Tam
Well-Known Member
" thick-skinned" and victim blaming is an inappropriate and abhorrent response to an unlawful allegation.
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Diversity/Harrassment Issues at Tesla?
- Thread starter Qbenjamin
- Start date
" thick-skinned" and victim blaming is an inappropriate and abhorrent response to an unlawful allegation.
Bet TSLA
Active Member
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
The email posted was not in response to the lawsuit (which was just launched Monday). That email was an old one from May.
Did I read it right that Tesla's claim is the racist behavior is actually between two minority groups? It is indeed rather bold of Tesla to address such an issue so openly, but perhaps insightful into the situation.
I think we can sense a pattern here of how Tesla takes on complaints in general. They will fight and they will take it public very fast and use their considerable PR clout, logs, blogs, whatever they have, in public.
The concern I have is, what happens when they indignantly think they are right, but are actually in the wrong. Does this make them less likely to see and own up a fault on their own end?
We know from other experience Tesla is rarely if ever proactively transparent about issues that makes Tesla look bad (e.g. they don't pre-emptively address why or how EAP/FSD deadlines passed etc.), but they are aggressively proactive in defending themselves.
So, certainly a very different - almost personal, it seems - approach to tackling issues. Even the closing line of Elon's message had the echoes of some 19th century industrial tycoon addressing his proletariat.
I think we can sense a pattern here of how Tesla takes on complaints in general. They will fight and they will take it public very fast and use their considerable PR clout, logs, blogs, whatever they have, in public.
The concern I have is, what happens when they indignantly think they are right, but are actually in the wrong. Does this make them less likely to see and own up a fault on their own end?
We know from other experience Tesla is rarely if ever proactively transparent about issues that makes Tesla look bad (e.g. they don't pre-emptively address why or how EAP/FSD deadlines passed etc.), but they are aggressively proactive in defending themselves.
So, certainly a very different - almost personal, it seems - approach to tackling issues. Even the closing line of Elon's message had the echoes of some 19th century industrial tycoon addressing his proletariat.
systemcrashed
Please Reboot
We can agree that we are allowed to disagree. In my opinion, I think Tesla’s response shows that they have a protocol to educate and address discriminatory behavior within the workplace. The allegation against Tesla and the notion that Tesla is a hotbed of discrimination is based more likely on an emotional response (or some other factor) than rational thought. Same goes for a person who has a phobia of water or drowning (from previous life experiences) can see a puddle or a drop and imagine it is an ocean.
Discrimination is evil. Not only because it goes against the Golden Rule (do unto others as you would have them do unto you) but because it can now be used as a device to stigmatize unjustifiably.
Whoa there! All the Tesla owners I know are a very inclusive and diverse group and when I visit a Tesla showroom(currently in Orlando) I witness a very diverse group of employees and customers. None of us(this includes Elon Musk) would ever tolerate any level of racism at Tesla. When I hear "pre civil war racism" at Tesla it pretty much contradicts everything I've experienced dealing with numerous Tesla employees and Tesla owners and very much smells of BS click bait, opportunism by a few and general Tesla bashing.
I'm not saying Tesla or it's owners are racists. Clearly Tesla as a company has great professed values but I just don't think this is a productive venue for this kind of discussion nor do I think the Tesla user base is competent to appreciate the complexities of such a situation. Maybe I'm wrong. Hopefully I am but I've seen this show before.
Also it's pre civil rights not war. Jim Crow not quite chains. Clearly the attorney bringing the suit is making inflammatory statements not based on facts.
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
In one of the cases, that was the claim. And from experience, minority groups can be just as racist against other minority groups or to the majority group, as a majority group can be against a minority group. This is a tricky situation to handle.
Isn't this true of pretty much all companies? They don't like to bring up negative issues. And on the subject of deadlines, it only makes sense to address them when you are certain of the new timetable. If you give a new estimate that you aren't 100% certain can be achieved (as Elon has done in the past) it makes matters worse than if you made no comment at all.
Of course. Indeed arguably Western society in general is more diverse and less racist than many other areas in the world, and many original cultures that make up that diversity.
What I was noting was the rather bold approach to wording this tricky issue.
All companies have their sore spots but also their unique cultures. What is rather unique about Tesla is their forward-looking statements for example. But those go only one way...
Many other companies are not so one-sidedly open. They are more controlled than Tesla both in good and bad. What is striking IMO about Tesla how open they try to be about the good and how openly they fight but how they circle the wagons about their own bad...
For example, Tesla could openly explain the AP2 status and/or note the failure to meet the deadline in their blog. They could update misleading texts to better reflect current reality etc. - all without giving new deadlines.
Yet they stay silent.
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stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
My impression is this is practically never done from a PR perspective (can you cite examples?) and can't be reasonably expected from any company. If no one in the media is bringing up the issue, why would you want to open up a discussion on this (unless, as I noted that there is a solution already and a updated timeline)? Rather, the standard operating procedure is reactive.
You claim companies don't announce product delays? Of course they do, all the time.
It is an interesting corporate characteristic, that of Tesla's:
As said, many companies are more formal in both good and bad news. Tesla is often informal on good news and too often silent on bad - unless it is a fight, in which case they'll come out again rather more informally than most.
Can you think of any company or product that would have been handled like EAP/FSD? Lofty pre-promises and then virtual silence... It is a very unusual scenario in general and a very lopsided scenario for Tela.
bonnie
I play a nice person on twitter.
Sure. Some tech companies (Intel, for instance) will ship new announced product -- but issue errata sheets that are shipped with the product, detailing different promised options that were not met with the product being shipped. It's pretty much SOP & not much chatter about it. And delays do happen. (What Does the Cannon Lake Delay Mean for Intel Corp.'s PC Business?)
Here's just one example: Here's the current list of Errata's from June: http://www.intel.com/content/dam/... | Hacker News. If you google 'errata', you'll get a boatload.
So you have delayed product and product that isn't yet meeting announced requirements. Seems familiar, yes? (This also may have something to do with a certain subset of us not being bothered by any of it
)
ThosEM
Space Weatherman
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
I may have misunderstood you, but the gist of your argument is not simply to announce a product is delayed, but rather to provide details about why.
I missed this part in my first response.
The current way Tesla shows status is to list the features in the most current version:
"Software Updates
All Tesla vehicles with Enhanced Autopilot and the latest software update now have Autosteer up to 90 mph, Auto Lane Change, Summon (Beta), and Automatic Emergency Braking."
Model S | Tesla
And then a link to more details:
Software 8.1 is Here
So they have been working to make things more clear.
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Well, it is a bit of both.
The general gist of my argument - well, not so much even argument rather than observation in this thread - is that Tesla has a very different approach to corporate comms than companies in general. It seems like they almost take things personally, you can hear the "master's voice" in there.
The way this presents itself is a rather informal and often unusually detailed approach to things like positive announcements and, indeed as witnessed here, to taking fights public. Tesla will come out with details, logs, blogs swinging when they feel like it, IMO in many cases where more traditional companies would choose a somewhat more formal or a more diplomatic path.
Now, the one area where Tesla simply does not do the same, is transparency on negative issues where - it seems, speculatedly - they don't feel like it absolutely needs to be addressed and/or it might shine a bad light on them. Unlike in cases where Tesla takes a positive announcement or a fight public, where they go to extraodinary detail, in these third type of instances they adopt extraordinary silence instead.
Most companies would be less passioned, more formal about the first two, but they would also very likely be more formal, and through that more open, about the third category as well. The errata @bonnie brings up is a perfect example. When have we seen an errata from Tesla? A bug fix list on a firmware update? Even Elon tweeting why the FSD features promise never materialized...
How many companies the size of Tesla would accept $8,000 worth of pre-payment on future features, make promises and announcements about that, and then when they fail to deliver... crickets?
They certainly have a very peculiar communications culture.
brucet999
Active Member
Please don't rely on an excerpted quote. Elektrek published Elon's complete email (at the end of an article about Tesla's response, see link below), which cannot fairly be labeled a "meh, grow thicker skin" email.
Tesla responds to claims of racist behavior at Fremont factory in lawsuit
The way they do it is slightly altering words here and there, a vague boiler plate added etc. One doesn't have to read beyond their Autopilot page to see how they do it Autopilot and keep doing it. If they wanted to be brutally open about the details, they could, as evidenced by this blog with extraordinary detail. Yet, again, the only example of detail that springs to mind is when Tesla decided to fight the P85D horsepower claim on their blog, with infamous results.
So, there is a pattern of Tesla going into extraordinaly and different kind of detail than corporations in general - and this discrimination blog post is another example of that. Tesla may well be right about this particular lawsuit, I have no qualms about their response in this particular case. Too bad they don't go these lengths in cases where they'd be righting (or at least informing on) a wrong of their own.
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
The way standard PR operates in practically every company is to spin everything into a positive to maximum effect and to minimize everything that might be negative. That's pretty much PR 101.
Yes, Tesla's PR response can get more personal than most companies and I agree it is likely to come from the top. But this had been the case since Tesla started. Elon tends to be quite vindictive when he feels he is wronged (example below from 2009). In recent years this has been somewhat pared back (Tesla is willing to settle claims instead of taking everything to court on principle, which I believe Elon would prefer, for example the Top Gear case).
Tesla CEO in Digital Witch Hunt
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