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

[Think creative]

If nothing else, maybe this will hurt the cult of Elon a little. Dudes a freaking moron who has his daddy’s blood money and got very lucky.

At least Tesla’s are officially over too, in terms of being cool. I’d be embarrassed to be driving one, especially when they look worse than the new bloody Prius. How embarrassing lol.

 

[macsplusmacs]

The Cluster mess-up continues:

The only salient code at twitter is code that auto blocks his tweets.

 

[compwiz1202]

Except they were hired with the expectation that they would work from home. This changes the terms of employment that they were hired under.

And technically cuts your disposable income too because you pay more for car expenses, and you might eat out more because you are commuting

 

[MysticCow]

Meanwhile, at Newsweek:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/tech...newsntp&cvid=921e59b0ac6442d3bd4d49db54d95c38

(just placing the link here with no comment. DO NOT ATTACK ME FOR POSTING THE LINK, AS IT IS ONLY POSTED HERE FOR INFORMATIONAL USE ONLY BY THE BOARD.)

 

[Realityck]

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

There are still a lot of jobs available in SF Bay Area aka Silicon Valley. The cost/time to commute to San Francisco would be a factor that changes opinion.

But this twitter example continues to ignite speculation about a possible recession to contend with various tech companies shredding some staff.

Anytime you have to contend with looking for work around the holidays is sad too IMHO.

 

[macsplusmacs]

New potential service.

Post News

Access journalism from premium publishers without subscriptions or ads. Discover, follow, and connect with diverse voices on topics you care about.

post.news

 

[^^BIGMac]

Other than the engineers anybody know what Twitter employees do besides drink lattes and draft wine in the fancy cafeteria?

 

[yellowbunny]

As a million people have already said. Twitter isn't an emerald mine…

 

[wonderings]

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.

what has he done that makes him a megalomaniac? Is it simply he does not share the same politic views? You don't like that he is actually make big broad changes to a company he paid $44 billion for that is not profitable? When Steve Jobs came back to Apple in '97 the fired 4,000 + people, axed projects in the work, all to turn it around and make it what it was under his leadership.

 

[enterthemerdaverse]

what has he done that makes him a megalomaniac?

What hasn’t he done that makes him a megalomaniac and a fraudster?

 

[xpxp2002]

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.

Exactly. It has long since changed to a one-sided arrangement where the employer gets an unlimited amount of your time whenever they want it in exchange for not having to pay anything extra. Having worked salary exempt in this field for nearly 20 years, I've never seen a scenario where the employer didn't benefit greatly from salary exempt at the employee's expense.

Sure, they toss you 2 or 3 weeks of PTO, but they make sure they get it back and then some with endless upgrades that they only allow you to do in the dead of night after working a full day, or on weekends. They put you on-call and require you to literally be at their beck and call for free, even after you've put in your 10 or 12 hours all day and through the night. If you add up all the extra hours of work you do in a given year as a salary exempt employee, I guarantee you'll find that it more than outpaces the limited PTO bone you're thrown every year.

Instead of simply fairly paying an employee for their time and paying overtime as needed to compensate for unexpected or occasional extra work, the employee gets paid the same amount no matter how much work gets thrust upon them. Meanwhile, I've never had the reverse happen where I can just decide to not work and be paid for it without dipping into my limited PTO.

Salary exempt is a completely imbalanced, one-sided arrangement. And because all employers have figured out that it's a completely legal loophole, you can't simply "get another job" to escape it. They're all rigged the same way.

 

[macsplusmacs]

Wonder how hardcore the remaining people (who wanted to stay there not have to stay there) will be when he misses payroll for the first time.

 

[Morgenland]

Other than the engineers anybody know what Twitter employees do besides drink lattes and draft wine in the fancy cafeteria?

They convince MacRumors to be part of their game

 

[docbop]

Hundreds of Twitter employees today resigned from the company rather than opting in to be part of "Twitter 2.0" under Elon Musk, according to The Verge. Musk earlier this week told workers that Twitter will be "extremely hardcore" going forward, with employees expected to put in long hours at high intensity. "Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade," he said.

Musk on Wednesday sent out a Google form and asked employees to respond "Yes" by 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time on Thursday if they wanted to stay at the company. Hundreds decided not to, and have said their goodbyes in Slack and on Twitter. Departing employees will receive a severance package.

When he took over Twitter, Musk laid off approximately half of the 7,500 employees that were at the company at the time, and since then, he has continued firing employees who have been critical of him, including longtime engineers.

Twitter employees that spoke to The Verge said that given the number of people that have left, Twitter could "start breaking soon" and that it will be "extremely hard for Twitter to recover."

With the exodus of employees, Twitter temporarily closed all office buildings and suspended badge access. According to Zoë Schiffer, Musk and his team are "terrified employees are going to sabotage the company."

In the final hours ahead of the deadline, Musk reportedly attempted to convince employees to stay. Bloomberg says that key staff were brought into meetings and Musk also walked back his in-office work demands. He had said that all employees needed to work from the office 40 hours a week, but today he said that working from home was allowed with monthly in-person meetings and managerial approval.

At the current time, Musk's first initiative is on pause as Twitter makes changes. Last week, Twitter introduced a more expensive $8 version of Twitter Blue that included a verification badge, and it turned out that debuting widespread verification led to account impersonation that impacted numerous companies.

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

Reading about it today in a newspaper that talked to some Twitter employees they said from what they are hearing Twitter when it reopens the offices next week will be down to under 2000 employees. One employee said I already work 60+ hours a week so long hours don't bother me, but the constant email threats and harassment no way I'm out.

As I said before I believe all this by Elon is intentionally trying to kill Twitter so he can declare bankruptcy and con his way out of debt and screwing small businesses Twitter owes money too.

 

[wonderings]

What hasn’t he done that makes him a megalomaniac and a fraudster?

Not my place to prove he is, I asked for it to be shown what he does to be labeled that. He very well could be, I just don't see it with the little I see.

 

[Think creative]

what has he done that makes him a megalomaniac? Is it simply he does not share the same politic views? You don't like that he is actually make big broad changes to a company he paid $44 billion for that is not profitable? When Steve Jobs came back to Apple in '97 the fired 4,000 + people, axed projects in the work, all to turn it around and make it what it was under his leadership.

Defending him is just weird, but there’s a long list of stuff that makes him that. That aside, there’s no such thing as an ethical billionaire.

 

[Fyrus]

what has he done that makes him a megalomaniac? Is it simply he does not share the same politic views? You don't like that he is actually make big broad changes to a company he paid $44 billion for that is not profitable? When Steve Jobs came back to Apple in '97 the fired 4,000 + people, axed projects in the work, all to turn it around and make it what it was under his leadership.

You forget that a social media company is something completely different though. When people leave a social media platform or simply go to another… they are not coming back.

The worth of these platforms is mostly determined by who else is on the platform. You simply can’t completely change a platform like this in a short amount of time, as most people dislike to many changes happening all at once.
That’s when people will leave, and when people leave more will follow.

So comparing current Twitter to Almost-dead-Apple just doesn’t work.

 

[zorinlynx]

(because they thought all he’d do is nuke the content moderation teams) are like WTF.

One thing that blew my mind about all this is that people were complaining about that. You have to be quite an ******* to be moderated on Twitter. I've gotten pretty worked up about stuff and they've never touched me.

 

[montuori]

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

I think it's worse than that. An 80 hour work week will leave you pretty much unable to do much else that involves mental activity. As they start to pile up, it only gets worse (like when you start programming in your dreams). So you're talking about a hit to your mental health, possibly your physical health, and your general quality of life in addition to depriving yourself of those 40 hours.

The kicker is that it's pointless. 35 hours of programming is a pretty solid week. The brain needs time to rest and a surprising amount of a-ha moments happen away from the keyboard doing something else. This isn't assembly line work where more hours somehow magically translates into more widgets.

There's always an occasional long week but that's a sign that things are broken somewhere. The question should always be "How do we prevent this next time?" not a signal to executives that the staff is lazy for knocking off work at a reasonable hour.

 

[macsplusmacs]

I think it's worse than that. An 80 hour work week will leave you pretty much unable to do much else that involves mental activity. As they start to pile up, it only gets worse (like when you start programming in your dreams). So you're talking about a hit to your mental health, possibly your physical health, and your general quality of life in addition to depriving yourself of those 40 hours.

The kicker is that it's pointless. 35 hours of programming is a pretty solid week. The brain needs time to rest and a surprising amount of a-ha moments happen away from the keyboard doing something else. This isn't assembly line work where more hours somehow magically translates into more widgets.

There's always an occasional long week but that's a sign that things are broken somewhere. The question should always be "How do we prevent this next time?" not a signal to executives that the staff is lazy for knocking off work at a reasonable hour.

Well said.

Enron is the sort of manager that would try and bully nine women into have a baby in one month.

 

[bruinsrme]

In behaviour economics, we learned that the number of employees doing most of the work in a team or company can be calculated by the square root of the total employees.

So...

Team of 4, then 2.

Team of 9, then 3.

Team of 16, then 4.

...

Team of 100, only 10.

...

Team of 10,000, only 100. <-- This is approximately the scale of Twitter before Elon.

I would keep firing and shed the deadweight.

The difficult part is to keep the best employees and let go the bad ones. One thing you can never do is to lower compensation. This will only drive away the best, who got options. The only alternative is firing and trimming all the time.

The company I work for, the actual department, uses 4-1.65= n which is then rounded up.
It gives then significant flexibility in maintaining headcount during slow times.
I would rather work harder than look for a new gig and trying to match the same benefits

 

[wonderings]

You forget that a social media company is something completely different though. When people leave a social media platform or simply go to another… they are not coming back.

The worth of these platforms is mostly determined by who else is on the platform. You simply can’t completely change a platform like this in a short amount of time, as most people dislike to many changes happening all at once.
That’s when people will leave, and when people leave more will follow.

So comparing current Twitter to Almost-dead-Apple just doesn’t work.

I think we are seeing you simply can completely change a platform, he owns it so he can direct it where he will. He could completely tank Twitter or he could come out with something better and send him higher in terms of network. When companies are bought, especially large companies, layoffs and the like are not uncommon. Maybe not to this magnitude, but that is his right as owner.

 

[macsplusmacs]

 

[bodonnell202]

So unreasonable. Expecting paid employees to show up and work. What a monster!

Expecting people to do the work they are paid for is reasonable, demanding people work long hours of unpaid overtime and have no work/life balance is not reasonable. I would never work for a company that doesn't respect the fact that people have lives outside work.

 

[wonderings]

Defending him is just weird, but there’s a long list of stuff that makes him that. That aside, there’s no such thing as an ethical billionaire.

I am defending a guy with a lot of money using his money how he wants and in turn gets to turn a company in a direction he wants. People seem upset he is not doing the same thing twitter did before, or not doing what they want him to do. Long list of stuff does not really answer the question and keeps it rather vague while making it seem factual without really giving any evidence.

I completely agree about no ethical billionaire or corporations. I look at them all the same, they do whatever they can within the law and outside it when they can skirt that line, to make money from me. Apple does it, Facebook does it, Google does it, they all do it and are in it for their profits while making it appear they really care about the consumer.