7 ms·

Twitter staff have been told to work 84-hour weeks

30 points by galaxyLogic 4y ago

TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
I am glad that I am living in Europe. The moment my boss would try such shenigans I would be laughing at his face and then continue with my 8 hours / day work time.
- galaxyLogic 4y ago
  Musk seems to be a bit of a clueless guy, thinking of his earlier demand that everybody print out last 30 days of code, and of how much he overpaid for Twitter and then tried to weasel out of the deal. In US there has been a lot of talk of "quiet quitting" lately. That means you do the minimum you need to stay in the job, don't try to excel in it. Just doing long hours is not the same as excelling, it can be part of the quiet quitting. So one approach would be to work overtime as much as asked, demand to be paid for it but not do much. Only the minimum. And isn't it illegal to be forced to work overtime without compensation? So that might be a strategy as well, do what they ask and then later sue them. Or gladly work overtime you do get paid for it but again do only as much as is needed. The problem with Musk's actions I think is it immediately creates a confrontational atmosphere in his company.
FrasiertheLion 4y ago
He's always pushing his population collapse agenda and urging people to have children... Guess it's all about having them, not raising them.
- lookagain 4y ago
- yrgulation 4y ago
  Well he wants the state to raise them so they can be trained into thinking all there is to life is pleasing a boss, while being farmed in crowded offices and not owning anything.
Finnucane 4y ago
"Let's see how many people we can get to quit before we have to pay severance or unemployment insurance."
mikkergp 4y ago
"Twitter managers have told some staff to work 12-hour shifts, seven days a week " "Staff worry that their careers at Twitter could be over if they don't complete their tasks by the early November deadlines, CNBC reported." I would be more worried my career wouldn't be over.
- willio58 4y ago
  Yeah if I were at twitter I would accept these deadlines with a smile on my face, turn around and start applying to competitors 12 hours a day until I got a job that valued me as a human being.
bigbillheck 4y ago
It's never too late to unionize.
- joegahona 4y ago
  Why didn't Twitter employees look into that (or did they?) from April onward?
  - bigbillheck 4y ago
    I don't know, I'm not a twitter employee. Probably ideology.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Grim-444 4y ago
"I work at Google and they've told me to work 125 hours weeks". In that statement I provided just as much evidence for my claim as the article does their claim. In fact, there's more proof for my claim since it has a username tied to it, whereas the article just cites anonymous "according to internal sources". And yet, this is an article that how many thousands of people will read, and internalize into their model of reality? How much more hate will such an article foster? Shouldn't we at least require some SHRED of proof for articles such as these?
- memish 4y ago
  Especially when you look at how much journalists have gotten wrong the past few days. Ligma and Johnson ("They are visibly shaken"), mass layoffs before Nov 1st (nope), unbanned accounts would be back on by Monday (nope), Elon restored Ye's account (it was restored before the acquisition), Saudi Arabia bought into Twitter (they already were shareholders), etc...
  - systemvoltage 4y ago
    NYT said they’ll have mass layoffs by Nov 1 because of stock compensation expiration. It didn’t happen and Musk refuted it outright. https://twitter.com/austen/status/1587458237414068224 https://twitter.com/austen/status/1587458237414068224 My generous take on this: Media is incompetent and they need to do more due diligence. My cynical take on this: Media is losing its power and influence, this is the last ditch effort to smear opponents.
    - nradov 4y ago
      Media organizations are distraught over losing control of the gated institutional narrative. The disintermediation process is continuing and many "news" media outlets have debased themselves to the point that they now write low-effort articles about what's trending on Twitter. To their credit, the New York Times still does a little bit of real investigative journalism. But their standards are low and they tend to uncritically accept anything that matches their editorial bias.
dave4420 4y ago
Does America not have the concept of constructive dismissal?
- bediger4000 4y ago
  I don't think we do. I've had jobs in the USA since 1984, and I've never heard that term.
- nickstinemates 4y ago
  In California, you don't need to construct a dismissal. It's an "at-will" employment state, which means you can be fired at any time without any reason or any reason (so long as if there's a reason, it's not because of a minor list of things.) In practice what this means is, in tech at least, you're thrown a nickle or two in exchange for an agreement, among other things, that you won't sure the company for violating your rights later.
  - BoorishBears 4y ago
    You don't need to but companies would still much rather you walk away from an HR perspective. That "minor list of things" you allude to becomes very problematic for the company if someone even tries to claim it your underlying motivation was tied to it. So people willingly leaving because of a blanket decree removes that aspect entirely.
    - nickstinemates 4y ago
      100% - have been involved in a few of those and it's very expensive to deal with: even an unsubstantiated/dubious claim both in time and lawyers.
- claudiulodro 4y ago
  It does! Generally if you quit you can't collect unemployment insurance, but if your boss places unreasonable expectations on you or creates a hostile work environment you can argue it was constructive dismissal and collect unemployment even if you quit. The current Twitter situation is ripe for such claims. Criteria from Wikipedia: "The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has provided a 3-part test to determine whether or not a constructive discharge has occurred: (1) a reasonable person in the complainant's position would have found the working conditions intolerable; (2) conduct that constituted discrimination against the complainant created the intolerable working conditions; and (3) the complainant's involuntary resignation resulted from the intolerable working conditions"
gort19 4y ago
Ekaros 4y ago
So does working like Elon does count? So spend time tweeting stuff?
- mikkergp 4y ago
  Yeah, I think you can spend 2/3 of your time working for someone else.
metadat 4y ago
https://archive.ph/PXQGr https://archive.ph/PXQGr
legitster 4y ago
I think people might be missing the point here. Elon probably wants higher turnover. These are very desirable jobs. People would bend over backwards to work at Twitter. Younger, cheaper people who have strong ideas of how to fix Twitter and would actually try to push these ideas. And these seats are currently filled with older, expensive employees who like things the way they are averse to things breaking. Either that or you are a rough and tumble old timer who can thrive in chaos. This is very intentionally the model at his other companies. Or places like Amazon where they have almost perfected the art of extracting exactly 3 years of valuable work from young developers. I don't think Musk actually cares about that 84th hour of work. But I think he is very much trying to signal to current and potential employees that this will not be a comfortable long term career prospect.
- mindcrime 4y ago
  These are very desirable jobs. s/are/were
  - legitster 4y ago
    I understand your point, but if he even gets a fraction of the talent they have to turn down at SpaceX or Tesla he'll do just fine.
    - blaser-waffle 4y ago
      Still a lot of Musk fanboys. And it's still a large, complex, big-name Tech company; experience with working on problems at that scale could open doors later, regardless of who is calling the shots at the top.
  - s1artibartfast 4y ago
    There are lots of hungry developers around that world that would kill to work 12/7 and take home 200k USD
- galaxyLogic 4y ago
  If that is such a great idea then why didn't the earlier owners think of it? They are experienced business-people as well I would think. Were they just dumb? Or is this just the ego of Musk trying to generate the maximum of mentions of himself in the media?
colanderman 4y ago
Musk is a bully. Like any bully, he is doing this to find out who is easy to pick on, and will keep them around, while dismissing those who are willing/able to fight back. Life will continue to be miserable to those he keeps around. My advice to all engineers feeling this pressure -- start looking now. Leave as soon as possible. You are more valuable than what Musk thinks of you. Those who are in a position to do so -- punch back. Do no, or negative work (if it does not harm teammates who cannot afford to be laid off). Force him to lay you off and give severance. Bullies do not deserve your time. They deserve to be crushed.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- adam_arthur 4y ago
  Well, it’ll be interesting to assess the results in a few years. I agree that his actions are likely to create a hostile work environment, at the same time I have no doubt Twitter will be a much more valuable business after he’s done. These tactics are likely temporary to trigger many resignations, yes. Unlikely to the be the expectation in the long run. Twitter has been horribly mismanaged for years, and now needs to be restructured. It was simply a vehicle to siphon ignorant investor capital to an unproductive employee base. Tech employees at large are about to learn that they aren’t quite as special as they thought
- hendersoon 4y ago
  Any Twitter people not looking for a new position already probably should have their heads examined, honestly. Writing is on the wall.
- sleepymoose 4y ago
  > Force him to lay you off and give severance. If you're gonna do this I'd make sure you CYA, considering he's already let people go for cause.
- memish 4y ago
  The best engineers in the world working at SpaceX and Tesla disagree. Here's Andrej Karpathy's (ex-Tesla, even better) take from a couple days ago on Lex's podcast. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbxladysbTE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbxladysbTE
bergenty 4y ago
Can people be for cause fired for working only the stipulated 40 hour weeks at this point? And if it’s for cause do you get severance?
- nradov 4y ago
  I doubt those employees have contracts which stipulate 40 hour work weeks. They are salaried exempt employees. They can be fired for cause (although depending on the exact facts of a particular case the employee might still be able to file for unemployment insurance). There is generally no legal requirement to pay severance to terminated employees, unless it falls under the WARN Act and the employer failed to give sufficient advance notice (expect some litigation on this issue).
  - bergenty 4y ago
    You can legally ask someone to work 24/7 everyday or fire them without severance?
mindcrime 4y ago
Wow. IF (if!) this is true, I really hope every single Twitter employee sends Musk an email saying "fuck you" and walks out. There's just now call for treating people like this. EDIT: let me expand this to say, it might not be as bad as it sounds if there's some massive reward (beyond just "keeping your job") tied to this or something. And I have no problem working 80+ hours a week.. I do it all the time myself. It's just that approximately every hour past 40 that I work in a week is working on my own project, not working for my employer. But that's something I choose to take on and where the potential reward if I'm successful (arguably) justifies it. It's hard to imagine any company paying a routine salary that would even come close to justifying working hours like that though, at least for me. But hey, everybody is different. So I guess I'd amend my post to say I hope almost every single Twitter employee ...
- adam_arthur 4y ago
  Well, that’s his intention. To force resignations
  - mindcrime 4y ago
    Well, to a point. It could be self-defeating if enough people quit. Worst case it could effectively end Twitter as an ongoing concern. I doubt that would happen, but ya never know.
    - PM_me_your_math 4y ago
      Extremely doubtful. There is no shortage of people looking for work.
      - TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
        Except the lowest unemployment numbers in USA. That might be an issue. https://www.npr.org/2022/08/05/1116036160/the-unemployment-rate-fell-to-3-5-matching-its-lowest-level-in-the-last-50-years https://www.npr.org/2022/08/05/1116036160/the-unemployment-r...
0xbadcafebee 4y ago
I'm both saddened and excited. Saddened because this abuse is all too common in capitalist corporations led by megalomaniacs. And excited because my company is hiring and we don't ask anyone to work more than 40 hours a week. Hoping we can interview some people from Twitter soon so that they don't have to worry about finding new work after layoffs

30 points by galaxyLogic 4y ago

I am glad that I am living in Europe. The moment my boss would try such shenigans I would be laughing at his face and then continue with my 8 hours / day work time.

galaxyLogic 4y ago
Musk seems to be a bit of a clueless guy, thinking of his earlier demand that everybody print out last 30 days of code, and of how much he overpaid for Twitter and then tried to weasel out of the deal. In US there has been a lot of talk of "quiet quitting" lately. That means you do the minimum you need to stay in the job, don't try to excel in it. Just doing long hours is not the same as excelling, it can be part of the quiet quitting. So one approach would be to work overtime as much as asked, demand to be paid for it but not do much. Only the minimum. And isn't it illegal to be forced to work overtime without compensation? So that might be a strategy as well, do what they ask and then later sue them. Or gladly work overtime you do get paid for it but again do only as much as is needed. The problem with Musk's actions I think is it immediately creates a confrontational atmosphere in his company.

FrasiertheLion 4y ago

He's always pushing his population collapse agenda and urging people to have children... Guess it's all about having them, not raising them.

lookagain 4y ago
yrgulation 4y ago
Well he wants the state to raise them so they can be trained into thinking all there is to life is pleasing a boss, while being farmed in crowded offices and not owning anything.

Finnucane 4y ago

"Let's see how many people we can get to quit before we have to pay severance or unemployment insurance."

mikkergp 4y ago

"Twitter managers have told some staff to work 12-hour shifts, seven days a week " "Staff worry that their careers at Twitter could be over if they don't complete their tasks by the early November deadlines, CNBC reported." I would be more worried my career wouldn't be over.

willio58 4y ago
Yeah if I were at twitter I would accept these deadlines with a smile on my face, turn around and start applying to competitors 12 hours a day until I got a job that valued me as a human being.

bigbillheck 4y ago

It's never too late to unionize.

joegahona 4y ago
Why didn't Twitter employees look into that (or did they?) from April onward?
- bigbillheck 4y ago
  I don't know, I'm not a twitter employee. Probably ideology.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Grim-444 4y ago

"I work at Google and they've told me to work 125 hours weeks". In that statement I provided just as much evidence for my claim as the article does their claim. In fact, there's more proof for my claim since it has a username tied to it, whereas the article just cites anonymous "according to internal sources". And yet, this is an article that how many thousands of people will read, and internalize into their model of reality? How much more hate will such an article foster? Shouldn't we at least require some SHRED of proof for articles such as these?

memish 4y ago
Especially when you look at how much journalists have gotten wrong the past few days. Ligma and Johnson ("They are visibly shaken"), mass layoffs before Nov 1st (nope), unbanned accounts would be back on by Monday (nope), Elon restored Ye's account (it was restored before the acquisition), Saudi Arabia bought into Twitter (they already were shareholders), etc...
- systemvoltage 4y ago
  NYT said they’ll have mass layoffs by Nov 1 because of stock compensation expiration. It didn’t happen and Musk refuted it outright. https://twitter.com/austen/status/1587458237414068224 https://twitter.com/austen/status/1587458237414068224 My generous take on this: Media is incompetent and they need to do more due diligence. My cynical take on this: Media is losing its power and influence, this is the last ditch effort to smear opponents.
  - nradov 4y ago
    Media organizations are distraught over losing control of the gated institutional narrative. The disintermediation process is continuing and many "news" media outlets have debased themselves to the point that they now write low-effort articles about what's trending on Twitter. To their credit, the New York Times still does a little bit of real investigative journalism. But their standards are low and they tend to uncritically accept anything that matches their editorial bias.

dave4420 4y ago

Does America not have the concept of constructive dismissal?

bediger4000 4y ago
I don't think we do. I've had jobs in the USA since 1984, and I've never heard that term.
nickstinemates 4y ago
In California, you don't need to construct a dismissal. It's an "at-will" employment state, which means you can be fired at any time without any reason or any reason (so long as if there's a reason, it's not because of a minor list of things.) In practice what this means is, in tech at least, you're thrown a nickle or two in exchange for an agreement, among other things, that you won't sure the company for violating your rights later.
- BoorishBears 4y ago
  You don't need to but companies would still much rather you walk away from an HR perspective. That "minor list of things" you allude to becomes very problematic for the company if someone even tries to claim it your underlying motivation was tied to it. So people willingly leaving because of a blanket decree removes that aspect entirely.
  - nickstinemates 4y ago
    100% - have been involved in a few of those and it's very expensive to deal with: even an unsubstantiated/dubious claim both in time and lawyers.
claudiulodro 4y ago
It does! Generally if you quit you can't collect unemployment insurance, but if your boss places unreasonable expectations on you or creates a hostile work environment you can argue it was constructive dismissal and collect unemployment even if you quit. The current Twitter situation is ripe for such claims. Criteria from Wikipedia: "The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has provided a 3-part test to determine whether or not a constructive discharge has occurred: (1) a reasonable person in the complainant's position would have found the working conditions intolerable; (2) conduct that constituted discrimination against the complainant created the intolerable working conditions; and (3) the complainant's involuntary resignation resulted from the intolerable working conditions"

gort19 4y ago

Ekaros 4y ago

So does working like Elon does count? So spend time tweeting stuff?

mikkergp 4y ago
Yeah, I think you can spend 2/3 of your time working for someone else.

metadat 4y ago

https://archive.ph/PXQGr https://archive.ph/PXQGr

legitster 4y ago

I think people might be missing the point here. Elon probably wants higher turnover. These are very desirable jobs. People would bend over backwards to work at Twitter. Younger, cheaper people who have strong ideas of how to fix Twitter and would actually try to push these ideas. And these seats are currently filled with older, expensive employees who like things the way they are averse to things breaking. Either that or you are a rough and tumble old timer who can thrive in chaos. This is very intentionally the model at his other companies. Or places like Amazon where they have almost perfected the art of extracting exactly 3 years of valuable work from young developers. I don't think Musk actually cares about that 84th hour of work. But I think he is very much trying to signal to current and potential employees that this will not be a comfortable long term career prospect.

mindcrime 4y ago
These are very desirable jobs. s/are/were
- legitster 4y ago
  I understand your point, but if he even gets a fraction of the talent they have to turn down at SpaceX or Tesla he'll do just fine.
  - blaser-waffle 4y ago
    Still a lot of Musk fanboys. And it's still a large, complex, big-name Tech company; experience with working on problems at that scale could open doors later, regardless of who is calling the shots at the top.
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  There are lots of hungry developers around that world that would kill to work 12/7 and take home 200k USD
galaxyLogic 4y ago
If that is such a great idea then why didn't the earlier owners think of it? They are experienced business-people as well I would think. Were they just dumb? Or is this just the ego of Musk trying to generate the maximum of mentions of himself in the media?

colanderman 4y ago

Musk is a bully. Like any bully, he is doing this to find out who is easy to pick on, and will keep them around, while dismissing those who are willing/able to fight back. Life will continue to be miserable to those he keeps around. My advice to all engineers feeling this pressure -- start looking now. Leave as soon as possible. You are more valuable than what Musk thinks of you. Those who are in a position to do so -- punch back. Do no, or negative work (if it does not harm teammates who cannot afford to be laid off). Force him to lay you off and give severance. Bullies do not deserve your time. They deserve to be crushed.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
adam_arthur 4y ago
Well, it’ll be interesting to assess the results in a few years. I agree that his actions are likely to create a hostile work environment, at the same time I have no doubt Twitter will be a much more valuable business after he’s done. These tactics are likely temporary to trigger many resignations, yes. Unlikely to the be the expectation in the long run. Twitter has been horribly mismanaged for years, and now needs to be restructured. It was simply a vehicle to siphon ignorant investor capital to an unproductive employee base. Tech employees at large are about to learn that they aren’t quite as special as they thought
hendersoon 4y ago
Any Twitter people not looking for a new position already probably should have their heads examined, honestly. Writing is on the wall.
sleepymoose 4y ago
> Force him to lay you off and give severance. If you're gonna do this I'd make sure you CYA, considering he's already let people go for cause.
memish 4y ago
The best engineers in the world working at SpaceX and Tesla disagree. Here's Andrej Karpathy's (ex-Tesla, even better) take from a couple days ago on Lex's podcast. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbxladysbTE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbxladysbTE

bergenty 4y ago

Can people be for cause fired for working only the stipulated 40 hour weeks at this point? And if it’s for cause do you get severance?

nradov 4y ago
I doubt those employees have contracts which stipulate 40 hour work weeks. They are salaried exempt employees. They can be fired for cause (although depending on the exact facts of a particular case the employee might still be able to file for unemployment insurance). There is generally no legal requirement to pay severance to terminated employees, unless it falls under the WARN Act and the employer failed to give sufficient advance notice (expect some litigation on this issue).
- bergenty 4y ago
  You can legally ask someone to work 24/7 everyday or fire them without severance?

mindcrime 4y ago

Wow. IF (if!) this is true, I really hope every single Twitter employee sends Musk an email saying "fuck you" and walks out. There's just now call for treating people like this. EDIT: let me expand this to say, it might not be as bad as it sounds if there's some massive reward (beyond just "keeping your job") tied to this or something. And I have no problem working 80+ hours a week.. I do it all the time myself. It's just that approximately every hour past 40 that I work in a week is working on my own project, not working for my employer. But that's something I choose to take on and where the potential reward if I'm successful (arguably) justifies it. It's hard to imagine any company paying a routine salary that would even come close to justifying working hours like that though, at least for me. But hey, everybody is different. So I guess I'd amend my post to say I hope almost every single Twitter employee ...

adam_arthur 4y ago
Well, that’s his intention. To force resignations
- mindcrime 4y ago
  Well, to a point. It could be self-defeating if enough people quit. Worst case it could effectively end Twitter as an ongoing concern. I doubt that would happen, but ya never know.
  - PM_me_your_math 4y ago
    Extremely doubtful. There is no shortage of people looking for work.
    - TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
      Except the lowest unemployment numbers in USA. That might be an issue. https://www.npr.org/2022/08/05/1116036160/the-unemployment-rate-fell-to-3-5-matching-its-lowest-level-in-the-last-50-years https://www.npr.org/2022/08/05/1116036160/the-unemployment-r...

0xbadcafebee 4y ago

I'm both saddened and excited. Saddened because this abuse is all too common in capitalist corporations led by megalomaniacs. And excited because my company is hiring and we don't ask anyone to work more than 40 hours a week. Hoping we can interview some people from Twitter soon so that they don't have to worry about finding new work after layoffs