Musk’s first email to Twitter staff ends remote work • Hacker News Board

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

#361

Post by sakopov » Thu, Nov 10, 2022, 8:50 PM UTC

VLM wrote: post #269

Interesting strategic window: You can't innovate and software engineer using 1950s style "butts in seats". Maybe this is a signal twitter isn't going to innovate, develop, and maybe even operate, internally, at least going forward. You need code for a new feature? Buy a startup that already wrote it. You need to keep something running? Contract out instead of employees. Very few companies have a full time plumber or…

> You can't innovate and software engineer using 1950s style "butts in seats"

Seems to me that the majority was innovating just fine this way until pandemic hit.

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

#362

Post by bmitc » Thu, Nov 10, 2022, 8:50 PM UTC

rgovostes wrote: post #152

> over the next few days, the absolute top priority is finding and suspending any verified bots/trolls/spam. Would it improve the situation to simply require a CAPTCHA once per day per non-subscriber to tweet? I would think it would greatly increase the cost to operate a troll farm, but have minimal impact on real users (setting aside accessibility and third-party clients a moment). If it causes attrition because som…

I bet this will be the code:

    bots
    |> List.filter isNotTeslaBot
    |> removeBots

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

#363

Post by antisthenes » Thu, Nov 10, 2022, 8:50 PM UTC

SkyPuncher wrote: post #313

VLM wrote: post #269

Interesting strategic window: You can't innovate and software engineer using 1950s style "butts in seats". Maybe this is a signal twitter isn't going to innovate, develop, and maybe even operate, internally, at least going forward. You need code for a new feature? Buy a startup that already wrote it. You need to keep something running? Contract out instead of employees. Very few companies have a full time plumber or…

What has Twitter innovated on in the past decade? While I don't agree with the way Elon has been making this move, it's sure looking like he's trying to clear the place out so he can establish a new culture. These policy changes are likely to scare mobile, top-performers off to other companies. This likely clears out a lot of internal dissent and heal digging to make room for new "top performers". I wouldn't be shock…

They increased the message size from 140 to 280 characters, allowing people to generate double the outrage with almost the same network load.

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

#364

Post by georgemcbay » Thu, Nov 10, 2022, 8:51 PM UTC

neaden wrote: post #182

unwind wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

According to this: https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/10/23451198/twitter-ftc-elo... a twitter lawyer has told employees that their contracts specify they are a remote first workplace, so it's unclear if Elon has the actual right to force anyone to return to the office.

In at-will states like California he doesn't really need the "right" to fire anyone (assuming he isn't firing them for any protected class reasons). I doubt the majority of Twitter employees (in the US anyway) have any sort of individual employment contract which specifies anything different than the typical at-will employment.

I suspect though that if he does fire people for refusing to return to the office that given the circumstances (twitter very openly being a 'remote first' workplace for years) that states would view that as a constructive dismissal and at the very least those fired would be eligible for unemployment benefits despite being fired "for cause".

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

#365

Post by bt4u » Thu, Nov 10, 2022, 8:52 PM UTC

yrgulation wrote: post #156

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…

> Were I working at Twitter I'd probably be looking for a new job after this announcement. Highest impact is mid project. You know, to make it hurt.

No post body was provided.

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

#366

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Nov 10, 2022, 8:52 PM UTC

[deleted]

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

#367

Post by mastazi » Thu, Nov 10, 2022, 8:52 PM UTC

slg wrote: post #208

Let's say you run a company and you want to reduce staff. Let's also say you want to make an unpopular decision (or multiple unpopular decisions) that you know will drive a certain percentage of your staff to leave the company. Wouldn't it make the most sense to announce those decisions before making layoffs? Let people self select whether they want to stay and work for you and then make your layoffs after to ensure…

At first this was my thinking as well, but then towards the end of the article, the author mentions an "all hands meeting" he had with employees before completing the acquisition, and apparently he said in that occasion that he was against remote work.

Having said that, remote work is up there with compensation in my book, taking it away is just as likely[1] as a salary cut to make leave the company.

[1] i.e. almost guaranteed

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

#368

Post by gamblor956 » Thu, Nov 10, 2022, 8:52 PM UTC

fred_is_fred wrote: post #353

slg wrote: post #208

Let's say you run a company and you want to reduce staff. Let's also say you want to make an unpopular decision (or multiple unpopular decisions) that you know will drive a certain percentage of your staff to leave the company. Wouldn't it make the most sense to announce those decisions before making layoffs? Let people self select whether they want to stay and work for you and then make your layoffs after to ensure…

A long standing maneuver that companies have is the "your job is now in Houston" when you live in New York. This has an interesting side effect of basically removing anyone from your company who is old enough to have a family with kids in school, wife working etc. Basically it "legally" removes the older more expensive employees. RTO will remove people also like you said, but I wonder what demographic?

Moving a person's office of employment outside of what would be considered a reasonable commute is treated as a constructive dismissal in the U.S. It is generally legal, because is treated as a normal termination by the employer (basically: the employee's "current" job is being terminated and the employer is offering them a "new" job in a new location).

This means, among other things, that the employee qualifies for unemployment, the employer's unemployment insurance account will get dinged, etc.

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

#369

Post by kweingar » Thu, Nov 10, 2022, 8:52 PM UTC

boredtofears wrote: post #162

kevingadd wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'20% of the day doing work and 80% enjoying company amenities' is ridiculous hyperbole. even if a hypothetical employee is doing that, putting them in the office clearly isn't enough to fix it since they supposedly put a tiktok video up saying 'i don't do my job' and they weren't fired

It's not hyperbole, unless whoever was recording was being hyperbolic. It's not exactly hard to find the videos I'm talking about.

If we were watching the same videos, they showed themselves getting lunch, getting coffee, going to the gym, and hanging out on the roof. None of these videos suggested that these activities totaled anywhere close to 6 hours in a day.

Maybe we're watching different videos though.

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

#370

Post by luckylion » Thu, Nov 10, 2022, 8:52 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #343

cokeandpepsi wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jason: Back of the envelope... Twitter revenue per employee: $5B rev / 8k employees = $625K rev per employee in 2021 Google revenue per employee: $257B rev2/ 135K employee2= $1.9M per employee in 2021 Apple revenue per employee: $365B rev / 154k employees= $2.37M per employee in fiscal 2021 Jason: Twitter revenue per employee if 3k instead of 8k: $5B rev/ 3k employees= $1.66m rev per employee in 2021 (more industry s…

Twitter employees: “we’re going to vote to unionize” When you have nothing left to lose, why wouldn’t you? It brings the federal government in to provide support, on their dime no less. Worst case is everyone leaves, the NLRB finds against Musk, and he has to give folks their jobs back while Twitter is burning. “The strongest steel is forged in the fires of a dumpster.”

"Nothing left to lose", except that $160k-500k yearly compensation.