[chalkandpaste]

THIS IS FANTASTIC.

I’ve had a friend, a specialist engineer doing failure analysis, who has been largely incapacitated from any work because of Tesla. He sustained an injury during a high urgency project (which failed, whodathunk) which required him to work 16 hour days for a few months. During the course of this, he sustained injuries to arms and legs due to machinery issues (the machinery at Tesla often has workers contorting into unnatural positions, I’ve heard). It’s been 2 years and my friend is unable to pay for the requisite operations and can’t get a cent out of Tesla. He is unable to work because of his injuries and so really has been confined to his home for 2 years now.

I have no respect for Musk. An employer who has no respect for their employees, a leader who has no regard for those he leads, is morally bankrupt and seeks only their own good.

[kyrra]

If your friend already pursued legal avenues with no results, it may be worth having them reach out to news companies to see if he can get some attention (especially in-light of California starting this investigation). Bad press with case-study sort of issues is always a great way to get things fixed.

[StudentStuff]

Its horrifying how Musk treats his workers, its very reminiscent of what Amazon does to most of its employees here in Seattle.

Unpaid overtime for warehouse workers? Definitely, as long as the worker doesn't squawk to L&I! Work your developers 10 hours a day, then guilt trip them to coming in on Sunday? Amazon does this constantly. Tesla, SpaceX and Blue Origin seem to have the same work culture as Amazon, even Microsoft or Adobe have better work cultures.

Oh, and Musk is all too happy to intimidate employees: https://www.thedailybeast.com/workers-say-tesla-is-trying-to...

[freeone3000]

"even" Microsoft? Microsoft, home of the individual office, 8-hour workday, #7 in Fortune's Best Places to Work?

There's a lot to dislike about bigcorps, but the working environment isn't one of them.

[filoleg]

Yeah, have to agree here. From personal observations, as well as other people I know who work there, MSFT work/life balance is hard to beat. Ofc it varies by team, so I can only talk about what I have personally encountered

[StudentStuff]

In the recent past, Microsoft had pretty awful work/life balance. It has improved measurably over the past couple years, but some teams are still pretty bad, and the people I know who are higher up (esp. if they aren't software devs) consistently work over 60hrs a week.

[somethingwitty1]

Based on the same type of anecdotal evidence, I have the complete opposite view. I've not met anyone that has enjoyed their time at Microsoft. They all talk about the awful work situation, terrible management practices and the backstabbing politics to the point you can't trust your own co-workers.

With all that said, the reality is that you can't take a single brush and paint companies that have so many employees with it. The experience varies very widely on which part of the company they are in.

I'm sure parts of Microsoft are wonderful to work at. Just like I'm sure parts of Amazon are wonderful to work at (they have numerous awards as well indicating this: #1 by LinkedIn this year, for example). I wish we'd stop taking articles that point out the experiences of a couple people to mean that is the situation at the company. Report the full story, not click-bait articles.

[DaiPlusPlus]

Microsoft ditched individual offices starting in 2014. At least half of the Redmond campus is in “team rooms” now - with mixed results.

[olefoo]

That's for blue-badge people. Temps + Contractors... not so much.

[TAForObvReasons]

This is 100% the "move fast and break things" culture SV has come to adore over the last decade. Things also includes employees and pesky labor laws.

[briandear]

Really? How does Facebook, Apple, Salesforce, Intel, etc. violate labor laws or mistreat their employees? You can’t use a few companies as a proxy for the entire valley.

[danso]

Wait, seriously? You've never heard about Uber? Or this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...

http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-tech-job...

[sincerely]

I don't think any of those companies represent the "move fast and break things" ethos at this point either.

[danielvf]

Just for the record, while I've heard enough terrible things about Tesla and SpaceX to never consider working there, I know someone at Blue Origin and, at least as of a year or two ago, he reported that the hours and stress were way better than the aviation/rocket industry average. He was very happy. Employee turnover at Blue Origin is low.

[sol_remmy]

Why not cite your claims about Amazon with a news article, just show good faith

[StudentStuff]

I have many friends that work there or have in the recent past, Amazon's practices wrt employee abuse are constantly reported on though.

Take a look through recent articles about Amazon: https://www.qwant.com/?q=amazon overwork employees&t=news&freshness=all

[ceejayoz]

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-...

[komali2]

With respect to you and your friend, I'm automatically skeptical of stories like this. We're on the internet, after all.

Has your friend spoken to news agencies about this? Why not, if he/she hasn't? Surely any of the major news agencies would be watering at the mouth for a story like this.

[StudentStuff]

Huh? There are articles every week about injured workers at Tesla getting screwed over, its a core reason why the workers are attempting to unionize. Someone needs to stand up to Tesla and protect injured workers.

Take a look for yourself: https://www.qwant.com/?q=tesla%20workers&t=news

[josefresco]

> There are articles every week

I looked, it's an exaggeration to say every week.

[mabufo]

What are you skeptical about? That this person's friend is actually injured? That it happened because of tesla? People get injured at work. Maybe not where YOU work, but it absolutely happens.

Also, the subtext of your comment - that this person OF COURSE would have contacted a news organization if their claim was legitimate is frankly very weird.

[dragonwriter]

> What are you skeptical about? That this person's friend is actually injured? That it happened because of tesla?

What I (not the original poster of the comment you are questioning) is that they were injured in the workplace at Tesla as en employee and unable to get anything from Tesla to deal with that, since workers compensation is a bright-line legal requirement for all employers and covers all employees.

Now, bureaucratic difficulties dealing with Tesla’s WC insurer resulting in annoying runarounds, poor doctors in inconvenient locations, and disappointing care quality would be credible. Crickets, though, stretches belief.

[trhway]

well, i second his story. I know a guy who got serious issues with his shoulder from working at Tesla. He is low income, large family so no skills/time/resources to pursue his case (his description was along the lines of Tesla just refusing to pay)

[chalkandpaste]

Hey I don’t blame you for being skeptical, it’s the way of the internet. I don’t think media attention is what he wants as he is still attempting to work through legal recourse.

[komali2]

Smart, I can think of a couple articles I've read of people that have torpedoed their legal options by kicking up a shitstorm.

Extended legal action may very well be why there aren't big stories about this.

[dang]

Could you please not use allcaps for emphasis in HN comments? This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

[idoh]

That's crazy. What happened, generally speaking? Was he hit by something, or more along the lines of a receptive stress injury?

[chalkandpaste]

I believe the issue was repeated stress causing tendons to tear in one leg and one arm. There have been reports that the machinery Tesla uses puts unnecessary strain on the body and the hours this man was working, I can easily see this happening.

[vkou]

Which part of this story is crazy? That someone got injured working at an automotive plant, that they were strongly encouraged to do overtime, or that their employer declined to assume any liability?

[nerfhammer]

Denying worker's comp for injury is so obviously illegal and such a brazen civil liability that it would be shocking that a company of Tesla's size would be able to simply refuse to deal with it. This person should be able to sue the pants off of Tesla. If they haven't gotten any compensation for their injuries maybe they haven't even filed a worker's comp claim, or they don't know that's a thing, or something.

[notyourday]

I know a few worker comp attorneys in NY and CA. They say that in general worker comp claims that are being fought take 3-5 years to win.

There's an entire sub-industry of attorneys specializing in fighting insurers/companies on worker comp cases.

[tedunangst]

Specialist engineer doing failure analysis doesn't sound like one of the more injury prone jobs. I mean, I don't know what happened, I just don't associate that job description with debilitating injuries, so it does sound a little crazy.

[idoh]

Yeah that's the angle I was taking. Doing failure analysis seems like it involves observation and thinking, hard to see how you get injured doing that unless it is a freak accident.

[ryandrake]

Doesn't California have Workers' Compensation? I once injured myself on the job a long time ago in Florida (drill press nearly turned my finger into a Pez dispenser), and with a little paperwork, all my medical bills were covered by WC. I thought it worked like that in all 50 states.

[dragonwriter]

> Doesn't California have Workers' Compensation?

Yes, all California employers are required to offer workers compensation benefits, and to inform employees about their rights under workers comp law.

https://www.dir.ca.gov/dwc/faqs.html