Job placement for a job not told about

General Discussion for SMART Scholarship Recipients
HiHopes90
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed May 13, 2020 8:46 am
Contact:

Job placement for a job not told about

Post by HiHopes90 »

Erased due to fear of retaliation from sf.
Last edited by HiHopes90 on Thu May 14, 2020 8:07 am, edited 1 time in total.

Sisyphus
Posts: 79
Joined: Tue Feb 13, 2018 12:40 pm
Contact:

Re: Job placement for a job not told about

Post by Sisyphus »

HiHopes90 wrote:
Wed May 13, 2020 7:30 pm
... do I have any legal authority to challenge my sf if they don't hold up on their promises.
What legal action can I pursue?
Honestly, nothing in all likelihood. Numerous defaulted participants have consulted lawyers and often they are met with a [more prettily phrased] "This is such an elastic, sweeping contract that it would never be allowed in the private sector...but it's the government so you're basically fucked they can do what they want and the contract is flexible enough to give them cover to do it."

As much as they might have pretended you were, you were NOT enrolling in this program with a specific job/role in mind. You enrolled in this program to get your degree funded by an SF, who is then able to assign you to do whatever the hell they want at whatever pay they want (barring higher level hiring regulations) for X many funded years because they own you.

There have been numerous instances of participants with a BS/MS/PhD in an engineering or other technical discipline pushing paperwork and doing contracting without so much as doing algebra or writing a line of real code for their job. None of those people who left had their disputes upheld upon leaving in disgruntlement that I'm aware.
HiHopes90 wrote:
Wed May 13, 2020 7:30 pm
Can I transfer facilities?
You can always try, but the RARE cases of transfers actually going through have both the original SF's blessing, a future SF wanting you actively and SMART not feeling like you were being uppity and getting a better deal for yourself/looking out for #1. They really hate uppity serfs...and you're sounding quite uppity thinking you should get the job they were advertising to you... (/s, but seriously they WILL see it that way - to consider yourself anything but blessed to be in SMART is considered a sin in their eyes because they're paying for you).

Also, it sounds like your SF wants you for that spot and are already angry you didn't jump for joy at the chance so fat chance of them signing off on you leaving (THEY are the ones that paid for you for reference, not "The SMART Program" - it's a front to administer delayed hiring by specific SFs. That's why they make such a big stink about not transferring SFs).
HiHopes90 wrote:
Wed May 13, 2020 7:30 pm
If not we need a class action lawsuit against this program.
This was floated and looked into a year and a half going on two years ago and I doubt anything has changed; almost everyone's circumstances with respect to what their dispute would be with the program have only the bare overlap of "SMART fucked me over." Nothing came of it. So far only one participant that I'm aware of has actually gone forward with a lawsuit, and gods only know how long that will take (it was put on hold while she did an initial "dispute" of her debt...probably hasn't even finished yet).

A few others have obtained lawyers to help in filing their debt disputes, but with almost no results yet to report back on whether or not that helps. The dismissed debts are (I believe) split in that regard; SMART seems to care more about cases that will make them look bad [and by bad I mean atrocious subhuman fuckwad level bad] if they see the light of day than anything else. I'm aware of only THREE participants out of well into the 3 digits of people that have entered the Debtor's Discord that have had their debts waived.

Fun fact, the attrition rate for this program at some point is just under 10% (high single digits) - even DESPITE the debt burden entailed that many people get sufficiently fucked by this program that they'd rather eat it and go to greener pastures.

Last aside, the timeline for dealing with the fallout from leaving SMART in the BEST case is literal years at this point (many of the stronger dispute cases from Spring 2018 are still pending...), with those that got it over with quickly universally having SMART "find" that yes indeed SMART was right to assign you that debt [if it sounds Kafkaesque...well it is].

# ---------

TLDR: This is fully in line with the way SMART operates. Due to the vagueness of the contract and their arbitrary authority, should you leave SMART will almost certainly come after you and uphold your debt as valid should you dispute it.

SMART is an indentured servitude program. Once you owe them enough to not leave, they'll do with your ass whatever they see fit.

Post Reply