So… I sued my employer — Part 3

Last and final part.

Thanks for taking this ride with me. It’s been equally cathartic and emotionally draining to get eyes on what we experienced at Daylight. There’s clearly justice in sharing this so widely, but also a bit of a validation that it really happened, it was something that we endured but most importantly can’t be swept under the rug.

So for this last part, I want to dive into the day of the layoffs and then all the events that transpired over the next year. I can’t say this last part is more shocking than the last, but it’s close.

Links to the previous versions here -> Part 1 and Part 2.

Let’s get started with the bullshit!

The Layoffs

So on June 13th, 2022, one of two sets of ~15-minute calendar invites showed up on every Daylight employee’s calendars.

I was a part of the one that was announcing that we were all laid off. The other was telling the rest of the people they were part of the chosen group to continue forward with Daylight.

So during our layoff Zoom call, all the founders were there but miraculously the Head of HR, Stacy, was not. She was flying that morning and couldn’t attend. Didn’t make sense to me why they didn’t just wait a day, especially since part of the language used during this call was that they still wanted us to “work” 2 more days. With our “official” layoff date being June 15th.

In any case, Rob begins to talk about Ukraine and how because of the war he needed to lay us all off. Objectively it was hard to tell if he even prepared. Part of his ‘rationale’ if you can even call it that, were talking points we’d see in articles about other company layoffs. But the other stuff didn’t make sense.

He didn’t talk about pivoting the company, which made it even more confusing as to how they were going to continue to be a neo-bank but fired all the people with banking experience (a Product designer, the Compliance person, and me — if you didn’t know none of the founders had banking experience).

Let me wipe off your bullshit right quick

But what was even more bizarre was that as people started to ask questions in the chat, they cut it off. They forced muted us, so there was legit no way to engage. At. all. And as the crowd got increasingly pissed off, as you can imagine, they just abruptly cut the call.

I mean talk about Rob, Billie and Paul not treating people like humans, at one point someone was legit screaming into the camera to be heard and they just ignored them. Like honestly, the worst case is that this person calls you a name, you can’t take that? But you can lay off 17 people with no notice and for seemingly arbitrary reasons, yea ok.

We got no information on what severance was going to look like, or why they wanted us to work 2 extra days. Just the basic questions anyone would ask in that situation.

So we got dumped off the call, and as I mentioned in Part 2, thank goodness some of us had that internal group to lean on. Because even though we knew it was coming, it was still a gut punch when it happened. I was terrified for a hot minute.

This is the beginning of layoffs happening left and right. Everyone was worried about trying to find a new job (and for good reason — some people are still looking). We’re all worried about paying our bills.

If it wasn’t for that group of people, I would have spiraled out of control.

In any case, we immediately go to Slack to chat and collect data. One of the people in the lawsuit with me made a comment in Slack about how reprehensible this all was. And their Slack message was deleted (not by them) less than 5 minutes later. Note this person wasn’t laid off, but they still stood up to make their feelings known, and because of that I will go to the ends of the earth for that person.

And then soon after we were all locked out of everything. I mean, as we should have been lol. IDK if it was Rob’s god complex that he thought everyone would just be fine about it. While no one wanted to do anything malicious, there was no reason to hold our tongues anymore.

And so we organized to get the best deal for everyone.

Later that day we got an email from Stacy with the details of the layoff and FAQs. But ya’ll the severance package was four weeks. Like the whole industry is tanking, you just raised 15 Million and you’re saying all you can afford is 4 weeks! Remember they gave someone who worked less than a week, 6 weeks severance. And this was for everyone, even people who had been there for close to a year. I think one of the people laid off was like 3 days away from vesting their full year. Smh.

[Vesting means that they were offered equity upon their hiring, let’s say 1,000 shares of Daylight. Traditionally in VC work, you get ownership or ‘vest’ those shares over time. You typically start with a 1-year cliff, meaning that you have to stay with the company for one full year, and then you are awarded 25% of the shares all at once, and then from that point onwards, you vest a percentage monthly. So you see why being fired right before you vest is a big ass F-you from the company]

THEN it gets worse.

So some things were happening simultaneously, so I’ll try and break them down into their separate pieces just so you can follow.

PTO

There was a question about if our PTO was going to be paid out, and the initial response was like huh? Ya’ll have PTO? Lol. And yes we did, which was strange for an early-stage startup, but sure enough in Justworks, Daylights PEO, it showed that we were accruing PTO.

So eventually the response was like well no, you don’t have PTO really and we’ll only pay depending on the states that require us to. Fortunately for me, it was clear that Illinois required them to because I got an update that the money was on its way.

But that then started a back-and-forth with Daylight, because they were trying to avoid paying out any more money. But the problem was that they didn’t have a clear PTO policy saying that it wouldn’t get paid out.

So we luckily took screenshots of the notion pages, but low and behold, someone went in and changed the language and tried to play it off as if that language was always there. And it’s like bruh, let me introduce you to an audit trail, which shows when the last update was made.

So they were fighting people left and right about whether they were going to pay out the PTO and I think in most cases did not. We went as far as to research and call government branches to not only understand the laws but also any recourse.

And the PTO wasn’t pennies either, mine I believe was equivalent to like 2 weeks, and remind you I had only been there a few months. IDK if other people’s PTO were higher than mine, but it was essentially the rest of the severance that would have made this all tolerable.

And so again, IDK why they took such a hard stance on this when it would have made everything else disappear. All I can surmise is that this was retaliation for not just accepting the proposed severance with a smile. It was like “How dare you advocate for yourself!”

Collective bargaining

We did try and negotiate together, and it wasn’t like we asked for the sun and moon. We initially went back asking for

• 3 months severance
• 6 months insurance
• Ability to keep laptops

Again not crazy, but because we knew we were entering a tough job market where no one was hiring, it was reasonable. Especially the insurance since we all needed mental health support. The laptops for me were nice to have, but some people didn’t have personal computers and given the fact that they didn’t want to give us severance, they clearly couldn’t afford to just go buy a new Macbook off the shelf.

But every time we sent emails collectively, they refused to chat with us. I understand that honestly, there were probably laws that they had to lean in on there.

Crazy timeline

So when we started to make these negotiations we were met with pure evil… I just don’t have a better word for it now. They tried to up the ante by essentially saying if you don’t sign in less than 24hrs then the entire severance is off the table and you get nothing. They eventually increased it to 5 business days because so many people reached out and complained that it was not enough time to get a legal review.

Like if that isn’t a scare tactic idk what is. Honestly, it could be illegal depending on the state, but I don’t know because I’m not a lawyer.

Some people were truly scared by this point. As much as they didn’t want to sign, they felt like they had no choice. And Daylight knew that and fed on that fear.

There’s a bunch of stats that I could find and share about queer folks and lack of savings and whatnot, but you can do the research. But in short, it’s been documented that queer folks are like 10+ years “behind” hetero-normative folks in terms of “where they should be in their lives”, because their struggle with their identity, coming out, not feeling safe, potentially losing family, all of that impacts their progression through life. They have less savings, more instability, and just a wide range of things that we have to acknowledge.

It’s not a question of ‘well they should have had savings to fall back on’, how about maybe we should have been a better society where ‘falling behind’ wasn’t a thing.

OH and yeah, the people that knew that the best, Daylight, you know the ones that were all about helping queer people in public, didn’t have to shit on them in private when it suited them. Especially after underpaying them.

In any case, this is where we started to look for a lawyer. Because we were pissed.

The Lawyers

So we essentially only met with two lawyers. Partly because of the timeframe and getting people with availability to meet with us underneath the timeframe they enacted. Partly because none of us knew anyone to reach out to.

The first lawyer, I think it was clear from the jump he wasn’t interested. He also wanted a retainer just to be able to look at the interactions so far. So no.

The second lawyer was a recommendation of a friend of a friend type thing. So we finally were able to get on a call with him and he was so enthusiastic about our case. So we ended up going with him. He was also on a contingent payment, meaning that he would only get paid if we got paid. He’d get a percentage of the settlement.

He was kind enough to discount the percentage if we went to court, but seeing the contract later there was a higher percentage if we didn’t go to court and instead went to mediation.

In any case, I want to point out that if time had permitted we probably would have looked harder and found a better fit overall.

But around this time folks were conflicted, and one by one they ended up taking the deal for their own reasons. I want to be clear, there is no blame AT ALL, in ANY WAY. They were in a horrible situation and had to take the path to survive, and I know they hated it every step of the way.

But that’s also what fed my need to stand up for them since they clearly wanted to but couldn’t. After my initial freakout, I became weirdly calm, almost joyful.

I clearly remember it, because the day that we secured our lawyer I was just so happy and I had dinner plans, let’s call it Fancy Dinner, and I took the time to get all nice and beautiful, cause I was feeling myself that day. June 28, 2022. And that dinner ended up turning out to be a pivotal moment in my life. And we’re still going strong 🤫.

Anyway, as things started to proceed, the lawyer got involved and started communicating on our behalf and then the Collective just ended up being three of us who would go forward and introduce the complaint in March 2023.

So soon after finding the lawyer and moving things forward there, I was lucky enough to get a job. At the time I honestly wanted to just be part-time because I needed some healing, but this company, Teamshares had reached out and it just seemed too good to be true and I had to give them a try.

But before I could start there…. I got a letter in the mail from the unemployment office saying that Daylight was challenging my unemployment because they said I voluntarily quit. Say what ma’am.

Yes. Retaliation in its purest form.

Luckily by this time I had not only secured the full-time gig, but I also had some contract work to hold me over so I had stopped collecting unemployment. But I still had to call them up and make it super clear that I did not quit. I was laid off and I had written and video proof, and that Daylight was lying with their WHOLE CHEST.

I didn’t know if the government could come after me for trying to commit unemployment fraud, but I sure as hell wasn’t about to let that happen.

So pause, anyone, ANYONE, tell me why that was necessary. Like what other way can that be taken, other than retaliation? It wasn’t a mistake. But that was the moment I was ALL IN on the lawsuit. Because now they made it 100% personal. They were really about to see an angry Black woman.

Moving on, things at this point were slow-moving. We were going back and forth with the lawyer on the details. And we also had some media opportunities come to fruition. And so we delayed filing the complaint until the NY Mag article came out so that it would all be public record at that point, and since Daylight has proven themselves to be shitty people, I would have not placed it above them to try and come after us if it was just the article alone. But we were willing to take that risk.

So essentially between July and March, it was a bit of a waiting period.

Someone had reached out to me to be on a podcast about narcissistic people because I had published my blog on it. And I was SOOO READY. But at the last minute, it was canceled. I was never told why, but I can only assume that their legal team was just super conservative and didn’t want to get involved. I was disappointed, can’t lie.

We also had outreach from a documentary director, those conversations are ongoing :-). I’ve been told by no less than a dozen people that we need to put this story into a screenplay. That is not my skill set, you’re lucky all of this makes sense lol. But I am happy to support anyone who does take this and turn it into a blockbuster.

I just request that we get Keke Palmer to play me.

Keke Palmer playing me… I mean come on! It’s meant to be!

So during this time, it’s mostly silent, listen this is the first time I’ve sued an employer so I didn’t know what to expect. But then the article dropped in March after the date was pushed multiple times.

But then it was real and I was a bit in disbelief.

I read it 3 or 4 times and honestly didn’t know how to take it all. Part of me was so happy it was out. Part of me was confused because I felt that some key things were left out, but I understood because there were elements that couldn’t be corroborated. After all, it was just between Rob and me. But I also felt numb. Like reading it all back, like somehow it didn’t feel real.

I think I was seeing it for the first time from someone else’s eyes and it was like FUCKKKKKK we went through a lot more than I thought we did. It’s that survivor’s lens I was talking about in the last part. But I am truly thankful to Jen for listening to us all and helping the world listen to us as well.

So by this point, Daylight was shitting bricks, as I understood it.

They initially had some wack-ass lawyers who were like generalists and a part of a startup package. I had engaged with them when the Associate PM I let go came back to sue the company. And the offer at this point was the original two-week severance that they offered at the very beginning.

Then after the article dropped, they got 2 new lawyers, apparently Black women, and they offered me (cause I can only speak for me) $50k. But by that point, we wanted much more after all the shit that they put us through. So our lawyer went back with 2 years severance, hoping to settle around 1 year. And apparently, these lawyers had to fight for that 50k and said there was no more money (doubtful).

And so that’s the thing. We heard that on repeat that there’s no more money, But it’s like that scene in Oceans 11 where the security guard is like what happened to ALL THAT MONEY?

And that’s always been my question. And given the fact that Rob has no problem lying to anyone, the media (about a 15k person survey that never happened — did I forget to mention that?), or the government saying that I quit when I clearly didn’t. It’s not beyond the realm of imagination that he lied about closing 15M. BUT it would be pretty hard to spend ALL that money within a few months.

Granted after the layoff they essentially had another year-ish of operations but with a significantly smaller team, and by Jan 2023 (I think) most everyone had been laid off except Rob and Billie and 2–3 other folks to keep the lights on. At that point the company was done, they were just waiting for us to close out the lawsuit. But were still paying everyone full salaries to essentially sit around and do nothing. Like when I say nothing, like absolutely nothing, so again make it make sense. Because if you had money to just be paying salaries, pay me what you owe.

Wait jumped ahead a little. My bad.

Ok so we were offered $50k and I said fuck y’all. And then we hear they have ANOTHER lawyer, this time it’s a queer lawyer and they’re doing it pro bono “because they don’t have any money”. And one of the folks in the Collective was like, we’ll that’s dumb on their part and not my problem lol.

And then we go into mediation…

And this is where it gets really interesting. Mostly because this process was entirely new to me so I didn’t know what I didn’t know, especially the things that I should question.

So essentially our lawyer tells us that we have this mediator and he would like to meet with us all separately. Cool. The mediator is a professional, he touts his experience and the number of cases that he was able to close, etc. So he first starts by saying that we won. That he’s worked a lot of cases and it’s clear that we had so much evidence and whatnot that we should feel good that we won. BUT unfortunately, Daylight ran out of money so the only thing on the table was 2 weeks. And I was like, like the original two weeks from a year ago? (Side note, I realize now that it was actually half of what they initially offered us) And he’s basically like yea, but you have to understand that they called your bluff and lost their company and this is all that’s left. He was trying to appeal to my ego there and I think he misjudged who I am.

In any case y’all, I just didn’t believe it. At the time I had no proof, but I just knew in my gut that that was some bullshit. This was maybe June-ish 2023, so legit a year after the layoffs.

And the mediator (or the lawyer can’t remember exactly) goes on to add Rob will likely be investigated by the government after this case closes, because apparently it was clear that there were some financial improprieties, but the feds can’t get involved until a civil case closes. And he goes on and on about this is essentially the end of the road. Since Rob fled to Mexico, he probably would not risk coming back to the US and being tried for fraud and thrown in jail, so trying to go after him abroad for money was not worth the effort since there was no guarantee that even if we got the judgment in our favor that another country would facilitate it. He even said the Daylight lawyer agreed that we won!

So saying all the things to convince me to settle. And to be honest I felt beat down. There didn’t seem to be a way to get anything more for the people that deserved it. So I ended up telling him I’d think about it.

I ended up asking a friend of mine about mediation because I was all new to the process and they mentioned asking a few questions like…

1. Who is paying this mediator’s fee?
2. Who chose this mediator?

And I was like hole up! You right, this person just appeared out of nowhere. I didn’t interview anyone, nothing so…. How he here?

So I shared these thoughts with the Collective and asked our lawyer and he essentially said that the Mediator was forgoing our half of the fee. His fee was $8,000, and that was to be split between us and Daylight, but we didn’t have to pay.

And I was like…. Hmm… ok. Still skeptical but ok.

I eventually was like fine, I’ll take the settlement but please understand I’m not signing away my voice. And while I won’t speak for anyone else, I think the rest of the folks in the lawsuit felt similarly at this point, so we all made our decisions.

And then… silence maybe for like 2 months or something. Like no interactions no nothing.

And then in August (I think) we hear that the paperwork is finally ready for us to sign. Mind you this entire time, it hasn’t sat well with me. It just felt wrong to take it. The money wasn’t enough to help the people I wanted to help, and I just had that nagging feeling that we were being played.

And then I found out 100% that we were! I won’t share how I know, but I got 100% confirmation, from multiple sources I might add, that Daylight still had millions of dollars in the bank and they were just waiting on us to close this thing down.

And as you can imagine I was pissed. So when I saw the paperwork and I read it, I was like alll the fuck no. Not happening. I first told my peeps, and then I told our lawyer. By this point, I also felt our lawyer recognized there wouldn’t be a big payday and just wanted to be done with this all. It was hard to get him to respond to us at times. So even if I wanted to fight I would need to find a new lawyer and essentially start the whole thing over again.

Then the mediator wanted to talk to me again, I’m sure to try and convince me. Idk if he got a bonus if we all took the settlement, I imagine so because then there would be no loose ends. (ahem, ahem)

In any case, I chatted with the mediator again, and it was like hard to get a word in edgewise lol. Like he was so adamant about “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”, blah blah blah. He tried to convince me that I would still have my voice, and I was like not according to this contract. And he was like I read the contract and I can guarantee you that you have your voice. There are certain things they can never put into a contract blah blah blah… until I read him that specific phrase and then he shut up and was like ok.

Legal Phrase : You also agree that you shall not discuss your underlying allegations in your Action, which is your preference and is memorialized through.

And then finally my lawyer was like well since you’re the only one left and I already told the judge that we settled, we’ll have to essentially cancel the lawsuit anyway with prejudice, meaning that I couldn’t sue them for the same reason again. And I was like fine, do what you have to. I’m just not signing this shit. If Daylight wanted me to be silent they needed to come correct with the money I know they have. And since they won’t, I’m going to make them wish they did.

I’m going to arm my community with this information so they can learn from this experience, whether it’s what to do if you’re considering suing your employer down to what questions you should be asking a lawyer or a mediator. That’s more valuable to me than a few thousand dollars because that’s a resource I wish I had but didn’t. And quite frankly I hope it inspires people to fight for what they deserve.

And interestingly enough in the settlement Daylight somehow coughed up enough money to pay our part of the mediators’ fee! Which 100% confirmed my suspicions that we were getting scammed, because why would they do that?

I thought they were broke?

In any case, that brings me to when I started Part 1.

The interesting thing though is that since I launched Part 1, it’s been reported that Daylight has been acquired. This isn’t the first time a former startup I’ve worked for, that has failed — because no doubts about it Daylight failed. I didn’t go into the ridiculous Daylight Grow product they tried after they laid us off, because it was outside the lane of my direct experience, but that was an utter failure. Sorry, I digress, So yeah, Daylight wouldn’t be the first startup that I know that’s been “acquired” with no assets. Like I know the deep DEEP details of what was left of Daylight and believe me when I say there was nothing to acquire. This is all, in my opinion, a sad pathetic way to create a narrative that Rob had a successful exit as opposed to the truth which is that he’s a horrible leader who ran his startup into the ground. He would be the 3rd male founder that I’ve worked for who has been able to create this fake narrative.

IDK if he got a payout at the end of it, but he’s apparently now starting a tequila company in Mexico City. At least he got out of fintech and specifically out of the business of traumatizing people in his community.

Ok, so all done. While I’m not grateful for this experience I am grateful for the people that I met along the way. Some of the people I have named (under pseudonyms of course) and the people that I haven’t, you know who you are. They are incredibly important to me, and I am immensely blessed to have met them and continue to know them.

Final takeaways

1. Trust your gut, if something doesn’t feel right to you, it’s probably because it’s not. Don’t rationalize it away. It’s not up to you to enable someone else’s chaos. You deserve better.
2. Holding leaders accountable is hard, but babe we can do hard things. There is a community of us on the other side ready to support you. You deserve better.
3. Ask a TON of questions and the first sign of a red flag, plan your exit strategy. Not only is it easier to get a job when you have one, but they are not going to change. More likely is that it’s going to get worse, and you don’t deserve that trauma. You deserve better.
4. There is better out there. You just have to be your full self in order to find it.

Lastly, I’ve thrown around the idea of blogging on behalf of those who are unable to speak for themselves, so their stories can be seen. Let me know if that interests you.

I’ve also thrown around the idea of providing a service to VCs and specifically LPs to get the real story about the startups that they are investing in, because at the end of the day — this should be a case study in that what happens behind the scenes is only going to determine if you’ll get a return on your investment. Not what they tell you in the quarter investor updates.

The final video in this series is coming in a few weeks, then it’s back to the regularly scheduled program… unless I get inspired by something else. Toodles and thanks for rocking with me.