Hundreds of Twitter Employees Leaving After Elon Musk's 'Extremely Hardcore' Work Demands

[wonderings]

I do not follow this or any mainstream story closely, I do find it funny how outraged people are and I am really not sure why they are. Elon bought a company that was barely profitable. The interest payments alone will be more then Twitter has ever made. He has an idea for the company and I am sure he is not simply interested in dropping $44 billion just because he wants it gone. He wants to turn this company around, and make it something that will have him Scrooge McDuck diving into an even bigger pool of cash. So if you want to turn a company around that has not been making a profit you don't just step in and keep everything as is. You make hard choices and do big things to turn a very big ship around to get it heading in a new direction. I think if I were in his shoes I would be paranoid as well regarding staff as some people view their political beliefs as something above right and wrong and could see themselves justified in doing all sorts of things that rip apart Twitter from the inside. I am no Twitter user, or any social media, but welcome someone to come in and stir things up. It really can't get any worse than what I hear was going on in Twitter already.

 

[compwiz1202]

What an ignorant comment. Just because people don’t want to work 70-80 hour week (for the pay of 40) doesn’t mean they don’t want to work or are dead weight.

Yea there's a difference than saying you can't work from home and that you need to work double shifts indefinitely and maybe not even get paid extra

 

[compwiz1202]

Kill Twitter. Please. Then Kill FB. (Meta) The world would be better off.

At least FB has my church school and work friends, and I don't get spam notifications. There are some ads, but I mostly scroll past. The instant I put Twitter on my phone, obvious spam notifications, so I promptly uninstalled

 

[genovelle]

Well the former employees could go and build their own Twitter and call it Flitter and use a butterfly logo.🦋
Others were told something similar and have built very good alternatives not relying on the old infrastructure.

I was thinking the same thing. There’s half the team and counting including engineers, moderation, support finance and executive leadership that could build a replacement and run Musk out of social media.

 

[compwiz1202]

Are you a salaried person who is working 70-75 hours a week and still getting paid the same as you were when you were working 40 hours a week? Thats what Elon is asking here. At this point about 75% of the people are gone, so everyone has a lot more work to do. They can't work tomorrow or this weekend, because they have locked everyone out until Monday, he's decided instead of 8-5 M-F, the hours are 7-7 M-Sunday, ie 12 hour days, 7 days a week. Why do I know he isn't just weeding out the lazy people, because he does this same thing (80+ hour weeks for salaried employees) at SpaceX and has been doing it for probably 10 years now. Its constantly voted one of the worst Work-Life balance companies. Tesla has so many complaints about its work practices that it would require a different thread.
-Tig

Yea I think some states try to fight this. I mean salaried used to mean you worked more sometimes but could also work less when it was slower and get paid the same without having to use time. The one woman I used to work with and I used to gobble the OT when we u

 

[ApplesAreSweet&Sour]

Some people seem to be able to manipulate the minds of people around them at scale which allows them to fail upward. It’s a crazy quality, but on full display. For instance. Tesla’s are immensely boring and unattractive by car standards, the Truck he showed is horrific far beyond the scale of an Aztec which I never thought could be possible. I’ve seen designs by 9 year olds that were better. But he has people clamoring for that thing and laughs all the way to be bank. Small businesses barely pay themselves to keep from going under and this guy was crowned a Billionaire while his companies were loosing billions in venture capital investments.

But that’s all the little technicalities that don’t make for a good black and white story or an easily digestible punchline.

We live in a World of big headlines and more effort being spent on gorgeous 3D rendered product presentations than the actual product in question.

Elon is not wearing any pants, never has been. But he’s wearing five pairs and a space suit to those that are still madly in love with his faux futurism b.s.

“But he said it’ll be ready in about two years!”, I can hear the muskrats screaming.

Yeah, “two years”. It was also “two years” two years ago, four years ago, and will be “two years” when you ask him at any point in the future.

 

[aloysiusfreeman]

You can cope and just leave Twitter if you don’t like it that much.

Lots of people are mad that Twitter can’t source to some shady third party fact checking company, which was wrong often, and instead do something that makes sense, community notes.

I guess Elon, Michael Burry, Snowden, are all evil, scary, lying right wingers just like me.

Are you talking about the same community notes that has frequently fact checked Elon since he bought Twitter?

As to your last point, Elon is either an evil lying right winger or an evil moron right winger. Doesn't really matter which.

 

[7149041]

I've never read any history of Apple where he basically fired anyone who disagreed with him

Jobs was known for firing people left and right on a whim (however he supposedly never fired anyone the company actually needed). If you ended up in the elevator with him, he'd ask you "so what do you do" and if your answer was not satisfactory, you'd be unemployed by the time you reach your floor.

 

[compwiz1202]

Are you a salaried person who is working 70-75 hours a week and still getting paid the same as you were when you were working 40 hours a week? Thats what Elon is asking here. At this point about 75% of the people are gone, so everyone has a lot more work to do. They can't work tomorrow or this weekend, because they have locked everyone out until Monday, he's decided instead of 8-5 M-F, the hours are 7-7 M-Sunday, ie 12 hour days, 7 days a week. Why do I know he isn't just weeding out the lazy people, because he does this same thing (80+ hour weeks for salaried employees) at SpaceX and has been doing it for probably 10 years now. Its constantly voted one of the worst Work-Life balance companies. Tesla has so many complaints about its work practices that it would require a different thread.
-Tig

Yea I think some states try to fight this. I mean salaried used to mean you worked more sometimes but could also work less when it was slower and get paid the same without having to use time. The one woman I used to work with and I used to gobble the OT when we used to get it. But at least we had control of when other than our core shift. And sure as heck wouldn't do it for the same total compensation

 

[compwiz1202]

Jobs was known for firing people left and right on a whim. If you ended up in the elevator with him, he'd ask you "so what do you do" and if your answer was not satisfactory, you'd be unemployed by the time you reach your floor.

It's literally in his official biography.

I'd take the stairs even if I worked on floor 25

 

[ApplesAreSweet&Sour]

I was thinking the same thing. There’s half the team and counting including engineers, moderation, support finance and executive leadership that could build a replacement and run Musk out of social media.

I’d donate to get them going.

Elon’s perpetual brain farts shouldn’t take away Twitter from those that enjoy it.

 

[compwiz1202]

Lol instead of laying them off just scare them too the point of quitting. Risky move.

Yea it just crushes morale for the ones left, so either they flee or their productivity and creativity tank

 

[Green Valkyrie]

I do not follow this or any mainstream story closely, I do find it funny how outraged people are and I am really not sure why they are. Elon bought a company that was barely profitable. The interest payments alone will be more then Twitter has ever made. He has an idea for the company and I am sure he is not simply interested in dropping $44 billion just because he wants it gone. He wants to turn this company around, and make it something that will have him Scrooge McDuck diving into an even bigger pool of cash. So if you want to turn a company around that has not been making a profit you don't just step in and keep everything as is. You make hard choices and do big things to turn a very big ship around to get it heading in a new direction. I think if I were in his shoes I would be paranoid as well regarding staff as some people view their political beliefs as something above right and wrong and could see themselves justified in doing all sorts of things that rip apart Twitter from the inside. I am no Twitter user, or any social media, but welcome someone to come in and stir things up. It really can't get any worse than what I hear was going on in Twitter already.

I'm not outraged, I'm just entertained. Mind it's not my job on the line, to be fair to those unlucky enough to be in the megalomaniac's crosshairs.

 

[compwiz1202]

I'll believe it when robo taxis become a thing beyond a few highly constrained areas.

 

[macsplusmacs]

And remember,

Johnny Cab was in a movie about going to mars. (which Enron gaslighted about as well)


All fiction of course.

Losing $44 billion dollars on the other hand, looking more and more like non-fiction with every snide tweet from the business "genius".

And of course, Enron would shut off the oxygen, just like the in the movie, if his mars workers did not word "hardcore" enough.

 

[Attirex]

The world is better off without Twitter. I don't need my local weatherman to be witty and viral in a tweet about the fing temperature.

 

[compwiz1202]

The remaining employees can follow Elon's lead. Work 80-hour work weeks. Sleep on the floor. No shower. Eat ramen and cheetos. Only one bathroom break allowed per day. The rest of the day, OK to wear diapers.

I honestly might do that other than the bathroom thing as long as the extra time is OT pay to get ahead of these spiking prices

 

[macsplusmacs]

I was thinking the same thing. There’s half the team and counting including engineers, moderation, support finance and executive leadership that could build a replacement and run Musk out of social media.

This is the best part. The moment that happens, which I expect to be sooner rather than later, he will be left hold a $44 billion dollar bag with next to no resale value.

 

[Realityck]

Resignations Roil Twitter as Elon Musk Tries Persuading Some Workers to Stay (Published 2022)

Mr. Musk, Twitter’s new owner, had given employees a Thursday deadline to decide whether to leave or stay “to build a breakthrough Twitter 2.0.”

www.nytimes.com

Mr. Musk and Twitter, which no longer has a communications department, did not respond to requests for comment. But in a tweet late Thursday, Mr. Musk joked about how much he had paid for the social media firm.

On Blind, a social platform where anonymous users talk about their workplaces, a poll of nearly 250 people associated with Twitter showed that about 73 percent favored taking the severance package over staying. People who decided to stay still believed in Twitter’s mission of giving people a voice or had visas tied to their jobs or other personal reasons, two people said.

Given the cost of living in SF, and this article’s unofficial estimation of how many people are leaving because they can’t chance staying any longer you really do wonder about long term viability. Guess another 2 weeks will tell us if it might be possible to remain as a competitive business?

 

[cwosigns]

Why pay severance to get rid of dead weight when you can just chase them out of the door with the threat of hard labour.

 

[I7guy]

Resignations Roil Twitter as Elon Musk Tries Persuading Some Workers to Stay (Published 2022)

Mr. Musk, Twitter’s new owner, had given employees a Thursday deadline to decide whether to leave or stay “to build a breakthrough Twitter 2.0.”

www.nytimes.com

Given the cost of living in SF, and this article’s unofficial estimation of how many people are leaving because they can’t chance staying any longer you really do wonder about long term viability. Guess another 2 weeks will tell us if it might be possible to remain as a competitive business?

I wonder how many will be crawling back on their hands and knees because they couldn’t find a job?

 

[compwiz1202]

I guess I can understand why Musk wants employees back in the office 40 hours/week. It's really difficult (but doable) to manage employees from afar. Management has to be properly trained on how to supervise geographically separated employees to maintain productivity. That means a lot of extra work for the managers and they push back and advocate for a return to the pre-pandemic model.

I was recently reading an article claiming Fortune 500 companies were getting an average of seven hours of productive work out of an eight-hour work day, pre-pandemic. But during the height of the pandemic, the authors estimated that fell to slightly under five hours/day ... primarily because managers did a poor job of setting goals, laying out tasks with realistic deadlines, and holding employees accountable.

A good boss knows the employees. Some thrive WFH. I already know I could never do it. I would get distracted, and even though I avoid strangers like the plague, I like my coworkers, and couldn't work alone at home. We had great bosses here at one time. They knew who needed a kick in the butt once in a while, and who they could leave alone.

 

[npmacuser5]

If the wording of the actual signed document uses relative terms, sign it. Working ‘long’ ‘high‘ cannot be qualified. Thus, if Twitter tried to fire anyone signing that paper, that employee would get a big payout. It’s a bluff that needs to be called by the employees. Elon is a master at betting and winning. Then after signing, do as one always has and keep all employment options open. Dare Elon to fire you. Could be the best payday most employees would ever have.

 

[compwiz1202]

My hours spike up every so often on major releases, weeks when I’m trying to clear my desk before I go on vacation, or the rare times when there’s a major emergency that needs attention but those are fine, expected, were clear expectations when I took the job, and also I get paid extra for the time. If my employer told me I was suddenly expected to work 80 hrs/week or more, every week, even *with* the extra pay I’d get I’d quit. My job, while I enjoy it, is what pays for the rest of my life, not the other way around.

Yea we used to get regular OT at one time, and it was great because we chose when to do it, and we got paid the OT rate. And it would last just long enough that you just started to get sick of it.

 

[compwiz1202]

When you go from working 40 to 80 hours with no salary increase, you just took a 50% pay cut... I have been an exempt salaried employee for over 20 years at many companies. I know now it works.

And you lose 40h a week of your life that you could be doing something else