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Tesla's overall 3.4 rating doesn't exactly scream "awesome to work for". Even the positive 4-5 star reviews mention long hours, hectic schedules, hard for family life, etc.

Tesla has a 3.4 rating after 1.2k reviews. (Tesla Reviews | Glassdoor)
For comparison, General Motors has a 3.8 rating after 2.6k reviews (General Motors Reviews | Glassdoor)
Ford has a 3.9 rating after 2.6k reviews. (Ford Motor Company Career Overview | Glassdoor)

Is it so hard to believe that working at Tesla, where the CEO himself has stated they are going through "production hell" currently, is not the greatest place to WORK at? Especially when you read that hundreds of employees were let go at the same time for "performance" issues in the middle of "production hell"?
I'm not saying Tesla is the best place to work at (even among auto companies), just that you highlighting a bad review and presenting it as from a good one is misleading.

As for the other companies:

The GM summary mentions things along the same lines in the cons:
"What I will say to this is that work-life balance is what you make of it" (in 87 reviews)
"May require long hours on the job" (in 76 reviews)
"Being such a large company can make getting certain things done tedious" (in 46 reviews)
"long hours, old school thought process" (in 44 reviews)

The Ford summary also in the cons:
"less work/life balance, less career opportunities" (in 69 reviews)
"long hours and dealing with the union" (in 109 reviews)
"Management must invest in infrastructure and its work environment" (in 38 reviews)
"Management would blame their employees if something went wrong to upper management" (in 36 reviews)

I think long hours and work/life balance issues just comes with the territory for auto manufacturing.
 
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I was working at a tooling company as a tool maker (high level machinist), and we went from 10 machinists, to 2. There was no work. Then I was doing shipping and receiving, finally I was 'fired'. On noon one Friday, I was told I have pack up my tools, I was being fired. No reason given. But the company did not survive in the long run.

I disputed it with the EDD? because it affects unemployment payments. The EDD? agreed with me, and the company had to pay from Day One instead of the normal waiting period, whatever that was.

And I've watched the parade of companies who 'lay off' or 'fire' before the holiday season, or before they are vested, or before they qualify for a jump in benefits.

In our case, when I need to let somebody go, I always lay them off. We never had a RIF (downsizing), so all my layoffs were actually termination for work quality, substance abuse, or attendance issues. This is so there is never any dispute about wrongful termination. "Sorry, I am letting you go because I don't have work for you" - the key word is "you".

So is a "laid off" worker's quality is unknown. And a tip: If somebody calls asking about employment verification, always give just the start and end dates. "We do not discuss our internal operations, sorry".
Wonder where Karl Marx got his ideas about capitalism shortcomings while working in London?
For those who haven't tried to read his writings, he did not propose solutions.
 
Great comment, well worth reading. Now let us compare to other industries - first calculate the % of job losses.

2013 Total Employee Turnover Rate by Industry (U.S.)
All Industries 15.1%
Banking & Finance 17.2%
Healthcare 16.8%
Hospitality 29.3%
Insurance 10.4%
Manufacturing & Distribution 13.3%
Not-for-Profit 15.3%
Services 15.2%
Utilities 7.2%

1.2 to 2.1 % sounds awfully low to me. You??

You are comparing apples to oranges. The first numbers are the industry turnover rate which includes people quitting, retiring, as well as terminations for all reasons. The 400-700 fired/laid off from Tesla is just one group of terminations in one week. We don't know how many other people Tesla has terminated this year, it is likely more than the 400-700 reported. The 400-700 also doesn't count those who left Tesla voluntarily. Tesla probably has nobody retiring these days, but the stories do say Tesla has a high turnover rate, ie a lot of people burn out and leave.
 
You guys really think that - don't you?

Wild.

Of course not. South Australia never experienced those vast brown and black outs and Puerto Rico is doing just fine. The polar icecaps are growing ice like mold on cheese, and increasingly violent weather and storms? Pfft! Tesla exists because Elon got bored and SpaceX is fantasyland.
 
You guys really think that - don't you?

Wild.

:D As someone with the words "comanche" and "pilot" in your screen name, you clearly see the folly of this type of thinking!

The comanches are really well known in for completely mastering horseback riding. More than any other natives, they dominated the southern US and wreaked havoc on the settlers. Can you imagine how screwed we would be if Elon Musk was born as a comanche in the 1800's? Let me put it this way, we'd all be bitching about how much better the AP1 Stallions were compared to the new AP2 crossbreeds.

And the thread would sound like this....

"many moons ago, Chief Musk say AP2 would clear rain from warrior's brow, but my heart grows angry as I must still clear rain myself"

"Chief Musk was smoking too much peace pipe when he banished Eye of Mobile from tribe"

Anyone else want to take a crack at continuing this thread in Native American Voice? :rolleyes:
 
:D As someone with the words "comanche" and "pilot" in your screen name, you clearly see the folly of this type of thinking!

The comanches are really well known in for completely mastering horseback riding. More than any other natives, they dominated the southern US and wreaked havoc on the settlers. Can you imagine how screwed we would be if Elon Musk was born as a comanche in the 1800's? Let me put it this way, we'd all be bitching about how much better the AP1 Stallions were compared to the new AP2 crossbreeds.

And the thread would sound like this....

"many moons ago, Chief Musk say AP2 would clear rain from warrior's brow, but my heart grows angry as I must still clear rain myself"

"Chief Musk was smoking too much peace pipe when he banished Eye of Mobile from tribe"

Anyone else want to take a crack at continuing this thread in Native American Voice? :rolleyes:

No, but pass the pipe already.
 
What is the percentage? 400 to 700 of 33,000
Then compare to - (google search will verify)

2013 Total Employee Turnover Rate by Industry (U.S.)....

..... OK, 1.2 to 2.1 % for those less trained in arithmetic.
Does this qualify as fake news??

I love the how often the term 'fake news' is misstated these days. Brando assumes that the 400-700 firings are the ONLY people turning over at Tesla. IF that's true, the arithmetic works - but I'm CERTAIN that these weren't the only people leaving Tesla. (Hint - Turnover includes all reasons for leaving, and I'm really not that great at arithmetic)
 
According to today's lawsuit, it's a great place to work except for being called by the "n*****" word, or "boy" or be told "All you f****** n****** – I can't stand you M************." or "Go back to Africa" or "Tesla would not want an African-American man as a lead" or have to witness Pickaninny images ...


H__UXZhS2LOVXVtePxCWMxmiev3WBOmWcxqG45xO-bM


And if you complain, the response is "if you don't like how you're treated, your time here is going to end."



 
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According to today's lawsuit, it's a great place to work except for being called by the "n*****" word, or "boy" or be told "All you f****** n****** – I can't stand you M************." or "Go back to Africa" or "Tesla would not want an African-American man as a lead" or have to witness Pickaninny images ...


H__UXZhS2LOVXVtePxCWMxmiev3WBOmWcxqG45xO-bM


And if you complain, the response is "if you don't like how you're treated, your time here is going to end."



That's crazy!!! Wouldn't think such racist behavior would exist in such a diverse area....even Elon is technically an African American.
 
Here's a possibility for the sudden firings. Tesla's upper management may have become aware the racism lawsuit was coming and they tracked down who was doing it and fired them ahead of the lawsuit. Some of the people who were fired have come forward saying they had never had a negative review, but if Tesla had become aware of racist behavior just before the firings, then there wouldn't have been any time to have a bad review.

Elon has demonstrated that he isn't racist and to some extent the survival of Tesla depends on selling to people all over the world, so the company can't be seen as racist. He may also be a bit more sensitive to the possible image of looking racist because of his childhood in South Africa.

We'll see what happens with this lawsuit and if the people fired at least at the Fremont factory were those who were participating in the name calling and other discriminatory behavior, that will probably come out too.