I’m in tech sales and went through a 3 week interview process at a smaller company-50-90 employees .
They said they loved my responses my past work and how they couldn’t wait to spend 40 hours working with me.
I’m currently 6 weeks unemployed from quitting my last at will position so I was excited to start especially since this new job was going to pay about 15k more.
During the interview process I mentioned I’d like to move eventually and I was speaking in generality.
Once I received the offer and signed and filled out a W-2 one day my soon-to-be manager called after receiving it and I asked how long would it take to get equipment because I was considering a move to florida
My offer letter did state I was in NY however with the nature of remote work and with the shitty state that NYC is in I had no desire to move out from my parents’ house into a small sq space so that’s why I considered florida.
I didn’t sign a lease, pack my bags or take a trip. I was considering it
When I brought this up with my soon-to-be manager I explicitly said “I’m willing to stay in New York and do what’s best for the company however if possible I’d like the freedom to go to Florida.”
This inspired a conversation with the VP on Monday in which she said “when you mentioned moving in the interview process I THOUGHT you meant a Manhattan apartment not Florida.”
Then she proceed to dribble idiotically on how she liked my profile because I was based in NY and there are other team members in the NYC area to do “events.”
I know my values and what I envision life to be so I know I would never have said that I’m looking forward to be closer to the city.
Also keep in mind at this Norwegian company with several if not most team members not based in NY in the USA and several are based in Florida! 🙂
I explained to her during that conversation that I understood with the pandemic winding down the need to keep in touch in person is coming back. With me knowing that I told her that I don’t HAVE to move to Florida, that I can handle remote work just fine from my environment in my parents’ home.
She told me that she’d discuss it internally.
Now fast forward to today where I receive verbally the news that my job offer has been rescinded due to “miscommunication” and “it’s a bad start to our working relationship.”
Again I never signed a lease, I didn’t pack my bags, I simply stated how I’m LOOKING to move to Florida. If they came back to and said “listen we know you want to move to Florida however our agreement states you’ll be working in NY so either take it and stay in NY or leave it” I would’ve just stayed in NY because my parents actually preferred that I live with them until I get married. (It’s a cultural thing but obviously as a 24 year old American I’d prefer moving out)
And ironically when I was asked by this company what I value the most about a position during the interview process ; my number one answer was “being remote because I want the freedom to move around as I please while still getting work done.”
Another big piece of irony, they recently posted about how to build a culture from a scattered sales team environment in their recent LinkedIn post.
For background I’m a black woman and during my final conversation with the VP I told her specifically “I cannot help to think this has to do with something else”
To which she immediately got defensive and started to turn red. I never said anything about race since I know this could’ve just been a way to bring someone in for cheaper than we negotiated for. However based on her reaction looks like there may have been something else afoot. Also since the company is based in Norway most of the employees are white and I would’ve been their first black woman hire.
I have no criminal background, my credit score is 750, I graduated from a 4 year university, never been evicted. And even though I quit my previous job, I gave notice and the manager said if I ever need a recommendation to contact him.
Literally the only thing I’m guilty of is opening my mouth to be honest about where I’m going to be and trying to coordinate with them. I didn’t except a job offer rescinded for asking about relocating.
I was under the impression that it was remote work culture to say you’re reporting to a metro area that the company has offices in but be able to live somewhere else because at my last job many people did this and the employer knew about it and just asked to keep tabs on where you’re physically based for HR / special work events.
I’m really wondering if I just stayed quiet and happened to be traveling and staying for a month in Florida and then travel back and forth to NY for these nebulous “events” would they have an issue with it…?
Also none of our conversations were recorded on zoom which I should’ve taken as a FAT red flag.
I’m wondering what I can start to do legally. I’m so angry about this and I have the money saved (not that much obviously but ballpark 10k). Baby I know the law I signed a contract let’s do it.