Quote:Original post by CoffeeMug
That's an entirely different story. Originally you said that people flame you for offerring help ("help" being asking them to work for free). Frankly when people ask me to do work and make it look like they're helping me, I tend not to react in a nice way. At the very least they have to convince me that there will be some benefit to me (for instance that I'll work with really intelligent people that will teach me new things).
You should take this point to heart. While your case may be different, normally when an "employer" is trying to get an individual to work for less (or no) money under the argument that "I'm the one helping you", it's because they are a dirty con artist, or they are shady employer looking to exploit wet behind the ears workers (usually recent graduates, students, and immigrants) by playing the imaginary benefits game. The individuals you are looking to work for you are all relatively smart, and so it becomes likely that they will be insulted if they feel you are trying to pull such a scam - not just because they think you are trying to defraud them, but because they think you are showing them an extreme amount of disrespect by acting as if they are morons who don't know how the world works.
Frankly getting a few angry comments may be the worst of your worries. As mentioned, normally the only kind of deffered payment work is for work that is presented in a completed form by an individual. In those cases it is pretty cut and dry whether the company accepts the work and pays the worker, or doesn't accept the work (in which case they can derive no benefit from it) and not pay the worker. In your case you are getting people to work in a matter that you will receive the benefit of their labor regardless of whether they get payed or not. As you yourself have explained, you are "hiring" individuals whom you believe are highly questionable as to their abilities (otherwise you would be paying them properly). This means there is a high chance that you might decide their work is substandard or their ability to operate properly in your business unacceptable, and fire them (or being young, they might quit). And at that point, you have some very serious legal problems, as it would be very easy to come back and sue you (there are suffient grounds for the case to be heard in court regardless of how obvious the outcome, which means you will be paying lawyer fees). With more then one firing (as becomes more likely with you intentionally hiring employees you consider substandard from the beginning) you create a situation where just about any judge is going to conclude that your hire, work without pay, fire without pay, are part of a defined company policy - the resulting decision would likely decimate your company (and yourself if you have linked your finances).
Frankly, you really need to talk to a competent lawyer about this before you really screw yourself over.
