eSign Document for HR Secure

HR process documentation refers to the systematic recording of all HR procedures, policies, and guidelines within an organization. It is essential for maintaining compliance and ensuring that HR activities are carried out efficiently. By utilizing tools like airSlate SignNow, businesses can streamline their HR process documentation, making it easier to manage and access important documents.

airSlate SignNow enhances HR process documentation by providing an intuitive platform for creating, signing, and managing documents electronically. This reduces paperwork and increases efficiency, allowing HR teams to focus on strategic initiatives. The platform also ensures that all signatures are legally binding and securely stored, further improving the documentation process.

Using airSlate SignNow for HR process documentation offers numerous benefits, including cost-effectiveness, time savings, and increased accuracy. Automated workflows minimize human error, while secure electronic signatures accelerate the approval process. Overall, this leads to a more organized and compliant HR operation.

Yes, airSlate SignNow is designed to seamlessly integrate with many existing HR systems, ensuring that your HR process documentation remains cohesive and accessible. The integration capabilities allow for easy data transfer and synchronization, making it simpler to manage employee records. This interoperability enhances the overall efficiency of your HR practices.

airSlate SignNow offers a flexible pricing structure that caters to various business sizes and needs. You can choose from different plans depending on your requirements for HR process documentation and eSignature functionalities. It's best to visit the pricing page on their website to find a plan that best suits your organization's needs.

Absolutely! airSlate SignNow is designed to assist businesses in maintaining compliance with various HR regulations through automated record-keeping and secure document handling. By utilizing this platform, companies can ensure that their HR process documentation is up-to-date and compliant with relevant labor laws, reducing the risk of potential legal issues.

With airSlate SignNow, you can manage a variety of documents related to HR process documentation, including employee contracts, policy manuals, onboarding documents, and performance reviews. The platform's versatility allows for easy customization and management of all necessary HR documents. This helps maintain consistency and organization across your HR processes.

I use signNow. Its has great features and potential to use API when i need to.You have few others that are good and established. signNow Echosign is great.signNow - is another option. They also have stripe integration for payment.All of them will track responses ..like you can see who viewed and who signed.Gather your requirements :a) How many documents do you want to get signed every month?b) Does the content vary? if not you can create one template.c) Do you need API or can you fill the variables like name and address for a template and send it ?d) Do you want someone to pay when they sign? or is there a separate payment process - Right now out of box its only signNow ( AFAIK) or You can do Zapier integration if you have resources to help you with.Most of them start at low price and cost adds up when you want more than one template or you exceed maximum documents signed.Until you do a complete API integration, you can easily replace one with another. So you can start off with FREE plan and try it out and upgrade to basic plan and see if it meets your need and try the other vendor.If you know your numbers upfront, you can talk to the sales team.

At the time I was working at a large-ish (by local standards) company, that used MS Windows for its IT needs. All the information (such as the necessary documentation) was on shared network drives, and there were many of those, and the right share was not always easy to find. One day, as I was browsing through the list of shares in search for a particular document, I stumbled across an unprotected share that, upon a brief inspection, belonged to the HR, and clearly contained information regarding the upcoming round of layoffs - lists of people being terminated, their severance packages, all highly sensitive data, just lying there, for all to see. Now the company was in troubles (only later did we learn, that while our own measly stock options were securely underwater - Mariana Trench style - the CEO and CFO were busy backdating their own stock options, instead of running the company, and ended up running it into the ground) and it was undergoing round after round of terminations, rumors about which were always denied until the last moment (so that it came to a point where as soon as the rumors started, we’d be just waiting for the refutation as a sign of confirmation). So clearly, this was highly sensitive. I alerted HR at once via e-mail, and suggested technical help (at the time I was something of a self-styled security expert in a company that had none). Surely enough, they called me in for a meeting the next day. I showed up all full of self-importance, just waiting to educate these folks about proper security measures. Imagine my dismay at realising I'm not being consulted, but rather interrogated: they didn’t care a fig about my expertise, all they wanted from me was to know just what exactly did I see, and whether I’ve shown it to anybody else!

They used false “help wanted” ads to fire their own employees that were looking for a new job.I worked for a lead generation service which sold qualified lists of homeowners (and their telephone numbers) to financial advisers. Then, they sold those same financial advisers a telemarketing service that would call those homeowners and arrange appointments with them. There is so much that is “shady” about this company that it is impossible to bring up one questionable act without first explaining several previous questionable or downright illegal acts. (UPDATE: if you want more details about how bad it was to work for this place, check out John Hursey's answer to What is the most ridiculous reason for which you have been fired?)After a particularly horrifying series of events right around the holiday season, I decided to begin looking for a new job. I got on craigslist, and I found several positions in customer service and data entry that were available right in my city. I sent them a quick email with my resume attached, and waited for a response.The next day I was called into the President’s office. He invited me to sit down. His mother (the vice president of the company) was standing behind him. He asked me if I was happy working for him.Luckily for me, I knew this was a trap of some kind and answered honestly. I told him that I was interested in having more free time with a more flexible schedule and that it would be impossible to do so with my current job, so I was in the process of looking for something else. I also told him that I had informed my direct supervisor of my intentions last week, and that I would give the company adequate warning—at least two weeks notice—before I quit.He and his mother looked at each other. Well, he said, it turns out that one of the companies I had applied to was the very same company I worked for now. I thought that was odd, because I don’t have any intellectual disabilities or mental impairments that would indicate I would apply to the same company that I currently worked for. Nevertheless, I told him that I suppose this was good news, since perhaps I could simply transfer to whatever this open position was and still maintain my employment with his company while working the schedule that was most convenient for myself.Not so fast. It turned out there wasn’t any positions available in those departments. Their strategy was to entice applicants with positions in data entry and customer service and then during the interview inform them that those positions had been filled; those applicants were then offered much less pay and schedule flexibility as a salesman. In addition, current employees that applied for these jobs were summarily fired for being “disloyal.”A month later I was terminated, for reasons I still do not fully understand. I applied for unemployment, and when I explained the series of events leading to my termination the lady at the unemployment office literally scoffed at me and told me that my story was unbelievable. She even called me personally at home to tell me that the company was contesting my unemployment filing and that she expected me to lose the arbitration process.The day of the hearing I got a phone call from the same lady, in tears. She apologized profusely for how she had treated me. She had just completed a five-minute interaction with the president and his mother, confirming not only my story but also her worst fears about humanity in general.

Kruze Consulting has worked with over 1000+ startups and has helped set up numerous HR infrastructure systems. HR is a not a luxury, but an essential component of any startup’s foundation. It doesn't matter how awesome your product is; poor hiring, an unproductive culture, and stagnant employees can sink the company in a hot minute. Below we've provided a suggested list of software, processes, and procedures to help startups navigate the HR landscape. Caveat: if you can afford to put the later stage processes in place sooner rather than later, you should do it!The Essentials: 0 - 7 EmployeesPayroll & Benefits, Gusto: simply the best.HR Management Platform, Zenefits: Still our #1 recommendation for managing employee offer letters and PTO. Its seamless.Communication, Slack: essential for office and remote workers alike.Employee Recognition, Bonusly: improve collaboration by allowing your employees to reward each other (via Slack)Harassment Training, ThinkHR: yes, you need this right from the start.Background Checks, Chekr: don’t get surprised. Do you due diligence and check for red flags with Chekr.Feedback, Google Forms Anonymous Suggestion Box: sometimes employees dont feel comfortable asking certain questions or notifiyng management about situations. This gives them a voice.Basic HR Advisory, Kruze Consulting: everyone has questions about which health care plans to pick, what other startups are doing, and best practices around hiring and firing. Kruze has all the templates and can help.The Growth Phase: 8 - 40 EmployeesNew Employee Orientation, Lessonly: when new employees start at Kruze, their first learning stop is Lessonly. Its critical for new hire orientations, as it documents all of our internal procedures and allows for bespoke lesson plans and custom video uploads. But here’s the kicker: it has quizzes at the end of each module so that we can hold folks accountable to the curriculum.Continuing Education, LinkedIn Learning (fka Lynda): Seth Godin rocked my world in a seminar about how we have learning all wrong: homework should be done at school, lectures should be done at home and performed by THE world expert. Why or why would you have your best excel jockey in the company teach everyone else when you can have the best Excel Guru in the world teach your team on LinkedIn Learning?401k Plans, Guideline/Gusto and ForUsAll: most Seed Stage startups don’t offer 401Ks, but after a Series A many management teams will start considering it. By Series B, you should definitely have a 401k in place.Employee Handbooks, Gusto: Gusto’s amazing DIY handbook tool is great backbone, but you’ll need an advisor to refine company specific policies and procedures that aligns with your company’s core value system.Robust Health Benefits, Zenefits or Gusto: make no mistake, if you want to hire top talent you now need to offer top benefits. Now is the time to up your Silver and Gold packages to Platinum. It’s also time to consider an FSA or HSA. Some cities, like SF, require that you spend a certain minimum on each employee’s benefits and report on that compliance (known as the SF Health Care Security Ordinance).Tuition Assistance Programs, Tuition.io: companies like Tuition.io are revolutionizing the way employers can help free their teammates from the shackles of student loan debt, driving loyalty and retention in the process.Commuter Benefits, Gusto: if you have a 20+ employees and are based in SF, you are required to provide up to $260/mo in pre-tax commuter benefits. Other jurisdictions have similar requirements. But even if you’re not in SF, its a best practice to provide this benefit for your team. Kruze can help you set up commuter benefits and maintain compliance.Intermediate HR Advisory, Kruze Consulting: How much should I be paying my new VP of Engineering? How much stock should I grant, and what type of ESOP should I offer? Kruze has the answers.Project Based Grading Systems, Kruze Consulting: one of the biggest complaints that we’ve heard from employees is that they’re not getting enough regular feedback so that they can improve their performance and get ahead in their career. Kruze has template frameworks to help you create project based grading systems. Think “Hey Jane, this project that you completed was a B+ because you forgot to do XYZ. You’re so close, and I’m sure we can get you up to A+ work on the next project.” The results we’ve seen after implementing these controls were immediate: on the subsequent projects, employees knew exactly how to improve and they did. A big win for management and employees alike.Performance Reviews, Lattice: quarterly or biannual performance reviews are important to your employees growth and the well being of the company. Biweekly 1:1 meetings should also be implemented and documented. Lattice organizes the review process in an easy to use online interface and Kruze can help you build the appropriate questions that management team should be asking of itself and its employees.Recruiting Management, Greenhouse and Google Hire: these amazing pieces of software helps you manage the recruiting process and collaborate with your team. Some of the most frustrating parts of the recruiting process is organizing resumes, coordinating schedules, and quantifying the interview process all in a timely manner. Greenhouse and Google Hire handles all of this.Event Planning, Blue Barley: allowing your team to bond outside of work is important. But finding and booking creative events can be difficult. This is where Blue Barley comes in.Recruiters: your time is best spent doing what you do best. Yes, recruiters are expensive but they cut the search process dramatically. Kruze has an extensive network of recruiting professionals that we can introduce you to depending on the role that you are looking to fill, including companies like Triplebyte and Avra.Gifts, Bouqs and Minibar: if your teammate has done something awesome, really reward them with flowers from Bouqs or booze from Minibar.Say Something Positive: words can go a long way. Make sure that your managers are routinely saying positive things to their teammates. There are plenty of apps out there that can help randomly remind them.Swag: you haven’t really made it until you have your startup’s logo emblazoned on a Patagonia. Sports Basement has the best pricing and service. For other bougie swag, see Clove & Twine. Business cards are going the way of the dinosaur, but if you must, use Moo.The Enterprise: 40+ EmployeesPEO (aka Professional Employer Organization): PEOs are companies like Justworks, Trinet, and Sequoia. They are “all-in-one” payroll and benefits providers that are able to provide more favorable benefits plans because they have a much larger group policy. Don’t be fooled though, their Service Cost is 10x+ the price of Gusto, and most the time any cost savings you got on the health plans is more than washed out on their monthly Service Costs. At least until you have scale. Kruze recommends that you consider a PEO once you’ve signNowed 40+ employees OR if you have employees in 5+ states. Before then, cost outweighs benefit. Our top picks are Sequoia and Justworks.In-house HR professional: Kruze recommends considering hiring a full time HR professional once you’ve signNowed 40+ employees. But if you’re planning on growing quickly, you might want to consider hiring your full time HR professional sooner than thatContinuing Education Programs: your best and brightest employees will be eager to advance their careers and knowledge base, and one of the best ways to do that is through continuing education. Kruze has a library of Continuing Education options and plans based on industry specific talents. One of our top picks in Continuing Education is Harrison Metal General Management.Mentorship Programs: careers may start with technical proficiency, but they blossom once soft skills are applied. Your employees likely have many other goals beyond just developing trade knowledge, like networking, sales, and better communication skills. Sometimes folks dont even know what they’re missing, but mentors can help guide them. The BestSelf.co journal is a fantastic resource that helps both mentors and employees stay accountable on their personal KPIs.

NetHunt CRMNetHunt is a user-friendly email CRM inside Gmail. It introduces a simple, yet effective concept. NetHunt lets you turn any email into a CRM record. This way, when a client or order email arrives into your inbox, you put it into the CRM folder with all of the related client data. The best part - there's no "other" app or service to keep open. The CRM database, pipelines and todo's - everything is available from inside Gmail.While many systems concentrate heavily on sales purposes, NetHunt CRM has a very customizable structure so you can manage almost any type of activity in it; from sales and projects to customer support, real estate and software development.Being a fully Gmail-based CRM, NetHunt also adds a marketing automation platform to your inbox, letting you send personalized mass mail messages, which openings you can track. If you're a Gmail user, you'll be quick to get used to how NetHunt CRM works. And with all those features included (with no limitations), it costs only $25 for a team of up to 5 people, making it one of the most affordable systems on the market.FreshBooksThis app gives small-business owners and freelance workers a simple way to manage and track invoices.FreshBooks lets you create personalized, professional-looking invoices; automatically bill your clients for recurring invoices; and accept credit cards on your mobile device. Other useful features include the ability to track and organize expenses from anywhere and create customizable business reports, such as profit and loss statements.FreshBooks costs $15 per month for businesses with up to five clients, $25 per month for businesses with six to 50 clients, and $50 per month for businesses with 51 to 500 clients. A free 30-day trial is available, and you can save 10% each month if you buy an annual subscription. The mobile app is available free for iOS and Android devices.WaveWave is an easy-to-use accounting software platform specifically for small businesses, independent contractors and sole proprietors with nine or fewer employees.Wave lets businesses track sales and expenses, manage invoices and customer payments, pay employees, scan receipts and generate accounting reports. The company recently added free personal finance software to help small-business owners manage their finances in one place.Wave’s software is available for free download on the website; its free invoicing and receipt-tracking mobile apps are available for download in the Apple store. You’ll pay to accept credit card transactions (2.9% plus 30 cents for each transaction), for bank payment processing (1% per transaction) and for payroll management ($20 base fee plus $4 per employee, per month, for most states).RescueTimeThis app automatically tracks time you’ve spent on applications and websites and sends you detailed reports and data based on your activity, giving you an accurate picture of how you spent your day. It works for Mac, PC, Android and Linux.RescueTime Lite is free. The premium version comes with added features — including alerts, the ability to block distracting websites, more detailed reports and filters — and costs $72 per year, with the first four months free, or $9 per month. You can try the premium version free for 14 days.AsanaIf your business is looking to improve its communication and collaboration, look no further than Asana. The web-based and mobile app lets you view all tasks and projects and follow progress on the Asana board, and you can share notes, upload files and communicate without having to rely on email. Asana also integrates with Google Drive and Dropbox to attach files, and with Slack for communication to post updates to a Slack messaging channel. Asana’s basic version is free for up to 15 team members. Its premium version is $9.99 per member, per month, with no team member limit, and it includes advanced features. The app is available to download for free on iOS and Android.

Originally answered - Shilpi Roy's answer to Should I choose signNow or Goldman Sachs (India)?The answer is gonna be really long. Grab some snacks as it could take a while.I was the happiest person the day I was selected as a FTE (tech analyst position) at GS - a reputed fin-tech company which mostly hires tier-1 students, a dream for many. I heard from many people that GS offers package as high as 32lpa which was quite a big deal for me - or for anyone who might have been at my place.Then came the HR’s call. She offered me semester long internship in GS! I was glad that I don’t have to spend my last semester in college and will also earn some money. With the stipend as high as 75k and stay at Hilton hotel during intern, anybody is likely to go crazy and say “YES”.And so I did.The beginning (GS-Bengaluru office)Soon came 7th January. Day started off with amazing orientation and office visit. Then came the lunch buddy - GS assigns a buddy from your department to have lunch with you the day you join, let’s say he was Raghav (name changed).Raghav seemed to be a really smart guy. I asked him a few questions about GS being a fin-tech, is it easy to switch and other questions. He seemed to be out of place, not interested. A guy came who was an intern in a team in which Raghav used to work. He kept talking and giggling with him, completely ignoring my presence. Cool, maybe Raghav is a bad guy - who cares?Met with my manager and two other interns who were in the same department - GIR. He seemed like a chilled-out and thoughtful person. Let’s call him Rudra.Our whole department used to sit in a middle sized cabin which accommodated around 32–35 employees of GIR. My happiness knew no bounds! Great team, small cabin and friendly manager - what else could I ask for?Then came the next day. We were introduced to our team and had a lunch together. Oh no! Lunch here was not free - no big deal. Only 80rs/- per plate is affordable when you earn 75k per month, I thought.After having lunch, we began installing softwares required. Wait, you can’t install some softwares without manager’s permission. Fine! I messaged my manager and he granted the permission. He came later in the evening and gave 3 of us an interesting machine learning problem to solve - in a week, till we get our projects.He had three projects in mind, and he left it for us to decide which one we want to take. I took the one which I thought was more impactful and cool, also because we had a member of our team working for the project. My task was to integrate the backend stuff he wrote with the UI I was going to create. Also to help him with some of those backend stuffs later on.“You can take help from Varun, in case you need” said Rudra.So it began!1st MonthI started learning React.js for the UI I was going to implement from various websites. There were tons of tutorial there. After understanding some theory, I clicked on ‘try it on codepen’ - online editor.“You are restricted from using an external website - no permissions”What? I can’t even use some online editor. Okay that’s fine - we have pretty sensitive data in GS. Since it’s a finance based company, we have client data with us and user may copy and paste it online - someone might steal the data! All this made sense. ‘It’s fine, I’ll bring my own laptop tommorow’, I thought before leaving.I could see two teammates standing behind me from my peripheral vision. One who was writing the backend stuff for the project I was working upon, let’s call him Varun.Varun was a silent and sober guy - a hardworking one who speaks only when required. Another guy standing beside him was Raghav.“Hey!” I said in a low tone.“Did I do some crime? Why are these two here?” I wondered.“You brought your personal laptop, is everything fine here?” they asked.I told them about the restrictions. Raghav took my work PC and sent Rudra, my manager a request to approve codepen.I waited. One hour. Two hours. Codepen still not working. Fine for me since I have my own laptop. No worries.After 2 weeks Varun called me and started assigning tasks to do for the UI. I was full of enthusiasm and paid full attention to what he wanted. I started looking out for the cool libraries out there and found - material-ui.‘Perfect!’ I exclaimed.Started with the tasks, and was able to achieve the target next evening. It looked damn good! Varun will be happy. And so, I showed it to him.“Okay, font-size is a bit huge. And please change the app’s name - ELEGANT USER’S APP” (name changed). And so I did.“E-L-E-G-E-N-T U-S-E-R—S A-P-P”What a funny name, I thought. (The real one was funnier than the changed one)So days went, 1..2…3 and I completed 5–6 tasks. The basic UI (20%) was done. Then came Varun -“Shilpi, you did this using which library?”“Material-ui! It’s really good and..”“Okay, but make sure you can use it. Only specific libraries can be used at GS. Search xyz site and ensure if we can use it. If yes, proceed. Else use GS UI library”What did he just say. I worked on the UI for 2 weeks, and he is telling me now that I may not be able to use the material-ui library! No way..With my heart beating fast, I typed..X..Y….Z …..gs..comCtrl+F“M-A——T-E—-R—I—A”Boom! It’s there. I was delighted :)The next day I was late. I saw a message pop up. It was from Raghav.“Hey” it said.“Hey” I replied.“Please try to attend the daily standup. If you don’t, mail Rudra about your update :)” He replied.There hasn’t been a single day I was late. But okay, FINE.Then came the 5th day - friday. I got a message from Varun.‘Hi Shilpi, can you make another UI using GS-UI?’Oh No!. Again?.‘Just for the feel…we’ll show it to Rudra next week, he’ll choose which one we can use’*Slow Claps*Well played Varun. Why did he approve the material-ui one if he wanted it in GS-UI - I wondered.It’s fine, I can do it. I encouraged myself and went to the internal site - gs-ui-library. (name changed)Okay, fine. This looks good. Okay. Cool. Documentation.. documentation….uhmm.I searched for the whole day, no documentation. Just few codes and examples to understand how to display some component.Way uglier than material-ui - I thought. And a minute later, an evil idea came to my mind..“What if I make the UI using gs-ui-library so ugly that Rudra and Varun both reject! That would be great!”The next week on friday, I was done with gs-ui-library. My code was asked to be removed from codesandbox by Varun - it’s illegal to put GS’s internal code there. I could hear Rudra laughing about how he is afraid of the interns bringing personal laptops here, and what will happen if someone names a variable as “GIR” and put it on github.I showed Rudra the material-ui one. He was impressed.“This looks good! But don’t keep the name as ‘ ELEGANT USERS APP’, instead keep it as ‘THE USERS SEARCH APP’ ” (name changed)“But Rudra, Varun has asked me to..”“I will ask him. We will decide and tell you”Fine. Keep the name as ‘The bla-bla app’. I don’t care.Varun was already gone by the time.I smirked. I won’t show the UI I made using gs-ui-library to Rudra!Next day Varun was on my desk. He asked whether I showed both the UI’s.“No, actually I forgot to show the other..”“See, the people above us will probably ask why we didn’t use GS-UI. That’s why I am saying so. I have no problem with material-ui. Just ask Rudra if he is fine with it. Rudra…”“Yes, Varun” replied Rudra.And then he showed both the UI’s to him. The ugly one. The good one.“I think it looks great - the ‘gs-ui-library’ one!” Rudra exclaimed.I shouted in my mind - “How can he..!”“See Shilpi, we don’t have any problem using material-ui one but the people for whom we are making the app will ask why we didn’t use the internal-gs library. Okay, tell me one thing - it does have all the components you require, right?”“Yes, Rudra” I sighed.“Seems like Shilpi wanted to use material-ui, haha” Rudra giggled and looked at Varun. I could hear the giggling from one if the two interns from behind - Tejas (name changed).He was also working on a UI, along with some backend stuff. He was using ‘gs-ui-library’ from day one. And so, he giggled.Rudra -1 .. Shilpi - 0This was the first time I went home feeling sad. Why didn’t they tell me 2 weeks ago? Now I will have to work on the other one. And the library has no documentation.Next week , Varun decided to keep the name as “ELEGENT-USERS-APP”. He refused Rudra.Varun -1.. Rudra- 0So I went back to my desk and began.“g-s-u-i-l-i-b-r-a-r-y” I typed.Gs-ui-library was a really terrible library. No documentation, made by mixture of other available libraries online. It was like an accidental product of some cross-breeding. A scientific failure.Anyways, I somehow learnt basic features which I could implement using the library. On the other hand, my machine was damn slow - for a reason I didn’t know.“Why are you using vs code? How did you get it!” asked Rudra who saw me coding on vscode.“I like it- it’s really good for react. Installed it from the store.”“Haha, use intellij, okay!” Rudra said in a serious tone.Wow. After making me work with the gs-ui-library, now he is snatching away the editor I love. Cool.I still continued with vs code. Varun was totally fine with it.I went to drink a glass of water. Didn’t bring my bottle that day. So took a ‘visitor’s cup’ from inside the drawers.“Ma’am, you can’t drink in that. It’s only for visitors” said a staff guy who saw that I was about to drink water from the visitor’s cup.I looked at him in shock.“Oh, it’s ok for today you can use it..Ma’am” he replied.Great. Block websites - facebook, gmail, codepen. Take my material-ui away. Don’t allow me to use vs-code. And also, don’t let me drink water at peace!I was pissed off. Huh!2nd MonthSo I started working on the integration part. Meanwhile we used to have meetings in which we were told about GIR and it’s functions. Rudra used to tell us about how fun the NAPA training is going to be, and how we will start hiding our id cards after the event.I completed the integration part in a week or so. Gave a weekly demo to Rudra.Next week was going to be a demo with Monica’s team (name changed). The finance guys for whom we were building the ‘ELEGANT USERS APP’. Varun was happy that I had completed the integration part and added 2 more features to implement.- feature1 & feature2Before the demo, we had a meeting with Monica just a week before. Rudra, Varun and I gathered in a room.“So Shilpi, how’s the work going? Are you liking it - the UI stuff? Aren’t you bored?” Rudra asked.“Hehe.. Actually yeah it’s a little boring. I hope backend stuff starts soon!” I honestly replied.“You know UI people make the most money.” Rudra smirked.“No, that’s a lie. Backend people make more money.” I replied.“Shilpi, that’s the case of technical firms. In financial firms like us, UI people earn more bonus.” said Varun.Soon came Monica. Varun and Monica proceeded on what she wants and what actually we have. It was a debate between them and I listened.Since the lunch time was over, Rudra and I went to the food-court outside to have one.“Shilpi, you know I was like you. The silent guy in the room. If someone else was at your place he would have asked a lot of questions! ”“I think it’s better to listen Rudra, than argue. I didn’t have much idea about what they were talking and the talk was mostly concerning Varun.”“See..it’s good very good. But to be at a place like GS…you know! The world is very mean, Shilpi. You need to speak more than you do work here! Many people don’t know much but they’ll get ahead of you because they speak. I was like you when I joined GS. In the group discussion round, when everyone was debating.. I just sat at the corner. HR came and asked each of us individually. If she hadn’t done that, I mayn’t be sitting here today”I gave it some thought. He was right.Some days later feature1 stopped working. I had no idea why, I was using an excellent library for feature1, of-course an external one. Varun himself has asked me to use an external for that case since we don’t have a gs library for that.But now. It wasn’t working.It took me a week to include the library - react-bootstrap-table2 with the project along with the features it had, and use it. And some magic happened. Now feature1 stops working. Damn!I woke up the whole night - till 4 am to make the feature1 work. The remote desktop worked very slow. In GS, we are not given laptops for security purposes. So we have to use remote desktop.It was damn slow but I was patient. I kept on trying and trying till I fell asleep early in the morning. Woke up around 12.An hour before demo with Monica’s team, I told Varun about it. He said it’s fine, we will show the demo without it.Tik…tikk….I wasn’t satisfied. I worked damn hard for 45 min and was able to make feature1 work!We went to give the demo. Varun pulled out a chair and sat before a PC.“Hi Monica!”“Hey Varun!”And so it started. The demo. The UI I made. The features I implemented. The integration. My two month’s hard work.All of them was presented by our VP, Mr.Varun!“Uhm…but we don’t need feature 1 and 2, Varun. You can remove it” said Monica.W-H-A-T! What did she just say. I went an hour back in time.I am sweating. I can feel I am nervous. This has to go good. I know well about the project, and I will make the feature-1 work! I will!Yes, I did. Only to lose the presentation as well as the feature.I rushed out of the room with the unhappy face which no one bothered about in the meeting room. I was silent and in hurry, it was weekly demo too today.“Haashh.. It went great!” exclaimed Varun who barely ever talked to me. Since like 1962!“Okay, but we have a weekly demo too!”The weekly demo got cancelled. Varun proceeded to tell me how we don’t need feature-1 and all the new features which Monica wanted. I remembered them all. One of them was a feature-X which was not possible technically. I tried making Varun understand and he did, after quite a while.Then came the mid-semester exam and I finally got a break!3rd MonthI went to my home after holidays. After 2 months, 1,40,000 was credited to my account. I bought clothes for mom and dad. I was delighted and ready to go back!Came back to office happily. Compiled the code.React-bootstrap-table2 library code - gone. Whole UI code changed in a week. My 2 week’s effort - 1 week for the library and 2 nd for other features went to ashes.Just in ONE SINGLE WEEK.~Varun committed the code 2 hours ago~~Varun committed the code yesterday~~Varun….~And so on.Varun started using an internal gs-ui-library library instead of react-bootstrap-table2. Instead of giving proper review comments, he changed my code by himself. Some backend stuff also came to me.I fetched the code from repo, the one Varun had implemented. And tried to understand.“You just have to implement feature-b-xyz, no need to go through whole code” he said.Fine.I added a new feature. Compiled and checked. Everything was working fine. Committed the code.Next day I came. Compiled the code.‘EXCEPTION THROWN’‘FAILED’And my PC hangs. For no reason why.I checked the code - it was changed. The integration part was changed. Feature XYZ was changed. And it stopped working.~Varun committed the code an hour ago~Why did he commit a code that fails? I wondered.This started happening daily. I had no idea why was this happening.The next series of days started with me coming late - 11:50, 12 or later than that. I used to mail Rudra about the update. Sometimes I was able to attend standup, sometime I wasn’t able to. My health started deteriorating.Everyday, Varun used to commit some changes. And it took a hell lot of time to update the project in intellij, go through his changes and do other changes. I was pretty much frustrated.Took 2 wfhs in 2 weeks. Logged in late many times. Had to push myself from bed everyday. Devoted my time to video games than gs work. Lost interest.Then I was given some backend part. I took WFH a day I wasn’t feeling well and learnt about apis stuff. Still some part of me wanted to do well and take interest in the work genuinely.We - all 3 interns received a mail from Rudra which we could never forget. Rudra had showed his ‘Rudra’ roop. The mail said -“You guys are not taking the work seriously. WFHs are not to be taken for granted. So many WFHs and late loggings. Not at all serious about your work. You guys need to have deliverables by the end of this month.I don’t care, work for your career not mine.”I was shocked. The friendly, giggling Rudra! I remembered the first time I met him. And the mail was quite a shock to all of us.Late loggings were targeted at me.WFHs for another one.But… Tejas? What did he do?As far as I remember, he was a hard working guy. Always on time. Never missed a standup. What did he do to receive the mail?Days after that, Varun took four wfhs in a row. Rudra was quiet. Nisha only came like twice in a week, Rudra said nothing.Why us? Why the interns? I wondered.One day I stayed at office till 8pm. I could hear Rudra talking about ‘The Elegant User’s App’ over a phone call.“We are building it again since the last UI was in angular. We wanted it in React.” he said to somebody over the call.Throughout my whole intern, I had one doubt in my mind.The app on which I was working upon was already built by someone and was functional too. But my manager wanted it to be built again since he wanted us to use a new technology.What’s the difference even if angular was used? What’s the need of rebuilding the app again from scratch? I wondered.And the next words I heard shattered me.“Yeah, Varun is working with some intern on ‘The Elegant User’s App’.”What did he say?The last two months were fully devoted to the UI. I went back in time.“Shilpi, if you want any help - Varun would be able to for this project.I was made to believe that it was an independent project, which it never was. I worked my ass off for three months only to hear that I am ‘some intern’ working under Varun and helping him building the UI.I got depressed.It was Holi’s festival - the festival of colours. I never really celebrated holi, hated to be coloured all over. We had a group for our department, and I wished everyone a “Happy Holi!”.Tejas replied with a “Happy holi” too.“Happy Forest Day” - stated an image I received on whatsapp. It was from Rudra. On the whatsapp group. This was his reply for “Happy Holi”.It's okay, don't respect our festival. But atleast don't disrespect it. Why was there even a need for reply?Needless to say, I didn’t go to office that day as sign of rebel (we didn’t have holiday on holi). Varun was already doing WFH. The “Happy Forest Day” frustrated me.Why Rudra why. You are better than that.“Niharika (name changed) is leaving GS” somebody whispered.Niharika, a very smart lady was in our department. She was mentoring an intern and sounded quite knowledgeable. Her sudden decision of leaving GS came as a shock to everyone.I had a last chat with her only when everyone was away for lunch. She had refused her farewell too I guess. She came to me and we had a decent chat. I asked her the reason of leaving. She wanted to switch the team maybe but it was taking a long time. Sweet and smart is all I could say for her. She had done work with JPMC & Morgan Stanley (US) and held a green card. A dedicated worker.After the lunch, she had a long meeting with Rudra. She was too firm with her decision.After she left, someone told me she bitched about many people in the team - specially Rudra. I was really sad. GS lost a good employee that day. And maybe, due to politics.Next day, GS was having an orientation for all new campus hires. It was one hell of a day. World-class hotel stay and world-class orientation.Varun was going out to the new office for 2 weeks. For some work.4th monthBefore Varun had left for the new office, he had asked me to attend telephonic standups for our team from 3–3:30. Now I used to attend 2 standups - the department one, and the team one. Full time waste activities!He had also asked me to get details of a task from Raghav and get it completed. I messaged him and he said he will be there at my desk in 5 min. Well, he never came. I asked him 2–3 times more to which he sent me a random link. I was disheartened and had nothing to do for 2 weeks.One day Rudra called me to fix some errors which he wasn’t able to fix by himself. He said he spent the whole night trying to fix those but didn’t know how to.I came to his desk. Those were linting errors!After having 10 years of experience, and you don’t even know what they are! Even if you know, please try to google. He was not getting what those line numbers represent. I explained him everything and fixed those.Soon, we got mails from hr regarding our joining dates and NAPA training, which is held in New York. I told the HR about my case, that I have courses left in college and I won’t be able to join on 3rd june.“Can I go to the training and join later after 12th july - when my courses are done” I asked.“No, you need to join as FTE. We will process your visa in june and you’ll go during july first week”“Okay” I replied.“Try to make your college understand, it’s important” is all she said.Next day, I refused. My college will never agree for me to take 2 week vacation during summer term.Rudra received a call from HR. I knew it was regarding me.He took me outside the cabin and asked why did I opted out of NAPA training. I told him everything - how my degree would be affected. He was ready to give WFH for 2 months. I was shocked. Again.Rudra was the most unpredictable mysterious guy I ever met. He was good and bad, at the same time. 2 months is a long time - and he agreed to give me WFH! He earned my respect.Then there was second meeting with Rudra. He told me everything - the work I’ll do as an FTE. Also, he never left a single moment he could get to brag about himself.“You will be working under Varun. He will be the team lead. Your work is XYZ-AHSH-PPOS…..”“Be as mature as me. I can make complex things simple easily. Learn it from me.” he said.Varun. No!!The silent guy. Who took away all the presentations. Even during our team standups over calls, he used to answer when some guy asked me about the project. My code was changed everyday. All the torture I faced last month. And now- I’ll be working under him. Wow.I told Rudra - how my code was changed everyday, how I was not told about the changes Varun did in the backend and still expected my code would run successfully. He listened to me for a while and then said -“When I was a NAPA, I used to ensure that I get 0 review comments”“I don’t get review comments, Rudra. My code gets changed, and it’s hard to understand it everyday without help of Varun.”“It’s a good thing, right? You will learn something from what the change he does. It’s good for you.”Cool. I have to look at the new code and somehow “learn without doing”. Interesting.I worked till 9 pm that day. Before Rudra left, he smiled at me sarcastically.“Shilpi, still working?”“Yeah Rudra, I came little late today.”“Varun changing your code and you changing his code.!”“Yes. That’s what is happening.”And then, he laughed maniacally.This was not the first time he did this. He used to laugh at me sarcastically many times after giving me the UI project.Next week, Varun was here. My virtual desktop was not working and I had no idea why. Called help-desk 5 times that day.“REBOOT!”“TRY IT FROM A DIFFERENT MACHINE!”“IT SHOWS ‘AVAILABLE’ ON MY MACHINE!”was all the response I got from 5 different help-desk-assistants.Took a day off the next day. Saw a mail. Varun had given presentation to our MD that day. UI presentation, which was supposed to be given by me.Next week, same schedule. Help-desk people failed miserably.I tried remote desktop and was able to open my outlook. My inbox was full of -“DISK CAPACITY OVER 95%! CLEAN IT!”I got it. But in order to clean it, I had to login to the virtual computer which I wasn’t able to. It was a deadlock.Soon I was assigned a new virtual computer. My whole local setup - was erased.My whole enthusiasm had turned to ashes at that point. Came late, went early. Stopped attending stand-ups. Late Loggings. WFHs. OOO. No updates. No weekly updates. Nothing to do next since Raghav didn’t help. Frustrated as hell.Our department was hiring more and more people. I had nowhere to sit. No one to talk to.The only friend I had in bengaluru left 2 weeks ago.Please note that I’ve nothing against GS. The management there is really good, they care about their employees. I don’t think any company could’ve given me 2 months WFH and I do respect Rudra a lot for that!The experience may vary from person to person, someone may find GS a very good place, based on the traits he/she has or the team he is working with. But for a shy person like me, who loves to code sitting at the corner of the room - GS is not the place. It was me who was not able to adapt to the culture there.This answer was written by me when I was still an intern. I had no idea what this could do to my life.Next day after I wrote this, I was called by the Head HR of Employee Relations in GS - Devika. I thought she had called me in order to discuss why am I choosing signNow over Goldman but this wasn’t the case.“I read your answer on Quora about Goldman..”“I’ll remove it!” I replied with the speed of light.“No..I don’t want you to take it down, Just tell me the issues you had”And she pretended to listen. Both of us knew why she called me here - to take the answer down.“See, these days many people are on social media and it is affecting how people see us. Probably, some interns wouldn’t want to work with us after reading the answer. Therefore I want you to remove it”“Also, please remember this meeting is confidential. DO NOT tell anyone from your team about it!” she said just before I left.And that was it. I deleted this answer.I saw Rudra’s text on my whatsapp. He asked whether I have a desk to sit, and when will I signNow on my desk. I knew something was fishy since he never ever bothered about.I finished the work and went home.The next day, I woke up to 10 calls from the HR and lots of messages. I asked what happened.I told her I have already deleted the answer, but there was something else. I wasn’t able to login from home. My remote desktop was taken away from me and I had no idea why.And then, came Monday.13th May 2019The day started off with my phone full of Devika’s texts. She insisted that I directly come to the meeting room first instead of going to the GIR cabin.I went to her cabin where she was sitting. And soon the harassment started.“What was your motive behind putting such kind of answers on quora, tell me what was in your mind”“I am sorry, Devika. I’ve already taken them down.”“Didn’t you knew about the firm’s policy? You knew it very well right? Still you put the experience on Quora?”“I was frustrated. So much that it didn’t occur to me at that time. But yes, I knew it.”She wrote it down on a paper.“You put it on social media, and don’t expect your manager to read it? Wake up! Everyone in your dept knows what you did okay! You are always saying that ‘don’t inform my manager about it’.. you know what, infact Rudra only informed us about this. He was the one who forwarded the answer.”I sighed. He knew about it the whole time. Still acted as friendly on thursday.“You can take action against me if you want to. I can’t say anything else.”“We are a very big firm. Many people are there writing these kind of negative - one sided answers. We don’t care”If she didn’t care, why was I sitting here?“I have talked to both Rudra and Varun. Now I know about their perspectives too. Did you inform your manager that you were on leave? No, you didn’t.”“Yes, I was really depressed and woke up at 5 eve..”“You were completely one-sided in your answer. Such a judgemental answer it was! You never wrote what you did!” she exclaimed.“Devika, I did. I wrote I was depressed and was late for standups. I wrote that I took WFH and..”“That was completely in another way!” she interrupted.And then she gave me a tough look.“I have tracked down your whole information, when do you come and leave, wfh etc. I don’t think it’s too much. You were also 1 hour late on the GS event, I heard”I wasn’t. What was she saying?“No, I was a minute late. You can ask my friend who was sitting there.”“Also, you were absent on 4 presentations Varun gave, right?”I was shocked. What did she just say? I was present in 3 of them, I remembered. Now I felt something was really wrong. Varun probably gave her false information about me.“No, I was there for 3 of them” I replied in a low voice.“And you weren’t allowed to give?” She raised her eyebrows.“I didn’t ask him, neither did he offer.. he just took the chair and..Did Varun said I was absent? I wasn’t!” I defended myself.“Oh yes you weren’t, I know. When did I say you were absent? You are just misunderstanding me” she replied and wrote down some points.And now she started lying too about things she said earlier! I was shocked to the core.“They said bad things about me, didn’t they.” I asked.“No, infact they praised you for technical aspects. ‘She did all her tasks which we assigned.’ ‘Used to find solutions of the problem till the very end.’” she read it from the paper she had.But what about the other aspects? I was sure they had said something worse about me. I wondered what was that except me coming late.“GS-UI-LIBRARY!!” she exclaimed.“This is what you wrote about the library. Seriously!”I looked down. I couldn’t say anything except sorry.“Rudra even let you choose jersey for cricket match, didn’t he?”“Yes he did.” I sighed.“What you think what made your experience bad? Was it yourself? Why put it on social media, and didn’t contact us. What about the HCM?”I was late and silent. The only faults.“Does anybody in your team knows about it?” she asked hoping that nobody knows.“No, just me and the interns.” I replied.“And what did you write? Niharika left because of politics..? Did you talk to her? Who told you?” she almost shouted.“I got to know that from a teammate.” I replied in low tone.“So you will put anything you hear on social media??” she tried to overpower me.“If I were your signNow HR and I read this answer on Quora.. you know I’d have..” Devika scolded in a rude tone.She would have taken my offer back. That’s what she meant.“I have already deleted it , Devika. I said sorry, what else can I do? ” I almost cried.“These things never happened with me at signNow. But people here..”I broke down. Couldn’t speak much.“What even if you deleted? 1000s of people saw it. All the people on your floor saw it. They may have copied it, downloaded it. It had so confidential information!”“And yeah, put this conversation there too!!” She said in a very rude tone.“I won’t. You know I won’t.” I whispered.“Anyways Shilpi, now it’d be too awkward for you to go there. We have already stopped your remote access. We don’t want you to work anymore. Since you’ve already rejected the offer too, no discussion related to it. You can submit the id card to me.”“Okay.”I cried a lot in the cab. Rudra knew it all the time. Why didn’t he himself fire me instead of sending a rude HR. And those two also lied a lot about me. The tone of HR was totally different when I met her on Thursday. And today she was really harassing me.It took me a while to understand - all this was planned by Rudra. He choose the rudest and senior-most HR to deal with my case and harass me, just to get back at me.2 interns were joining today and space was very less in the small GIR cabin. And he knew very well I completed all my work the last week itself. Win-Win situation for Rudra!Varun and Rudra lied to HR. It was evident from the way she treated me. I was made to be feel like a garbage - just because I was late at the office!I cried for an hour. And then, I edited and restored this answer.Next day I came to know none of the interns or people in my team knew about this! I was fired secretly. The HR lied the whole time.All because Rudra didn’t want to see my face in GIR!Do I fear them? Not at all.“I will survive, Tracy thought. I face mine enemies naked, and my courage is my shield.” ― Sidney Sheldon (if tomorrow comes)Many people want me to take this answer down or go anonymous. I have done nothing wrong. Those who have, they should hide their faces behind “anonymous” mask.If GS has some problem with the answer, they are free to take action against me. I am not bonded by any legal agreement and atleast deserved decent exit process.

Fail:DropboxDropbox is great. I use it and love it. However, they got hit by every founders nightmare. The bigger guy coming in and crushing them. Even with their $10 billion valuation, they can't compete with Google. Google is just better at everything they do than them. I love Dropbox, but unfortunately I don't see a path forward for them without pivoting.  Succeed:UberUber has almost managed to achieve a too big to fail status. They're huge. Large enterprise clients love them, their smaller customers love them and their investors love them. Plus, Travis Kalanick doesn't take no for an answer. The IPO market has been bad for the past 18-24 months, so I don't see any reason for them to rush there. They have more than enough private funding, and should they need more, they will have no problem raising it.Can go either way:SnapchatSnapchat is a great product, if you're under 20. If you're over 20, and not named Gary Vaynerchuk, you're probably still trying to figure out how to best utilize snapchat. Evan Spiegel has built an excellent platform. But the question is, how much are advertisers willing to pay for space on a  platform where everything disappears. It's a unique idea that the younger generation has embraced, however, they have yet to prove their revenue model. And at the end of the day, that's the most important thing. Another thing about Snapchat is that they're beyond the point of acquisition. Facebook made them an offer about two years ago, but with their new $10-20 billion valuation, the likelihood of an acquisition is far lower. If I had to place a bet, I'd definitely say they'll succeed, but the road ahead won't be easy. Plus their logo rocks!Honorable Mention:Palantir I can go into details about their technology and why they are doing something different and better than any other data analysis company we've seen, but I'd rather sum it up with one word -- Peter Thiel (businessman).

I’m vaguely familiar with two systems, PGP and S/MIME (SSL/TLS).In both, if you get a copy of the signer’s public key or certificate direct from them, or from some person you trust, then you’re OK unless they’ve been careless with their private key and password.PGP uses a distributed trust model. If you trust persons A and B, and A trusts C and B trusts D, and both C and D trust E,then you have inferred trust in E. E’s public key is signed by C and D, theirs are signed by A and B respectively, you got A’s and B’s key from them in person (or via trusted email, or they confirmed the fingerprint in person or over the phone). PGP allows trust weighting, so that 10 people moderately trusting someone is the same as 2 people really trusting them or 1 trusting them absolutely (you signed your own key, or your brother signed yours when you were both sober).SSL uses a hierarchical trust model; trust comes from an authority. On the Web, the browser developers trust a number of different certificate authorities and embed their public keys in the browser. So Mozilla trusts VersignNow, VersignNow trusts X because X paid them some money and that checked out, and X issues a certificate for Y. So your browser trusts Y. At least, it’s fairly sure that Y owns Y.com because Y was able to edit the website and read email. Not really a whole lot of trust, but good enough for browsing the web. When you buy from Amazon, you don’t care who owns the company.No-one has stepped up and declared they are a trusted authority to identify people. Logically, government bodies such as DMVs or passport authorities could do it. Maybe some have, but it’s been slow. Meanwhile, the HR department at X corp can run a certificate authority for X that identifies employees. So A can trust a signed document from B, if they both work for X, even if they don’t know each other, if their certificates were both issued by X.As for the nuts and bolts of how document signing works, I forget the exact details, but basically you create a hash from the document and then combine the hash with your private key to create a signature block. That’s then attached to the document file. A recipient can compute a hash themselves, then combine the hash with your public key and compare it. If the has is different, the document has been tampered with. If they don’t know your public key from Adam, they can’t trust you, but if they already have a copy, or it was issued by a certificate authority they trust, then it’s good.Acroread/Acrobat uses S/MIME, as do email systems like Thunderbird. In both, you can install a trusted authority certificate, so you can verify the signature of an unknown person using the hierarchical model.A couple of the commercial systems I’ve used online (signNow, I think) seem a bit dodgy in comparison. I could create a self-signed certificate and use that; there was no check on my identity. In one, I could upload an image of my ink signature and tag documents with that. In another, all I could use was a text string in some random font pretending to be my “signature”. That was for real estate transactions. The only trust I really had was that I’d been given a long random URL by someone who I knew in person and had communicated with by email. There were security holes all through that - if either of our accounts had been hacked, an adversary could have forged email and given a different URL.