Said Elon Musk, in a CNBC interview, quoted in "Elon Musk condemns working from home as 'morally wrong': Tesla CEO says it's not just about productivity but the unfair notion that service workers still have to show up to get the job done" (Daily Mail).
By "the unfair notion," the marginally literate Daily Mail means "the notion that it's unfair." The notion isn't unfair! It's a notion about what's unfair. Is it unfair for some jobs to be done from home when some jobs can't be done from home?
Let's take a closer look at Musk's rhetoric: "You're gonna work from home and you're gonna make everyone else who made your car come work in the factory?" Who's the "you"? The head of the company, the one with the power to "make" people come into work, or the people who want to work from home and need the company to permit it? There are 2 different "you"s.
Musk is throwing around the concept of "morality," but it's a pompous makeweight argument, I suspect. The real reason is something more practical, isn't it? There's so much talk in the morality mode these days, and yet you look around, and you don't get the feeling it's coming from people who are motivated by virtue for its own sake.
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Elon Musk, like, sounds kind of like, you know, like a valley girl.
As someone who lives in one of the counties that was the most moralistic about the need for COVID restrictions, including about the need to be remote, I completely understand what Elon is trying to say. Yes, there are pragmatic cases for going into the office—ones I agree with. But, there is a moral hypocrisy to those who are incredibly privileged demanding remote work, while everything they need to work remotely is done by those lower on the economic ladder who do not have the choice and flexibility to work from home.
Musk is wrong here. Many jobs do not require social interaction and work can often be completed more effectively when alone. He's in manufacturing (cars, rockets) and product development, where face-to-face interaction is indeed essential. He thereby overgeneralizes and denies the remote work revolutionary awakening that was an unintended side-effect of the pandemic.
Elon: Don't get on a high-horse criticizing people who avoid a pointless and costly two-hour commute just to sit alone in an office/cubicle by themselves working on a spreadsheet or database. Remote work stands to drive down wages and bring more people into the workforce too -- such as disabled people and women who split work time with family time.
He isn't the most articulate about it (since he's speaking on the fly) but I think he seriously means it is a moral issue, or at least a class issue. Let me try to rephrase: The laptop class wants to be able to able to "work" from home in their pajamas while being literally served by those who do physical work. Before the laptop class had at least one thing in common with the physical work class -- they had to get up and get to their job. Musk believes there is something basically wrong with that entire setup.
Morality?
Or- ethically?
You’re telling me it’s fair that you can work during the day when there are others who have to work at night?
For the boss personally to come into the factory may be seen as a moral issue, but I suspect the correct phrase would be "morale issue". And fair enough, he should set the example, for his own benefit. I'm a huge fan of Elon, but that line of argument struck me as very disingenuous. He's very smart and has done incredible things for humanity, but he is also self-interested and deceptive when it suits his interests. What do you expect? He is certainly smart enough to know that grid scale rechargeable batteries are NOT in the cards, and 100% renewable energy is a dishonest fantasy.
Any chance we can get a "morality bullshit" tag?
I work a hybrid schedule, and my office is moving to full-time remote at some point. I specifically took the career path that I took because I wanted to get to a point where I could work from home at least part-time. It's a benefit, no different than a difference in the money I make versus the hypothetical delivery driver or factory worker.
If your job can be done from home, it can probably be done from India. Going to the office won't change that.
You can't illegally immigrate from home either.
I unretired and have 2 jobs, for the first time in my life. One in our small town independent, upscale market. The other is remote for a financial firm. Great balance - the market gives me tons of face-to-face. The other lets me work in peace. My friends and I often talk about the younger people we know in large cities, who work mostly from home now. We feel sorry for them. The social aspect of the workplace is missing. In my 20s and into my 30s, the office was fun. Do people still have fun at work? And don’t get me wrong. My workplaces were intense and long hours. But it was also fun.
So, yeah, there may be an unfair split in society on who gets to work from home or not. But, don’t envy the full time remote workers. It has a lot of downsides.
Absent Covid the work at home movement would have remained small. My old office pushed it as an initiative from above. Worked for some not most. And they home people found they were missing out on techniques to get the job done building mentorship opportunities and a host of other benefits to both the employee and the employer.
Not all necessary information is presented at staff meetings. (Is any?)
But the freedom from the commute, doing the little unappealing office duties and no one watching you or measuring your productivity is now an entrenched "right" in many peoples skulls.
Musk is right.
Quite right, Professora. People want to use morality as a weapon. It appeals to their inner scold, which is the bastard child of Envy and Pride (with some polyamorous couplings of Anger and Greed).
Scolding your target is cost-free and quickly defeats whatever logic they may be pushing. How dare you dispute this modest point I make, not for myself but for The Children!
As for what Musk is getting at? I have not one tired clue. All those “likes,” which are supposed to seduce us into relaxing our critical faculty and just buying whatever he chooses to say. I think the count of interjections such as “like” and “you know” and “sort of, kind of” could be a good predictor of whether somebody is, like, slinging bullshit, you know?
Especially when they do the “uptalk” intonation?
Musk should stick to glorified golf carts, subsidy farming and rockets.
I do like his rockets.
They're paid for coming in to work. A deal happens when both sides think they come out ahead on the deal.
Musk reminds me of an old school honest lefty. A social liberal but speaks the truth when asked. In the same interview the CBNC stenographer makes the mistake of asking Musk why he takes Soros to task. He further asks by taking this inflammatory approach to Soros's actions does he risk alienating his customers. His response is priceless. Paraphrasing: "No amount of money will keep me from speaking the truth".
"is a bit like, you know, the fake Marie Antoinette quote, 'Let them eat cake.'"
A bit like, but more unlike. In this case, let other people earn a living the way they want, selling their services to a willing buyer.
"It's like, it's like really? You're gonna work from home and you're gonna make everyone else who made your car come work in the factory"
What's the problem, as long as no one is forced into servitude? Yes, the "moral" argument" is makeweight here, used to shame-push people to work at work, under the boss's supervision. Which makes good sense for many bosses, as they can explain straightforwardly.
A lot depends on the job.
There are good reasons for companies to not allow work-from-home but "morality" is not one of them. A surprisingly stupid notion from a definitely not-stupid man.
Some people have to wear a uniform or a welders mask at work. Why isn't Elon wearing welding masks all day in solidarity?
At least it's better than his recent Soros quotes and his dead air during that interview.
People keep saying he is the smartest guy in the room, but then he keeps opening his mouth and suggesting otherwise.
When you start arguing patriotism or morality you’ve list the argument…even if you’re Musk…
…You’re damn right you’re going to make them come to work while you stay home. Turns out some of the honest work from homes were faking the work part, collecting the salary and bennies waiting for the productivity police to catch up. Talk about the morality of that, Elon. More important we want people in the office because they gain skills faster in person than trying to mentor on a zoom.
Of course it means we come in sometimes, too…
I think Musk is right. Working from home has become this thing for a current generation, many of whom think that all companies should provide daily bennies like Google does (even though Google has cut back on some extra extras). For most people, working at home is simply not going to be your most productive effort. It's not. And the expectation that its something you should be able to do is your expectation. Your employer probably expects that you'll be present in the office, showing your skills there by interacting with the company and other employees, and...learning and growing as you interact with it all. Working at home, you might as well be an independent contractor- which is fine. Go do that.
I speak as someone who spent the last half of my working life working from home. Well...sort of. I had a home office, representing a major corporation in a region away from the corporate office. And...I traveled for them- a lot. Then I worked for myself, but again, I traveled a lot. My office was in my home for about 25 years, well before the 'trend' of everyone wanting to stay home. That said, I worked my ass off. That's just who I am, and it's not normal. I worked at night, worked every weekend, and was at my desk first thing in the AM every day until I retired. And even now show up at my desk in the AM every day.
I agree with Musk. I wouldn't trust it and would not allow it, and don't see it as a great productivity lift. I see people for what they are. Most people are not workaholics like I was. Many are more productive than I was. But they should be sharing their abilities and wisdom first hand, in the office. Morally, I agree with him as well. There is an expectation- almost a class thing- that others should be at your beck and call while you sit on your sofa, legs propped up, laptop at your side, eating grapes and having tacos or sushi delivered to you. At least that's my vision.
Dumb Lefty Mark: "At least it's better than his recent Soros quotes and his dead air during that interview."
Notice Dumb Lefty Mark dare not actually provide the Musk quotes that he alludes to and then floats away.
Like all Lefties and LLR-lefties, Dumb Lefty Mark wants to leave the notion of Elon Musk being ant-semitic (the current lefty/LLR-lefty talking point to deflect from Soros malign influence on our society thru his marxist DA's) hanging in the air without providing any "evidence" which could then be exposed as a lie....which it would invariably be.
Nice try Dumb Lefty Mark. I mean, nice try for you. For anyone else, well below average at best.
I think there is a moral component to the issue, but for me, it's more practical. How do you manage a large business? I used to say, 'you can't manage what you don't measure'. Having people work together in one setting quickly allows a manager to see who is producing, and who is coasting, and who is doing just enough to earn a salary. When the pandemic hit and my kids moved in with us, I told by SIL, who is in the financial industry, that remote work is great, a lot can be accomplished with virtual face-to-face meetings - but that quality was bound to suffer as oversight was now being placed at arm's length. We can see that this is true - as companies move more and more forcefully to get their staff back in the office. And there is no substitute for face-to-face real interactions; and a whole lot can get accomplished from a chance meeting in the coffee shop when a new idea emerges. My kids are now routinely back in the office about 3 days per week, so they have nothing to squawk about, in my view.
Elon Musk must have a mixed group of workers to deal with - Tesla workers and Space X workers who are still working in the classic industrial mode together with Twitter workers who until recently were privileged when they came in to work and under-productive whether they worked from home or from the fitness center-salad bar-yoga "work" space. 75% are gone and Twitter still works. But still you can see that the existing dispute on whether its better for knowledge workers to go into an office or to work from home will be a very sharp issue for Musk. And you can tell from his argument that he is speaking to a social-justicey group of workers - "What, you guys want to be privileged?" Plus, he doesn't hesitate to remind them of where privilege takes you - "Marie Antoinette thought like you." Unspoken: "And besides Marie Antoinette, all the people I recently fired thought they should work as individuals, not as members of a team."
Musk is talking about his own companies. Its unfair, he says, for some people (mostly white collar) to work at home, while everyone else has to show up.
So shut up, Twitter geeks. Come to the office, or go.
Seems right by me. You can question if its "Moral" but given that the Liberal/left has misused morality, who cares? My favorite Power Elite weaponization fo "morality" is: "Its immoral to stop foreigners from coming here and giving us rich people cheap labor and lowering everyone else's quality of life".
Something that is always interesting, here at Althouse, is listening to retired baby boomers explain how the work place works.. Or how it 'should' work.
Kinda like listening someone talk about today's cannabis culture by saying:
"i used to smoke a few jays, back in the 70's.. and it never hurt me none"
I'm Not implying that y'all are living in a dream world.. i'm Explicitly saying it
A bit of Val-speak, but he's not from here.
I hate working at home. Can't concentrate.
I get a ton more done slogging away in an office.
The grocery store clerks who worked behind plexiglass and with masks during covid when none of us knew how bad things would get ... in some ways, Musk is right. There's a class divide flex that's obnoxious and entitled.
@JAORE: But the freedom from the commute, doing the little unappealing office duties and no one watching you or measuring your productivity is now an entrenched "right" in many peoples skulls.
Musk is right.
WHAT?!? What, what, what?!?! Remote employees are often being watched more than they ever were in the office. Keystroke tracker software. Productivity metric dashboards, Etc. Etc. Etc. Some of the old 'sweatshop' office jobs like Customer Service and Sales have done this for decades with people in the office too.
You miss the deeper dimensions of the computer revolution. Computer-based work happens inside the rules and systems created by computers -- 100% can be monitored. Work thereby doesn't need to happen face-to-face.
Professor Althouse: "Musk is throwing around the concept of "morality," but it's a pompous makeweight argument, I suspect."
Did you really say that? If so, learned professor, you are part—a big part— of the problem.
You can easily quantify the output of a plumber, an autoworker, or a hog farmer. You cannot easily quantify the output of a product manager, a software engineer, or a customer experience advocate (whatever that is).
The only way employers can ensure they get the maximum bang for their personnel-cost buck is for the people to be in the office. Their peers (also in the office) will keep them straight and serve as a check and balance. The high-output performers will pull the slug performers with them. It's simple: a rising output tide lifts all boats.
When you're at the workplace, your time belongs to the person who pays your salary. You don't take five minutes to throw your clothes in the dryer. If you go to get coffee at the coffee station, you'll often run into one of your colleagues who has something to add to something you are working on … or vice versa.
All of these work-from-home advocates completely ignore the valuable synergies that result from having a bunch of people in the same place at the same time working on the same thing. It's common sense.
I remember the feelings during the early stages of the lockdown when everything came to a screeching halt. People were complaining about the lack of paper towels or the high price of eggs. But NOT ONE of those complainants took time to thank the employees of the grocery store who couldn't work from home. Sure, they could sit in front of their Zoom or Microsoft Teams screen and "produce," but they were doing it on their own terms, not their employer's.
Elon Musk is a gifted man who has created thousands of jobs, good jobs, high-paying jobs. It is effete and condescending to accuse him of making a pompous makeweight argument. If the shoe fits …
My Dad used to have a sign that said “Virtue is its own reward”
Image if ants and bees were required to never "work from home" -- home being an ant hill or hive.
Is a farmer feeding his cattle or tending his corn working from home?
I liked going into the office. But I lived only five minutes away. Plus it was an actual office with a door.
A lot of the tech places don't even have cubicles anymore. Workers are asshole-to-elbow in everyone else's business, hearing their phones calls and smelling their kimchee because "collaboration."
And long commutes.
@farmgirl
Do you think from the context that Musk should be using the word "ethics" instead of "morality"? What would be the argument? I don't think he used the wrong word. He's trying to shame individuals who are opposing him on these issues as if they are falling short personally. He seems to be reacting to the way other people have done that to him: They've been up on "their goddamn moral high horse with this bulls–t."
Professor Althouse: "Musk is throwing around the concept of "morality," but it's a pompous makeweight argument, I suspect."
Did you really say that? If so, learned professor, you are part—a big part— of the problem.
You can easily quantify the output of a plumber, an autoworker, or a hog farmer. You cannot easily quantify the output of a product manager, a software engineer, or a customer experience advocate (whatever that is).
The only way employers can ensure they get the maximum bang for their personnel-cost buck is for the people to be in the office. Their peers (also in the office) will keep them straight and serve as a check and balance. The high-output performers will pull the slug performers with them. It's simple: a rising output tide lifts all boats.
When you're at the workplace, your time belongs to the person who pays your salary. You don't take five minutes to throw your clothers in the dryer. If you go to get a coffee at the coffee station, you'll often run into one of your colleagues who has something to add to something you are working on … or vice versa.
All of these work-from-home advocates completely ignore the valuable synergies that result from having a bunch of people in the same place at the same time working on the same thing. It's common sense.
I remember the feelings during the early stages of the lockdown when everything came to a screeching halt. People were complaining about the lack of paper towels and the high price of eggs. But NOT ONE of those complainants took time to thank the employees of the grocery store who couldn't work from home. Sure, they could sit in front of their Zoom or Microsoft Teams screen and "produce," but they were doing it on their own terms, not their employer's.
Elon Musk is a gifted man who has created thousands of jobs, good jobs, high-paying jobs. It is effete and condescending to accuse him of making a pompous makeweight argument. If the shoe fits …
@Mark. Dead air from Musk? Wow you are way off my friend. He paused and paused and then gave thoughtful. He did not shoot from the lip.
"Any chance we can get a "morality bullshit" tag?"
No. There's already a "morality" tag, and I'm opposed to tag proliferation.
If I'd had a "civility" tag, I'd have never created "civility bullshit." But also "civility bullshit," for me, isn't just bullshit about civility. It's a specific problem that I wanted to collect under a tag: The way people promote this particular value only when they want the other side to stand down. They like strong speech when it's working for them.
Morality isn't like that. What you have there is variation in ideas about what is moral — not people who are for morality only some of the time but condone immorality when it works for them. They may be self-serving by shaping what they say is moral. But there aren't these calls to morality that come and go and a cheering on of immorality.
He once said something to the effect, may not be the exact quote - “you can pretend to work from home elsewhere”. He said this when he banned it at Tesla, I believe.
That’s the better moral issue.
Car maker wants people to need cars that are made for commuting
Turn over at companies is large.
This will get sorted out as new hires come on board.
Think of it like shift work. Work from home will either get more or less compensation. I fail to see the problem. Musk is an owner that personal needs the face to face interaction. He finds it a value to him, so he thinks all will be more valuable working with their peers. Again, his hiring will sort out what happens. If Musk cant find the talent he wants with mandatory attendance, he will either pay more, or adapt.
My neighbor can do her job, all from home, but she misses out on the institutional information that does not happen on emails, slack, or teams. She does parts logistics for manufacturing. Her commute is 8 minutes. I think she has settled in on a couple days a week at home.
Demanding to work from home, that's not immoral but it's certainly elitist.
I'm solidly in the laptop class and work from home full time besides travel maybe ~5 days a month.
There are enormous job-market issues brewing that have not yet fully manifested by the lack of coming into a shared location together. A few to name:
- There is a much higher prevalence of highly paid people goofing off. This is a real negative in large companies with processes designed to give long runways to such people before being fired.
- Young workers are not getting the in person dynamic, relationships, coaching, and more. This, much like remote schooling, is going to create a gap in peoples professional development.
...and more.
There are real, societal and company level issues with WFH. To waive that away is foolish, even if his point is hyperbolic.
“A 2hr commute”
Truly who gives a crap whether you have 2 hour commute. YOU made the choice where to live, not your boss.
Make better decisions if your time is so valuable.
And since every work place is different you have no idea what additional expenses a company has taken on for those work from home employees. In my son’s last job the company paid for internet for all those who worked from home and the howling that happened when the company said “come back to work cuz we aren’t paying anymore”!
He was lucky enough he could also spend $20/day on lunch delivery (NYC) for a period of time as did some others in the company.
There was howling again when that benefit was taken away.
If he needed to go into the office the company paid for an Uber to/from work.
He never complained when the bosses said come back to the office-these benefits are being rescinded.
He went back to the office and enjoyed the interaction with others.
He got a new job and worked out a schedule for some office-some work from home.
People need to be grateful for a good job with benefits and stop moaning.
(I am an old person and think there’s far too much whining going on these days from entitled employees)
During lockdown it was nice to see the yard men, roofers and carpenters hard at work while their employer betters were hunkered down inside. It is a fairy tale that working from home is as productive as being in the office. Forget how it stalls career advancement or takes it off the table entirely. No spontaneous meetings, no collaboration over coffee, no being in the loop.
Face it. If you work from home you aren’t needed in the office. Let that sink in.
So, Musk is saying home workers aren't traveling their fair share? I never realized he was such a travel socialist.
Forget how it stalls career advancement or takes it off the table entirely.
For anyone under 40, "career advancement" has long meant changing jobs. You don't get promoted when you are successful, you simply get more work.
I agree with Musk, to a point. I think it depends on the individual and their work ethic. There, I said what I see the problem as - WORK ETHIC, which I don’t see as much today as I saw it in the 1980’s-1990’s. I was more productive working from home during the pandemic as a government employee. Why? Work Ethic. Too many of my co-workers spend more time socializing at where I work and would interrupt me to chat about non-work. I do IT support and I just don’t have time to socialize. I am getting paid by the taxpayers to work, not socialize (unless I am on my break). I need to work an extra 30-45 minutes at the end of the day after everyone left just to make up the lost time. On the other hand, I felt in-person meetings were more productive than on online conference calls, especially when I can talk to co-workers about issues in person afterwards.
Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers wants to sell 4 or 5 large government buildings in downtown Madison and have employees work from home. If they are goofing off / socializing at the office, they probably will goof off at home just as much as that is what they are used to. Maybe we don’t need as many State of Wisconsin employees as we currently have.
@William
You're acting like you're disagreeing with me, but I don't see how you are. You're citing economic and practical needs, and not the morality Musk talks about, which is about formal equality between workers where one group can't possibly work from home. I said the morality talk was a makeweight and that other concerns were driving his position. You expanded on those other concerns.
Musk believes in what used to be called the Protestant work effort. A moral person provides a fair day's work for a fair day's wages. Pretending to work from home is immoral because it is a form of theft.
I knew that work from home was BS the moment businesses went hybrid requiring staff to come to the office for 2 or 3 days a week. Guess which days a majority of people chose to stay at home, Friday and Monday - four day weekend baby!! In our community rush hour traffic on Fridays and Mondays was substantially reduced. When I questioned friends who had this option they all smiled and very quietly agreed with me! Its really a scam and the recipients know it.
What I like about Musk is that he is not afraid to speak his mind and often his thoughts are contrary to accepted wisdom. He really is a breathe of fresh air. He doesn't always get it right but he is not afraid to be controversial. We need a lot more Elon Musks in this world!
Working from home is white privilege.
"At least it's better than his recent Soros quotes and his dead air during that interview."
A) Soros is exactly the evil supervillain the Left accuses Musk of being.
B) The "dead air" is produced when Musk takes the time to actually think about a question instead of providing a scripted response intended to make him look good.
Moral;immoral-depends.Elitist- not so much.
I get what Musk is saying. Enigma is right about the morality, because too many people are making the argument to work from home as being a moral one. Musk, and Mike Rowe if you follow him, are right that many people have jobs that can’t be done from home and can never be done from home. To act morally superior to those people is not just a bad idea, but potentially dangerous. Factory workers, plumbers, electricians, nurses, and fire fighters don’t work from home, and we’d all be worse off if they did.
However, I work a job that makes coming into the office something of a ritual than a necessity. I interface with a world wide team, and it is expensive to get us in one place at the same time, and silly to think that being in a designated office is different or better than a home office. That’s especially true in my company which is going to an open floor plan design in which desk are first come, first serve which discourages “nesting” and leaving sensitive documents sitting around. Yet, we are told we must come in 3 days a week, despite no longer having enough desks for everyone if we did come in that often.
For a short time, my company had coherent plan. They had 4 categories of employees; those that needed to be in the office 5 days a week because the job benefitted from it, those who would come into office as needed but often worked from home, those that would have multiple office either in our building or a vendors location, and then those that always needed to be in the field as that was where the work was for them. Everyone knew what they signed up to do, so accepted the contract.
Perhaps the problem is people don’t understand what it means to accept a contract these days or that they even accepted one in the first place. No one really wants to be bound by a contract, but it makes for a civil way to handle agreements and disagreements.
Laslo Spatula, in his typical fashion, pointed out 3 years ago that this was Eloi and Morlocks thinking, but of course at that time lots of "work" was being done from home that couldn't actually be done from home- people were being paid to do nothing while essential workers were required to do something for the same pay.
Look, if a job can be done just as productively from one's study or bedroom, then it should be done from there, and companies should encourage this- it really is more efficient economically, and fairness should have nothing to do with the matter. However, as I have pointed out many, many times- if a job that used to be located in downtown Chicago can be done from Schaumberg, it can be done at 1/3 the cost from Mumbai.
@Michael: Forget how it stalls career advancement or takes it off the table entirely. No spontaneous meetings, no collaboration over coffee, no being in the loop.
Face it. If you work from home you aren’t needed in the office. Let that sink in.
Your values are not the same as others' values. Women with children or family needs want remote work more than anyone else, while male computer programmers are most likely to have the option. Many, many people do not want to advance and just want a steady paycheck -- see the "Do you live to work or work to live?" question.
@TreeJoe: - There is a much higher prevalence of highly paid people goofing off. This is a real negative in large companies with processes designed to give long runways to such people before being fired.
This is not new, and it varies between organizations. I've personally completed the work of three full-time in-office staff at once -- they couldn't/wouldn't be fired. Several decades ago a relative caused enormous turmoil for reporting to management that he'd been on the job for 8 months with no tasking. He was bored and wondering if he should move on. Sometimes corporate managers suck, but stick around per seniority or nepotism.
@paminwi: Truly who gives a crap whether you have 2 hour commute. YOU made the choice where to live, not your boss.
Make better decisions if your time is so valuable.
People buy houses in major metro areas and then change jobs. They end up on one fringe of the city with a new job on the opposite side of the city. Where's the logic in sitting in traffic and burning fuel for no reason? I've had jobs in private offices next to other private offices -- we'd all arrive, work quietly, and go home. For months on end. The main 'benefit' of coming in was to catch colds from the parents with kids in elementary school.
So much projection here. Take each job and person individually.
I think he is just fighting fire with fire. The people complaining the most about "returning" to work are most likely to be the first ones to preach about "white privilege." The dark notion that they are unfairly "privileged" is the younger generation's soft underbelly.
“As for what Musk is getting at? I have not one tired clue. All those “likes,” which are supposed to seduce us into relaxing our critical faculty and just buying whatever he chooses to say. I think the count of interjections such as “like” and “you know” and “sort of, kind of” could be a good predictor of whether somebody is, like, slinging bullshit, you know?”
Here is an idea. He is trying to get his Twitter employees back into the office. They are balking, believing that they are part of the elite who can work from home. He doesn’t really have this problem with his other companies, because they make physical products in meat space. But Twitter exists primarily in cyberspace. Very possibly he sees the Twitter employees as becoming so stridently leftists by working from home.
Geez...for someone who is touted as a genius, Musk's barely there "ideas" and poor facility with speaking in coherent sentences (as indicated by the quotes above) show him to be pretty much a nitwit. He cannot provide even a semblance of a good argument why jobs that can be done from home should not be.
I'm retired now but during the COVID period most of those who worked at my place of work worked remotely full time. A small cohort, including me, had to appear in the office at least a couple of days or so per week, (due to functions we had to perform which could not have done from home), which I was happy to do.
If I had the choice of (1) working remotely full-time or (2) working remotely on a part-time basis or (3) working at the office full time, I would prefer the part-time basis: working some days at the office and other days from home. If the choice was ONLY (1)work in the office full time or (2)work remotely full time, I would choose to work at the office full time. Others prefer working remotely full time.
Its not a Morality issue, its an equity issue. For Musk, it hits home because (except for Twitter) his companies make things. And you can't make a car or a rocket from Home. So, why should the HR lady get to work from home, while Joe the assembly has to show up?
Even with Twitter, certain people need to show up and physically touch the computer hardware. They can't work from home.
Paddy O had it right. Musk wants a world where everyone has to commute to work, because he sells cars.
My idea of immoral is insisting you need to be paid $55 billion for a part time job.
I think he is speaking a bit in his role as a CEO. The guys on the factory floor who build the Teslas and rockets have to come in to work. It’s not really optional because if they don’t nothing gets built. But the upper management and software guys don’t literally have to come to work. They could theoretically work from home. But as CEO, he’s saying that if the guys doing the grunt work on the factory floor have to show up, it’s unfair, or even immoral, for their better compensated colleagues to be able to work from home in their pajamas. He thinks that the whole company should be pulling together and making some shared sacrifices. And I tend to agree with that.
But the question is whether you can extrapolate that upwards to a whole society? I’m not sure that really works, though I think that people who wish to be societal leaders, whether de jure, or even de facto, probably do have to show up if they expect other people in the society to show up.
Morality? Shared responsibility (e.g. progressive prices, diversity)? Perhaps.
Ethics in a relativistic frame? Pro-Choice religion? Probably.
if a job that used to be located in downtown Chicago can be done from Schaumberg, it can be done at 1/3 the cost from Mumbai
So, remote work is akin to an exit interview.
'Geez...for someone who is touted as a genius, Musk's barely there "ideas" and poor facility with speaking in coherent sentences (as indicated by the quotes above) show him to be pretty much a nitwit. He cannot provide even a semblance of a good argument why jobs that can be done from home should not be.'
You're correct.
Setting aside his wealth (money does not equal intelligence), he's only founded the world's first world's highest-valued car company.
The world's most valuable private space company.
And in his spare time, an internet satellite network.
And he runs that Twitter thing.
Fucking dunce.
That's silly. Is the guy who fixes things at people's houses supposed to feel bad that he sets his own schedule and takes breaks when he likes while the people who answer the phones have to coordinate so that someone is always available? No. Or should people who work away from the public feel bad that they don't have to get ready with extra polished hair, makeup, and clothes everyday? No Different jobs require different things.
Also, the people who are out working are probably happy to endure less traffic.
I hate working at home. Long live the commute.
You are only allowed to use equity as an argument if the left likes you or you are for censorship.
My idea of immoral is insisting you need to be paid $55 billion for a part time job.
Who is getting paid $55 billion for a part time job?
The Work From Home push by employees is a push back to the "always on" work mentality. The "physical" workers don't take their work home with them. Their shift ends, their work ends. There is extra shifts, and overtime, and things like that, but widget turner doesn't bring the widgets home to work extra after dinner when the kids go to bed.
If employers want work to only be done in the office, they will find that work will only be done in the office.
In general, most employees who like remote work don't care about the remote work part. They want the flexibility. That's the drug employees have become addicted to. They don't want in person worthless meetings. They'd rather do it on zoom while they do something else. They don't want the Hawaiian shirt day as a faux team building exercise. They don't want the interruptions as people stop by their desk. They don't want to have to take a vacation day because they need to have a 1 hour Dr. appointment. All things that are eliminated with a flexible work from home policy.
Paddy O had it right. Musk wants a world where everyone has to commute to work, because he sells cars.
Tesla spends $0 on advertising, has been expanding at a breakneck speed for a decade, and can't come close to meeting the demand for his cars.
100% gilbar 9:10am. A very ok boomer discussion thread. Some points:
1. Cell phones. You can't manufacture a car off shift. 20 years ago you couldn't do white collar work out of the office. Now, you can be reached and work literally any time. Want me to come to the office, as I did for 15 years? Well then how about I stop working when I leave.
2. Whatever your gut tells you about people lazing around at home, the stats say productivity and hours worked shot through the roof for work-at-homers during the pandemic. Your gut is wrong. And also, I'm laughing and laughing when you say being in the office solves productivity.
3. When CEOs talk about morality, they're trying to avoid paying for things. "We're a big family" said the CEO while freezing hiring and adding more work to existing staff (there's your productivity increase!). "I'm making the white collar workers come to work for fairness" said the CEO trying to avoid giving raises to pissed off manufacturing workers. Welcome to capitalism -- if you want it, pay for it.
"No amount of money will keep me from speaking the truth".
Musk, like, totally literally, like, just chose to censor political speech in order to keep making money in Turkey.
Paddy O had it right. Musk wants a world where everyone has to commute to work, because he sells cars.
Tesla spends $0 on advertising, has been expanding at a breakneck speed for a decade, and can't come close to meeting the demand for his cars.
if a job that used to be located in downtown Chicago can be done from Schaumberg, it can be done at 1/3 the cost from Mumbai
Physical jobs can be done in remote locations, too. Musk can build Teslas in Mumbai just as easily as he could in Texas.
Plenty of companies shutter downtown Chicago offices just as easily as they offshore remote workers. There are no guarantees.
"People keep saying he is the smartest guy in the room, but then he keeps opening his mouth and suggesting otherwise."
Well, Lefty Mark, he is at least 40 IQ points smarter than you, judged by actual accomplishments, and I would guess his IQ is about 130 or so.
I wish the extroverts, who need their office interactions to survive, would let us introverts just work in peace. Trust me, there are way more opportunities for interruptions at the office than at home.
Hate to burst your bubble but the people who don't work at home, don't work at the office either.
I guess it may come down to the need of the competent to be in the office to do the work of the incompetent. Separated from the slacker, what does the slacker have to lean on?
"Geez...for someone who is touted as a genius, Musk's barely there "ideas" and poor facility with speaking in coherent sentences (as indicated by the quotes above) show him to be pretty much a nitwit. He cannot provide even a semblance of a good argument why jobs that can be done from home should not be."
It's possible that his style of speech is what you get from a genius. Maybe the mind is firing furiously and it's a struggle to pick out a few salient things and put them in words ordinary people can hear.
I think he's choosing to speak in terms of morality because he's responding to people who spoke in those terms and he thinks people can understand moral principles better than economic arguments.
I think the good arguments are economic and they sound too brutal (and too much in the billionaire's favor), so he's skipping them. He's not going to say I need to keep an eye on people, many of whom, I suspect, aren't doing much work. Or I want to test everyone's commitment. Or I want to weed out the people who have a substantial personal life dividing their loyalty.
Tom T.: "Paddy O had it right. Musk wants a world where everyone has to commute to work, because he sells cars."
Sounds like an incomplete description of the world Musk would like to see.
In Musk world, your self-driving electric car allows you to commute while already working via your neuralink hook up to the Starlink constellation while you also play an impromptu chess match in your car against your Tesla robot...and did I mention you are traveling in a Boring Company Smart Tunnel which is 200 feet underground so you avoid the surface traffic.
Oh yeah, you are actually on Mars.
I think the good arguments are economic and they sound too brutal (and too much in the billionaire's favor), so he's skipping them. He's not going to say I need to keep an eye on people, many of whom, I suspect, aren't doing much work. Or I want to test everyone's commitment. Or I want to weed out the people who have a substantial personal life dividing their loyalty.
Fo shizzle...
It's possible that his style of speech is what you get from a genius. Maybe the mind is firing furiously and it's a struggle to pick out a few salient things and put them in words ordinary people can hear.
Careful Althouse. Our genius NYC socialist knows better than all of us that Musk is a capitalist idiot.
"In the wide-ranging interview, Musk said employees that have so far refused to return to offices after Covid-19 restrictions ended need to 'get off their moral high horse' and get back to work like others have, pointing to service workers."
Musk is not introducing the Moral argument, he is responding to the Moral argument, demonstrating that the Moral argument advanced by the "employees that have so far refused to return to offices after Covid-19 restrictions" cannot stand on basic Moral principles, therefore their whole stance is "messed up".
"Setting aside his wealth (money does not equal intelligence), he's only founded the world's first world's highest-valued car company.
The world's most valuable private space company.
And in his spare time, an internet satellite network.
And he runs that Twitter thing."
It's that last one that makes leftists lose their minds. They adored Musk when he was the electric car guy, but once he got his hands on Twitter and showed the world what kind of hateful, censoring shits the left really is, they abandoned him almost like someone flipped a switch.
Musk is throwing around the concept of "morality," but it's a pompous makeweight argument, I suspect. The real reason is something more practical, isn't it? There's so much talk in the morality mode these days, and yet you look around, and you don't get the feeling it's coming from people who are motivated by virtue for its own sake.
Excellent! Wish I could write like that.
- Krumhorn
"No amount of money will keep me from speaking the truth".
It didn't require money for Elon to have Twitter hide tweets and accounts in Turkey or India, among other places.
He is more than happy being the lackey for autocrats doing the same thing for foreign leaders that he made such a deal about happening previous with the US government and Twitter.
"By "the unfair notion," the marginally literate Daily Mail means "the notion that it's unfair."
I don't think you have that right. They are saying it is "the unfair notion that service workers still have to show up ...". That is, they are saying that evil work-from-home you has the notion that other people must go to work, while you lounge about in idle ease, and that is UNFAIR! Of course, it appears that Musk also thinks people must go to work. So he also has the unfair notion.
I think that nowadays, you just shout "I am standing on the moral high ground!", point at the enemy, and wait for an outrage mob to form. No chain of logic is required, or, indeed, desired.
"You're gonna work from home and you're gonna make everyone else who made your car come work in the factory?"
I think Elon is straining to make a point for which he lacks a valid argument. He is defending his decision to make his employees come in to work. But what is he saying? That I should drive around in a garbage truck while I work on a computer, because the guy who collects my garbage has to drive around in a garbage truck? Shouldn't Elon be working on a container ship somewhere? He certainly buys things that come in container ships. Elon belongs on a slow boat from China.
Talk about authoritarian cogs in a wheel. Musk has no life outside of work and, by golly, he wants to make sure that his employees don’t either! He wants to spread his life dissatisfaction around, and will start by pushing it on the employees he thinks he owns.
Yes, different jobs require different things. Does he want to get rid of pay scales and unequal benefits and salary vs. hourly pay as well? What a jackass.
This wacko is the reason the oligarchs are totally unprepared for AI. Musk seriously thinks AI will be intelligent enough to destroy the world, but not white collar work? Maybe he can take robots off the assembly lines while he’s at it. This man is a Luddite.
Just because workplaces have become the new tribes doesn’t mean people will always pretend to be satisfied with seeing them that way. Urging solidarity around such arbitrary organizations has destroyed our quality of life and become yet another dogma that the younger generations will uproot, along with all the other ways the older generations have failed them and that they are ready to overthrow.
I don't begrudge people who are fortunate enough to work from home. However, what does piss me off are the endless stories from the NYT or WSJ on the subject. If you were an alien, you would thing EVERYONE on this planet must work from home. And obviously, that isn't true.
My prediction is that work from home will decline over time as people realize the loss of collaboration doesn't offset the benefits, such as reduced commutes or office leases. I'm retired now, but I know in my profession as a chemical engineer, collaboration was very important, not to mention mentoring of new engineers. But I guess we'll see.
They adored Musk when he was the electric car guy, but once he got his hands on Twitter and showed the world what kind of hateful, censoring shits the left really is, they abandoned him almost like someone flipped a switch.
Musk doesn’t know the difference between an opinion and a fact and has devoted billions to destroying his play company and those employed by it by trafficking in garbage lunatic conspiracies. He was just interviewed by a business news channel and repeated some falsehood there about how a Texas mass shooter was falsely labeled a white supremacist by a “psyop” - even after the sherif confirmed that the man’s body was tattooed in swastikas.
I suppose this is respectable behavior to the right wing fascists, but not to normals.
"Musk doesn’t know the difference between an opinion and a fact and has devoted billions to destroying his play company and those employed by it by trafficking in garbage lunatic conspiracies."
"They adored Musk when he was the electric car guy, but once he got his hands on Twitter and showed the world what kind of hateful, censoring shits the left really is, they abandoned him almost like someone flipped a switch."
Yep.
'Talk about authoritarian cogs in a wheel. Musk has no life outside of work and, by golly, he wants to make sure that his employees don’t either! He wants to spread his life dissatisfaction around, and will start by pushing it on the employees he thinks he owns.'
So you've never seen his tweets with his kids? Or on various yachts or jets flying off to some exotic spot or another? Or at the World Cup? Or court side at the NBA playoffs? Or attending various world events? Just a couple of days ago he was meeting with Macron in Paris.
Seems like he has a pretty amazing life, but you know best...
"Musk is throwing around the concept of "morality," but it's a pompous makeweight argument, I suspect. The real reason is something more practical, isn't it? There's so much talk in the morality mode these days, and yet you look around, and you don't get the feeling it's coming from people who are motivated by virtue for its own sake."
Since we're invited to discern 'real motivations', I submit that in this particular case Musk is motivated by being pissed off that when he wants to run his own business his own way, he is constantly attacked by preening moralists.
Musk's whole tirade is directed at those who should "get off their goddamn moral high horse", which pre-supposes that he was subjected to the 'moral' onslaught. Every successful entrepreneur becomes a subject of 'moral' censors, sooner or later. Musk simply takes the fight to the preening moralists and engages them on their own grounds, demonstrating how "messed up" their purported 'morality' is.
Mason G shows just how stupid the right is. There was no censoring, and they weren’t the ones fanning the flames of hate. Just because Elon has stupid, hateful things to say and to promote on the company/website he sucked so much value and jobs out of doesn’t mean people have to respect that, or him. The right think freedom of speech means you get to make people respect (and promote and host!) the stupid, hateful things they say and think. It absolutely does not. Anyone who’s not 12 years old gets that. There’s no “freedom” to make people root for you and your bad ideas.
What the right wants is compelled speech. They want you to sponsor Elon. Force an association with him and support his infantile BS. But that’s just what authoritarian conformists do. No room for talking back in their world or dissociating from it, they’re failing in “the marketplace of ideas” and want to drag you down with them.
Let him and the right sink in his ship. Sorry it couldn’t be arranged to happen on those Martian space ships.
"There was no censoring..."
If you say so.
"What the right wants is compelled speech."
Heh. Projection. It's a thing.
"But that’s just what authoritarian conformists do."
Leftists would know about authoritarian conformists, I'd agree.
"they’re failing in “the marketplace of ideas”
Is this the same marketplace where leftists have been whining about "Muh blue checkmark" and are unhappy because viewpoints they disapprove of are no longer being censored? Because, you know... Twitter is a private company and they can do what they want?
Joe Biden "works" from home in Delaware.
I've never been a micro-managing manager nor one that spouts, "if you've got time to lean, you've got time to clean....". So after a prime set rush, if my line cooks want to take a breather or a short break or take their time chopping some vegetable, that's fine. But don't stand there looking at your phone when the production list has 20 different items that need to be done, not to mention your own station.
I cannot "cook" from home as a business except for a few exceptions under the state food code, so I have to be in a kitchen.
I can write and edit at home but it is SO easy to get distracted and do something else in your house that seemingly NEEDS to be done now that you have a blank page in front of you and a deadline to make. This is why my lady and I take three-day weekend vacations in our state of Florida. I can go to the Keys, or St. Augustine, or Cedar Key, or Sanibel/Captiva ... people will say, you live in Jupiter and it is as nice or nicer than those places, why travel and spend money on that? Well, I like to stay at B&Bs but the real reason is that when I am in a little cottage in Captiva, I don't have a pile of laundry to do, a floor to vacuum, or have to answer the phone when my manager wants me to come in two hours early because we are going to do 500 dinners and someone called out. I am AWAY.
And finally, I see staff (mostly teens and people in their 20s) who walk around doing nothing when they are IN THE BUILDING AT WORK. I can only imagine what they would do at home. (Full disclosure: they are not my staff)
Grouchy old Marcus B. THEOLDMAN
Guess I’m late to view all of the comments. My question of moral vs ethical was just that- I really wasn’t sure what he was getting at, in a sense. There’s always been a white collar/blue collar high horse to ride, IMhumbleO. It’s always been there and I work in dirt. So… I’ve experienced it.
Did it suck that the essential workers had to be on the front lines during a contagious pandemic? Absolutely. Should those who got to stay home go back now? I have no idea.
Musk’s speech pattern seems to me to be a tic- or a shy nature funneling bold ideas. He can’t not share, but it’s a chore. Not that I’ve heard him speak lots, but he gets animated. Reminds me of our cows wanting to come into the barn from pasture and they jam the door. That’s what his thoughts do in him mouth lol.
Social interactions in 'meat space' promotes healthy human relationships.
And, I met my wife at the office.
The snarky comment is: Since Elon tends to live in his plants, roaming from one to another as he sees fit, you could say he Works from Home.
“So you've never seen his tweets with his kids? Or on various yachts or jets flying off to some exotic spot or another? Or at the World Cup? Or court side at the NBA playoffs? Or attending various world events? Just a couple of days ago he was meeting with Macron in Paris.“
Which kid? The kid he had with wife #1? #2? #3? The girlfriend that he squeezed in between them?
There are lots of losers in school who just show up at parties no one wants to see them at, but think that makes them cool anyway.
If you’re going to call “censorship” any private sector actor or company deciding for itself what speech to publish, advertise or reject, then Elon’s not your man either. He banned reporters who covered the story about the kid who published his flight logs. (Probably banned the kid, too). He banned Alex Jones - with just a bible quote as rationale. He bans whomever he doesn’t like or even who comments on things he doesn’t like.
The only difference is he just does it without a clear, rational policy that can be carried out objectively or appealed procedurally. But instead by capricious personal whims that he alone decides. So yeah, an authoritarian dictator, not someone who can at least have his impulses checked when it comes to banning speech or speakers. And with all the predictable consequences to a widespread public and market, as Twitter’s stock value gets flushed down the toilet in the process.
But he does let the Nazi content flourish, so I can see why the right-wingers are happy with that.
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