A former Twitter employee, Gary Rooney, won about $600,000 for unfair dismissal after Twitter assumed he resigned by not responding to Elon Musk’s “hardcore” work email.
The case highlighted the importance of clear communication between employers and employees, especially regarding significant changes in employment terms.
Rooney’s private Slack messages, where he discussed leaving, were used as evidence by Twitter, underscoring that internal communication on platforms like Slack is not always private and can be used in legal disputes.
What made you leave gov space?
Remote work and pay. I was already interested in getting a remote gig when COVID hit. We went to a hybrid schedule and I realized that I really liked working from home. Also that my job was pretty much built for it. While many of the folks I used to work with are still hybrid, fully remote was never an option. I worked with Classified systems and I could never convince them to put a SIPR drop in my home. I guess you need to get elected President for that.
As the world was opening back up, many companies saw remote work as a carrot to offer cybersecurity folks and I started to see a lot more job postings with it as an option. So, I put my LinkedIn profile to “looking for work” and started getting recruiters messaging me on a regular basis. One hit me up with “REMOTE WORK OPPORTUNITY” (yes, all in caps) as the lead for an offer. What followed that sounded interesting and I started talking with him. A few week later, I put in my notice and started working in the private sector. Got a pay bump in the move as well.
My time in the FedGov space was overall a positive thing. I learned a lot and got to see systems locked down in a way that actually mattered (I never thought I would miss STIGs). At the same time, I don’t see myself ever going back. The bureaucratic nature of everything is soul crushing. And sitting in an OSS all day long sucks. It especially sucks when you’re the only one in the container and need to go out and take a piss. Clear the room, arm the alarm, spin the lock, sign the sheet, go piss. Open the lock, sign the sheet, disarm the alarm, get back to wishing for the sweet, sweet embrace of death.
OMG the OSS at my first job was like that, but they wouldn’t give contractors the lock code. So after I was waiting 30 min to go pee I spun the lock, went pee, came back and waited an hour outside the door. We both got a talking to, him by his command and me by my company. I snapped back and pay, hours, and lack of trust and that if they tried to gig me for this I was walking out and not coming back. That was back in 2012 and I have changed jobs multiple times. I like the team and what I do, openshift and kuberneties is awesome to get teams to update their code. But as you said,no remote, except for development.
It’s not OP, but when I left it was because the money and resources were better.
Federal purchasing is fairly rigged you don’t end up with decent hardware to do anything. Projects are constantly as complicated and strenuously pushed as possible. Everything has an angle there are too many people with essentially tenure. Don’t get me wrong, I liked a lot of the people that I worked with and around, but leaving Federal work for Enterprise was really refreshing.
Thanks, I have been looking and I see pay is better for outside government for the work I do.