← Back to context

Comment by cynicalsecurity

21 hours ago

There was an even crazier story when someone was fired from Apple, but still kept coming to the office to work on their project for free for like half a year before someone noticed.

26 comments

cynicalsecurity

Reply
Gualdrapo  21 hours ago

Or the stories about Musk firing people for the smallest nuissance, and then their immediate superior sending the "fired" person to another department the day after - next time Musk would see that person and not remember he "fired" them

  • mschuster91  20 hours ago

    [flagged]

    • close04  20 hours ago

      I think the losses you’re thinking of are more than made up by the gains coming from the employees being afraid they can be fired at any moment.

      7 replies →

    • tbrownaw  19 hours ago

      > One might wonder where the US could be if the corporate culture wasn't so trigger happy on firing people and if laws against improper terminations would a) exist and b) be enforced.

      Probably the labor market would look more like countries that already do that?

      > The amount of knowledge cost alone that any company incurs with such bullshit is insane, but almost no one gives a fuck because the lost knowledge reacquisition cost is usually booked under "training costs" or whatnot.

      No. Bean counters don't magically skip counting those beans. Hiring managers aren't magically ignorant of effects on their team's productivity.

    • ufmace  19 hours ago

      We would probably have much higher unemployment and slower-moving industries, and might no longer be the economic powerhouse of the world.

      When it's simple and easy to fire people, companies are a lot more willing to take a chance on hiring somebody they aren't 100% sure will be a good employee, and willing to hire a lot and grow fast knowing in both cases they can fire easily if needed.

      I find it sad that so many people never think about the second and third-order consequences of what sounds like feel-good policies. They often end up being a net-negative for the people they were intended to help.

      4 replies →

  • 93po  19 hours ago

    I don't understand the dig here. Is that that Elon is required to memorize the face of every single person he interacts with? That he isn't allowed to fire people he manages when he sees behavior or actions that don't align with what he wants in his orgs?

    Also, what exactly is the source of this information? I spent multiple minutes googling for an anecdote of him firing someone for a small nuissance, or firing someone and then not recognizing them later, or firing someone and then them getting surreptitiously moved to a different department.

    I'm fine if this actually happened, Elon definitely sucks. But otherwise this just feels like weird middle school gossip.

    • krisoft  18 hours ago

      The dig is three fold. (if the story is true, about which I have my doubts.)

      One: Elon instead of cultivating an organisation where the right people are rewarded and the wrong people are selected out tries to personally weed out the wrong ones. That is fundamentally foolish even if he is firing people who should be fired.

      Two: His subordinates don't respect his decision and instead of letting go the people he wanted to fire, they "hide" them in the organisation elsewhere.

      Three: He is too distracted / stupid / incompetent to then notice that his decision has been undermined.

    • D-Coder  19 hours ago

      > I don't understand the dig here. Is that that Elon is required to memorize the face of every single person he interacts with?

      That he is required (well, expected) to remember the faces of people he _fired_.

indy  20 hours ago

Weren't there also stories of people being afraid of stepping into elevators with Steve Jobs? He'd ask them about the work they were doing and if the answer didn't please Jobs he'd fire them

  • RyanOD  18 hours ago

    I had something like this happen to you me once, though not at Apple.

    I was quite young in my career and ended up on an elevator with the CEO. I got super nervous and just started running my mouth about something I perceived as a problem within the organization (!).

    On Monday he called me into his office and reamed me. Though I don't think chewing a young employee out in such a situation is the best approach, I'd say I at least deserved a, "Ok, listen youngster..." sort of dressing down.

    My boss pulled me aside later and said, "Don't ever talk to a CEO. Nothing good can come from it." I followed that advice the rest of my career.

    Oh and the CEO canceled my end of year bonus. :)

    • greyb  12 hours ago

      My father, a blue collar immigrant worker, did the same thing in his 40s. His CEO had an open door policy so he went in and expressed concerns. That day, he learnt that an open door policy is a massive red herring and got reamed for disturbing the CEO. It was all performative - they don't actually care.