Musk Issues Ultimatum to Staff: Commit to Hardcore Twitter or Take Severance | Hacker News Reader

Musk Issues Ultimatum to Staff: Commit to Hardcore Twitter or Take Severance

washingtonpost.com

36 pointsjaybaxter23 comments

> “If you are sure that you want to be part of the new Twitter, please click yes on the link below,”

> Anyone who did not sign the pledge by 5 p.m. Eastern time Thursday was told they would receive three months of severance pay, the message said.

So he's giving everyone a voluntary redundancy option? I hope a lot of people take it.

> “This will mean working long hours at high intensity,” he said. “Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade.”

Wow. This is just fascinating to watch from the sidelines. I wonder if he'll push things so far that Twitter completely collapses, or he keeps it running and it will simply be a horrible place to work at.

>“Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade.”

Right I'm out. Not worth killing yourself for any company. This is like a speed run on how to destroy a company

>“This will mean working long hours at high intensity,” he said. “Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade.

I'm still astonished that this is even legal in the US, and even more surprised that there has been 0 talk of employees pushing back in a groupal way (strikes? walkouts? anything?)

Musk stated that raising your voice about the issue will certainly get you fired.

Not the first boss to do so. One guy can get fired, the whole company can’t.

> “This will mean working long hours at high intensity,”

I bet long hours for no increase in pay, which is wage theft.

Apparently Musk's pathway to profit is to steal from others.

Most of these employees aren't hourly, they're salary.

Do salary employees in the US not have a set amount of hours they have to work per week/month/year?

That's a great question. In the US salaried employees are exempt from overtime. Generally, the idea is that you are to work as much as is needed, hence the generally higher pay. There is no set amount of work per the employment contract (in general). You could work very little during slower periods, or a lot during higher demand times.

Seems awful that US laws allows that.

In Germany there is a hard upper cap at 48 hours/week for any normal employee (like pretty much everyone working at Twitter would be). Up to 60 hours/week can be legal if the average in four months isn’t above 48 hours/week (so this is to allow for temporary bursts in the workload, but beforehand or afterwards hours have to be reduced even below 48 hours to reach the 48 hour/week average).

Overtime doesn’t necessarily have to be paid, though this has to be explicitly specified in the employment contract (including the exact number of unpaid additional hours that can be demanded by the employer).

All of this doesn’t mean that many employees – especially those in smaller companies without workers councils or union support – won’t work more than 48 hours/week. That still happens in Germany. But at least no one can demand it from you and hardly anyone would be able to as brazenly just put that in writing.

No, not in any instance that I have experienced or been aware of. Salary means "you need to be here 'enough'". Most of the time, enough = 40 hours + whatever extra is needed to not fall behind. Occasionally it means nearly 40 hours if you don't work at a "butts in seats" type place.

It also often means you need to be available in some capacity 24/7.

Modern slavery. He might get away with it, as laws are lacking behind as usual. And he may even be copied by other employers if successful.

Given how frantic Elon seems to be right now, I'd doubt that he would even notice if you were slacking off or just BSing. If Twitter has employees that now just snitch on the others to inform Elon, then it's already dead as all trust is gone.

If I were in the position, I'd sign the pledge (after reading it for legal gotchca's) and just try to get another job as my full time job. What's the worst that's gonna happen? You'll get fired again?

> This is just fascinating to watch from the sidelines.

This is chilling. If Musk gets what he wants and you are a programmer anywhere, then this might one day apply to you too ...

It can happen to anyone anyway, regardless of what Musk does. That's already how many companies operate.

Well, it depends how strong the labor law is where you live.

Will the last one out the door please turn on the failwhale.

SpaceX: come build the future of mankind, but we wont pay you very much.

Tesla: come save humanity from climate change, but we wont pay you very much.

Twitter: come help me destroy society by giving voice to authoritarians and authoritarian states, but we wont pay you very much.

One of these things is not like the others, Elon.

I would take the severance and then try to do something for me for 2 months... Then spend the last month finding another job.

No, line up a job first, then tell the new company you will start a bit later. That way the job search is not hanging over you and you can truly relax.

If an employer thinks you are a good candidate, and finding good candidates is hard, they will be excited to have booked you and really can and will wait a few weeks.

I've done it before.

makes sense, thanks!

https://archive.ph/Ug8Ln

We are changing the contract.

You will: work yourself to death.

We will: pay you the same as before we changed the contract.

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