It's how you do them that is important and it revolves around treating people with dignity. Give them notice, allow them time to say goodbye to others, don't escort them out the building, don't make them sign NDAs etc.
Most companies do not have the spouses of former employees jump on Twitter to complain. So the mere fact it has happened means something went wrong from Tesla HR.
My point is, however, we can't know if that's what happened here.
Imagine for a second (and I'm NOT saying that's what happened here) her husband was terminated for sexual harassment. Should the company have given him 2 weeks?
The problem is we don't KNOW what happened, and for legal reasons Tesla won't respond (nor would any other company, probably).
A firing, layoff, termination -- without detailed, explicit evidence it's very hard to assign blame. This person has given us little detail so I think we should be cautious about how outsiders evaluate the outcome.
It's disappointing however to see this on the front page of HN as some sort of implicit acknowledgment that what Tesla did was wrong when we don't have a full, independent accounting of what happened.
Just put yourself in the shoes of a company or manager that's had to let someone go for legit reasons -- would you publicize them? We need more data but this tweetstorm doesn't really provide it, IMHO.
You don't know. I don't know. So why are we passing judgment?
If the tweetstorm was about why it's misguided corporate governance for Tesla to lay off 7% of its workforce, OK, let's have that debate.
But that's not what this thread discusses -- it specifically blames Tesla for laying off 1 person. But we can't possibly know the specifics of this individual's situation.
I don't know, you're right, but this is highly improbable.
But that's not what this thread discusses, it talks about the injustice of 1 person being laid off. And we can't possibly know the exact specifics of this individual's situation, so why are we passing judgment?
I agree that it's hard to judge those items without knowing the details of his offer letter, the terms of the bonuses, etc.
This is done because every once in a while, a laid-off employee will attempt sabotage or theft on the way out. A bad apple here and there ruins it for everyone.