Yelp Employee Complains How Broke She is to Her Boss, Gets Fired Hours Later

February 22, 2016

A Yelp employee who has a bi-weekly income of $733.24 wrote an open letter to Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman to complain about her living conditions in San Francisco and her experience working in the consumer support department for the website’s food delivery subsidiary, Eat24.

The employee, Talia Jane (not her real name), detailed in her letter posted on Medium on Feb. 19 how she and “every single one” of her coworkers are struggling to make ends meet, reports Business Insider.

“They’re taking side jobs, they’re living at home,” she wrote. “One of them started a GoFundMe because she couldn’t pay her rent. She ended up leaving the company and moving east, somewhere the minimum wage could double as a living wage.”

Jane said she made $8.15 an hour after taxes and had lived the past six months on nothing but a 10-pound bag of rice and the free food provided by her work.

“I can’t afford to buy groceries,” she wrote. “Isn’t that ironic? Your employee for your food delivery app that you spent $300 million to buy can’t afford to buy food. That’s gotta be a little ironic, right?”

Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman responded via Twitter agreeing with Jane’s points and stressed that San Francisco needs to lower its housing costs:

“Late last night I read Talia’s medium contribution and want to acknowledge her point that the cost of living in SF is far too high.”

He also posted several tweets mentioning that he has spoken out in the past about making housing cheaper for the public.

Stoppelman, however, denied having a part in Jane’s dismissal.

“I’ve not been personally involved in Talia being let go and it was not because she posted a Medium letter directed at me,” he wrote.

Jane later posted a tweet that said the human resources department told her the reason she was fired was that her “letter violated Yelp’s Terms of Conduct.” As of this writing, she’s still awaiting information regarding her severance package.

Talia Jane’s post has since received a reply from writer Stephanie Williams chastising “Millennials like Talia” on their poor work ethic and entitled attitude when it comes to trying to make a living working less desirable jobs.

Share this Article