Samsung 'Expert' Fired After Speaking Up About Working For Free (theverge.com) 57
An anonymous reader shares a report: On April 14th, The Verge published a story about how Samsung's "Experts," who answer customer chats at Samsung.com, were being pushed by both Samsung and staffing agency Ibbu to do some customer support for free. While we spoke to a dozen experts during our reporting, only one was willing to be named in the story: Jennifer Larson. The day after our story was published, Larson received an email saying that she was being temporarily suspended and that she'd get an update in a week. Over four weeks later, Ibbu told her she'd been fired.
Have I gone link blind? (Score:2)
I don't see a link.
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Oh, it's on the front page but not here. How fun.
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Oh now it's here. Hooray.
Re:Have I gone link blind? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Have I gone link blind? (Score:4, Informative)
clearly he's a know-nothing cunt
Just not a bald [slashdot.org] know-nothing cunt
She's probably better off. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: She's probably better off. (Score:2, Interesting)
Often times these stories sound like outright illegal exploitation, but these companies spend fortunes making sure their labor practices are within legal bounds. That being said, if the laws are abusive, then the right solution is to appeal to politicians and vote to get laws changed. I highly doubt they were forcing her to work for fre
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Often times these stories sound like outright illegal exploitation, but these companies spend fortunes making sure their labor practices are within legal bounds.
Would it not be cheaper to treat their employees decently instead, so they won't have to worry whether their labor practices are within the law?
Re: She's probably better off. (Score:2)
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California you need to take lunch by 5 hours or work no more then 6 total hours. Another lunch is required at hour 10 as well.
Re: She's probably better off. (Score:2)
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Depends on the job, but I don't want a truck driver working with no breaks or lunches. I know that when I start to get hungry, it starts to affect my mood which can then affect my decision-making ability.
I definitely get wanting to get the work done and bail. This is probably a lot easier for knowledge workers that likely could get their job done in half the time but got to put in those hours to look busy or some such.
Anyone that has to work with customers or clients should get a lunch. It helps them be bet
Same Would Happen With Most Companies (Score:3)
Re: Same Would Happen With Most Companies (Score:3)
Contracts can't be used to silence whistleblowers.
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I wondered that also, but probably the original complaint (working for free) seems like it should cause issues for employment laws.
Except it wasn't work for free. She has a specific remuneration in her contract and unfortunately it didn't cover the other parts of her "job" and let's face it, we use that term loosely here since she was supposed to be in sales not customers support. Samsung is shitty but if they were doing something clearly illegal she'd have bitched to a lawyer not to the media.
Given she has a clear remuneration tied to her job of sales and Samsung ask them to convert support calls into sales calls (shitty but not exact
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Re: Same Would Happen With Most Companies (Score:2)
Failing to pay for labor is a violation of labor laws.
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Contracts can't be used to silence whistleblowers.
Just because you said something bad about a company doesn't make you a whistleblower. For that you generally need to expose actual unlawful conduct. Contracts absolutely do get enforced on people speaking out negatively about their companies all the time the world over.
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Working for free would seem to violate a lot of local laws around the world. Depends upon the details of the job; illegal for an hourly job, for a salary one you're not being unpaid until you exceed 40 hours a week. Ie, in a law firm you have have a very large salary and expected to put in x% of your time on pro-bono cases, which is not "working for free."
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She wasn't working for free. She had a contract and remuneration in that contract was based on commission. It's a completely standard practice in many companies, and quite a lot of those companies do require you to be on some kind of clock as well.
Samsung were being shits here. But unfortunately getting given a job that wasn't in your job description isn't illegal, and they were clear that the attempt was to turn the support call into a sale. The fact that a commission doesn't materialise doesn't mean you'r
Hmm.. (Score:2)
Wait a second. If you are fired from working for free, isn't that emancipation?
What's the problem, just fucking quit.
Re:Hmm.. (Score:4, Insightful)
No, she was fired from working for money because she wasn't willing to also work for free.
In many places this is wrongful termination. And since it's illegal to expect people to work for free when they have a job position with you, no NDA applies.
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She was an "independent contractor" working for Ibbu. Two layers of abstraction to absolve Samsung so they can pretend she's not an employee so they don't have to pay.
In most places, this isn't wrongful termination, this is just exploiting people by not offering work as a job. The gig economy.
Re:Hmm.. (Score:4, Interesting)
It won't come back on Samsung but it might affect Ibbu. If she's a contractor that means there's a contract obligating them to pay a given rate for work done, so they're in breach of contract. Different, but still serious. In fact in many jurisdictions, much more serious.
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Their contract is not one of hourly work. It's a commission-based sales gig. The problem is that this is still legal. Independent contractors are their own "business" and are responsible for their onw success or failure or bad business decisions, even when every aspect of their success or failure is determined by the contracting firm that is definitely not an employer.
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It is probably contractors all the way down.
Samsung doesn't hire directly, but instead contracts with Ibbu for support calls.
Ibbu doesn't hire directly, but instead brings in "independent contractors" who they don't pay but instead who work for commission, and they get calls based on survey star ratings. The higher the ratings an "independent contractor" has, the more work they're sent.
The workers (ahem, "independent contractors") likely have hostile contracts that block all legal actions, block access t
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Samsung always abuses it’s employees (Score:3)
They used to use child labor and slaves for Christ sake.
Testimonials about Samsung support? (Score:2)
Positive or negative? My own experiences with Samsung were quite negative, but I think I'll spare details until detecting interest. Might be projection, but perhaps no one on Slashdot still uses a Galaxy? (My newest is an Oppo and it's mostly been okay.)
As regards the story I will say that some of my support concerns were security related. If Samsung was paying anyone for being so unhelpful and downright ignorant, then Samsung was getting ripped off.
Re: Testimonials about Samsung support? (Score:3)
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I have a fair amount of Samsung gear, but I have never dealt with their support - and hope not to.
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Way to support slavery!
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You probably are too, whether you know it or not. [independent.co.uk]
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Samsung support is basically "Gee, that's too bad. Want to buy a new one?"
Apple, on the other hand, provides excellent customer service, provided you're still within the warranty period or willing to pay an astronomically high repair fee.
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I'll just note that Samsung is apparently trying to copy the Apple store idea.
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Hmm... Evidently there's some interest, but I'm not sure how to summarize my data...
In brief, at one time I had several options and I picked the Samsung Galaxy option because I thought it would have relatively more "international" support than the other options. I wasn't anticipating any particular problems, but I'm always sure that I'm going to have questions. I think it will suffice to say that I cannot recall getting any answers to any of my questions. I was able to figure out my own answers to some of t
I would say this (Score:2)
Tech Support Where You Only Get Paid a Commission (Score:5, Insightful)
Samsung's experts do not receive a base salary. Instead, they are paid a commission on every sale. So if you aren't buying then you are costing the individual salesperson money. As someone that has worked for a company that added commissions to technical support representatives I can tell you first hand how damaging that is to tech support. Canny techs invariably learned that the fast way to big money was to simply wait for someone to call, sell the person something that they didn't need promising that it would resolve their issue, and then simply get off of the phone. Customer service then becomes the problem of the next tech that the unfortunate customer calls.
Next thing you know you are handing out sales awards to your scummiest tech support specialist, and your customers hate you.
My current phone is a Samsung, and I have been pretty happy with it, even if it is getting a little old. My next phone will be something else though.
Fired or work for free (Score:2)
You can either work for free, or get fired. I guess getting fired is better because working for free just occupy your time. Getting fired means your time is no longer occupied by work that isn't being monetized.
Mangagers (Score:1)
Managers are adorable.
Work 24/7.
Work for free.
Work without benefits.
Work work work.
Some of us have different standards.
Some of us need to rest...as we are not "climbing the corporate ladder".
Yes. Check the contract you signed. You may have to clean the toilets and blow your manager.
Even though these dicks sit around all day, playing with their phones and smelling their own farts, they still expect you to work CONSTANTLY.
Get real.
Wage theft is bigger than petty crime (Score:2)
Truth is the first casualty of modern business (Score:2)
They say that 'Truth is the first casualty in war'. Modern business seems to have learnt and assimilated this.
That's Samsung we are talking about (Score:2)
there's no "technical support", really (Score:2)
It's not like you can get actual responses to technical responses.
as for anything even remotely like bug tracking, it's outside the realm of fantasy for samsung and likewise.
ex customer (Score:2)
I've got a decent Samsung fridge, and a rather good Samsung TV/multimedia setup. But those are the last things I'll be buying from them.
Company pays me to do X (Score:2)
Re: Company pays me to do X (Score:2)
They tried to pull a fast one on their employees saying that they are going to do X then pulling the old bait and switch saying that they will now do X and Y without additional pay.
Not only is this unethical and illegal, but now you have the possibility of "experts" getting customers to unknowingly sabotage their own devices out of spite. Also, the boss's coffee may take on a strange and unexpected new flavor.
Last I heard (Score:3)
Slavery is generally frowned upon worldwide.