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Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory

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Re: Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory

#241

Post by Joky »

dilemma wrote: post #24
Joky wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no stack ranking involved (as far as I know, at least in SW). That's why when an engineer is evaluated as under-performing this is really about their own (manager-perceived) performance vs the expectation, and there is no question about whether they'd be in an exceptional team. Now instead of a formal PIP that we know won't get anywhere, HR isn't shy about letting go dead-weight. My impression is that the de…

Occasional underperformance is normal variance as is overperformance. If you can't handle these cases you don't belong in management, and if you fire everyone for underperforming once (your suggestion) you will soon have no workers, and you will cause everyone remaining to underperform.

I think you missed the essence of my comment which was "there is no stack ranking and being evaluated as underperforming is then not a result of stack ranking".

I'm not sure what you mean by `occasional underperformance`? I'm talking about a yearly performance evaluation, in my opinion an overall underperforming for a year is not "occasional", it shows something systemic. The truth is that sometimes we make bad hiring decision (in my group it has been 2-3%). We try to work with them for a few months, set goals, but ultimately you can't always recover everyone.

Re: Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory

#242

Post by Joky »

nopzor wrote: post #175
penguinUzer wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I interpreted the post as meaning when a company is given millions of dollars in tax breaks, i.e., build your new factory here and your income tax is abated for X years, then they should be on the hook for when they let go of employees. In theory I agree and the company should be on the hook to provide training or assistance.

So why weren't employee protection or training part of the tax break? Same point.

Why would everyone's taxes be used to protect a few workers? Especially (apparently) not the greatest... If the company is doing well it'll continue to hire and provide employment to others. As a society, I believe we could argue that we shouldn't subsidize companies that offshore the work, but otherwise if we want help for employees that are let go (training, assistance, ...) better make it a public service.

Re: Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory

#243

Post by dilemma »

Joky wrote: post #241
dilemma wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Occasional underperformance is normal variance as is overperformance. If you can't handle these cases you don't belong in management, and if you fire everyone for underperforming once (your suggestion) you will soon have no workers, and you will cause everyone remaining to underperform.

I think you missed the essence of my comment which was "there is no stack ranking and being evaluated as underperforming is then not a result of stack ranking". I'm not sure what you mean by `occasional underperformance`? I'm talking about a yearly performance evaluation, in my opinion an overall underperforming for a year is not "occasional", it shows something systemic. The truth is that sometimes we make bad hirin…

A single occurrence is never systemic.

Re: Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory

#244

Post by tdb7893 »

closeparen wrote: post #235
tdb7893 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the issue is that a "free" market is a theoretical construct and not a practical one. There is a lot of asymmetry in contract negotiation and without these sorts of laws you get what we have in America, which is many people wanting more vacation time but having difficulty getting it (even software engineers who are very in demand right now will complain of not having enough vacation sometimes). From talking t…

The 19% of youth in Europe who are unemployed don't have any of the cushy legally mandated benefits of employment there, and might be happy to forego a few to be employed at all.

It varies a lot by country. Maybe I might have a little of a skewed view because I've talked to people mostly from Germany and The Netherlands, which both manage to have have decent labor laws and fairly low youth unemployment.

Re: Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory

#245

Post by alphaalpha101 »

rqs wrote: post #145
alphaalpha101 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone is disruptive or negative, then you should get rid of them immediately.

Disruptive maybe, but negative? Some people became negative because they saw problems they can't resolve by themselves. Maybe don't fire this kind of people? But, well, it seems some companies just don't care.

Negative = a negative influence.

Someone that just feels negatively about some things obviously can't be fired. There's no ground for firing them. You need a reason to fire someone. A good reason.

Re: Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory

#246

Post by Dylan16807 »

sdiupIGPWEfh wrote: post #191
Dylan16807 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You will always have a worst employee, but that's not what "dead weight" means. To be dead weight at a company with good talent, you have to be multiple categories below almost everyone.

>No need to label and insult them on their way out

You never need to say when someone didn't do their job, but it's not a terrible thing to do so either. Don't go out of your way to be insulting, but if the basic facts of the situation are insulting, then so be it.

>when you have to tighten your company's belt.

They stated very clearly that it was not about belt-tightening at all. Do you think they're lying?

Re: Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory

#247

Post by kurusii »

TuringNYC wrote: post #23
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The system is not inherently good or bad, as long as all parties are aware of it. There's a lot of problems with stack ranking, not least that it discourages cooperation and encourages direct or indirect sabotage (e.g. declining to hire new prospects who you suspect might be better than you). Wikipedia discusses many of the issues: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Vitality_curve

There is another problem with stack ranking -- I saw this at a previous employer: some people are hired into "4s and 5s" from the onset. I heard some hiring managers upset that they would have to force rank their hand-selected elite team into 1-5 ranks, and upset at the situation, they purposefully hired weak workers with the intention of slotting them into 4 and 5 ranks. Their argument was (i dont agree): - these we…

Wow, that sounds awful.

It's a losing situation all around, between the company not getting what it intended (firing the pre-existing dead weight, and getting rid of scapegoats) and, of course, the employees who are duped into joining just to be fired later.

Which companies do this?

Re: Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory

#248

Post by _Tev »

wpietri wrote: post #213
simonsarris wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

11.5 years in a fast paced company that makes very ambitious deadlines is an incredible stint for anyone IMO. I'm just saying burnout after that isn't surprising, no?

If they are regularly burning out key executives, then I'd say we should definitely be reading into that. That's a sign that the operation isn't sustainable in the long term, or at least will plateau at lower levels of performance than it otherwise could hit.

So the startup mode will have to end? How is that surprising?

Re: Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory

#249

Post by Steeeve »

ethbro wrote: post #160
Steeeve wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people, even well paid engineers, live paycheck to paycheck. Sizable companies take a month to bring in a new employee in the best case. Most hiring managers are skeptical of people fired in a mass "underperformance" firing. Toss in the fact that most people have never been fired and it's a massive blow to the ego. And also that it's terrible to communicate to your spouse and children that you've been fired for…

There's no reason a well-paid engineer (let's say $75k-250k) should be living paycheck to paycheck, even with a large family. If someone is, they should realize they deliberately chose that situation by failing to adjust for cost of living when comparing employment options.

Someone married with 4 children at $200,000/year earns a net pay of $10611.48 in California with a 5% deduction for retirement.

If they worked at Tesla and lived in Palo Alto, they would need a 5 bedroom house. That's an $8,000/month rental.

The average car payment in the US is $503. One car for dad, one for Mom, one for the teenager. That's $1509. That leaves $1102.48. Take $600 for electricity, water, and trash. That leaves $502.48 each month for food, gas, car insurance, parking, sports, birthdays, christmas, etc.

All of a sudden, Palo Alto doesn't seem so appealing, so the family moves to San Jose where a nice 5BR can be had for $4500. More affordable. The budget isn't so tight. The family can go out to dinner once in a while. They can save $1000/month. But it costs Dad 2-3 hours a day in commuting time. And he shows up late once every couple of weeks because the traffic is atrocious and his hours are set.

Well that pisses his Tesla manager off, so he gets cut as a low performing employee. He gets 2 weeks severance - $5k. He's saved up $5k over the last 6 months. He's not eligible for unemployment because he was fired for cause. He has 30 days to start a new job, at close to $200,000/year, or ... well... he's living on credit. So he takes a job at $150k/year because those are easier to find and he's under pressure.

Now his income is down to $8400/month. To a lot of people, that's still a lot of money. To this guy, he's treading water. It's hard for people to sympathize with this situation. Especially people out of the area with no kids and no debt who could live quite well on that kind of salary. But it's reality for a great many people. Maybe it's not 3 five-hundred dollar car payments. Maybe it's required tutoring. Or helping grandma make her house payment. Or paying for dead-beat brother-in-law's rehab.

Looking around at SV families, I see more people busting their butts to get by than I see buzzing around in sports cars. There are people that are comfortable. There are people that can get by six months without working. I don't think it's a large percentage of the population.

Re: Tesla fires hundreds from headquarters, factory

#250

Post by mschuster91 »

brianwawok wrote: post #239
mschuster91 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck being able to actually save some of your paycheck. I, for example, cannot because the rents here are shockingly high.

Then move!

My job doesn't offer full-time remote work, and as soon as you move to the outsides of Munich you pay the rent difference in transportation cost. No way.
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