Official spokesman: "We're a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization"

Wow.

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.

There's a lot of good advice here telling the employee how to act. I concur with most of it.

Let me add something from another perspective:

Speaking as a startup owner who has had money problems from time to time:

a) crap happens

b) your hourly people, who have no equity, deserve every single cent. Whether answering phones, stuffing boxes, or whatever, these people work hard, and you MUST pay them every penny, on the day it's due.

c) Folks who have equity, and will see some upside in good times, can be asked (ASKED, not TOLD) if they are willing to make sacrifices for the success of the team. Ask them ahead of time - preferably well ahead of time.

d) When a startup has successes, it's because of your people. When a startup has problems, it's because of leadership. Get out your spoon and start eating shit ^H^H^H humble pie. Tell your people that screw ups happened, and - because the buck stops with you - YOU are the cause. Apologize to your people.

e) LEADERS LEAD FROM THE FRONT.

The last point is the most important. Before an owner asks anyone to take even a temporary pay cut, he should cut his own pay to the bone. Before he misses a payroll for other people, he should have already skipped a paycheck or two.

Startups come and go, but 50 years from now, your reputation, and your sense of self will still be with you. Make sure that you are scrupulously ethical with your people.

Travis J I Corcoran, President SmartFlix

That may go down as one of the worst public statements made by a company. Certainly a "teachable moment" for the PR books.

Michael added that the company has a "good reputation it wants to preserve." - Not for long if you are making statements like that.

It's tough to imagine how they could have handled it in a worse way.

Oh man, AT&T might be rotten, but Verizon is actively evil when it comes to this. Like cackling Emperor Palpatine levels of evil.

They heavily modify the software running on the phones they sell, and they don't allow any others on their network.

  Modifications include:
  * Shoving their logo into every orifice
  * Leasing you access to the GPS chip in your phone (or even the E911 data)
  * disabling all file transfer methods to try to get you to pay for MMS
  * disabling native Exchange support to upsell you to enterprise bullshit
  * blocking any media content that doesn't come through their bizdev
  * Still pushing motherfucking WAP (Gopher over telegram, I tell you)

I am quite happy to invest my time learning Android. Apple has taken Microsoft's place as the biggest bully on the block.