skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Ask HN: What to do when your company misses payroll?
Starting in May, the hardware startup I work for has been having some money problems. They've deferred payroll a couple times, including the most recent pay period.

A couple days after the last missed payroll, I indicated I would be working from home but not in a full time manner. Since then, everyone else appears to continue going into the office and working full days even though they have not been paid. Am I wrong in my actions?

The most upsetting part for me is that on payday, no one in management mentioned we would not be getting paychecks. It seemed like they figured we wouldn't mind/notice and we would just continue working.

I have updated my resume, but have not sent it out yet. They keep saying money is right around the corner and I'd like for that to be true. So I've basically been waiting that out while keeping my eyes open for opportunities (which are sparse).

Does anyone who has been through this before have any advice? Or how would you have handled it if you could go back and do it again?

EDIT:
Thank you all for your insightful comments.

After hearing how often this thing doesn't turn itself around, I am going to start sending my resume out immediately. I guess I just needed a community kick in the ass to get me going!
OpenGoo: An Open Source Answer To Google Apps
Isn't the whole reason behind New Coke that Pepsi was beating Coke?
It tastes better.
One of the many things I've read since I dropped out of a english lit PhD program that I really, really, really wish I had read before I applied.

I know now that the information is there for students who ask the right questions or correctly analyze their surroundings (particularly, the professional activities of their professors), but it isn't front-and-center.
For both the interviewing and dating analogies, OP overlooks the most critical detail that any good salesman could tell you: decisions are made by emotion and confirmed by logic. He barely touched upon the emotional aspect.

What could companies do to better employ emotional considerations?

First they must treat the recruitment process as a two way street. Why hire someone who will become unhappy or disillusioned and just leave? Yet companies continue to hide their underwear until after the candidate is hired. Do you really think they won't notice that you misrepresented yourselves?

They must also focus more on the people side of things. Take the candidate out for dinner or drinks. Invite the spouse. Take them to an event. You can learn just as much about each other as you can from a technical test.

I'm surprised companies don't do this much anymore. Have we gotten so technical that we forgot that we're human?
Facebook HQ Designed Through Facebook Platform
He is, but in that case, he's right. You can't avoid conflict long term, but how you resolve them is very important. It is very possible to be in sharp disagreement over something and yet resolve the situation with respect intact.
I agree with this. I'm perfectly fine interacting with people when that's the work at hand. I am frustrated when I'm forced to spend a significant amount of my energy trying to tune them out.

And it's not just a matter of "choice" or "adaptation". I've worked on this for over 20 years, and my "adaptability" has not significantly altered. I'm very aware of my environment; this seems to be hard wired. It offers some advantages: I notice things others miss, and I'm very quick to infer new information from the details at hand. But it also means that open space is a living hell.

I wish people in general were more willing to accept that different people thrive in different kinds of environments. But where there is a mix of personalities, often the loudest and most physically aggressive come to predominate the environment. I've also experienced this in my home environment, where the misfortune of a string of noisy neighbors -- even after moving -- have made being home an exercise. (The reasons I never transitioned to working from home.)

My second priority would be for interesting, meaningful work. Preferably where I am continually learning and creating. I've paid my "button pushing" dues; in fact, I've repeatedly taught the machines to push those buttons for me, before moving on.
In the same way Hersheys tastes better than Cadburys?
Seconded. I have a Sony PRS-505 and I'd never go for an eReader without over-the-air or at least WLAN again. I couldn't care less about taking notes on the thing. Feel free to bolt that on after you have wireless added, but not before. Wireless support is a system seller. Note-taking is just "Why would I want this" and "Will I scratch my screen with the pen?" fluff.

And even if the note-taking expirience is completely awesome (which I doubt, given the response time of E-Ink screens). Do I really want to plug the device in all the time and use some proprietary windows-only crapware to transfer my notes? Certainly not.
I red somewhere that in England doing things "the french way" mean doing them backwards or opposite of usual. Switching games or sports rules was known as playing french. This was allegedly due to British vs French empire rivalry
Using the New Grep and Nested Line Styles Feature’s Inside InDesign CS4 — Part 1
The name's Feynman.
Read This If You Hate Meetings
I'm afraid the parens will always turn off most people.

It's sad they go away without even realizing that using a real editor like Emacs makes the paren problem non-existent.
Maybe because "Coke" is easier to spell than "Pespi".
It doesn't surprise me at all that there are companies who work like that. But it does surprise me to hear a company spokesman admit it so freely.
Who is "they"? Apple or AT&T? While most of Apple's app acceptance policies are weird, most can be attributed to the soccer mom effect. ("Tonight on NBC Action News, watch as little Timmy downloads hard pornography on his iPod! Also, is a sex predator stalking your daughter on her iPhone, more at 10!")

I can bet that banning GV is definitely an AT&T issue. And it isn't the first time as they strongarmed the Slingbox app too.
There are many situations under which a person might spend $4,000 on a dog.

But we are talking about the specific situation in which you don't have $4,000 and intend to borrow it at 25% interest. In that case it is not socially acceptable to spend $4,000 on the dog. To note your other examples, it also irresponsible to borrow $4,000 at 25% interest to go to movies or spend on overseas tourism.

Note that I am not just claiming that it is unwise and irresponsible (it is); I am also claiming "social acceptance" in that society in some sense backs this up. My evidence is this: if you bring a child in need of $4,000 in care to a doctor, and don't have $4,000, the child will get the care; you may be dunned for the bills, but the child gets fixed.

You bring a dog into a vet, and you are indigent, the dog either gets given away to someone who will pay or it gets the needle.

My personal views go further, in that even someone who has $4,000 is being irresponsible by spending it on a dog (in most cases - a breed in threat of extinction or a highly trained dog might be worth it, I am sure many seeing eye dogs are worth $4,000 and not replaceable for that). But I know that many people hold the opposite, and would even say you should not own a dog if you are not willing and able to pay $4,000 on vet expenses.

If you have to borrow at 25%, then you fail the "able" part of "willing and able".

One of the things that will come out of the current economic situation is that our society is going to be less accepting of people who do things like borrow $4,000 to spend on pet bills.
Recently we've started giving automatic IQ tests to everyone that applies to us - then we take the top 20-30% and look at their resumes to get 10-15 candidates for the in person interview. So far it's worked remarkably well - precisely in directing us to candidates that looked weak on their resume but turned out to be brilliant on the job.
Well you just broke even on the crackpot index: http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/crackpot.html (#8)
I suspect skype over EVDO will suck, given the latencies involved.
Which they went back to after that whole new coke fiasco, right?
The original essay by pg: http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html

Very insightful, I enjoyed it.
Given that there are already camera-readable visual tags out there, I don't see this being a huge breakthrough. It is true that it can encode more information in a smaller space, but the reality is it is trivial and more robust to simply have the reader unit (cell phone camera, ect.) access an online database for details about the product. There's no upward limit to the data that can be stored that way and it can be easily updated.
If I am not mistaken, they quit using 'cocaine' in the recipe sometime in the VERY early 1900s, though I believe they're still using coca leaves in the product.

I suspect that there are no people who have tasted the original, cocaine-infused Coca-Cola that are still alive today, so I doubt it contributes to its market superiority.
x = y / * x

x2 = xy / -y2

x2 - y2 = xy - y2 / *1/(x-y)

x + y = y

Since x = y,

2y = y

2 = 1

1 = 0
It's a fine example of B2B startup.
I think it's really funny when combined with the next sentence:

'Michael added that the company has a “good reputation it wants to preserve.”'

Not anymore!
I thought the same thing! I came to the conclusion a while ago that if free will exists, it must originate from someplace outside of Newtonian physics or our current understanding of chemistry.
If society decides to declare a general "jubilee" year, and cancel all debts, and you decide to pay off yours, it is true that you are at a disadvantage.

If society decides in general to massively devalue the currency to help irresponsible borrowers, that will punish responsible savers.

However, these do not imply "not working". That can imply not valuing currency as much, so you consider your salary less, or defaulting on your own debts even though it is distasteful to you, or all sorts of things, but it is unlikely to work out well for you if you are on strike while the prolifigrate borrowers are not.

If you want to go on strike, you will have much more effect by going on a spending strike rather than a working strike. I have been considering getting a bumber sticker for my rusty 1988 VW that says "I am going to keep fixing and driving this POS until the bailout money is paid back".
The article commentary on that is priceless also: "Horizon may be breaking new ground in public relations with its response."
Been there before. Best get out as soon as possible.
I've read that about the Dutch: "Dutch treat," "Dutch auction," etc.
The OP should include "Horizon Realty" in the title of the article. That would probably seal the deal on Google.
Microsoft Deprecates System.Data.OracleClient
Anyone who thinks this is about protecting the cell phone carriers needs to explain why Fring and Skype are still in the App store. They are more robust replacements for actual cellular service than GV is.

I disagree with the assertion that GV being bad for cell phone carriers means it is bad for Apple.

Apple doesn't sell cell phone plans, they sell the hardware. How is it going to hurt them if people buy the hardware and use GV? It won't. As long as people need and want the device that Apple is selling, no matter what the use, then Apple should be happy. All they are doing here is turning there backs on a user base.

Anyone who
This is a pretty amazing development. It could eliminate many or most expensive lab tests. It's just the kind of thing to hit back on health costs. My reading is that it works just on proteins, so it doesn't eliminate all tests.
The McGraw Hill Technical Bookstore in midtown that he mentions was amazing.

I miss it terribly.
<LAWSUIT BAIT> Some Horizon Realty apartments have mold. And dirty carpets. And cockroach infestations. And non-working fire alarms. The maintenance staff often move at a glacial pace. Their leasing agents may lie to you or stand you up. The company is, IMNSHO, one of the worst property management companies in Chicago. </LAWSUIT BAIT>

Edited: Removed 'proven douche-nozzle' and 'reputed to have crabs' sentence that was inflammatory and only added in an attempt at humor. The faux tags are just social commentary. (And an attempt to garner startup publicity should they take the bait.) So...as a Chicago broker that is sick of dealing firsthand with certain nasty property management companies, I welcome the downvotes from the sensitive lily-type readers for what remains. I just wanted to explain myself since I got a few quick downvotes. I'm always interested in why people hit the arrows in either direction...
You can fix the superheating problem by putting a toothpick or unpolished chopstick into the smooth container.
You should have started sending out your resume when they missed payroll back in May. Not only does this place have some serious financial problems, but management doesn't even have the decency to let people know ahead of time. That's pretty sleazy in my book. Even if you could rationalize giving the place a free pass on a missed payroll there's no excuse for them not even mentioning it.

Don't fall for the line about the money right around the corner. You'll be hearing that from now until the time you leave the company in debt up to your eyeballs because you've been living off credit cards instead of the paychecks you should be getting.

I know people who have been in this situation before and none of them had any stories about how the company turned the corner. It turned uglier instead. More missed payrolls- sometimes for a month at a time. Stress. Thousands of dollars of debt due to living off credit cards. Showing up to a locked office one day without any notice. Working the last month sitting on a crate in the owner's living room because the money is still right around the corner. Protests on the owner's front lawn. In the end if you'll be damn lucky if you leave with some office furniture or a laptop. Forget about money.

You should be out finding a new job ASAP. Any job. This is worse than being unemployed. You're off working the day at an office and not getting paid for it. At least when you're unemployed you've got some time on your hands to do something more productive than doing free work for some greedy asshole. You could very well show up to work tomorrow only to be laid off. Or even worse- the door could be locked.
I like the examples here, especially the 'football' one:

http://www.cornflex.org/?p=1
The iPhone App Store is the world's biggest walled garden.
I worked for a small startup and had that problem several times. It was never a long enough amount of time that I really questioned whether or not I would get paid, but it did annoy me and the way the owner handled it made a very 'awkward' work environment. He generally gave an explanation as to why it was our fault, and why we shouldn't question him. Eventually I just left. He was very upset when I quit. He felt that I really owed him something just because he had hired me.

So what did I learn? He was a jerk anyway, and it wasn't worth working for him. Fortunately, the economic climate was more forgiving 4 years ago when that happened, and after working in landscaping for 2 weeks, I got a great job that I loved.

If you're really that concerned, go ahead and look elsewhere. If you get some pretty solid connections, go ahead and present your concern to your manager. Depending on his reaction, I don't think you need to feel like you're letting the company down by leaving. If they can't pay you when they said, they at least owe you a very good explanation.
umm facebook?
MySQL may be autocommit by default, but I believe the Python DB-API spec (and therefore mysqldb) specifies to turn autocommit off when the connection is opened.
I think this reasoning ends up being something like dividing by zero. A measurement of "infinity" can't be in any definable place on interval scale.
Yes but only in blind taste tests.
Likewise here. If the company had any prospects of funding, they would be more open. Get your resume out now. There is no harm in working for a while longer, so long as it doesn't interfere with your job search. Also check with you state employment office, because you probably have wage claims which may go ahead of other creditors. (IANAL)

EDIT: Your coworkers are still working because they dont know what else to do. They are going through the motions on hope.
"the only advantage a rice cooker has is that it will keep your rice warm for hours."

s/hours/days/

And even after a week, the outside layer makes perfect crunchy rice duck blood & vegetable soup!
When Business Alliances Become Ugly: Apple and Google Edition
See also 'assurance contracts' and 'dominant assurance contracts':

http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2005/05...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assurance_contract

A system that was (theoretically) better at funding public goods than taxation would compete in some rather large markets.
So then "open source" recipes are less than a big deal since that is pretty much the default for any recipe, published or not. Hmm, interesting.
Yes, it's very important to do it the first way!

mysqldb has a bunch of Python->MySQL conversions. If you look at the source you can read converters.py -- it can convert lists, strings, numbers, dates and a lot of other types too.
The problem with curve fitting examples for GAs is that on one side there is often a more efficient way to solve the problem and, more importantly, that it assumes you know what the equation looks like.

Having used (and still) genetics algorithms to build a good approximation function for a natural phenomenon, I found that I needed to spend a lot of time crafting my chromosomes structure so that it would get a better chance of eventually solving the problem. I also had to put correlation in the fitness function because it would otherwise get stuck in a local maxima where it completely eliminated most of the inputs but the resulting curve looked nothing like the targeted one.

However I am still not completely satisfied with the approximations I get and I would be VERY interested in recommendation for more advanced reading on the subject. Anyone?
As soon as you 'get' MySQLdb, I recommend moving onto an ORM like SQLAlchemy. Among its advantages:

* You can easily change database engines without rewriting all your queries

* SQLAlchemy has built-in protection from SQL injection attacks.

* You can define your database tables and relations once (in SQLAlchemy) and it will create the database for you if it doesn't already exist.
Create The Life You Want. A Guide. [pdf]
I'm convinced people don't even read what they write anymore. They just close their eyes, type some shit, and hit "Publish".
Crowdsource Finding Co-Founders for your Startup
How about this -- an alternative currency that people can use for purchases and give each other as gifts?

(Yup, I worked on that one too, although very briefly.)
It tastes better.

Have you done a blind taste test?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_tasting#Blind_tasting
True enough, but Feynman's certainly entitled to the "hacker" honorific, same as Woz or Felsenstein or Stallman or any of the other usual suspects.
Creative announces Android-based PMP platform, a more open iPod touch?
I withdraw my claim that this counts as Hacker news now that tsuraan has made me aware that recipes can't be copyrighted, hence "open source" recipes are pretty much useless as a concept.

So yeah, even my rather tenuous argument is now moot.
Now that Apple is rejecting apps from huge software companies (even business partners in the case of Google), they're destroying the credibility of the platform. The technology and tools they provide developers are first class, but the increasingly erratic and anti-competitive app rejections will drive away business interest.

I really hope Apple smartens up. They have a game-changing device, mobile OS, and distribution platform, but their bullish business tactics are destroying innovation.
x = y / * x

x2 = xy / -y2

x2 - y2 = xy - y2 / *1/(x-y)

Error: Divide by zero.
Indeed. "Smart people" abusing undocumented behaviour of Windows releases is usually the cause of compatability problems when a newer Windows version is released. You can read a few articles on Raymond Chen's The Old New Thing to get some understandong on how far Microsoft had to go to make sure that old programs doing stupid things kept working in new Windowses.

You don't abuse undocumented features of your environment as a developer. It's always a bad idea, it will always inevitably come back and bite you (or even worse, your users) a few years later.
Google Maps Street View capture... from a bike
Can you clarify which half was ceded without bloodshed?
I don't necessarily agree in all cases. Couples who fight 'rationally' may well be rational enough to see that they're not the right match, and that they should both keep looking. That's certainly been the case with me.

People who are staying together despite hating each others' guts may be doing it for reasons that will, paradoxically, keep them together for the long run, to their detriment. Sometimes the right answer is to split up.
Cant think of any. Power corrupts and the only way to change it is via political action or (sometimes) via armed revolution.
I think the managers schedule would be better called the entrepreneurs schedule. The reason entrepreneurs spend a few hours every day helping other people with their projects is so that once a year they can call in 300 favors over a six week period.

I bet most people reading this could do all of Richard Branson's job, with the exception of about five minutes a day. The problem is that those five minutes are where he makes millions and millions of dollars. The reason he's able to do this is because whereas the average person knows about 200 people, he knows more like 10,000 people on a first name basis.

Don't get me wrong, being the maker is deeply satisfying, but 9 times out of 10 being the entrepreneur is more leveraged.
BATS does not only compete on price and speed. It offers many unique order types tailored to it's main market - high speed traders. Targeting high speed traders gave BATS an advantage because those are the customers that make exchanges money - both because of volume, and the specific types of orders they use. High speed traders traditionally try to avoid the automated routing that traditional orders go through to match and fill. A high speed trader would like to know the fees with certainty, and routing opens up the risk of unexpected fees. Therefore, many high speed traders mark their trades for no routing. This benefits the exchanges since the liquidity stays on their exchange and they will collect the fees when/if it fills.
Foreign policy is not HNs visitors strong suit. Corrected the downvote, but I'm sure it won't last :)
In this case, it is hard to think of it as a business model. They are blowing money on lawyers, getting bad press and suing someone who may not have 50K to pay back (if they win the case in courts). How do they justify spending so much money?
What if Google Voice were instead Microsoft Voice? And what if Windows Mobile were as modern and competitive as Android? Would you be as surprised then that Apple is discouraging iPhone owners from using the service?

Apple is not "discouraging" iPhone owners from using the service. It is outright preventing them.

And no, I wouldn't be surprised, just as I'm not surprised by this. I do feel bad for iPhone owners, but as an Android owner with GV I can't say I'm not enjoying this rare feeling of smug superiority.
Google Realizes That Short Links Are Smart Links In Mobile Gmail