Musk is now demanding Twitter engineers/managers identify "low performers" to be threatened

[highplainsdem]

Another chapter in "How to Terrorize and Demoralize Your Employees" by Elon Musk.

Twitter thread from Zoe Schiffer of Platformer:

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NEW: Twitter engineers have received another late night email laying out Elon Musk’s expectations. Managers are expected to “identify low performers on a regular basis.” Those employees then have “up to” 4-weeks to improve or they’re out. 1/

Software engineers and managers are expected to ship code every week. “Analytics, documentation…& helping teammates are considered a fundamental part of the job but not a replacement for writing code.” 2/

For roles outside software engineering, Twitter employees are still expected to demonstrate their contributions to the company on a weekly basis. 3/

“Lines of code are not the most important metric,” the email to Twitter engineers says. “Deleting a line of code is more valuable than adding one.”

Lastly, “leave and approved PTO are considered a general exception to these expectations.” I’d hope so!

[Bernardo de La Paz]

1. Because software engineers w specialties are a dime a dozen

Hint: not.

Further: heavy weekly reports eats into productive time. Under Mollusk's dictates, workers have to balance work so that projects which can show progress are prioritized for brownie points and real work that won't show fruit for weeks is to be avoided.

[C_U_L8R]

2. Lord of the Flies

It's only a matter of time. This won't end well.

[Renew Deal]

3. The people on visas will get hurt the most

Because they can’t leave easily. Almost everyone else has in demand skills and can get out if there if the want.

[dutch777]

4. Gotta believe anyone left at Twitter is actively looking for another job

As another reply in this feed notes, doing constant status and productivity updates to prove your productivity is a big killer of ...real productivity. And when you do this for 1000's of employees, who really reads them and checks them? I'd put in "Cured cancer and the common cold" and see if I get any feedback.

[Emrys]

5. Does this apply to Musk himself?

Leading from the front and all that.

[jimfields33]

10. He owns the joint.

This transition is tough but hopefully it will become a better company. Course I always thought Twitter was a cesspool and still do. I’m glad I never had interest in it.

[Emrys]

14. Parts of it are and always have been a cesspool, like many social media outlets.

Your attitude is typical of those who have no interest in Twitter, and hence have never spent much time figuring out what it's good for and how to use it to advantage.

There is a great deal of much value on Twitter, even now. You can filter out the crap, leaving you with access to informed comment from around the world, and news from areas the mainstream media covers only inadequately, if at all. That's why there's a concerted resistance among those on the left and "liberals" in general to Musk's clumsy interference. But I'm not here to persuade you to use Twitter or to take it more seriously, just as I appreciate it if people don't criticize me for paying it attention and getting the best out of it I can.

Owning the joint doesn't mean Musk shouldn't set an example and submit himself to assessment. That's been a standard approach in successful businesses for a very long time.

As for it becoming a better company, all he's done so far is avoid addressing the real issues that were holding it back and make it worse at every level. Only if and when he steps back from direct involvement and hires someone capable of doing the CEO job without his continual interference will it get turned around now. An appraisal would highlight this fact if he submitted himself to it.

[yankee87]

6. Almost feeling sorry

Almost feeling sorry for the people who work there. Let’s face it, all the good programmers, etc have left or are leaving. Earlier in my career, I worked interviewed for Home Depot as a Quality Manager. They told ten of us, that after a year only 4 would make it. I didn’t have to take the position, thankfully. Maybe just me, but not that cutthroat.

[Roxi]

7. Visas

I’m pretty sure that most of the remaining employees are trapped there. They can’t leave until they have another employer willing to pick up their visa paperwork to keep them in the country.

[yankee87]

9. That's right

That’s right. I helped with a company I was with sponsoring an engineer. In fact got his wife here also. I really hope they get other sponsors.
Again, thanks for the info.

[Roxi]

13. It's frustrating

Nobody (absolutely nobody) deserves to be treated the way Mollusk is treating his employees right now.

They were hired to work, not to be indentured servants to some jerk’s ego.

[unc70]

8. Musk meets "The Mythical Man Month"

Last week I attended the funeral of my mentor Dr Fred Brooks, whose lifetime of achievements included writing the MMM. While the art of software engineering has evolved significantly in my lifetime, Musk exhibits all of the worst practices possible. I expect he will fail spectacularly.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

11. What's he doing with all this "hardcore" coding?

Seriously. Is he going to “code” himself some advertisers?

Or is this about selling the shit out of user data?


“Come work for Twitter! We treat you like garbage and are probably filing bankruptcy any day now!”

[Yavin4]

12. What's truly sickening is seeing how many people support this approach.

It's like they have internalized trauma. Like the abused kid who bullies other children.

[OAITW r.2.0]

15. Be the best Twitter software engineer....delete all the coda!

[Renew Deal]

19. That's illegal

And won’t work anyway.

[dalton99a]

16. People love to work for a cruel sadistic thug

[mathematic]

17. I'm sure there's a ton of "buyers remorse" among the engineers that didn't take the severance

Ten days ago they could have quit with 3 months pay. Now they're going to get fired "for cause" by not adhering to inane and arbitrary code production standards.

[gratuitous]

18. Dear Boss, You asked about "low performers." There's this one guy . . .

He keeps interrupting everyone else's work and demands they stop what they're doing to listen to some nonsensical twaddle that's crossed his mind. Sadly, he's also in a position of sufficient authority to hire and fire people, which he does with some regularity and with no discernible purpose or goal. He also has a poor grasp of what makes this place run. Because he's such an obtrusive presence, I'll identify him by anagram: Elmo Skun.

[ok_cpu]

20. He's the worst love child of Jack Welch and Dick Fuld n/t

[RobinA]

26. Jack Welch

is the name that comes to mind every time I read about Musk’s Twitter antics. I was at a conference one time and Welch’s COO was giving a speech. He bragged about how many people he could lay off in some amount of time and then laughed about his incredible prowess at being a massive dick. Honest to god, he thought laying off thousands was funny.

[ok_cpu]

27. I worked for a GE company

during the "lay off the bottom 20%" days.

[ThoughtCriminal]

21. Did it mention the new cover sheets for the TPS Reports?

Did you get the memo? Yes? I'll send you another copy.

[jmowreader]

23. Unfortunately...

...he hasn't passed out the new cover sheets yet, but demands they be used.

[Kennah]

22. Lowest performer has consistently been Eloon Muskrat

[Hermit-The-Prog]

24. Egoloon should insist on 2-hour pep rallies to begin each day.

Follow the pep rally with a conference in which each employee presents a slideshow demonstrating what they accomplished yesterday.

This will cause productivity to EXPLODE. He will be richer and richer every minute.

Hire me, Egoloon! I can bash.

#!/bin/bash
#Eat a cactus, Egoloon

[BlueIdaho]

25. If you could work anywhere else

Why wouldn’t you? This “Beatings will continue until morale improves” management style is a leftover from the 50s. If you have talent, drive, and ambition - why would you stick around Tweeter now that king rat is running the place?