Trenches Comic: Thurs. August 25, 2011

Bogey

Secrets.

08/25/2011 - Anonymous

A few years ago, I had the pleasure of doing some temp work for a firm that contracted out to a pretty big game developer. The testing staff was us contractors and maybe five, six full-time employees- that way the company didn’t have to pay a large testing staff if they didn’t need to.

About two weeks into my assignment, I learned just how draconian NDAs (non-disclosure agreements) can be.

I had gotten to know some of the other employees pretty well- including a soft spoken girl named Annie who sat in the cube next to mine. Like all of us there, she was really excited about working at this particular company. On this particular day, we had been working on an RPG, and all of us had been stumped by a specific puzzle in the game.

We had just come back from lunch and were settling back into our cubicles, when suddenly, Brian, our main testing supervisor, steps into our row accompanied by a pair of the largest men I had ever seen. They were security guards- the ones that I usually saw in the mornings as I walked in the door. Quietly I noticed him tap on Annie’s shoulder. She looked up and took off her headphones.

“Hey, Annie?” Bill quietly muttered.
“Hey, what can I do for you?” she asked.
“Uh, there’s a problem.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, here’s the the thing. You violated your confidentiality agreement. You’ll need to vacate the building immediately.”
“Wait, what? I… what are you talking about?”
“At lunch today you were discussing aspects of one of the games you were testing to another employee. Annie, I-”
“I am so sorry, I had no idea that I wasn’t allowed to-”
“You need to leave the building. Now.”

The girl was led out of the building by the guards in tears, and the rest of us just sat there, mouths agape.

MayGodHaveMercy

Assholes gonna be assholes. Shitty reason to lose a job.

faits

cora anders got some stretch armstrong hands

Bucketman

Companies suck and fire people for stupid things. More at 11. I love the comic, and I enjoy getting insight into what its like to be a tester, but I am getting hells of depressed by some of these.

Maigaard

These stories are awesome! I just wish they were longer and more frequent!

darleysam

Does Bill's name switch to Brian?

bwanie

bill is techincally his LARP character

webofink

That supervisor Brad sounds like a real jerk. Seriously, if I had to work for someone like this Bob character, I don't know what I'd do. Probably say something like "Look here, Ben, you can't treat people like this, you're a mean person!" and then storm out. Bert.

Stormwatcher

That story is not very well told. Did Annie talk about the puzzle to her other testing coleagues? Were they present? Did she talk about it to people OUTSIDE the QA team?

Yeah, the company was a jerk, sure, no question here.

Oh, and yeah, Bart is a jerk too.

Alfred J. Kwak

help me out for a second - what is the connection of this comic and PA

e: ah Mike and Jerry are in on this, nm

Jam Warrior

Remind me to never get a job in America. Ever. Your labour law is the poops.

Noisymunk

Jam Warrior wrote:

Remind me to never get a job in America. Ever. Your labour law is the poops.

Non-Disclosure Agreements do not go hand in hand with Labor Law.


I like this strip, some good Ol' fashioned favoritism.

Jam Warrior

This was less directed at this story in particular (where for all we know she did indeed break her contract) but my discovery of the trenches tales so far. And other crappy work tales I have read on this forum. Also lazy generalising and a touch of xenophobia.

kingworks

Trenches justifies my feelings of contempt for large American business entities, gaming or no.

Henroid

Oh no Annie.

darleysam

Also 'once more onto the beach'.. I know that's got to be intentional, but damn.

JayKaos

darleysam wrote:

Also 'once more onto the beach'.. I know that's got to be intentional, but damn.

Yeah I had to read it twice to catch that. Pretty great.

Bacon-BuTTy

That story reminds me of when I got a job in a bank. There was six weeks of training and it wasn't until the beginning of the fifth week that we were told our job roles - essentially call centre staff. In the middle of this particular day our trainer was going over how overdraft charges worked and this particular bank has very, very strict overdraft charges whereby you are essentially charged once for going overdrawn, and then charged for being charged.

Two guys sucked in through in their teeth after hearing it, and one girl said "ouch, that's harsh". The other ten or so of us stayed quiet.

Our trainer left the room, came back with two security guards and pointed the three of them out, who were then escorted out of the building and never seen again.

darleysam

Bacon-BuTTy wrote:

That story reminds me of when I got a job in a bank. There was six weeks of training and it wasn't until the beginning of the fifth week that we were told our job roles - essentially call centre staff. In the middle of this particular day our trainer was going over how overdraft charges worked and this particular bank has very, very strict overdraft charges whereby you are essentially charged once for going overdrawn, and then charged for being charged.

Two guys sucked in through in their teeth after hearing it, and one girl said "ouch, that's harsh". The other ten or so of us stayed quiet.

Our trainer left the room, came back with two security guards and pointed the three of them out, who were then escorted out of the building and never seen again.

Ouch, that's hars a sound and ethical piece of business. Those upstarts had no future in the world of banking.

faits

Henroid wrote:

annie, are you ok?
are you ok annie?

Framling

Is this the first story that doesn't end with "And then I got fired"?

End

Framling wrote: »

Is this the first story that doesn't end with "And then I got fired"?

I don't think the “Aren’t we cancelled?” guy got fired

...right away anyway...

Fandeathis

kingworks wrote:

Trenches justifies my feelings of contempt for large American business entities, gaming or no.

What companies can do also depends on the state you work in. A lot of these these stories' outcomes would be highly contestable in California for example. Conversely companies in Texas can fire you without giving any reason at all, because it is a "right to work" state.

Stale

She probably talked with an employee of the firm, but not an employee ON THE TEAM. That was her breach.

Fandeathis

Stale wrote:

She probably talked with an employee of the firm, but not an employee ON THE TEAM. That was her breach.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure this is what must have happened.

Darkewolfe

Fandeathis wrote:

Stale wrote:

She probably talked with an employee of the firm, but not an employee ON THE TEAM. That was her breach.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure this is what must have happened.

This isn't exactly a horror story. This is pretty standard for software development. Maybe the company was bad at training the team on their NDA's, but there are all sorts of jobs where you can get fired for discussing what you're working on with coworkers.

Goose!

JayKaos wrote:

darleysam wrote:

Also 'once more onto the beach'.. I know that's got to be intentional, but damn.

Yeah I had to read it twice to catch that. Pretty great.

?

Tyberius

faits wrote:

Henroid wrote:

annie, are you ok?
are you ok annie?

That made my morning.

Raakam

Goose! wrote:

JayKaos wrote:

darleysam wrote:

Also 'once more onto the beach'.. I know that's got to be intentional, but damn.

Yeah I had to read it twice to catch that. Pretty great.

?

"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more" from Henry V

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/269700.html

kingworks

beach ~> breach -> fissure -> abyss

"When you stare into the abyss the abyss stares back at you."
Nietzsche

facetious

It's making fun of the boss for messing up the quote.

Jam Warrior

Of course in any sensible country if she hadn't had the terms of the NDA properly explained to her she would still have grounds to contest unfair dismissal.

Magic Pink

Darkewolfe wrote:

Fandeathis wrote:

Stale wrote:

She probably talked with an employee of the firm, but not an employee ON THE TEAM. That was her breach.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure this is what must have happened.

This isn't exactly a horror story. This is pretty standard for software development. Maybe the company was bad at training the team on their NDA's, but there are all sorts of jobs where you can get fired for discussing what you're working on with coworkers.

It's still a horror story. It just happens to occur all the damn time.

PwnanObrien

Goddamn.

Bort is an asshole.

MayGodHaveMercy

kingworks wrote:

beach ~> breach -> fissure -> abyss

"When you stare onto the beach the beach stares back at you."
Nietzsche

DiannaoChong

Jam Warrior wrote:

Of course in any sensible country if she hadn't had the terms of the NDA properly explained to her she would still have grounds to contest unfair dismissal.

Except you have to sign an NDA or an employer agreement. Which is on paper. That she could read. She also could of clarified if she was confused. Also if she was in public with a coworker discussing the work, that's a big nono because the public could hear and have inside information on the company. There was a case where I worked where two employee's had a discussion in a restaurant with each other about a client. Turned out the clients wife just happened to be sitting near them that evening and overheard. They were both fired the next day.

Jam Warrior

DiannaoChong wrote:

Jam Warrior wrote:

Of course in any sensible country if she hadn't had the terms of the NDA properly explained to her she would still have grounds to contest unfair dismissal.

Except you have to sign an NDA or an employer agreement. Which is on paper. That she could read. She also could of clarified if she was confused. Also if she was in public with a coworker discussing the work, that's a big nono because the public could hear and have inside information on the company. There was a case where I worked where two employee's had a discussion in a restaurant with each other about a client. Turned out the clients wife just happened to be sitting near them that evening and overheard. They were both fired the next day.

The question would be, was she given the NDA, explained it's reason and details and encouraged to read it, or was she told 'sign this, it's just about how you can't talk about stuff to outsiders' as a three second aside during the thousand other things she signed during her induction.

Houk

Jam Warrior wrote:

DiannaoChong wrote:

Jam Warrior wrote:

Of course in any sensible country if she hadn't had the terms of the NDA properly explained to her she would still have grounds to contest unfair dismissal.

Except you have to sign an NDA or an employer agreement. Which is on paper. That she could read. She also could of clarified if she was confused. Also if she was in public with a coworker discussing the work, that's a big nono because the public could hear and have inside information on the company. There was a case where I worked where two employee's had a discussion in a restaurant with each other about a client. Turned out the clients wife just happened to be sitting near them that evening and overheard. They were both fired the next day.

The question would be, was she given the NDA, explained it's reason and details and encouraged to read it, or was she told 'sign this, it's just about how you can't talk about stuff to outsiders' as a three second aside during the thousand other things she signed during her induction.

I think you're overshooting the content and point of the story. It's not about how she was fired for no reason. It's about how she was a seemingly nice, inoffensive employee and was fired for something that seemed to be very minor.

You're extrapolating a whole bunch about this story that isn't actually there.

Stale

Jam Warrior wrote:

DiannaoChong wrote:

Jam Warrior wrote:

Of course in any sensible country if she hadn't had the terms of the NDA properly explained to her she would still have grounds to contest unfair dismissal.

Except you have to sign an NDA or an employer agreement. Which is on paper. That she could read. She also could of clarified if she was confused. Also if she was in public with a coworker discussing the work, that's a big nono because the public could hear and have inside information on the company. There was a case where I worked where two employee's had a discussion in a restaurant with each other about a client. Turned out the clients wife just happened to be sitting near them that evening and overheard. They were both fired the next day.

The question would be, was she given the NDA, explained it's reason and details and encouraged to read it, or was she told 'sign this, it's just about how you can't talk about stuff to outsiders' as a three second aside during the thousand other things she signed during her induction.

would it matter?

it was a legal document she signed.


When you sign a document without reading it, it is no one's fault but yours. If she's stupid enough to sign anything without reading it, she deserved to be fired.

Framling

Stale wrote:

Jam Warrior wrote:

The question would be, was she given the NDA, explained it's reason and details and encouraged to read it, or was she told 'sign this, it's just about how you can't talk about stuff to outsiders' as a three second aside during the thousand other things she signed during her induction.

would it matter?

it was a legal document she signed.


When you sign a document without reading it, it is no one's fault but yours. If she's stupid enough to sign anything without reading it, she deserved to be fired.

You're absolutely correct. I've endured more than my share of eye rolls because I don't sign things until I've read them.

But that said, just because someone is within their legal rights in doing something doesn't mean you can't call them a douchebag for doing it.

Taramoor

This strip is laughably unrealistic.

There's no way a manager would remember her name, and anything left on your desk when you're laid off is thrown out.

Also, it's weird that the rotating banner on the front page shows the strip from this upcoming Tuesday. I wonder how many of these strips they already have done... though the (C) 2010 in the corner seems to be an indicator that they've had these on the backburner for a while.