Musk’s latest outrage against Twitter employees (who are free and independent entities) is his demand that they show up to work. This thoughtless rule will interfere with their tranquil vacation-like work environment. With half of his original workforce of 7,500 eliminated, Elon Musk continues on the warpath against slackers and leftist saboteurs.
Meanwhile, random people online scoff at Musk’s accomplishments, as though he’s the recipient of ill-gotten gains. Never was there such a discrepancy between an individual’s merit and his shabby treatment in the media.
Show up to Work
Because Musk made a caveat that workers can continue working home if they are “exceptional,” it occurred to him that he would now face a weasley wrangling over the definition of “exceptional.”
The policy of having the Twitter workers come to work is described as causing “mass confusion” by Business Insider. After first stating that he would have to personally sign-off on such exceptions, Musk clarified:
"All that is required for approval is that your manager takes responsibility for ensuring that you are making an excellent contribution […]It is also expected that you have in person meetings with your colleagues on a reasonable cadence, ideally weekly, but not less than once per month."Perhaps anticipating how he might be further sabotaged by his wily employees, Musk stipulated to his managers:
"At risk of stating the obvious, any manager who falsely claims that someone reporting to them is doing excellent work or that a given role is essential, whether remote or not, will be exited from the company."On Tuesday, Musk clarified that he only wants “extremely hardcore” employees to work at Twitter, and gave employees a link where they could indicate affirmatively that they were such workers (or be let go with three months’ severance). The deadline was Thursday for Twitter employees to commit to working “long hours at high intensity” and generally adapting to the Musk regime, which he referred to as “Twitter 2.0.” While most employees clicked “yes,” hundreds of low-energy employees took this as the opportunity to stalk out of there.
One employee told Business Insider anonymously, “This is stressing me out.”
The Disrespect Continues
Random people on Twitter claim to have more expertise than Elon Musk:
They attempt to isolate, ridicule, and humiliate him.
His own employees thought it was ok to criticize him on Twitter’s Slack channel:
The NY Post reports that “a site reliability engineer who identifies as a nonbinary transgender and plural person” wrote:
“It’s physically cringy watching Elon talk about free speech.” There are similar sentiments posted by Twitter employees characterizing Elon as “harmful” and expressing largely hostile attitudes towards Elon’s vision of free speech for Twitter.
Where did they get the idea that this disrespect was acceptable? Perhaps the spirit of disrespect filtered down from the media and social media. They must have thought they were in high school, mean girls making fun of the guy that everyone knows is so not cool. They lost sight of the fact that he was their boss, and also a man that is not afraid to take action (in this case, firing them).
Twitter employees are bullying Elon Musk
Earlier he fired nonessential workers such as the trust and safety team members. For the time being, the company has survived.
Musk has also stopped paying for his employees’ lunches, risking their starvation. Will they find another way to obtain food?
The employees of Twitter have had a tough time accepting their new boss. Something about him makes them insubordinate. But why? He’s whimsical, ingenious, and a fount of energy. Yet some cannot see this.
The Pushback
Besides the media attacking Musk for creating a “chaotic” environment at Twitter, there has been much talk of legal remedy. At issue is the WARN act, which requires 60 days notice before letting an employee go. Yet Musk has quite ingeniously anticipated this too. A California lawyer tells NBC News:
“Hard to conclude that Twitter definitely did violate the WARN Act because they may have done things to mitigate against it.”The beauty of giving employees a severance is that they’re left with little cause for complaint. What is 60 days’ notice when you’ve been given 90 days’ pay? It also tends to soften the blow of being fired. Let’s just all move on with our lives and let Musk run his own company, shall we?