So "X" - nothing to see here. Elon's in control - Part XXX

Cordell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119884583#Comment_119884583

Mercenaries, that's a perfect description:

• they sell their skills for money
• they are good and they like what they do, otherwise they won't be around for too long
• they can be summary terminated for disobeying or questioning their CO

Dohnjoe

Fire half the work-force, then give the other half 24 hours notice to work twice as hard or be fired.

From the many comments I've read from people under Elon over the years, it's clear he despises people who "don't work as hard as him". I have no doubts he is getting a perverse pleasure from purging this company regardless of whether it stays in business or not.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119884730#Comment_119884730

Yet they can't be terminated because most contracts have notice periods, laws protecting privacy, laws protecting wrongful termination and most of all: workplaces aren't the army. The boss is not an infallible entity one must kiss the ring for and holding employees hostage such that criticism of Dear Leader is punishable by death sacking is ... well, it's Patently reductionist and nosense - nor matches anything relating to reality.

chopperbyrne

He can largely get away with this in the US, but he won't be able to do anything with the Irish operations that goes against Irish or EU employment law.

Speaking of things like loyalty, I used to work for a company called Stream Global Services (now a part of Convergys), and they did an employee survey with one of the questions being "Are you proud to work for Stream?". It got a very low return on proud employees.

So we were all brought into meetings, and the head of HR for our office asked about it, so I told her that nobody cares who Stream are. They're a company that runs call centres, who pay low wages. Why would you be proud of that? If asked where you work, you answer that you do support/sales/training for Client X, not Stream. She said she was proud of working for them, so I said that no, you're proud of being head of HR in an office that employs over 300 people from fifteen different countries. Proud of your own accomplishments, but not proud to work for that specific company.

After those meetings where I'm sure others said similar, they started doing quite a bit more charity related things, so maybe they got the message.

Quin_Dub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119885183#Comment_119885183

We get asked that same question every single year in the annual employee survey and get similar reactions to lower scores for that question.

We have a very senior leader in the US who when giving "townhall" updates had this habit of inserting pauses in his updates where in the US he'd get lots of whooping and cheering , but in the rest of the world he'd get absolutely nothing.

He'd say - "Last Quarter we did X Billion dollars in sales" or whatever and then he'd stop, expecting the whooping and cheering he gets in the US , but would be met with nothing in Europe.

To be fair to him he's learned and now his delivery in Europe is very different to how he does it in the US , but it took him quite a while.

They do seem to have this need to be "All in!!" on everything they do - Cheering at work , bumper stickers and flags about their kids school or who they are voting for , it's all very unnecessarily public.

AndrewJRenko

Leaked video from Musk’s Twitter war room

https://twitter.com/eliotetc/status/1592982146272354305?s=46&t=G-k5V21rE5Cmcce0tSR06g

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119885217#Comment_119885217

By the sounds of things we work for the same company

AndrewJRenko

Coming soon https://mastodonapp.uk/@stephenfry/109356206651818526

Tony EH

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119885217#Comment_119885217

Performative woohoo.

It's all part of the American corporate bullshit that was mentioned earlier. A completely deceptive set of ideas and efforts used to pull the wool over the eyes of the more niave element of the workforce. But at least that part of the dog and pony show is largely missing from the Irish/European workplace, thankfully.

I, too, used to work for a large American company and the "aren't we great" crap went down like a lead balloon over here, while in the States it was astonishing to see just how lapdoggish some people were, as if all the whooping, hollering, back patting was going to help when the time came that the company no longer wanted you and handed a redundancy as a thanks for all the hard work.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119885217#Comment_119885217

Nothing as extreme as pausing for applause, but I do notice the difference in terms of externalised enthusiasm between our American departments and our engineering one - which is predominantly European + a mix of other nationalities. There's no clash or anyhting but curious how Americans seem so ... I dunno, hyped-up all the time, be it superficial or genuine.

Reminds me also how they tend to applause after a movie and that irrationally annoys me lol.

Quin_Dub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119885935#Comment_119885935

Very much a cultural thing I think - The whole concept of "American Exceptionalism" is drummed into them from day one that they feel the need to manufacture the excitement and the "Wow , we're awesome" bit the whole time.

The Pep rallies , the bumper stickers , the flags - It all smacks of a level of insecurity that says "If we don't make sure everyone knows how awesome we are , then maybe we're not actually awesome"

Christy42

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119885982#Comment_119885982

I mean everyone dedicated to the same goal does make the goal a lot easier so I get why companies try and foster it. It gets more hours in jobs, more focus at work etc if everyone buys into what the company is working for. The main difference is that for some reason those in the US believe that it is to their benefit to join in on this.

Companies will match salaries to the market so it makes no difference if they make or lose an extra billion to workers. A large issue is that the success is disconnected from the workers so unless a company hits very hard times there is no real benefit to drive a companies success.

We will see what effect corporate culture will have with twitter. It seems like Elon will trial and error till he reaches what twitter was doing 2 months ago. So losing a few billion but remaining solvent in the end as he offers the same product that was there a few months ago.

Cordell

https://twitter.com/realGeorgeHotz/status/1592945472519680001?s=20&t=_PkMRgeL651DgGGqJ1hGVA

If you don't know who he is, he's worthy of his own wiki page.

Frank Bullitt

Twitter 2.0, 1.0 was bad enough.

bokale

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119886731#Comment_119886731

Any idea what Musk is planning to build exactly?

Wanderer78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119886847#Comment_119886847

...a solid legal argument of why his creditors should stick with him, by the looks of it!

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119886847#Comment_119886847

Twitter, with more adverts? Get the Blue Ticks right this time - though all the hardcore coding won't solve for a good admin and moderation department. Either way I suspect the short answer is "more monetisation avenues"

Agent Coulson

How long could Twitter stay live for if it was to lose say another 50% of it staff tonight at 5pm ET.

They would be down to around 1700 or so staff then however would they be the right staff in the right areas to keep the show on the road.

xxxxxxl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119884412#Comment_119884412

https://www.newstalk.com/news/working-from-home-is-your-employer-watching-you-1369079

All they have to do it tell you.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119886731#Comment_119886731

Not worthy of a Blue Tick from Twitter either so he can be that worthy of much.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119885506#Comment_119885506

One of if not the first major celebrity to promote the use of Twitter when on talks shows or doing interviews all those years ago.

Cordell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119886847#Comment_119886847

Skynet.

Quin_Dub

I see he's beeen forced to commit to stepping down as Twitter CEO very soon as part of the suit he's fighting around Tesla and his crazy compensation package - $50B a year!!!!

Not unreasonably , Tesla stockholders are wondering why they are paying him so much money when he seems to be spending most of his time doing other "Not Tesla" stuff.

bokale

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119887260#Comment_119887260

Hardcore

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119887139#Comment_119887139

Oh Lord, please make it stop. Please stop making a bigger and bigger fool of yourself.

Did you actually read the article that you linked to? The bit about; "The issue then is always going to be whether it's reasonable."

It's a very long way off 'all they have to do is tell you'. They need a legal basis for processing your data. It needs to be reasonable and proportional.

See page 13 of https://www.dataprotection.ie/sites/default/files/uploads/2019-10/CCTV%20Guidance%20Data%20Controllers_October19_For%20Publication_0.pdf to see the many restrictions on employee monitoring, particularly by CCTV. Here's details of the many restrictions on vehicle monitoring; https://www.dataprotection.ie/en/dpc-guidance/employer-vehicle-tracking

"All they have to do is tell you" really couldn't be more wrong. Honestly, you're not going to get this stuff by Googling a few articles. There's a bit more too it than that.

xxxxxxl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119887396#Comment_119887396

did you I assume we know better than.

Laura Bambrick, Head of Social Policy and Employment Affairs at the Irish Congress of Trade Unions described the surveillance of remote workers as a "real area of concern" for trade unions.

They can monitor you our idea of proportional/reasonable may differ just like the Employers. And yes all they have to do is tell you. CCTV would be the covert end but only if they are not visible. And is still allowed as long as your not actively watching it You can view if your suspect stealing for example. You can put camaras in toilets. For safety as long as there only reviewed after something happens. GDPR is not some king of God Tire legislation. It's for consumer protection mostly. In a work environment there is no expectation for privacy. Walking around the local are you will be monitored on CCTV.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119887164#Comment_119887164

One of the first to leave Twitter for Mastadon too.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119887428#Comment_119887428

You can assume the Data Protection Commissioner knows better than Laura. Honestly, I'm not going to debate GDPR from someone who tells me it doesn't apply to companies. You're not going to get this from Googling a few articles.

xxxxxxl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119887448#Comment_119887448

I'm sure we can link to the commissioner taking a company to court over monitoring Employees working from home for example ? Should have been tones of cases by now. Again I does not apply to companies in the same way in relation to employees. If were going to try argue this then explain why they can enforce you to have security badges with personal information attached. Explain how in Team meeting they can use your personal statistics in a meeting with your team members. I look forward to the links for court cases.

kerplun k

Did Musk actually say he wants people to work 80 hour weeks?

Its one thing asking your staff to be committed and give their full effort, it's another to ask people to exceed what can be achieved within a traditional working week.

If I was at any position and it was expected that I routinely exceed 40hrs, I'd be handing in my notice. I work my butt off within a normal working week, and of course there's some give and take, but overall, your time is your most precious resource. The 40hrs you spend outside your work, is your time, I don't care what the organisations vision is, or what the rewards are, nothing is worth more to me than that time I spend with my friends and family.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119887459#Comment_119887459

Am I your new research assistant? But yet again, with each post, you manage to make yourself look more and more silly when you try to pretend that you know something about a topic that you clearly have no clue about.

'Should have been tones (sic) of cases by now' - have you any idea how long these cases take? Have you followed the serious of complaints around Europe on the speed of the Irish DPC in dealing with such cases? 'should have been tonnes' is fairly meaningless.

You're right, GDPR does not apply to companies in the same way as employees, but that's not what you said. You said that GDPR does not apply to companies, which is a bit like saying that speed limits don't apply to drivers, or no-smoking laws don't apply to smokers. Utter nonsense.

If you think I'm here to educate you step by step on GDPR, you've made another big mistake. I will keep pointing out each error in your posts though.

If you do want to read up on employee monitoring, start with; https://www.activemind.legal/guides/monitoring-employees-remote/

I've highlighted some of the important bits in this extract;

If you monitor remote working employees, this will in most cases involve the processing of their personal data. Any processing of personal data has to be compliant with the GDPR, and thus lawful, transparent and fair. Moreover, the data you collect must be collected for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes and data processing has to be limited to what is strictly necessary for the specified purposes. Your collection of employee data has to be minimized to what is strictly necessary to achieve the purpose of the monitoring, e.g., preventing specific kinds of misconduct.

Consent is not a suitable legal basis

For the monitoring to be lawful, you need to have a legal basis for the processing. Due to the imbalance of power between you as an employer and your employees, consent is often not an appropriate basis for the processing. According to Art. 4 (11) GDPR for consent to be valid, it has to be “freely given, specific and informed”. As the European Data Protection Board’s (EDPB) guidelines on consent note (p. 9), it is unlikely that employees’ consent to their monitoring will be “freely given”. There is a certain degree of dependence of employees upon their employers. Therefore, there usually is a fear and/or real risk of detrimental effects if they refuse consent, thereby putting pressure on the employee to consent to the employer’s request.

In addition, it does not seem to be suitable to use employee consent as basis for the processing of data in the context of monitoring activities, as consent can be revoked at any time. If employees make use of this right the purpose of the monitoring as a control mechanism would be undermined.

pjohnson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119887534#Comment_119887534

But what about the honour and privlege of working for Musk?

xxxxxxl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119887539#Comment_119887539

If you followed the flow of the conversation It was clearly in relation to Employees. I never suggested GDPR does not apply to Companies. I mean its the whole reason GDPR was implemented. To stop data harvesting. If People cannot be civil I guess there is no further discussion to be had.

kerplun k

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119887557#Comment_119887557

😂 lol

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119887558#Comment_119887558

Your direct quote was; "Gdpr is for individuals not companies."

Don't blame me for your fundamental errors. Employers can not do anything they like, and get away with it by telling employees.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119887557#Comment_119887557

Rather lick me own arsehole

xxxxxxl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119887674#Comment_119887674

Gdpr is for individuals not companies. Show us under the Gdpr guidelines where this is disallowed. They are allowed to monitor your activities. How do you think they got away with working from home monitoring ? They could see though your camara and keylog on the work system to see if you were working. 

That's the full quote. As I said in relation to Employees.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119887743#Comment_119887743

You're really just making it worse.

xxxxxxl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119887746#Comment_119887746

Nope. I'm not interpreting a law that's not seen the inside of a court in relation to employees. It's been around since 2018. At the moment we have different legal interpretations.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119887534#Comment_119887534

I've worked those kind of long, intense weeks and to say they're draining and horrible is a massive understatement. I felt sick and nauseous all the time, drained beyond coherence and my mental health a disaster area. I was borderline. I was so pressurised and stressed though from the work itself, I never had a single moment to at least collect my thoughts, never had enough of an evening at home to even cook a meal; I lived on microwave crap and takeaway. My social life was non-existent so I Wasn't meeting anyone, platonically or otherwise, to decompress. I was earning slightly more than the last place - but so what? I couldn't do anything with it beyond subsist.

Even when I finally had the wherewithal to get a CV organised (thanks to my Dad pushing me to get out), it was incredibly hard to job-hunt or take time off for interviews; having to pull sickies in the end 'cos I couldn't get the time off from my manager. That's the part they don't tell you about those 80 hour weeks: good luck getting out of it. Even taking a phone-call from a recruiter was next to impossible with the constant expectation to deliver at high intensity; to always be at my desk. Plus I had 3 months notice in the contract: the (fantastic) job I got in the end required me to start in a month - so I basically had to shout at the boss to just let me leave in 6 weeks as a compromise - I wasn't staying. Remarkably it worked and I only battled him 'cos I was at the end of my tether.

I was fúcked during those months, I've never experienced anything that stressful, that stripped of stamina, energy, basic functional happiness. And at least when I did all that, I wasn't married nor had children at the time: I couldn't imagine what kind of quality of life I or mine would have were I still pulling those kind of hours per week. Or indeed, I had no great financial pressures either; no student loans or anything excessive so I wasn't forced to stay just to keep up with payments.

What it is, ultimately, is a horrible, horrible constant cycle of stress that was incredibly hard to decouple from, because the employer made it intentionally hard to do so. I just had to keep going. The office was structured in such a way to basically have a churn of designers and developers, knowing there'd always be others to take over when the last lot invariably burned out.

I worked for a completely unreasonable boss quite early in my career and was severely bullied. When I tried to leave she threatened to ring my referees and “ask them why they had lied about me on their references” as I was “clearly incompetent.“

This included academic references and all sorts of people.

She wanted 3 months notice to leave. I gave her 2 weeks.

I was also told that I’d “never work in the industry again!” if I crossed her and all sorts of stuff.

Sometimes you just have to walk. I learned that pretty fast.

Toxic jobs are “widow makers”

Royale with Cheese

https://twitter.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1593335536697090048?s=20&t=UrS58admQDnrc2DUWDtkNA

Well who saw this one coming

francois

Revenge of the nerds

https://twitter.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1593335536697090048?t=Kv6l0lFJWB5VrpTfYwf1Iw&s=19

Good engineers can move easily

He’s toasted the company’s reputation now. Nobody’s going to want the jobs. Probably no longer matters what he offers. He’s burned the bridges.

MrMusician18

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119887445#Comment_119887445

Fry had a habit there for a while of flouncing from twitter every couple of months

francois

Turns out that Musk is actually not a rocket scientist

MrMusician18

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119887746#Comment_119887746

He's right though. Performance monitoring through the use of tools like those mentioned are not GDPR breaches once the staff member knows they are being monitored.

Calls may be recorded for quality and training purposes... It's the same thing

xxxxxxl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119887953#Comment_119887953

No point bothering. I work in the Industry lets say over 20 years in USMC's it's been happening since I have been around GDPR is not stopping what is going on. Cases would have been reported in the Media of there were any coming forward. We know monitoring has been in the media but no breaches.

kerplun k

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119887824#Comment_119887824

Sorry to hear that and glad you got out of it.

Crazily enough, I've heard almost identical stories from many friends who straight out of college got dev jobs for small start ups where the 'CEO' was sitting next to them, constantly refreshing products, asking for updates by the hour. Questioning every 'break' they took. A good Friend of mine, and talented developer, got therapy after leaving such a place, feeling like a failure after he left. Places like this know EXACTLY what they are doing. And reading Musks tweets, It's very, very easy to imagine this is the kind of boss he'd be.

kowloon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119885713#Comment_119885713

...it was astonishing to see just how lapdoggish some people were, as if all the whooping, hollering, back patting was going to help when the time came that the company no longer wanted you...

That's it boiled down: The company is only loyal to an employee as long as they can exploit them for profit. When you cease to be of value they'll discard you. You're just a number to them.

As long as that#s how business works I see no reason for employees to break their backs doing anything they're not paid for.

All of that changes when it's a small business where the business owner has formed friendships with the employees, but sometimes people have to go from that to a corporate environment out of necessity.