I strongly disagree with your statement as a long term manager it is obvious that at a very high level someone got their undershorts in a twist after reading the Electrek story. I bought my 90D in the July/Aug clear out, found the car while browsing Tesla Inventory Search by DÆrik . Discount from retail price was close to 20% Senior Sales management acted like jerks, personally I'd have fired the person that made the decision to fire Aaron
I'm not sure I understand all the issues here, but I'm reminded of something my mother advised: "Don't do anything you wouldn't want printed on the front page of the NY Times." In this era of instant communication to the world, this goes double to both Tesla (regarding price reductions and sales incentives) and to the sales associate (regarding e-mail broadcasts). If communications (e.g., to the sales force) are to be restricted, then they should so state. Also, remember, "The only way three people can keep a secret is if two are dead!"
Aaron, You might want to discuss your firing with an attorney. You may have good grounds for a lawsuit. Best of luck in future endeavors.
My vote goes to the "someone got pissed". I interacted with Aaron back in q3 2016 to pick up a "heavily adjusted" inv P90DL. I had a crappy OA contact locally who never bothered getting back to me: I emailed him, drove down to the store, called him for 2 days as these cars were moving fast....i have yet to hear back...I hope that OA was let go for sub performance but I digress. Anyway, I got connected to Aaron via someone on TMC. Aaron was super responsive, courteous and efficient. I wish all my interactions with Tesla were that efficient in fact. Glad to hear that @Aaron S. got back on his feet...based on my experience with him, I honestly believe he was the fall guy on this one.
I despair when reading comments here (and elsewhere) claiming electrek is journalism. Er, it is a blog run by a solar sales guy. Calling electrek journalism is like calling fox news a subsidiary of npr. Real journalism (except tabloid) teaches ethics, verifying sources and facts. This doesn't happen with most blogs especially electrek.
1- I think I may prefer Tesla not run like a car company. 2- Read how customers treated like crap respond. Car Brands Ranked by Owner Satisfaction
Real Journalism - sounds like a good idea. RT and Al Jazeera seem to have more real journalists than most other outlets. IMHO. Knowing the source (his day time job for example) is an important part in determining how useful/truthful/accurate some article might be, but added research to verify claims is often needed. Follow the money for example - how does the author make his living? Just to point out that your comment about electrek isn't helping me much, except to be skeptical which is almost a fault in my particular case. For example I read the NYT book on the 911 report and it was pathetic. Did not even mention WTC#7 [World Trade Center building #7 collapse - actually demolition]. You can find many books and documentaries on 911. Few (if any?) that support the Federal Government's conspiracy theory. Just where were/are the Real Journalist when it comes to Middle East never ending war? And why do over 20 vets kill themselves every day? That might be worth verifying. Don't take my word for it.
I wholeheartedly agree. I cannot quite conceive the mindset of those defending Tesla on this matter. If he was authorized AT ALL to communicate with sales prospects by e-mail, any guidelines should have been made clear and in writing PRIOR to a snafu. If they weren't, it's just one of many business blunders that occur in the life of a corporation. Take the hit and add it to the employee handbook. This firing is vindictive and at the least, vested stock and commissions to date should have been paid. If they weren't it is pretty much prima facea evidence it was a wrongful termination. Tesla is not perfect. They can have a mean streak exhibited by individual overprotective managers - often in terror of displeasing Musk. The CYA in this case is inexcusable. TMC and Elektrek passing on the information, even if it were done incompetently or even deliberately as twisted fake news is entirely irrelevant. Part of the environment of our times and has no bearing on Tesla's actions this employee. The whole "landed on his feet" attempt at feel good by TMC members is pathetic. It changes nothing. Wrong is wrong. Every time. Jack Rickard
People were fired from Tesla if they performed at lower than expected standards on their annual reviews. Sales Advisors have no quota, and honestly only get fired if they are severly under performing. You could probably sleep all day and get a passing grade. So sorry, but for you to be let go means that you couldnt live up to their high expectations. And most cant. Tesla isnt for everyone.
And if the boundaries WERE made clear and were violated the very next day, would you feel differently? Hypothetically speaking, of course. But we all see these situations through our own prior life experience. I've had fantastic customer-facing employees who had egos so big, they thought they knew better, knowingly violated parameters, and believed they were just too good to be let go. No one is that good. And customers were outraged with 'how could they do this to YOU???'. I'm not defending Tesla and I'm not defending the OP. I'm saying that WE do not know the full story. And there could be more to the story than what the OP shares. Or not. But WE do not know.
To be fair, it is also possible Tesla's actions are even worse than they seem to @jrickard. We don't know. That's the problem with not knowing. The conversation tends to gravitate towards inherent biases and subjective experiences of each person taking part. I agree that there comes a time when it is better to just draw a line to we don't know.
Aaron, totally feel your pain man. Glad you came out better. You seem like a very decent person. Wish you all the best!
ugh, Elektrek, that site as well as the cult that comments on there can be really irritating...thats probably why I dont visit it very often anymore. Anyway, Im sorry to hear what happened to you, Aaron, but as others have said, Im glad that you landed on your feet. This goes to show that Tesla should not get pass after pass when they misstep. People, If you want to see tesla do well in the long term, we most hold them accountable when appropriate.
@neroden - since you felt it necessary to disagree with each of my posts that say that we don't know what happened, I'm assuming you DO know what happened. Please share?
You did nothing wrong. I still receive emails from Tesla sales people and wording is similar. Even on the official invoices "Showroom discount" term is used. I suppose this was a move done by upper management to keep stock price up, by showing that Tesla doesn't "discount". Which is a lie. I'm happy that your career now allows you to spend more with your children. Family is the most important thing. Just wondering, why you didn't take legal action?(I'm not sure about US laws). Here in the UK, this story definitely looks like an unfair termination of employment.
Showroom Discount is used on the invoice as well as within the Web page tags (if you view source on the web page, the IT guys (if not the external firm doing the web site) have a shared co-use of the term of showroom discount. var showroom_discount = "3000"; However, given the low numbers of "visible" cars now on the web, it appears that Tesla has gone to a more showroom-only listing of inventory, holding it closer to the vest than presenting so much of it on the web. This makes it seems like inventory has run dry but then it also allows the active reach-out to customers via phone or email with "special deals" to tickle the Model 3 reservation holders and the whole tickler list of people who have expressed interest. 2018 is all about the Model 3, so all of this becomes "old news" now. there won't be much Model 3 inventory for a long while and the S/X are said to be selling at a rate of about 50% or more "off the lot" so this means active selling via SA/OA/on-site sales rep will occur, perhaps using the Model 3 reservation list even more.
FWIW, I doubt @neroden knows any different / anything on this matter. I'd wager the dislike represents the difference between what he/she felt were your views and those views of @neroden in general. I would assume @neroden felt your comments were being somewhat defensive of Tesla and disagreed with that in general. He/she can of course correct me if I'm wrong... IMO these kinds of conversations ultimately come down to lack of knowledge replaced by our personal histories, inherent biases and subjective experiences with the subject matter (Tesla and employment in this case). Some of us obviously have a tendency to be tougher on Tesla and others kinder on Tesla, and that shows in the posts we make and the posts we like and dislike. @neroden seems to be in the tougher on Tesla camp and IMO expressed disagreement over what he/she felt was the kinder camp. Still, be that as it may, I'd like to think most of us are trying to be fair on Tesla. We just approach it from different angles, with different subjective feelings on the matter and that shows e.g. as disagreements. There is hardly a right answer here, when so little is known, so that kind of shows in how subjective the views get, i.e. do we tend to err towards believing the better or the worse of Tesla, even slightly. I guess an objective observer could easily put a plus or a minus (Tesla company positive/negative) sign on each and every one of us based on our posting histories. Would be a fun exercise to give that to a neural network to do and give a rating on things like: 60% negative on Tesla the company, 60% positive on Tesla's products etc.
At the end of the day, Tesla fired Aaron because of their identity problem as a sales organization, and not his wrongdoing. Clearly, this is not what the company claims to stand for. The root cause of the problem, I would hold, is the exaggerated list price of the performance models.
I'm not so sure that there is hidden inventory - I've been working with an Owner Advisor in helping a good friend find the X of his dreams. The OA is someone I've known for a long time & who is willing to search regions, contact different stores etc -- and he's saying to me that he's never seen inventory this low. We had targeted finding a match (or close) by EOY, but now we're in a 'let's wait til the perfect one shows up' mode.