Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory

mercurynews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 268 posts

Re: Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory

#191

Post by sdiupIGPWEfh »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #17
camus2 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> dead weight Calling real people "dead weight" is insulting and dehumanizing.

Any term for being awful at your job (either in skill or motivation) is going to be insulting. What would you suggest to avoid being dehumanizing?

You can always stack rank your employees and select some people at the bottom, regardless of how amazingly awesome your entire talent pool may be. Those at the bottom are not made awful at their job due to your having ranked them there. No need to label and insult them on their way out when you have to tighten your company's belt.

Re: Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory

#192

Post by watwut »

mcny wrote: post #179
jaimex2 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in Australia and something like this seems very weird, you sometimes take for granted fair work laws till you see what happens in countries without them.

When I read about pip, I keep going back to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11299310 I think even if we had regulations and requirements like that in the US, it would quickly devolve into a charade. Basically, a six month pip would be the same as a six month notice with the option to fire you any time anyway.

Having six months to prepare for being fire sounds better then "bye tomorrow".

Re: Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory

#193

Post by ak39 »

crdoconnor wrote: post #137
spatulon wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably one bit of Tesla culture they can't bring to Germany is firing low performers. I worked for a German company for over a decade. I don't know if it was due to their culture or their laws, but I never saw anyone get fired for poor performance (except for failing the initial 6-month probation after joining). And it's not like we didn't have low performers — once I got into management it became quite clear tha…

I've worked for companies where it was easy to fire people. There was no shortage of borderline useless people and getting fired was usually more about getting on management's nerves rather than performance. People living in fear of their jobs created the most toxic environments.

“People living in fear of their jobs created the most toxic environments.”

That itself can affect your performance and motivation. Tough out there.

Re: Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory

#194

Post by stephengillie »

AsyncAwait wrote: post #142
jwdunne wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think firing without giving warnings and opportunity to improve is sick. These people don't even know they were doing badly. I can't tell if they've been told where they screwed up. These people could be spending a lot of time figuring out what went wrong when everything seemed to be going fine. They don't deserve that, regardless of performance. They are people, they have lives and it wasn't anything like gross mi…

Musk seems to think that somebody like Chris Lattner is not good enough for Tesla, so his definition of a 'low performer' definitely seems a bit off. I just hope that the applies the same evaluative metrics to himself.

In a 'Groucho Marx'-ian turn, what would Elon do if he judged himself wanting? Would he have to find a successor, or would he just walk?

Re: Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory

#195

Post by noitsnot »

analog31 wrote: post #172
metaphor wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I know someone who just got fired in this round at Tesla. ... They offered only 2 weeks of severance. Fired or layed off? I've never experienced either, but I always thought severance pay was exclusive to the latter.

If you're fired for doing something bad, then you become ineligible for unemployment compensation (which is something you earned) and some other benefits. This creates a perverse incentive to claim a cause for termination. On the other hand, it also creates an incentive for the fired employee to sue, especially if they think that the employer didn't have an utterly bulletproof paper trail and discipline procedures. F…

It varies by state, but you can collect unemployment a lot of the time if you have been fired.

Re: Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory

#196

Post by dmode »

nextlevelwizard wrote: post #171
dmode wrote: post #49

I know someone who just got fired in this round at Tesla. His manager never communicated to him that he was a bad performer. He was not on a PIP or any performance plans. He was also working on Model 3. One fine morning his manager called him and said this would be his last day. He is a single income earner and was so shocked by this news that he is getting borderline depressed. They offered only 2 weeks of severance…

>They offered only 2 weeks of severance. It sucks for him, but I hope he learns in future not to sign bad contracts. A day's notice and 2 weeks severance is super bad and I would not have signed it unless the pay was extremely good, as in so good I wouldn't have to worry about getting another job straight away. EDIT: based on the downvotes many people here could use this advice: DO NOT SIGN BAD CONTRACTS!

The downvotes are probably due to the fact that there are no contracts in the states. It is at will employment

Re: Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory

#197

Post by watwut »

sjwright wrote: post #74
Steeeve wrote: post #37

I'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…

How is an "annual purge" of low performing employees any different ethically to a day-to-day purge of low performing employees? The only difference is HR strategy. Perhaps they want to signal to the labor market that they're not shy about ridding themselves of second-rate colleagues? I don't like working with second-rate colleagues; it certainly makes me want to work for Tesla.

It is difference between solving problem of low performance employee and searching for employee to be fired as you believe someone has to go.

Re: Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory

#198

Post by tyingq »

nextlevelwizard wrote: post #171
dmode wrote: post #49

I know someone who just got fired in this round at Tesla. His manager never communicated to him that he was a bad performer. He was not on a PIP or any performance plans. He was also working on Model 3. One fine morning his manager called him and said this would be his last day. He is a single income earner and was so shocked by this news that he is getting borderline depressed. They offered only 2 weeks of severance…

>They offered only 2 weeks of severance. It sucks for him, but I hope he learns in future not to sign bad contracts. A day's notice and 2 weeks severance is super bad and I would not have signed it unless the pay was extremely good, as in so good I wouldn't have to worry about getting another job straight away. EDIT: based on the downvotes many people here could use this advice: DO NOT SIGN BAD CONTRACTS!

Not everyone is in a position to negotiate terms. Very few in the US would have that kind of leverage.

Re: Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory

#199

Post by WillReplyfFood »

jwdunne wrote: post #64
dmode wrote: post #49

I know someone who just got fired in this round at Tesla. His manager never communicated to him that he was a bad performer. He was not on a PIP or any performance plans. He was also working on Model 3. One fine morning his manager called him and said this would be his last day. He is a single income earner and was so shocked by this news that he is getting borderline depressed. They offered only 2 weeks of severance…

I think firing without giving warnings and opportunity to improve is sick. These people don't even know they were doing badly. I can't tell if they've been told where they screwed up. These people could be spending a lot of time figuring out what went wrong when everything seemed to be going fine. They don't deserve that, regardless of performance. They are people, they have lives and it wasn't anything like gross mi…

The intention is not to improve performance by removing useless people- the intention is to improve performance and dissent-less quotas on those who stay.

Re: Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory

#200

Post by tyingq »

stock_toaster wrote: post #75
dmode wrote: post #49

I know someone who just got fired in this round at Tesla. His manager never communicated to him that he was a bad performer. He was not on a PIP or any performance plans. He was also working on Model 3. One fine morning his manager called him and said this would be his last day. He is a single income earner and was so shocked by this news that he is getting borderline depressed. They offered only 2 weeks of severance…

I worked at a bigco during a RIF (reduction in force), and underperforming /teams/ or even /sections/ had their management told, “your team underperformed — fire X number of lowest performers”. Then the manager was effectively forced to just pick people to let go. Shitty, but par for the course for many bigco places (outside tech), from what I have heard over the years.

It's often not underperformers. Just "pick x% of your team"
Post reply on HN