Earlier quoted context omitted.
Better than being a broke duck.
If you save some of your paycheck no need to be broke
Good luck being able to actually save some of your paycheck. I, for example, cannot because the rents here are shockingly high.
Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory
121–130 of 268 posts
Re: Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory
#122I used to be of the opinion that a company should have full right to drop dead weight as and when it chooses fit. The thing we forget is we, citizens, pay extortionate taxes to run a government which provides favourable incentives for companies to form and provide employment. They should, in return, be obliged to demonstrate some level of mutual benefit to employees, rather than purely incentivising shareholders' and…
So companies should follow the law? I think you're really arguing for better employee protection in the USA ?
Re: Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
I get that. If there's a layoff or a re-org going on, getting it all done at once is better. The idea of losing poor performers on an annual basis is the one I cannot get behind. I am perfectly fine with the idea that someone who isn't doing there job loses it. Where I have a problem is that once a year managers are told to dump their lowest performing people. The reality is that people will game the system. They wil…
The alternative is everyone waits for an excuse, the next recession, and then you get a massive 10% layoff.
The alternative to arbitrarily requiring a proportion of staff are fired on a certain day and thus institutionalising the necessity of having disposable staff members to protect your core team is setting real performance standards, offering real criteria for improvement and firing people that can't or won't improve to meet standards regardless of what time of year it is.
Companies that impose forced stack rankings and firing quotas don't exactly have a great track record of avoiding large redundancies in recessions, and indeed due to company-wide underperformance...
Re: Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory
#124I'm not a fan of this style of management at all. I won't knowingly go to work for a company that behaves in this manner. I've read that Netflix does it, and I've seen inferences that they acquired the practice from Disney. If you have a low performing employee that you want to get rid of, fine. Arbitrarily destroying the lives of a percentage of your workforce in an annual purge is not OK. People always seem to put…
And it is exactly this style of management that is causing problems at the German automation plant he aquired (see my comment in the duplicate thread). It is probably a reason why production of the Model 3 is behind -- the company he acquired builds the factory robots needed for advanced automation. Smart move to acquire it then and it explains why the timing is now off. You can't run a German plant like an American…
It's true that if you have 30 days of vacation that that comes from your contract, but that's a pretty standard perk with large-ish companies. The legal minimum is 24 days though [1], so that's as low as it can go. Usually after a couple years of working for a German company, you have a permanent contract, which can only be changed or revoked under cases that are also regulated by law (e.g. layoffs because of cash shortage or continued, documented underperformance).
Re: Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do they set a "quota" for 2%? Or is it that they do it every year, and 2% is about the number that falls out? I do agree that a "firing quota" is backwards; it should be a standard of performance. But even in a healthy, high-performing company, 1 (or maybe 2) out of 100 people being a drag/net-negative contributor doesn't sound far too off. Ultimately I think it helps the other 98 people to ask those two to leave as…
The problem is that a true company-wide firing of bottom 2% of performers is impossible - you would have to somehow compare and rank people with vastly different roles to pull it off. So the way to do it is to first choose unlucky departments and set a quota for each department, then choose unlucky managers and let those managers choose unlucky employees. Which makes it a lot more similar to a layoff than the company…
I was actually in a similar spot once... I choose to fire myself...
The company is out of business now, mainly due to poor and unethical management
Re: Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory
#126I'm not a fan of this style of management at all. I won't knowingly go to work for a company that behaves in this manner. I've read that Netflix does it, and I've seen inferences that they acquired the practice from Disney. If you have a low performing employee that you want to get rid of, fine. Arbitrarily destroying the lives of a percentage of your workforce in an annual purge is not OK. People always seem to put…
I'm not a fan of this style of management either, but at this moment in time we need a standard bearer for electric cars, and Tesla is best placed to fill that role at the moment.
After the (hopefully successful) release of the Model 3, assuming this drives other companies to push forward electic cars, we won't need Tesla to be successful anymore, so I'd expect more people to be critical after that.
Re: Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory
#127I'm not a fan of this style of management at all. I won't knowingly go to work for a company that behaves in this manner. I've read that Netflix does it, and I've seen inferences that they acquired the practice from Disney. If you have a low performing employee that you want to get rid of, fine. Arbitrarily destroying the lives of a percentage of your workforce in an annual purge is not OK. People always seem to put…
I'm not a fan of this style of management either, but at this moment in time we need a standard bearer for electric cars, and Tesla is best placed to fill that role at the moment. After the (hopefully successful) release of the Model 3, assuming this drives other companies to push forward electic cars, we won't need Tesla to be successful anymore, so I'd expect more people to be critical after that.
How does the Bolt fit into that framework?
Re: Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory
#128I'm not a fan of this style of management at all. I won't knowingly go to work for a company that behaves in this manner. I've read that Netflix does it, and I've seen inferences that they acquired the practice from Disney. If you have a low performing employee that you want to get rid of, fine. Arbitrarily destroying the lives of a percentage of your workforce in an annual purge is not OK. People always seem to put…
> People always seem to put Musk on a pedestal. Personally, I've always been (and always will be) leery of a company run by a PayPal founder.
Bingo! I never quite got the Musk hype train, between how he treats his employees, doesn't respect work life balance, has unrealistic expectations and talks about people not wanting to work for him as less talented, promotes the idea of American exceptionalism etc., I don't see the appeal.
As for his 'accomplishments', he seems to talk a lot and constantly over promise/under deliver. I guess his appeal is that his companies at least approach the exciting territory, which is quite a difference from another 'food delivery startup' of the Valley, but lets not make an average (if electric) car made by Tesla, with plenty of its own, documented QC problems something it is not, just because Musk is involved.
Re: Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do they set a "quota" for 2%? Or is it that they do it every year, and 2% is about the number that falls out? I do agree that a "firing quota" is backwards; it should be a standard of performance. But even in a healthy, high-performing company, 1 (or maybe 2) out of 100 people being a drag/net-negative contributor doesn't sound far too off. Ultimately I think it helps the other 98 people to ask those two to leave as…
The problem is that a true company-wide firing of bottom 2% of performers is impossible - you would have to somehow compare and rank people with vastly different roles to pull it off. So the way to do it is to first choose unlucky departments and set a quota for each department, then choose unlucky managers and let those managers choose unlucky employees. Which makes it a lot more similar to a layoff than the company…
I know something similar often happens in the public service. Public service managers quickly learn to always hire a few useless people who they don't really need, just in case they need to make cutbacks.
Re: Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory
#130I'm not a fan of this style of management at all. I won't knowingly go to work for a company that behaves in this manner. I've read that Netflix does it, and I've seen inferences that they acquired the practice from Disney. If you have a low performing employee that you want to get rid of, fine. Arbitrarily destroying the lives of a percentage of your workforce in an annual purge is not OK. People always seem to put…
> People always seem to put Musk on a pedestal. Personally, I've always been (and always will be) leery of a company run by a PayPal founder. Bingo! I never quite got the Musk hype train, between how he treats his employees, doesn't respect work life balance, has unrealistic expectations and talks about people not wanting to work for him as less talented, promotes the idea of American exceptionalism etc., I don't see…
He risked everything to make a rocket company from nothing, if ever there was a person that earned the hype, this is the person.