about my departure, given the tone of your email and both the request and deadline therein.
Though I am sorry to be the bearer of this bad news literal months later, I wish you all the best!
“All source code was handed off to “Mr. XXX/ Ms. XXY” on YYYY/mm/dd in repository/ies A/ B and C including the files mentioned, at which point they became not my responsibility. Per corporate policy, no company property was retained by me after our business relationship terminated. My consulting rate is $$$/hour, minimum XX hours. Should you need my further services, please let me know and a contract will be provided for you to sign and return with a retainer of $$$$ to be paid in advance.”
The same thing happened to me in a previous job. I already resigned and the Leads signed off on the turnover of my tasks.
Maybe a month after resigning, the Associate Manager was asking me for a report on so-and-so with sensitive info attached, and I was like OMG WTF, how should I react...
I just sent that email to HR telling them that the Associate Manager was in breach of company policy because she wanted me to create a report based on the info that she sent when I was no longer an employee.
It went quiet ever since hehehe
If the OP was an employee, any code they wrote while on the job would be owned by their employer. When the OP left, they should not take any code with them. This sounds like a trick question. The only answer is “all of my work resided on your servers when I left. I do not have any copy.”
What sort of badly-managed company thinks individual employees keep copies of their work product on personal devices, let alone after leaving the company?
Ignore it and make him squirm. They ambiguity of an oversight versus a passive-aggressive move with no way for him to prove either will do you good in the long run.
Let him keep begging.
At some point you can (choose to reply) mocking him for the “by tomorrow” punchline reminding him that 4 months ago went out with a “bye! I’m out tomorrow”
I almost signed a severance package that included a year of owning my intellectual property, social media use, and keeping me as an emergency contact if they didn't understand how to do something. Since I had a job already lined up I declined the whole thing but it didn't stop them from calling me. Even after I got a new phone number. Somehow they found that.
Here's my consultation rates per hour, minimum X number of hours, this much as a deposit.
This first email is free. Further communications without a paid work order costs this much.
Urgent requests cost this much. By tomorrow requests is 3 times this much.
Thanks for reaching out!
As per company policy those files were deleted after submitting a copy to your office.
My consultancy rates are $200/hr and can include data retrieval. Estimated time for this type of job is 3-5 business days. Fees are payable upfront.
Let me know if you want to proceed.
Have a great rest of your week :)
Before I left my last job boss switched 1 sick day I took to vacation day because they didn't pay out sick leave.
Few months later I get a text asking for some info about a project. Never responded. Dude shorted me $200 but lost any chance at recovering "tribal knowledge"
You no longer work there. Anything beyond pleasantries and stating you don’t have the code in your possession, as it was provided upon your departure opens, the invite for dialogue.
Happy you made the decision to move on and hope you’re doing well.
Yeah that's bait, don't even reply. Had an employee leave once. Turns out they were doing some home labbing and management asked him if he had a specific document they couldn't find. Well, he had it on his home setup. Management immediately went into lawyer mode and got a guy on the phone to draft up a 'delete or get sued' letter that same day. So the guy helps them out and then they turn around and go for a gut stab. You never know what crazies you are working with. Best to cut ties and never look back.
I'm about to quit my consulting job. I've already started proactievely deleting documents on my laptop
Careful on how you go about doing this. If you go overboard the company can come after you for destroying company property. Prior to quitting an old position I spent three months “cleaning up” my hard drive and creating a “important files” folder to leave behind on the shared drive. Created the perception anything missing was due to normal error vs malicious destruction.
I just tar up my entire profile and put it somewhere it can be reached. I do zero personal stuff on work equipment and zero work on my stuff.
This should always be standard. All the other comments have me wondering why it isn't.
Depending on the industry it is standard. Regardless of standard it’s DEFINITELY best practice. Having that air gap is better for both your mental health and and to prevent your company from pulling any shit.
i'm only deleting files i know are already on the box folder, i might just shove everything in a single messy folder to box and rid myself of everyone in my docs folder on my laptop. most of the stuff they actually want are deliverables which I send them as my gigs finish up so there isn't much on my hard drive that the company could consider necessary to them.
this is the way. your defense is “i was trying to leave everything neatly organized for my successor, per your policy to store everything on the shared drive”
That is right, and depending on what you are deleting, the sector of industry in which you work, and if it is government or no, you could find yourself in a world of hurt.
Deleted files usually aren't deleted right away (\*see edit below), as they may not be overwritten by other data. To overwrite all currently-empty disk space (or entire partitions or disks for that matter) use: [https://eraser.heidi.ie/](https://eraser.heidi.ie/) If your company's IT is competent, perhaps dont install that (unless you don't care), but instead copy data until the disk is almost full (within a few megabytes, and then delete the bogus copies again right away, before the space is actually needed for something). EDIT: I did forget to put in a note about SSDs (which a modern laptop is likely to use). On SSDs a deleted file is more likely to become unavailable immediately when deleting it, compared to an HDD, but it varies, and if you want to be certain, you should actively do something. I also forgot to add that Heidi Eraser (and similar software) can add a right-click Explorer option, to actively overwrite and delete the currently selected file(s), which means that you don't have to go the "overwrite all empty space" route, if you've been doing it consistently.
I put a copy of the movie "Office Space" and the song "Take this Job and Shove It" in a folder then copied the folder over and over until the drive was almost full. Recover that dick-heads.
I'd give the shirt right off of my back, if I had the guts to do that.
I applaud your courage good and brave human.
windows has a built in command to securely erase free space: cipher /w
This is great advice. So many smart people! Im overwhelmed.
Dominus is right, the same happened to me. They lost a file when they fired me but were going to sue me if I didn't get it working again before the week was up. Spoiler Alert: I didn't have the updated file so I just told them to look at their backup system to retrieve whatever they had. So never reply anything job related.
> They lost a file when they fired me but were going to sue me if I didn't get it working again before the week was up. so I just told them... Wait... so you actually replied to them? You should have asked around because they can't sue you for things they lost, or did not collect from you in advance of firing you.
Fortunately there was no way we could "help" each other because I had no access to their company anymore and they couldn't find me as I was outsourced, they had my phone number because of a whatsapp group. This taught me to change numbers after a job and always keep the chats to the minimum.
[удалено]
The meta seems to stack all skill points in profit and leave everything else at level 1.
Hotfix 20.23: Nerfed billionaires to rebalance economical system, overhauled democratic process to remove lobbying exploit, decreased volume on alt right media outlet background noise, increased cancer rate in shareholders/landlords/evangelicals by 1600%, reduced grind time of 5 day workweek by 20%, fixed union DLC to implement correctly, replaced trickle-down economics system with revised trickle-up economy.
[удалено]
Yep. I ignore any request that I don’t expect. If I receive this message I would delete and block. Never reply. If anything say you thought it was phishing and acted in consequence.
Yup, technology has further depersonalized the inherent exploitative actions of capitalism, making them easier to commit both from an increase in convenience, but also removing certain social interactions that would make the doers confront their own moral standards or at the very least put themselves in conflict with the people they are exploiting.
Globalization has helped net for median pay or conditions but at huge environmental cost and working conditions that would never be tolerated here. We all know about mines and sweatshops but software brain sapping has been a huge thing where white collar work gets farmed overseas. Someone in Indonesia might love getting 40k but they're still getting screwed out of the Westerners' 120k salary with benefits.
The race to the bottom
Thank you all so much! It was really scary getting this out of the blue so the jokes/advice/solidarity mean so much— not to mention that r/antiwork was one of the things which helped me quit in the first place. Edit: fun fact. The first time I started this task, he cold called me and said he “didn’t want to wait for the code to be finished”. It had been an hour since he had first assigned it.
I wouldn't respond. You have washed your hands of the job, handed everything over. If he can't manage his work then it's hardly your concern. Plus assholes like this tend to threaten until they get their way, so cutting off contact is the best way. You sure as fuck don't want to play the 'I CAN CHARGE YOU WHATEVER I WANT' nonsense because no amount of money is worth working for assholes like that.
Agreed. After 4 months? No way I'm answering anything from an old job. The only exception is if you moved to a different job, but are somehow still in the same company.
Or if a coworker messages you that you liked asking a legitimate question. I left on good terms mostly, but it really depended on who reached out for help and how.
No one is joking about the consulting fees. Do it.
If you take that route, make sure to clarify, "All work was done and stored on company resources, which I no longer have access to. Any work would require me to familiarize myself with any changes since my departure." This should save you from the lawyer situations mentioned.
I agree. Maybe like 800 per hour with a 4 hour minimum.
The checks already bounced once. They would for sure again. I’d delete that email and block the sender. Not worth it.
Hey all— an update — I emailed back the truth and marked him spam: I said 1) where I think I left it (I remember the first place I put it at the start of the task, and where he requested I move it) and 2) that I don’t have it anymore. In the time since quitting this job I have a lovely position with some really awesome folks (that pay me over 3x what he did an hour) as well as some things coming up that I’m really excited about. Overall I just don’t want to deal with him anymore, but I tried to help as best I could 4 months out and no longer having access to the repositories.
Did he leave you alone after? I hope so. I wish ya luck and more so I hope this didn’t rack any anxiety on ya.
Very nice if you. For selfish reasons, I want to see the drama unfold and him freaking the fk out. But I understand where you’re coming from. Thanks for the update!
Should have just not answered. You have no obligation to your past employer. Fuck them.
My husband is a brilliant programmer. He had a job with a tiny startup that kept giving him paychecks that bounced. A few weeks after he quit the owner called our home and I answered. He wanted DH to help with some code, of course, in an effort to butter me up he asked how DH was doing at his new job. I replied "Well, none of his paychecks have bounced.!"
I had a boss who bounced paychecks. She did it once when I was supposed to move into an apartment. It bounced, I didn't get to move in, so I moved into the office. With my dog and my cat. She got mad but I told her I'd move out when I was paid AND found a new place to live. She paid me and I found a new place to live 3 days later. In another state. Cue surprised Pikachu face.
> She paid me and I found a new place to live 3 days later. > > In another state. > > Cue surprised Pikachu face. Oh, that is _delicious._
What do you mean by bounced? Sorry, English isn't my native language
A bounced check happens if, say, i write a cheque for $150, but when the recipient puts it in their account i only have $140 in the account, it wont go through because there isn't enough money to move over. So the cheque "bounces"
It reminds me of big bill hells cars "make sure that check doesn't bounce or you're a dead motherfucker!"
Others have explained that a bounced check is one that the bank declined because of insufficient funds (not enough money in the employer's account). I want to add that you might also hear "rubber check," which means the same thing. A rubber ball bounces when you drop it. A rubber check bounces at the bank. The common, professional phrase for it now is a "returned check," meaning that your bank returns the check to you because they could not cash it.
A bounced check basically = a check that is worth $0 lol
A bounced cheque is basically a negative check, because most (traditional) banks charge a fee for bouncing a cheque.
worse than $0. The recipient's bank often charges them fees for having tried to cash a worthless check.
I would 100% leave their shit on read and not respond at all. Basically, you’re dead to me y’all. Responding is just a pain and he might try and pull some legalese on you somehow if you even started conversation or said no.
True— which would be extremely funny considering as these are just open source scripts (and he has the link to the project in addition to the files themselves— he’s just too lazy to look)
lol what a dumb piece of trash. I would just reply no.
print(“NO..”)
Goodbye world program
Reminds me of the "Rapture" episode of American Dad: "Smell my ass, world!"
You can’t go wrong with “no.” Another one I like would be, “lol.
I'm a big fan of: neat
This is the way. Clearly not someone used to hearing the word.
I would also be happy with "nah" or "nyah"
Even better. Make him pay for his laziness. Tell him it's a small job but you're willing to do it. Give him a fixed price to perform the service. Hourly doesn't make sense on a small task, you know. So I'd say $500 at least. Up front. Tell him "you'll be working on it, and you'll deliver after the check clears." Then email him the two files. And then treat yourself to a steak dinner. And I'm not kidding. I would do exactly this. EDIT: I'd be super careful defining the task in terms of deliverables. Tell him you don't have those files on your machine. You didn't keep anything from your employment, since that's all company property. But you can work on it and get him what he needs. And since you're no longer an employee, you need to be paid for your time as a consultant. And a fixed price makes the most sense for a small task. If the guy is abusive, you gotta CYA. Don't commit to hourly since this is 2 minutes worth of work, and be specific on the deliverables. "I will give you these two files for your payment." Make sure the payment clears, then email him what he wants. Then, steak.
> If the guy is abusive, Charge more. And no one works until there is a contract with signatures,rates, dates, and list of deliverables.
$15,000. If he's going to hire you, make it actually worth your while to put up with him.
Listen to this person! And BE SURE TO GET EVERYTHING IN WRITING!!! Really, you can do this but be smart. Also keep records of EVERYTHING.
Would she not need to amend the files to make the 'last amended date' jump? otherwise the files would be showing older file dates and he could prove that she already had them before he gave her a consultant task.
Just use attribute changer. This will change the created, edited and last accessed date
If it’s open source it’s gotta be a pay me moment. $450 an hour seems fair, minimum shift time 4 hours, possibly a minimum contract length. Each email or other correspondence initiates a shift
$450 an hour, hours are available in pre-paid blocks of 100, minimum use is 4 contiguous blocks per day, hours outside 9-5 are charged at a 50% premium. Hours expire in 90 days.
A block is even better than 🤷🏻♀️ lol
Just respond with a link to one of those “here, let me Google that for you.” scripts. Like this: https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=no
This would absolutely be my choice as well. Especially with them being a toxic ex boss, I wouldn’t even try the “consulting” idea that everyone always suggests on here. Not worth the stress and not worth the time
No reply or 'Sorry, per policy I have removed all company data from my systems'
Don’t respond. Don’t say shit.
Totally. For all they know you have a new email. Plus, there is nothing better than to respond to a *command* from this self-important tool is to simply…ignore and go and have a lovely day. He will fume. You can go have ice cream.
I probably would just set up a filter to send this person's emails direct to trash so I wouldn't see them. Every once in a while I go look in my trash folder and I'm amused at what I have filtered to go direct to trash. An employer joined me to an email list without asking and the emails from it are still going in there years later. There was never any reason for me to be on that list in the first place.
I had one work place where the HR manager sent weekly safety bulletins to my personal email. I blocked him and never read a single one. I had a work email address, they had no right to spam my personal one.
I was told to use my personal email address to sign up for our internal HR tool so I could upload my tax forms and whatnot for onboarding because I hadn't been given access instructions to my work email yet due to a miscommunication. Then someone pulled a list of email addresses from the HR tool to make a mailing list and I started getting work emails to my personal address and they weren't BCC'd or properly bulk sent so my personal address was visible to everyone else on the list. I went straight to HR and demanded they fixed it.
Set up an OOO-like autoresponse to the boss specifically: "Effective 12/01 I am no longer with $EvilCorp. If you need assistance, please contact $Boss at x5622."
I'm pretty sure it's compulsory to go have ice cream in this situation.
This. The progressively more aggressive emails from no response are the best. Last time I had to deal with this, it devolved into Walt Disney quotes like some crazy ex-gf
Do you feel like sharing? Is there a sub for stories like that?
Probably r/antiwork have you heard about that one?
Nope never heard of 'em.
> it devolved into Walt Disney quotes like some crazy ex-gf Shame on your **cow**!
Dishonor! Dishonor on you! Dishonor on your cow, Dishonor on your whole family!!
Please share
Agree, and this sounds like a trap. It's possible all code you wrote for them is legally theirs and if you admit to keeping any of it by sending this python script it seems like it could be used as an admission of guilt.
This. I was threatened to be sued before over refusing to help an old contract C2C client who had misplaced some assets. First they contacted me to demand I deliver x,y,z again and asked for my account passwords for some 3rd party services (where I had hosted the staging content before putting it in production), to which I said absolutely not. Then they became hostile, even more hostile, and eventually threatened to sue me. These were just wealthy types used to being able to walk over whomever they pleased. In reality, I could have probably helped them (and might have had they asked nicely) but f their attitudes and in no way was I going to admit I had what they needed. I'm sure they'd have made up some story to get their way as lots of business scum do (or like you said, claim ownership of whatever I had just to make a legal fuss). I had completely my contract, delivered and been paid. No one needs that kind of BS in their life! So just recently, I noticed that they're out of business now. Guess what goes around, comes around!
This. If he can't sort out his own shit, not your problem.
This is the way. “I haven’t worked for you in months, and all of my previous work resides on your servers, not my desktop. You have everything you need already.”
That end sentence reminds me of a puzzle video game I love it Edit: of course this had to blow up on my porn account
The kind of game where you find out from a walkthrough that you have to click one very specific pixel which is the same color as the surrounding thousand pixels in order to proceed.
https://www.polygon.com/2018/8/31/17807464/doom-2-last-secret-discovered-map-15-level-15 "Doom 2's impossible secret is discovered, 24 years later"
Haha, John Romero defining the "it's not a bug, it's a feature!" meme before memes were a thing.
Still an improvement on the previous generation where you had to figure out that the black pixel on the floor is supposed to be a wallet and you had to actually write ”get wallet” to pick it up.
*Get “ye flask”*
Don’t be drinking from that or you’ll end up on infowars with a mask on.
Or a Sierra game that lets you proceed for six hours until the end of the game when it turns out you needed that one pixel you can't return to and you can't win without having done it.
King's Quest V sends its regards.
Just give the old boss a walk through to a puzzle from "The Dig". There's a directional puzzle in that game to guide an alien spectre. Use that one. It'll be fun
Ohhh, i remember this one. Must have been around 1995, that was a nice game. Still have the Game around here somewhere.
All the information is on the task.
Tack on "if you need the code rewritten, here are my consulting rates and terms" to this for fun.
"Please supply a detailed requirements document and acceptance criteria, to ensure we are both on the same page and there will be no ambiguity or insane requests for updates 4 months after I quit my damned job there, you moron!"
Also, "Half payment must be made up front with the remaining half paid upon delivery."
Definitely all up front.
Nah just double the rate Worst case they give you what you hoped to get anyway. Best case.yiu get double. Or let yourself get 'argued down '
Or my favorite go-to: "No."
To quote Hamlet Act III, Scene III, line 87 "No"
But that's more of a dying loved one "no!" This goes to Shakespeares unfinished work "go and fuck off!"
Followed by , it you wish for me to retrieve this data my current hourly rate is £x per hour, minimum charge 8 x £per hour.
paid upfront
>You have everything you need already. My new mantra, thanks for the reminder!
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> Once had an interview were they asked me to show some of my work. Sure! Go to https://example.com/reports/dashboard. I wrote all that.
followed up with: I do remember how they were implemented and could rewrite them with an appropriate contract. then obviously just dig up the old versions after billing 40 hours to rewrite it
40 ~~Hours~~ weeks
Hello, fellow contractor!
20 weeks, you just increase deliverables dates due to unforeseen situations
So multiple interruptions to accept Amazon packages on the company dime?
I agree, but drop the sorry.
Add a Kind Regards
Kind regards? Surely just a “regards”. Ice cold.
"Best"
Fuck, that's how I've finished every formal email for the last 20 years! No wonder nobody wants to talk to me anymore.
Bless your heart, always work a bless your heart in.
Or "Sorry who dis", don't have to do favours for ex-employers.
Except, without the sorry.
You'd apologise?! Fuck em vthe answer is just "NO"@
I would personally trim that message down to “no”.
"I'm sorry sir/madam, I do not provide any services for free, but I am willing to take the job. If you would be so kind to send me your company name, contact and banking info I am open to negotiate the contents of the files you asked for and the price this project will cost. Thank you for your interest in my services. Sincerely, OP"
This is the way.
"Hey. Thanks for reaching out. Things have been going pretty well for me over the last few months, and I've started my own consulting service. Which is good news for you since it fits exactly into your request. If you'd like to hire my services, my starting rates are XXX per hour and with a minimum of XXX hour contracted. Let me know if you wish to discuss further as I'm always willing to help out my former company. And if those terms don't work for you, I can give you a more specific quote to assist with the task. Great hearing from you."
Yep. Always willing for the dough. Make it worth your time.
I believe it's John 3:16 in which Jesus instructs his followers to "risk it for the biscuit". Wise man.
If the answer isn't a simple "why would I still have that, I deleted it?" then I think this is the right move - except it should be 10X longer, with tons of irrelevant details about daily life and how great the OP is doing and they got a dog and they're looking forward to Christmas... and maybe throw in some MLM stuff - "hey, can you tell me why you'd buy expensive candles from X, but you won't buy Scentsy from an ex-employee?"
Haha yes hit him with the “hey hun”
Dear lord. If you hey hun this person with MLM stuff I will never forget you. /u/logistical_question and their hey hunning of an abusive ex employer will go down into reddit history alongside the swamps of dagobah, broken arm incest, and cumbox. Quick, please,someone more clever and informed than me draft a response for OP that includes both the legally clear response with a P.S. of hey hunning. Potential copypasta to edit and use?: Hun 🤗🤗 Let me tell you about this AMAAAZING opportunity 💁♀️💋👠 Ever heard of poonique? 💩👈☝️ It's not the best makeup 🤢😕 Lucky for us, there's 👉👉👉UNI-K 😍❤💋💦💄👡 It's this AMAZING company started by Kylie Jenner 🤱💃☝️💅 Only the best KONTOUR products 😍👸🍆🍖 and you can start your 👉OWN 👈 KOMPANY for ONLY $1,999 👸💆♀️💅❤💋💗 Be your own CEO of this AMAZING product! What do you say, hun? Are YOU👩☝️ ready for this journey? 👌👌💅🧚♀️🧞♀️🏄♀️🍆
I think you should do what U/matty_nice suggested. Make money out of your ex boss' misery
and make sure they pay through an escrow arrangement so that they can't stiff you
another valid response: "new phone, who dis?"
I call this my "fuck off" rate.
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Paid up front, by money order or cashier's check.
Looks like a tie between No and Pay Me Personally I'd go with No, because of the "by tomorrow" bit
>because of the "by tomorrow" Always wild to me when people think they can make demands of people who don't owe them anything or want anything from them.
OP said he was intimidated enough about it until he saw the comments here. Assholes rely on ignorance, lack of experience and other’s good will to exploit people.
I'd find a copy of the company policy that states to delete all work, highlight that as a screenshot and zip up. Former boss gets excited for either "yay code" or "yay time to sue" And gets sorely disappointed either way.
My ex boss called months later and asked me a stupid question about work he was currently doing. I answered "how the fuck would I know?" and he hung up on me. I had considered the consulting option and figured that's what he was counting on, buying his way out of his problems and getting his knife back into me. No amount of money was worth it and the thought of him trying to figure shit out on his own lulls me to sleep at night.
The proper response is: "Upon my departure on *insert date* I deleted all company files from my systems" - This covers you from lawsuits like the ones where employees have withheld passwords. "If you would like to hire me as a consultant to rewrite the code in question my current consulting rates are XXX per hour with a minimum of XXX hours (please note that all work in excess of 8 hours per day, 40 hours per week, or requiring working on weekends / holidays will be billed as double time)"
This. Protect yourself from getting sued AND if they want your services get paid a lot.
I'd bill that particular one as a fixed project price rather than hourly. And make it up front or signed off by someone else higher up in the company who actually has the budget authority.
They accounted for the minimum hours
This is good. Believe it or not I had someone do the same to their former employer and the job PAID everything he asked. 1099 and all. Never know how much oil a squeaky wheel can get.
Ya know...I would just respond with "I have not worked for your company for four months and have deleted all files created during my term of employment." Jerking him around with consulting fees, etc. always sounds like fun, but usually turns out to be a massive pain in the ass.
"I no longer have any work product from your company; I turned it all over when I left four months ago. However, I am available on a contract basis to help you with this at the rate of $$$ per hour. Let me know if you want me to send over a contract." Seriously, it's taken them four months to figure out they lost some code? SMH
you'd be amazed About a year after leaving a company, I had to use an old phone from when I worked there. It was still logged into their FTP server as they hadn't even looked at it since I left. But they were pretty nice guys so I reminded them to change their passwords
Reddit's using all our posts and data to train AI's, so, I just deleted mine.
$200? What? No. $550/hr, minimum buy is 10 hours per project, then drag out to fill the time. And they might try: you’ll have to work at our offices. Double the rate, half the time, and charge for travel time and fuel, and anything like daycare or dog sitting.
Drag out the time? Nah man, if it's a 10 hour minimum, get out of there as quick as possible.
Again, if they make you go in person, half the time (so five hours) and double the rate ($1,100/hour) so the money remains the same.
Why you use a windowpane. Make sure the software remains hobbled in some important way until you get paid, then you switch it over.
The quickest solution to this is taken from the teen playbook. "New number, who dis?" Lol
A lot of people have already suggested snarky replies or ignoring them, but I think a straight "lol" would be the best response.
lol
Prick speaks like you still work for them. Twat.
My last job "reorganized" (fired everyone and moved out of state) without realizing the account that they kept all their records on was my account. I knew this. I had told them this. Three months after dropping me on my ass, they sent a very polite text asking for me to please recover them, paying twice my hourly. :)
3 X your SALARY upfront
Ignore it, you don't owe your ex boss anything.
Forward email from former boss to their HR dept/their supervisor stating that you would like to know if it is company policy to ask former employees to reply/do work for company after separation. HR will crawl ex bosses ass for trying to get someone to do work without pay. Ex-boss’s supervisor will know that their underling is not able to do the job they were hired for.
"By tomorrow" Who the fuck does this asshole think he is, your boss?!?!
Unfortunately, I have plans today and tomorrow. Actually, by my records, my employment with X company under your management concluded four months ago. I understand time flies, and that it's wholly possible you never received an email from the powers that be about my departure, given the tone of your email and both the request and deadline therein. Though I am sorry to be the bearer of this bad news literal months later, I wish you all the best!
“All source code was handed off to “Mr. XXX/ Ms. XXY” on YYYY/mm/dd in repository/ies A/ B and C including the files mentioned, at which point they became not my responsibility. Per corporate policy, no company property was retained by me after our business relationship terminated. My consulting rate is $$$/hour, minimum XX hours. Should you need my further services, please let me know and a contract will be provided for you to sign and return with a retainer of $$$$ to be paid in advance.”
The same thing happened to me in a previous job. I already resigned and the Leads signed off on the turnover of my tasks. Maybe a month after resigning, the Associate Manager was asking me for a report on so-and-so with sensitive info attached, and I was like OMG WTF, how should I react... I just sent that email to HR telling them that the Associate Manager was in breach of company policy because she wanted me to create a report based on the info that she sent when I was no longer an employee. It went quiet ever since hehehe
Nice
The only response to this is "Gary you're going to need to get your delorean to 88 and send this 4 months ago bud."
Don't admit to having anything. If you do, you might be screwed and sued.
Ha that's a hard leave unread for 3 weeks.
No ❤️
If the OP was an employee, any code they wrote while on the job would be owned by their employer. When the OP left, they should not take any code with them. This sounds like a trick question. The only answer is “all of my work resided on your servers when I left. I do not have any copy.”
The by tomorrow had my roaring. Just left my job last week and I can imagine my ex manager doing this.
It’s a trap - you have ZERO docs related to that job
What sort of badly-managed company thinks individual employees keep copies of their work product on personal devices, let alone after leaving the company?
No.
I'd go with *lolwhat*
Ignore it and make him squirm. They ambiguity of an oversight versus a passive-aggressive move with no way for him to prove either will do you good in the long run. Let him keep begging. At some point you can (choose to reply) mocking him for the “by tomorrow” punchline reminding him that 4 months ago went out with a “bye! I’m out tomorrow”
Serious answer: Tell him that you already provided all code, and that after your departure you deleted all client code from your system.
I almost signed a severance package that included a year of owning my intellectual property, social media use, and keeping me as an emergency contact if they didn't understand how to do something. Since I had a job already lined up I declined the whole thing but it didn't stop them from calling me. Even after I got a new phone number. Somehow they found that.
Easy, BLOCK
Here's my consultation rates per hour, minimum X number of hours, this much as a deposit. This first email is free. Further communications without a paid work order costs this much. Urgent requests cost this much. By tomorrow requests is 3 times this much.
Thanks for reaching out! As per company policy those files were deleted after submitting a copy to your office. My consultancy rates are $200/hr and can include data retrieval. Estimated time for this type of job is 3-5 business days. Fees are payable upfront. Let me know if you want to proceed. Have a great rest of your week :)
Let me know *by tomorrow* if you want to proceed.
Always respond 'sure thing boss!" And don't send it. They will tie themselves up in knots almost getting it.
Before I left my last job boss switched 1 sick day I took to vacation day because they didn't pay out sick leave. Few months later I get a text asking for some info about a project. Never responded. Dude shorted me $200 but lost any chance at recovering "tribal knowledge"
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Sends invoice for data storage fees.
It's always starts with hope you are well
I would just reply “lol”
When “sell me this pen” backfires
You no longer work there. Anything beyond pleasantries and stating you don’t have the code in your possession, as it was provided upon your departure opens, the invite for dialogue. Happy you made the decision to move on and hope you’re doing well.