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Ex-SolarCity employees: We were fired after reporting millions in fake sales

arstechnica.com

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Re: Ex-SolarCity employees: We were fired after reporting millions in fake sales

#71

Post by KirinDave »

mikro2nd wrote: post #67
ryanlol wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you always think of the media as an adversary?

No. Far from it. But this "if I don't get an instant response" trick seems to me a cheap and shabby form of journalistic laziness. At the very least, if they don't get a response "instantly", "on Sunday", the very least they could do is follow up with a phone call on Monday and print an amendment, or better, a more balanced rewrite representing all sides fairly when they do receive a response in a more reasonable tim…

Today is Tuesday. That's not exactly "instant."

Besides, the court cases exist in isolation of Tesla's opinion about them. It's more a courtesy to give them time to respond than an actual requirement. Tesla's position on these cases might be interesting, but it's not required to understand them.

"Both sides" is the journalistically lazy approach, by the way. It's actually pretty rare that you get an "unbiased" view of the situation by simply quoting both sides, as we've seen in lots of other tech and science journalism.

It's interesting to me that you're more outraged about the lack of a documented timeline of callbacks to Tesla than the consistent allegations of abusive environments within Tesla. This is not the first time we've heard about this.

Re: Ex-SolarCity employees: We were fired after reporting millions in fake sales

#72

Post by jessaustin »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #16
mkirklions wrote: post #12

Why are we blaming the employees when these kind of things come from high pressure management. Everyone is aware the Elon works his employees to death at Tesla, SpaceX, and apparently SolarCity. I feel like these tech companies are great for consumers and shareholders, but employees are worked like dogs to keep the profit flowing.

That's a shite excuse. "Just following orders" etc.

If your neighbor was one of the salespeople, then sure go ahead and slag her for it. If you're a prosecutor with jurisdiction and you think there's a case, jump on it. Since most of us don't personally know any of the people involved, there's not much point in selecting these nobodies for our two minutes of hate. The character we're going to have to deal with again is the dude at the top, so naturally he's the one whose behavior we'd like to affect.

Re: Ex-SolarCity employees: We were fired after reporting millions in fake sales

#73

Post by linuxftw »

foxyv wrote: post #31

My partner worked for various solar companies (But not Solar City) as a canvasser hoping to get some sales experience. As a result we got to see first hand how corrupt and underhanded their sales departments could be. Canvassers were exploited mercilessly and commissions never appeared as new requirements were added to the payouts. Paychecks bounced periodically. Canvassers would be told to go door to door in areas w…

> It seems like the entire solar industry is focused more on extracting government subsidies than on creating long term revenue streams.

Some might argue this is the exact nature of government subsidies.

People are always going to make choices in their economic self-interest. Either solar needs to be the most cost effective solution for their energy needs, or the government needs to artificially inflate the cost of other energy (or reduce any subsidies to other energy to make solar more competitive).

Every time a hurricane knocks out a town's electric grid and federal funds are used to repair it, that's a subsidy. When government authority to exercise eminent domain acquires easements or land to erect power distribution, that's a subsidy. Not to mention utilities being absolved from responsibility for the pollution they create.

Re: Ex-SolarCity employees: We were fired after reporting millions in fake sales

#74

Post by KirinDave »

mikro2nd wrote: post #44

A trend that's been growing for quite a (long!) while now is exemplified by this article: " Tesla did not respond to Ars’ request for comment on Sunday. " Who in their right minds realistically expects any organisation to respond to some random journalistic enquiry on a Sunday ? The other major variant of this shyster tactic is along the lines of, "Company X failed to respond immediately when asked for comment." No c…

> Who in their right minds realistically expects any organisation to respond to some random journalistic enquiry on a Sunday?

My company did it. Heck, we did it when it was just me and my cofounder answering email. I've worked for multiple companies that had folks who specifically had weekend comms duty, actually. When you reach a certain size this is as normal as having an operations expert on call.

It's... Weird to suggest that it's abnormal to be responsive to press within 24 hours for a company as big as Tesla.

Re: Ex-SolarCity employees: We were fired after reporting millions in fake sales

#75

Post by Marsymars »

princekolt wrote: post #50
mikro2nd wrote: post #44

A trend that's been growing for quite a (long!) while now is exemplified by this article: " Tesla did not respond to Ars’ request for comment on Sunday. " Who in their right minds realistically expects any organisation to respond to some random journalistic enquiry on a Sunday ? The other major variant of this shyster tactic is along the lines of, "Company X failed to respond immediately when asked for comment." No c…

> Who in their right minds realistically expects any organisation to respond to some random journalistic enquiry on a Sunday? Jeez. Considering the story was posted today, what this probably means is that they requested commentary on Sunday, waited for the entirety of Monday, and didn't hear back until today, when they decided to post it.

In my experience, legit journalistic sources are also open to delaying a story to include commentary if the commentary source asks for some reasonable additional time to respond.

Re: Ex-SolarCity employees: We were fired after reporting millions in fake sales

#76

Post by eulerss__number »

foxyv wrote: post #31

My partner worked for various solar companies (But not Solar City) as a canvasser hoping to get some sales experience. As a result we got to see first hand how corrupt and underhanded their sales departments could be. Canvassers were exploited mercilessly and commissions never appeared as new requirements were added to the payouts. Paychecks bounced periodically. Canvassers would be told to go door to door in areas w…

[dead]

Re: Ex-SolarCity employees: We were fired after reporting millions in fake sales

#77

Post by megamindbrian2 »

Solar City commits fraud to make Elon's stock look good. Nice.

Side note: just watched Back 2 the Future again and saw what 2015 is supposed to look like. I didn't see anything about putting explosive batteries and flammable material next to every house.

Re: Ex-SolarCity employees: We were fired after reporting millions in fake sales

#78

Post by rootusrootus »

mikro2nd wrote: post #44

A trend that's been growing for quite a (long!) while now is exemplified by this article: " Tesla did not respond to Ars’ request for comment on Sunday. " Who in their right minds realistically expects any organisation to respond to some random journalistic enquiry on a Sunday ? The other major variant of this shyster tactic is along the lines of, "Company X failed to respond immediately when asked for comment." No c…

It is pretty common for technical employees to be on call, why should PR be any different? In a Twitter-style world, I am surprised if a large corporation does not have someone available 24x7 to speak on behalf of the company.

And in any case, how often do companies actually have a comment for a journalist? If I were writing a news story, I am not sure I would be willing to wait all that long for a response that I knew was 99% unlikely to ever come.

Re: Ex-SolarCity employees: We were fired after reporting millions in fake sales

#79

Post by rootusrootus »

kashyapc wrote: post #68
mikeash wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think it’s done intentionally to make companies look bad. It’s just the inevitable result of two conflicting goals: to reach out for comment from the subject of the article, and to publish as quickly as possible.

That "reaching out" habit out of instinct should be curbed. I realize it's the game of journalism -- "we should report it first!" But just because the journalist's business model requires to "publish as quickly as possible", they shouldn't pressure companies, who already have to deal with mountains of crap. (Not that I'm the "fondness for large, opaque corporations" kind; just trying to think fairly where it deserves…

On the flip side, why do we need a comment from the company anyway? Assuming the journalist has sources for what they are writing, the 'official company PR response' is next to worthless. At this point I think journalists only bother contacting the company as a formality to try and defend against claims of bias.

Re: Ex-SolarCity employees: We were fired after reporting millions in fake sales

#80

Post by jcranmer »

mikro2nd wrote: post #44

A trend that's been growing for quite a (long!) while now is exemplified by this article: " Tesla did not respond to Ars’ request for comment on Sunday. " Who in their right minds realistically expects any organisation to respond to some random journalistic enquiry on a Sunday ? The other major variant of this shyster tactic is along the lines of, "Company X failed to respond immediately when asked for comment." No c…

The lawsuit was filed on Wednesday. Tesla was asked for comment about the lawsuit on Sunday. That's at least two full working days to have prepared a canned response to anyone who comes asking about the lawsuit. The story itself wasn't published until Tuesday morning, which is another full working day to respond to the request.
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