A Yelp employee penned an open letter to CEO Jeremy Stoppelman on blog-publishing platform Medium on February 19, Friday. The customer service rep blasted the company for her low pay that made it difficult to cover the high housing costs around the San Francisco Bay Area. She reported two hours later that she had been fired, after discovering her work email stopped working.    

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Talia Jane's posts went viral on the Internet and on Twitter in San Fran where Yelp is based. This was because she had publically lambasted a company executive and her story went against the common belief that tech workers are overpaid, according to Re/code.

In her post Jane explained that she is a 25-year-old who has a lot of debt. She claimed that all of her coworkers are struggling financially and are doing side jobs or living at their parents' home to pay their bills.

Jane reported that her biweekly check is about $733 and that she spends over 80 percent of her salary on housing costs.  She wrote that after taxes her hourly wage was $8.15, and is not enough money to cover costs such as food and heating, according to Slashdot.   

On Saturday Stoppelman made Twitter posts to address the firing. This suggests that Yelp wanted to make the issue the high housing costs in the San Francisco are, instead of the company itself. He agreed that the cost of living in Bay Area is too high.

A Yelp spokesperson made similar comments. He/She noted that Yelp agrees with many of the points in Jane's past, and that it is an example of free of speech.

The Yelp rep explained that the company had announced in December it is expanding its Eat24 customer support team to its Phoenix office. The wages will the same there.

Jane tweeted that she was fired because she broke Yelp's terms of conduct. However, the Yelp CEO claimed that she was not let go because of the post.

Jane also explained that she was surprised by the responses to her post from the web and Yelp. She had only expected a reply from one person she knew. 

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