In the Ovim community, there are two key axioms everyone grows up with:
(1) aka ojoo gara na-nnu agwo gbakwaya” [ any bad hand that enters into the rabbit warren, may the snake bite him or her].
(2) nkparuri egwu la mu [as I work and pursue legal ways to earn a living, I will not die on it]
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These two axioms are connected: you are expected to work hard to earn a living – but in that process, if you do evil while in that process, you should expect to be consumed.
That takes me to what Elom Musk is doing to Twitter workers. Yes, while he has the right to push for higher productivity, he needs to respect the dignity of work. Earning a living in Twitter is an honuorable thing. Somehow needs to tell Musk that. These workers are humans and not “numbers” to be experimented with.
Read his latest memo.
“Going forward, to build a breakthrough Twitter 2.0 and succeed in an increasingly competitive world, we will need to be extremely hardcore.
“This will mean working long hours at high intensity. Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade. Twitter will also be much more engineering-driven.
“Design and product management will still be very important and report to me, but those writing great code will constitute the majority of our team and have the greatest sway. At its heart, Twitter is a software and servers company, so I think this makes sense.
“If you are sure that you want to be part of the new Twitter, please click yes on the link below:[Google form link] Anyone who has not done so by 5 pm ET tomorrow (Thursday) will receive three months of severance. Whatever decision you make, thank you for your efforts to make Twitter successful.”
That memo is degrading but I understand to earn a living, men and women have limited options in this firing age. But that does not mean Musk must not be cautioned!
He can achieve his points without making work look like “0” and “1”. Running a social media is largely within social science and not the same as building cars and rockets (natural philosophy). What that means is that things are not that easy for social media firms because uncertainties are unbounded!
Updated: After I wrote the piece, LinkedIn News reported as follows.
So many Twitter employees took Elon Musk up on his offer of three weeks’ severance — rather than commit to “hardcore” work by a 5 p.m. ET deadline Thursday — that the new CEO was left scrambling to retain workers, Bloomberg reported, citing anonymous sources. In somewhat of an about-face email to staff, Musk said flexible options would now be available. Early reports suggest it wasn’t enough, however, with The New York Times saying “hundreds” left the company. Employees were signing off internal channels with salute emojis, which became the symbol for “I quit.” Sources tell Bloomberg Twitter would undoubtedly “have trouble fixing problems or updating systems during its normal operations.”
Comment on Feed
Comment: Well, that’s how Elon has been running his companies and his the world’s richest man. So, maybe sir, you’re the one that needs to be spoken to. By the way, Elon Musk himself is a workaholic, there is nothing wrong if he demands the same kind of energy from his employees.
My Response: There is nothing he is doing that others do not do. But in life, there is always a space for decency and respect. That you can hire someone and pay him does not mean he has no rights to decency. Think about him, a professor has you as a PhD student in his lab. First day, he fires you. Second week, he recalls you. Next week, he asks you to check a button if you want to stay or not. Next day, he comes back, you are fired. That he is your professor does not mean he is your lord. You cannot fire and re-hire someone 3 times in a month. That is not how it works.
Another commenter on my response: I completely agreed with you on this Prof. He needs to take a well-rounded decision but not in this haphazard manner. Human beings are resources with dignity and should not be used for experimentation and guess estimations
Comment 2: Prof ,until you have 200Billion USD in equity or cash,I’d prefer Elon Musk’s approach.
My Response: I understand your feelings. It was like that until one day I sat on the same table and ate lunch with Bill Gates. By the time we finished that first meeting, I knew something: the best liberation is not thinking of the size of your pockets day and night. Why? If you do crazy things because you have a big bank account and can do whatever you want, you will become miserable. Elon can afford to fire, hire, fire, etc because for him, it is all money. But check over time, he will grow wiser to see beyond $$$.
When that happens, he will look for how to give out most of the money so that he can feel better. I am not sure he will be Twitter boss in 6 months because he will feel empty at night despite the increasing digits in the bank. Go for it….but as a teacher, I have no chance.
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Have you read some of the internal memos the HR of corporations and startups send to employees with respect to productivity? It appears being Elon Musk comes with special level of scrutiny. We do not have access to internal workings at Twitter and what the work culture is like. But we all know that Musk has extremely high work ethic, how do you think managers with high work ethic communicate to lazy employees? They don’t smile and dance around, anyone with high work ethic knows what it’s like to work with lazy and unambitious people, it’s never a great experience.
From what I can see, Twitter has operated as a ‘community business’ or social enterprise, and then came Musk, a full blooded capitalist with high work ethic, you don’t expect the assimilation to be smooth.
We all agree that Twitter was poorly run, it has never been a great business, but very powerful in pushing ideologies and shaping narratives, now Musk wants it to be productive and profitable business as well, we need to wait and see.
Don’t complain, and never explain.