海角大神

Yelp fires employee after she publicly complains about pay. Is this fair?

Two hours after young Yelp employee Talia Jane publicly aired her grievances to CEO Jeremy Stoppelman, she was fired. Jane's letter has gone viral, leading many to question Yelp's judgment. 

Yelp employee Talia Jane was fired Friday after publishing an open letter to Yelp鈥檚 CEO, Jeremy Stoppelman.

In an open letter to Mr. Stoppelman published on Medium, Ms. Jane (who has withheld her real name for privacy reasons) berates her employer, Eat24/Yelp. As a customer service representative, Jane聽says she makes $733.24 bi-weekly, which breaks down to $8.15 an hour after taxes. And in the notoriously pricey San Francisco Bay area,聽Jane聽says she found the cheapest apartment possible at $1,245 a month, 30 miles from work.聽

Jane says she has no money left to buy food or to fix her car鈥檚 flat tire.聽

鈥淵our employee for your food delivery app that you spent $300 million to buy ,鈥� she writes. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 gotta be a little ironic, right?鈥澛�

Talia says she has not bought groceries since starting her job at Eat24/Yelp. Instead, she lives on free office snacks during the day and a bag of rice at home.聽

鈥淵ou could probably cut back on a lot of the drinks and snacks that are stocked on every single floor,鈥� writes Talia. 鈥淚 mean, I could handle losing out on pistachio nuts if I was getting .鈥�

Talia updated her letter two hours after it was published, saying she was officially let go from the company. The 25-year-old then gave her PayPal, Square, and Venmo usernames, for any readers who wished to send her money.聽

Yelp, for its part, denies any connection between Jane's letter and her firing.

鈥泪鈥檝别 in Talia being let go and it was not because she posted a Medium letter directed at me,鈥� Stoppelman wrote on Twitter Friday night. 鈥淭wo sides to every HR story so Twitter army .鈥澛�

But Talia counters Stoppelman鈥檚 claims on Twitter, saying her firing came from the CEO himself.聽

The reviews on Talia鈥檚 2,392-word letter have been mixed.

Her plight definitely struck a nerve in the San Francisco community, with many entry-level tech employees identifying with her struggle to make ends meet in a particularly expensive area. Within 24 hours, her letter had been viewed by over 85,000 people.聽

鈥淵elp is trying to make this die down by lying about it,鈥� Jane tells BuzzFeed. 鈥淔iring someone while their post about pay issues is on the cusp of going viral, that鈥檚 like a lighting strike in the middle of a super dry forest. .鈥澛�

But some say Jane has a 鈥渉ead in the sand鈥� level of expectations. Because her dream is to work in Yelp鈥檚 media department, Jane is frustrated about her year-long placement in customer service.聽

鈥溾�� writes Forbes contributor Dan Pontefract. 鈥淗aving to demonstrate commitment and competence before moving to a different role in the organization.鈥� Pontefract goes on to defend Yelp鈥檚 immediate termination of Jane after her 鈥渟elf-induced kamikaze-like mission to get fired.鈥�

鈥淣o sane CEO or competent company would do otherwise,鈥� argues Mr. Pontefract. 鈥淏ut I also see Ms. Jane鈥檚 open letter as an opportunity for Yelp to turn the misguided intentions of an employee into a new and redefined organizational purpose.鈥澛�

With Yelp鈥檚 Bay Area headquarters, the company could become an advocate for affordable housing and living wages in San Francisco county.聽

But Stoppelman hasn鈥檛 yet issued a plan of action to help his lowest paid employees survive in pricey San Francisco. Instead, he reminded his Twitter followers Saturday that Yelp plans to open another customer service base in Arizona, where Jane鈥檚 colleagues can likely find cheaper living with the same salary.

[Editor's note: An earlier version misstated the frequency of Ms. Jane's paycheck.]