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Comment by dmode | Hacker News Reader

I know someone who just got fired in this round at Tesla. His manager never communicated to him that he was a bad performer. He was not on a PIP or any performance plans. He was also working on Model 3. One fine morning his manager called him and said this would be his last day. He is a single income earner and was so shocked by this news that he is getting borderline depressed. They offered only 2 weeks of severance.

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I think firing without giving warnings and opportunity to improve is sick. These people don't even know they were doing badly. I can't tell if they've been told where they screwed up. These people could be spending a lot of time figuring out what went wrong when everything seemed to be going fine. They don't deserve that, regardless of performance.

They are people, they have lives and it wasn't anything like gross misconduct.

I think Mr Musk has a lot to answer for.

Some countries have laws requiring notice and time for a performance improvement period, before final termination of employment.

Yes, in Switzerland, for instance, a company is required to offer "job relocation" services for employees that have been working for the company for some years (I'm not sure how many exactly). These services (re-teach how to write a CV, how to prepare yourself for an interview, etc.) cost between 10K and 14K CHF per employee.

I'm in Australia and something like this seems very weird, you sometimes take for granted fair work laws till you see what happens in countries without them.

When I read about pip, I keep going back to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11299310

I think even if we had regulations and requirements like that in the US, it would quickly devolve into a charade. Basically, a six month pip would be the same as a six month notice with the option to fire you any time anyway.

Dumb law IMO. I like at-will employment. I would be pissed if my company was paying 14k on my behalf for something so unnecessary. I can budget my education much better than the government, thanks.

Why would you be pissed? No employee is going to be 'pissed' about something designed to benefit them and ease a layoff.

How can you budget your retraining if you get same-day notice and just 2 weeks severance?

Having six months to prepare for being fire sounds better then "bye tomorrow".

Well Basically every Commonwealth Countries and Countries inside EU, or to put it another way, the difference between the World and US.

Musk seems to think that somebody like Chris Lattner is not good enough for Tesla, so his definition of a 'low performer' definitely seems a bit off. I just hope that the applies the same evaluative metrics to himself.

In a 'Groucho Marx'-ian turn, what would Elon do if he judged himself wanting? Would he have to find a successor, or would he just walk?

It is a hard question to answer, as my ideal would be to reflect on his findings and adjust his behaviour/expectations towards others to match, however I am not sure many people in his position are actually capable of such deep introspection.

The intention is not to improve performance by removing useless people- the intention is to improve performance and dissent-less quotas on those who stay.

I worked at a bigco during a RIF (reduction in force), and underperforming /teams/ or even /sections/ had their management told, “your team underperformed — fire X number of lowest performers”. Then the manager was effectively forced to just pick people to let go.

Shitty, but par for the course for many bigco places (outside tech), from what I have heard over the years.

It's often not underperformers. Just "pick x% of your team"

So its, pick the least social performers, false friends and in-efficient co worker backstabbers.

I was consulting once for a large company when one of those came down. A manager I was working with really cared about his team, and it bothered him that he had to lay off one person for basically no good reason besides corporate politicking. He pushed against it for a while, but when they wouldn't relent, he laid himself off.

That didn't totally make sense, as they still had to find a manager for his team. But since the whole layoff was arbitrary, it didn't have to make sense. His whole team stayed.

I always thought it was a baller move. And looking at LinkedIn, he's had a solid career since, so it clearly didn't hurt him any.

Do you know if the severance was based on time worked so far, or 2 weeks for everybody?

But yeah, this is terrible. If you don't expect you're going to be fired for bad performance, that's a company's failure, not yours.

He worked for 2 years. I am not sure what severance is based on. Also, with this article, Tesla pretty much trashed every employee they fired by publicly saying they are bad performers. Imagine finding a job now that you have been labelled a poor performer

They are bad performers for Tesla. That does not mean they are bad performers for other companies. The acceptance threshold at Tesla could be at a very different level.

I don't know if this helps your friend but I know BMW in Munich is hiring. A lot of departments are fine with English speakers. I found a couple of examples for him if they are useful:

https://recruiting.bmwgroup.de/ibs/Servlets/ibs/controller/s...

I'm sure Mercedes and Audi would also have similar openings.

> I know someone who just got fired in this round at Tesla. ... They offered only 2 weeks of severance.

Fired or layed off? I've never experienced either, but I always thought severance pay was exclusive to the latter.

I am not sure of the difference between firing and laying off. Manager basically said that today is last day, bring in your equipment etc

Typically you’re fired when you do something bad. I wouldn’t consider what Tesla did as firing anyone.

Poor performance isn’t typically a “bad thing” in this sense. For instance, if someone went and pissed in the coffee pot, they would be fired. If a big group of people were simply told to not come in anymore it’s laid off. Tesla specifically said this wasn’t laying people off so I’m not sure how that works.

I don’t know if there’s any legal or contractual grounds for one or the other but I’d guess it would matter what state you’re in.

I know for a lot of states collecting unemployment benefits does require some sort of reason for termination that is related to the above distinction.

I thing the difference you are thinking of is when someone is being made redundant versus being fired. Being fired implies the employee failed in some way. Being made redundant implies the company changed in such a way that the employee is no longer needed.

Being made redundant tends to be the situation that attracts a severance package of any significance. Depending entirely on the country and state of course.

If you're fired for doing something bad, then you become ineligible for unemployment compensation (which is something you earned) and some other benefits. This creates a perverse incentive to claim a cause for termination. On the other hand, it also creates an incentive for the fired employee to sue, especially if they think that the employer didn't have an utterly bulletproof paper trail and discipline procedures.

For this reason, it's sometimes more practical for a company to terminate someone without cause, and just pay out the benefits as a cost of doing business. They can wait for a slow season, when they would normally shed some workers, and terminate the lowest performers.

Companies avoid the term "layoff" because it has connotations, such as eligibility to be re-hired when conditions improve. So they use "reduction in force" instead. The people who are fired are "impacted," and so forth.

The terminology used doesn't mean anything... what matters is whether someone was terminated "with cause" or not.

It varies by state, but you can collect unemployment a lot of the time if you have been fired.

In California, unemployment is a maximum of $450 a week for 26 weeks. Still helpful, but ~$11/hour is a pretty big drop for most of them.

Indeed, it's not a lot, but I figure, you earned it so you might as well collect it.

At least in my state (MA) a while ago being fired with cause means not eligible for unemployment[1]. I knew this from someone (last century) being fired for being overheard quoting "office space" the movie on the phone, and therefor suspected of being dangerous. He was not given a chance to defend himself, but hated the job anyway.

"PETER Boy. I tell ya, one of these days... One of these days it's gonna be like

He mimics a machine gun. Brian, a waiter, does it too, in Peter's face."

He went to hearing to get his unemployment, and won because the layer from bigco, sent to the hearing from out of state literally wouldn't answer any questions.

http://www.masslegalhelp.org/employment-unemployment/ui-if-f...

without commenting on the unfairness -- as an employee, if you aren't prepared for this to happen to you, then you are doing yourself a disservice and are improperly managing your finances.

Any and all of us can, and some will be, 'fired' for less with less.

If you are an employee in the States, that is.

There’s a mandatory three-month notice period in Sweden, so that the person who is fired (or sho leaves) has the time to find a new job

That three month notice period when leaving is a hassle for employees, being a lame duck is no fun.

Better than being a broke duck.

If you save some of your paycheck no need to be broke

Good luck being able to actually save some of your paycheck. I, for example, cannot because the rents here are shockingly high.

Then move!

My job doesn't offer full-time remote work, and as soon as you move to the outsides of Munich you pay the rent difference in transportation cost. No way.

Why do you feel the need to work in Munich?

There are thousands of places to work all over the world.

By all means work in Munich if you want to. But to choose to live and work in a city and then complain about rent is absurd.

Well, this is the case where you get a new job, so that doesn't apply.

The three-month notice period is mandatory, because:

- if the employee leaves, it benefits the business:

-- the employee has the time to hand over their work

-- the employer has time to look for and find a replacement, or prepare for work without the employee

- if the employee is fired, it benefits the employee:

-- they have the time to look for a new job

-- they continue working, receiving salary, and don't have to worry about bills, rent etc.

In both cases the employer and the employee can agree on the actual time when the employee quits: it could be the next day, or next week, or after three months, at the end of the notice period.

Right. Being fired on the spot is much more fun.

Often it is not about financial preparedness. It is about uncertainty. When will I get my next job? 6 months? Which means I will burn through my savings. If you are on a visa then things become exponentially complicated - you don't get unemployment insurance, benefits. What about healthcare ? COBRA is prohibitively expensive. How about the fact that the company announced to the entire world that you are a low performer? This is not even taking into account the emotional impact of getting fired cold.

All of the concerns you mentioned can be related to financial preparedness. Given a skill set and job market how long do cash to cover rent, health insurance, etc. The emotional uncertainty can be huge of course with job loss, but removing financial stress from that possibility should be a goal for most.

What kind of role was the person in? Were they former SolarCity or Tesla Motors? Can you give us any other details?

No notice and 2 weeks severance? Moreover, I guess, no health insurance while looking for work? Wow, I don't think any other rich country could find this acceptable.

From the article, some folks are claiming that the firings were around attempts at organizing a union:

> Openly pro-union workers were among those fired this week. Some believe they were targeted.

He works in a white collar job. So, unlikely to be "pro union".

There are plenty of white collar unions. Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA) for one.

>They offered only 2 weeks of severance.

It sucks for him, but I hope he learns in future not to sign bad contracts. A day's notice and 2 weeks severance is super bad and I would not have signed it unless the pay was extremely good, as in so good I wouldn't have to worry about getting another job straight away.

EDIT: based on the downvotes many people here could use this advice: DO NOT SIGN BAD CONTRACTS!

The downvotes are probably due to the fact that there are no contracts in the states. It is at will employment

Not everyone is in a position to negotiate terms. Very few in the US would have that kind of leverage.

That is pretty common, dare I say almost a human right. It is suddenly becoming clear to me why people in America hate capitalism. I just thought it was bunch of lazy fucks who didn't want to work, but if you are regularly allowing employers to get away with shit like this, then it's no wonder.

Could you please post more civilly and thoughtfully?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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