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[mainiac]

Questions:

 * Did anyone behave unethically?
 * Did anyone behave stupidly?
 * Why?

$10/hr is a pretty exploitative wage for that kind of work so it sounds pretty unethical to me.
I generally consider stupidity the status quo in economic activity so I'm going to say that no one avoided stupidity this time.
Why?  Greed.

[hector13]

As many have said, the ethics of the situation would depend on what is contained in Bob's employment contract.

Just on a personal feeling, I would say that the employer is being both unethical and stupid. If there was no explicit demand for creating a company website in the job ad or interview, then it shouldn't be an expectation that Bob should do it on company time, or for free.

Firing Bob for refusing was stupid and unethical. You now have to pay the costs for hiring again because you fired someone for refusing to do something far beyond what you initially expected them to do, else you wouldn't be looking for outside help.

Paying 3x what Bob offered to do it for was stupid, though this would depend on the relative skill between Bob and whoever eventually made the website. In saying that, I would want the best website that could possibly be created in my field of business and be the top search on all the best search engines for paying that much more though.

I don't know how specialised creating a website is, but if a company can demand $1500 for it, I imagine it's a lot more complicated than miscellaneous support.

[Cheeetar]

In the aforementioned hypothetical, Bob acts very stubbornly in a stupid manner - if I were to describe him in a word, I might call him a dick. I don't see his employer acting very well either, however, depending on what exactly Bob's contract/job was.

[Zangi]

Does the boss even understand what is needed for a webpage?

[nenjin]

Does the boss even understand what is needed for a webpage?

Based on the exchange between him and Bob, the answer would seem like a resounding "Fuck no."

[timferius]

I wonder, could the argument be made that, if such skills were required in the contract, that Bob would have negotiated a higher wage?

[Zangi]

I wonder, could the argument be made that, if such skills were required in the contract, that Bob would have negotiated a higher wage?

You've got to understand it from the Boss' view.  "Its only a website, how hard can it be for someone who can do computers?"

[timferius]

Well, call me weird, but if I don't know how to/can't do something I sorta auto-assume it's a skilled thing, and I'd research it. So he doesn't know computers well? Consult IT then. Except he did in this scenario, then ... fired IT? God, can this even be real?

[Vector]

.

[timferius]

I think I'm pretty much on board with the above actually. I think people are acting more stupidly/blindly than unethically on both sides. Also, the boss just fired an employee with, I'm assuming, zero record of disciplinary action or attempt to properly resolve situation. If Bob was done his probation period (says a few months later so it cold go either way), the the Boss is leaving himself open for a wrongful dismissal suit or disciplinary action from the local labour agency or whatever.

[RedKing]

Let me approach this from a different position -- that of someone who works for a large IT company.

I have an engineer. We agreed that it would take X numbers of hours to install a new webserver system on the client's environments for their web development team to use.
Now that we get that done, he asks, "Okay, now I have to migrate their data source systems from X to Y, in order to work with the new webservers they asked for."

That wasn't in the initial project requirements (I DON'T KNOW WHY). I ask him how much work that's going to take.
"Oh, 60-80 hours". At $120/hr.

So now I have to go back to the client and say "Ok, we have your new webservers ready. And if you want them to work, you need to cough up another 10 grand and it's going to take two more weeks."

Is that unethical?

[olemars]

Who wrote the project requirements?

[nenjin]

Let me approach this from a different position -- that of someone who works for a large IT company.

I have an engineer. We agreed that it would take X numbers of hours to install a new webserver system on the client's environments for their web development team to use.
Now that we get that done, he asks, "Okay, now I have to migrate their data source systems from X to Y, in order to work with the new webservers they asked for."

That wasn't in the initial project requirements (I DON'T KNOW WHY). I ask him how much work that's going to take.
"Oh, 60-80 hours". At $120/hr.

So now I have to go back to the client and say "Ok, we have your new webservers ready. And if you want them to work, you need to cough up another 10 grand and it's going to take two more weeks."

Is that unethical?

If my experience working with a multi-national company with an IT staff is any guide.....ethics doesn't come into it. It's just business.

[Zangi]

^ As a person who works in a small non-tech company...  I can see the boss/finance officer saying: "WTF?  We paid em and they ain't complete the job and now they want to take longer and get paid more?   Did we just get ripped off?"

Obviously, said company probably choose the particular IT company cause it looked cheaper then the rest for what looks to be the same amount of work being done.

[MaximumZero]

Let me approach this from a different position -- that of someone who works for a large IT company.

I have an engineer. We agreed that it would take X numbers of hours to install a new webserver system on the client's environments for their web development team to use.
Now that we get that done, he asks, "Okay, now I have to migrate their data source systems from X to Y, in order to work with the new webservers they asked for."

That wasn't in the initial project requirements (I DON'T KNOW WHY). I ask him how much work that's going to take.
"Oh, 60-80 hours". At $120/hr.

So now I have to go back to the client and say "Ok, we have your new webservers ready. And if you want them to work, you need to cough up another 10 grand and it's going to take two more weeks."

Is that unethical?

Your project requirements appear to be written by a non-IT based salesman who didn't ask the engineers about specifics. Tell the client that a) an unfortunate miscalculation occurred with the project requirements and they actually went over budget by two weeks and $10k, and b) have the guy who initially wrote up the project requirements talk to the customer so he gets shit on by them and learns a lesson.