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Musk’s first email to Twitter staff ends remote work

bloomberg.com

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Re: Musk’s first email to Twitter staff ends remote work

#241

Post by bigfudge »

SamReidHughes wrote: post #183
kibwen wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that there are pros and cons to remote work, and that it should be possible to have a frank discussion about where the balance lies. However, that is sadly irrelevant to this news item, as Musk isn't banning remote work because of any logical consideration of its merits. He's banning remote work because he's an authoritarian micromanager who believes that workers are to be treated like cattle.

Quoted post unavailable.

Er no. There are both social and legal norms around employment. I’m not saying he’s breaking any laws here, but companies are a certain scale aren’t just the playthings of the boss they exist at the convenience and for the benefit for society at large (ie they are granted the privilege of being a company). That means there are constraints on corporate behaviour.

Re: Musk’s first email to Twitter staff ends remote work

#242

Post by whateveracct »

jstx1 wrote: post #3

> Musk told workers in the email that he wants to see subscriptions account for half of Twitter’s revenue. Given the direction in which their advertising revenue is going, they might get there.

Lowering the denominator is a fun way to get to half ^_^

Re: Musk’s first email to Twitter staff ends remote work

#245

Post by newfonewhodis »

memish wrote: post #193
madrox wrote: post #149

I see we're still deep in the "fuck around" stage and have yet to reach "find out."

What you find out is in proportion to how much you fuck around. You have to fuck around to innovate and do new shit. It took a lot of fucking at Tesla and SpaceX to get to where they are.

I like how some people equate "innovate" with "break the law and make other people pay".

Re: Musk’s first email to Twitter staff ends remote work

#246

Post by Abroszka »

badwolf wrote: post #184
fermentation wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does that work? If a SWE isn't aware of the gazillion laws surrounding their code, why isn't the company liable when X of those laws are inevitably violated? What about the people who review the code? Or the people who wrote the systems that push the code?

It seems Musk's new legal "department" is wanting developers to self-certify - put their own name on the certification. https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/10/23451198/twitter-ftc-elo...

Wow, if that means that the engineer is personally responsible that Twitter follows the FTC rules, then RIP the engineers. I would just stop writing code at that point. No compensation worth that risk.

And it opens up interesting questions. If I decline to implement something then can the company fire me at all? Or do they have to prove first that what has been asked does not goes against FTC rules.

Re: Musk’s first email to Twitter staff ends remote work

#247

Post by diputsmonro »

SamReidHughes wrote: post #183
kibwen wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that there are pros and cons to remote work, and that it should be possible to have a frank discussion about where the balance lies. However, that is sadly irrelevant to this news item, as Musk isn't banning remote work because of any logical consideration of its merits. He's banning remote work because he's an authoritarian micromanager who believes that workers are to be treated like cattle.

Quoted post unavailable.

No, that's why we have labor laws. Being a billionaire doesn't make you a king.

Every company is spending "their own money" to pay employees. It doesn't matter if there are a thousand shareholders or just one. There is still a corporate structure and formal employee relationships. They are employees, not serfs, and they deserve the respect that entails.

Re: Musk’s first email to Twitter staff ends remote work

#248

Post by thrown_22 »

_fat_santa wrote: post #102
ClassyJacket wrote: post #2

This is a great way to drive away your best talent and ensure those who stay are more tired, frustrated, and stressed.

It's fun to read about this stuff in the news and comment on it here and on Twitter but the reality couldn't be more different. If you're qualified enough to be in the running to work at Twitter, you likely have many options available to you (employment wise). None of those people are trying to go work at Twitter because there's just too much BS flying around over there. If this keeps up the only way Twitter is going…

All tech companies have been hiring bottom of the barrel engineers who couldn't code their way out of a paper bag. This is just a realignment where where knowing how to put the lego pieces together isn't enough any more.

Re: Musk’s first email to Twitter staff ends remote work

#249

Post by slekker »

unwind wrote: post #139
csmpltn wrote: post #106

Here's a cool and perhaps unforeseen hypothetical turn-of-events: 100% of Twitter's staff give their resignation letter on Friday, and don't show up to work. Leadership wakes up to a collapsing platform, a 44 billion USD bill to pay, with no one to keep the lights on or answer the PagerDuty alerts. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes? No time for silly "knowledge transfers", or "onboarding new team members". You jus…

Don't typical contracts for people like Twitter's staff in the US come with timing requirements on quitting? As in, you can't really quit "on the day", you have to leave proper notice and so on? I understand that in practice once someone says "I quit!" there might be little interest from the employer to keep them around, but in a scenario like you outline I would be very afraid of legal ramifications. Just a thought,…

Even if you can't really quit, you can just pretend to work, or "silent quit"

Re: Musk’s first email to Twitter staff ends remote work

#250

Post by schnable »

aperson_hello wrote: post #29
kypro wrote: post #23

I am split on the remote work thing from a productivity / creativity perspective. I do think there are times when I'm less productivity working from home compared to the office. I also think as a team we're less creative. Some of the best stuff I've done in my career has come out of casual conversations with my team about the stuff we're building. I've noticed I don't think about what I'm building as much when workin…

And the fact that Twitter employees aren't all near an office. If you live in Minneapolis, you're not exactly going to be happy that you have to go into the office (closest one is 6+ hours away in Chicago). It's not even a choice to go into the office or not at that point - it's an ultimatum of move immediately for a job where everything is on fire or be fired!

I think the purely remote workers were already axed.
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