27 ms·

I'm sure Musk is going to be left with an extremely motivated workforce. Seriously, people should just work whatever hours they want now (or don't want), look

I'm sure Musk is going to be left with an extremely motivated workforce. Seriously, people should just work whatever hours they want now (or don't want), look for other jobs, until they get caught. It's always the same with the bean counters, you can measure cost, salaries, etc, but you can't really measure happiness and motivation (well perhaps with surveys). In the end you are perhaps left with lower cost, fewer people, but these people are not motivated to to anything or do anything well. I wanted to believe that Elon had a plan. I now believe he has not the faintest idea about how to run a software company. And maybe that's a US problem... I see the same with construction and service workers, nobody has pride in their work left, just doing the minimum, hoping to get away with it... because their leaders are telling them that cost is all that matters.

pajko 4y ago
Musk never had plans. He's just a fraudster and lunatic comedian with loads of money. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1zPeWaaCZHqfq0tnkPwc61A6bGHySdj91 https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1zPeWaaCZHqfq0tnkPwc6...
fxtentacle 4y ago
I work for an unrelated US company and if our boss would ask my team to go hardcore and push a new feature out of the door and he can explain why that's necessary, I'd expect more than half of my team to participate. There are people who are proud of doing good work. It's just that they probably were the minority at Twitter. I'd guess that scaring out everyone who's feeling lazy might turn out to be a great way to increase productivity.
- pxmpxm 4y ago
  This is my read as well - judging by the amount of tantrum being thrown, the place seems to have a corporate culture of some progressive nonprofit... which is likely why they haven't been able to, ya know, make money. Didn't someone else do this approach before - essentially offering people money to quit?
  - papito 4y ago
    It's almost like Twitter is just a bunch of socialist snowflakes, borderline welfare queens who start drinking wine at 11 and work noon to four. What does that even mean? Try running a site at this scale with this track record and see if you can "coast". Maybe don't blame the engineers but the spectacularly bad management.
- kadoban 4y ago
  > I work for an unrelated US company and if our boss would ask my team to go hardcore and push a new feature out of the door and he can explain why that's necessary, I'd expect more than half of my team to participate. Musk made no effort to explain any real reason that "going hardcore" was needed, and certainly didn't suggest any real feature that needed it. There's a difference between pulling together to work hard and achieve goals with people you trust and whatever Musk has done. Some asshole telling you you're shit, for months, firing all of your friends and then asking everyone to work themselves to death to help pay off his unneeded loan interest is not going to get really anyone motivated.
  - pxmpxm 4y ago
    The company has been a giant money furnace for the entirety of its existence... I wouldn't expect Must to have to reiterate that to the people working there.
- Tiak 4y ago
  It isn't selecting for people who aren't lazy, it's selecting for people who have no other options, which doesn't seem like the best way to attract talent. If you were told you would have to work many more hours with fewer benefits for the same pay, but you had the option of going somewhere else for comparable pay, an actual ability to see your friends/family, and WFH/free meals/whatever, are you telling me that you would stay and take the worse working conditions just out of loyalty to a company that has no real loyalty to you and only employs you based off of an arbitrary metric? Given the choice, of course you're going to take the option with reasonable working conditions and flexibility for the same pay. The people they are retaining are largely going to be staying because they don't have that option. Quite a few seem to have visas dependent on their employment and social circles they don't want to leave and some are scared that they won't be able to convince another employer of their value in today's tech climate where everyone is laying off.
- WWLink 4y ago
  What if you CAN'T just "go hardcore" at the drop of a hat because some jackass asks you to? What if you have a family to take care of? Or your own health? You sign on at a company for a solid 9-5 week with the expectation that there's going to be little, if any overtime, and that overtime would be on rare exceptions. Then some jackass takes everything over and tells you to work twice as much or GTFO. No dude, that's not "doing the minimum" or "being lazy" that's a drastic change. I don't think he should have gotten away with doing what he's doing. I am very fucking proud of doing great work. I will even pull a few long days as needed to make something close or solve an issue. I'm not going to work 80 hour weeks. In fact, I think it's unethical to work those kind of hours - at some point you're going to ruin your long term health, the wellbeing of your family, and the quality of the work you produce. It's just all around foolish.
  - sentientslug 4y ago
    It’s a different company with the same name, the old Twitter no longer exists. Along with that comes a new set of expectations. There’s nothing he’s “getting away with”, he bought the company so he makes the rules. The moral judgement is of course up to you.
- papito 4y ago
  That may be true for an outsourced team of "yes men" but I would imagine the talent at Twitter has more self-respect than that. If the boss asks me to perform "office heroics", I will want to know what for. When I was younger I could power through that, while the stress would be absorbed by alcohol and my liver. Many people are too experienced and too tired of that crap. This has the vibe of an early tech company run by hard-partyng bros. Go time! Tequila and code! I don't know how it is at manufacturing and engineering companies like Tesla/SpaceX, but in the software business I've learned one thing - if you don't have respect for your engineers and you don't trust them, treating them like "resources", don't be in this business at all.
- fzeroracer 4y ago
  Personally, nothing makes me more proud of doing good work than knowing the entire payroll department left/was laid off and I have no clue if I'm going to actually get paid. If my boss told me to go hardcore without pay, I'd happily just do whatever he asked because hard work is valuable.
cafard 4y ago
If you can't run payroll, you'll definitely end up with only the truly committed.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

pajko 4y ago

Musk never had plans. He's just a fraudster and lunatic comedian with loads of money. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1zPeWaaCZHqfq0tnkPwc61A6bGHySdj91 https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1zPeWaaCZHqfq0tnkPwc6...

fxtentacle 4y ago

I work for an unrelated US company and if our boss would ask my team to go hardcore and push a new feature out of the door and he can explain why that's necessary, I'd expect more than half of my team to participate. There are people who are proud of doing good work. It's just that they probably were the minority at Twitter. I'd guess that scaring out everyone who's feeling lazy might turn out to be a great way to increase productivity.

pxmpxm 4y ago
This is my read as well - judging by the amount of tantrum being thrown, the place seems to have a corporate culture of some progressive nonprofit... which is likely why they haven't been able to, ya know, make money. Didn't someone else do this approach before - essentially offering people money to quit?
- papito 4y ago
  It's almost like Twitter is just a bunch of socialist snowflakes, borderline welfare queens who start drinking wine at 11 and work noon to four. What does that even mean? Try running a site at this scale with this track record and see if you can "coast". Maybe don't blame the engineers but the spectacularly bad management.
kadoban 4y ago
> I work for an unrelated US company and if our boss would ask my team to go hardcore and push a new feature out of the door and he can explain why that's necessary, I'd expect more than half of my team to participate. Musk made no effort to explain any real reason that "going hardcore" was needed, and certainly didn't suggest any real feature that needed it. There's a difference between pulling together to work hard and achieve goals with people you trust and whatever Musk has done. Some asshole telling you you're shit, for months, firing all of your friends and then asking everyone to work themselves to death to help pay off his unneeded loan interest is not going to get really anyone motivated.
- pxmpxm 4y ago
  The company has been a giant money furnace for the entirety of its existence... I wouldn't expect Must to have to reiterate that to the people working there.
Tiak 4y ago
It isn't selecting for people who aren't lazy, it's selecting for people who have no other options, which doesn't seem like the best way to attract talent. If you were told you would have to work many more hours with fewer benefits for the same pay, but you had the option of going somewhere else for comparable pay, an actual ability to see your friends/family, and WFH/free meals/whatever, are you telling me that you would stay and take the worse working conditions just out of loyalty to a company that has no real loyalty to you and only employs you based off of an arbitrary metric? Given the choice, of course you're going to take the option with reasonable working conditions and flexibility for the same pay. The people they are retaining are largely going to be staying because they don't have that option. Quite a few seem to have visas dependent on their employment and social circles they don't want to leave and some are scared that they won't be able to convince another employer of their value in today's tech climate where everyone is laying off.
WWLink 4y ago
What if you CAN'T just "go hardcore" at the drop of a hat because some jackass asks you to? What if you have a family to take care of? Or your own health? You sign on at a company for a solid 9-5 week with the expectation that there's going to be little, if any overtime, and that overtime would be on rare exceptions. Then some jackass takes everything over and tells you to work twice as much or GTFO. No dude, that's not "doing the minimum" or "being lazy" that's a drastic change. I don't think he should have gotten away with doing what he's doing. I am very fucking proud of doing great work. I will even pull a few long days as needed to make something close or solve an issue. I'm not going to work 80 hour weeks. In fact, I think it's unethical to work those kind of hours - at some point you're going to ruin your long term health, the wellbeing of your family, and the quality of the work you produce. It's just all around foolish.
- sentientslug 4y ago
  It’s a different company with the same name, the old Twitter no longer exists. Along with that comes a new set of expectations. There’s nothing he’s “getting away with”, he bought the company so he makes the rules. The moral judgement is of course up to you.
papito 4y ago
That may be true for an outsourced team of "yes men" but I would imagine the talent at Twitter has more self-respect than that. If the boss asks me to perform "office heroics", I will want to know what for. When I was younger I could power through that, while the stress would be absorbed by alcohol and my liver. Many people are too experienced and too tired of that crap. This has the vibe of an early tech company run by hard-partyng bros. Go time! Tequila and code! I don't know how it is at manufacturing and engineering companies like Tesla/SpaceX, but in the software business I've learned one thing - if you don't have respect for your engineers and you don't trust them, treating them like "resources", don't be in this business at all.
fzeroracer 4y ago
Personally, nothing makes me more proud of doing good work than knowing the entire payroll department left/was laid off and I have no clue if I'm going to actually get paid. If my boss told me to go hardcore without pay, I'd happily just do whatever he asked because hard work is valuable.

cafard 4y ago

If you can't run payroll, you'll definitely end up with only the truly committed.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]