Until she was told to "leave work for vacation", Evie still couldn't believe that Tesla, which she deeply identified with, would abandon her.
As a Tesla delivery worker, on November 26, Evie began to push forward with the end-of-quarter delivery work as usual. Unexpectedly, she was suddenly called into the office, and the delivery manager, HRBP and other colleagues told her that because colleagues reported her work mistakes, the company needed to suspend her. At the same time, the company asked Evie to hand over her work phone and sign a written warning and investigation documents.
Faced with a sudden "suspension", Evie felt difficult to accept, she did not sign, hoping that the company would first investigate the matter. Evie recalls, she was recollected by the reply, "Your job today is to cooperate with signing written warnings and suspension investigations, and you are not allowed to enter the office area again." ”
Evie used the excuse to go to the bathroom to call her family for help, and the delivery manager Lu Lin pulled on the bathroom door to try to break in, and Evie was forced into the cubicle to protect herself. Even so, Evie was snatched away from her phone. Evie's direct leader, Guan Qiang, reminded Lu Lin at the bathroom door, "I grabbed the wrong phone, it is another mobile phone." ”
In the end, the farce ended after the police arrived.
On December 4, instead of waiting for a settlement, Evie received a "Leave Notice", which did not explain why she was asked to leave her post, but asked her not to "go to the office without written notice, and not to contact colleagues, suppliers and customers." More than a week had passed since Evie was suspended.
Source: Courtesy of the interviewee
As of press time, Evie's matter has not been resolved, and she intends to go through legal procedures and submit an arbitration application.
In response to the above situation, Tesla responded that "it belongs to the normal personnel change procedure, employees may have some mood swings, do not recognize the results of the processing, and are still communicating."
Evie's labor contract dispute with Tesla is not unique. According to Tianyancha data, since 2020, Tesla has had a total of 5 labor contract disputes, and another 3 labor and recruitment-related contractual negligence liability disputes. A number of Tesla employees revealed that the working atmosphere inside Tesla is quite tense, even if "communicating with colleagues in the early morning can basically get a second back."
Just this past Christmas, Tesla CEO Elon Musk thanked the Tesla team for their hard work during the holidays on social platforms and expected "a large number of Tesla cars to be delivered by the end of the year." Since building the gigafactory in Shanghai, Tesla has embarked on a high-speed development model. From the start of construction to production, it took only one year for the Shanghai Gigafactory to create a jaw-dropping Tesla speed.
But Tesla, which is rushing forward, inevitably has some cracks.
The reason for the suspension that is difficult to speculate
According to the written warning, Evie was suspended for "slacking off at work."
Evie thought about it for a moment, and it started around July. At that time, Tesla's China-made standard endurance Model Y was launched, "due to excessive workload", Evie made a mistake in the order number of one customer, causing the system to match other people's vehicle information to this customer. While this mistake was eventually corrected, with customers mentioning the correctly configured car during normal delivery cycles, some negative sentiment also developed during this time.
However, the company did not punish Evie for this matter, and what Evie did not expect was that this incident would become the reason why the company would suspend her in the future.
A few months later, Evie's Feidong Tesla Center in Hefei organized a team-building event. Due to ill health, Evie did not attend. In the process of team building, during the routine review work, a colleague reported the misoperation of Evie's order number, so the opening scene occurred.
After the incident, Evie was kicked out of the work group, the work computer account was recovered by the IT staff, and the work WeChat displayed a status of "resigned" and could not continue to work. "Uniforms and badges have also been asked to be returned, and even the pennants that customers have given me will not let go." Colleagues had no further interaction with her, and Evie speculated that "[they] should have been warned."
In Evie's view, the mistakes she made have happened to many delivery personnel, and the company used this as an excuse to determine that she was "slack in her work and did not complete work tasks, arrangements or instructions according to regulations and requirements", and Evie could not agree.
According to Evie, she transferred from Shanghai to Hefei in early 2021 to be responsible for most of the delivery of the Tesla Center in Feidong, Hefei. The workload in Hefei is about 1.5 times that of cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, and such high-intensity work, Evie lasted for three quarters, "it is not an exaggeration to say that I have 360 days a year 360 days a year."
In the third quarter of 2021, Evie's delivery number ranked first in the country within the Tesla system, and it was listed as a national delivery MVP.
Evie in the top left Source: Courtesy of the interviewee
Evie analyzed that it may be because her thinking is too independent, causing dissatisfaction among leaders, which has caused disaster.
In mid-November, Evie made some suggestions for improvement in response to the delivery situation in Hefei at that time, but they were not adopted, and was told that "this is not something you should consider". Evie believes that the improvement measures she proposes will increase the workload, need to do more things to track the landing, and perhaps the leader is reluctant to take potential risks.
In Evie's view, it was a "long-planned conspiracy," and on November 30, colleagues who reported Evie were promoted.
Screenshot of Evie's chat with the leader Source: Courtesy of the interviewee
But the above is only Evie's own speculation, and from the information obtained so far, the real reason is unknown.
According to Evie, she is not the only one who has been "left". At the end of September this year, a staff member in charge of delivery at Nanjing Tesla was also forced to leave his job and was unknowingly removed from the work group.
At Tesla, excellence is just the passing line
Musk has complained that U.S. government agencies are bloated and bureaucratic. Under his advocacy, "not wasting time in bureaucracy, focusing on achieving the mission" has become an important part of Tesla's corporate culture. Under Musk's management, Tesla has formed an efficient working mechanism within itself.
"Recognize the company, recognize the product, recognize the concept." This is Evie's reason for choosing Tesla. Returning to Shanghai after returning from her North African assignment in 2019, Evie firmly joined Tesla, and according to her, what Tesla did was a meaningful thing.
This recognition seems to be beyond the scope of ordinary people's understanding, even if she is left, Evie still believes in Tesla's corporate philosophy and is eager to "resume her position" and return to work.
At Tesla, there are many people like Evie. Future Auto Daily interviewed a number of Tesla employees and found that they have a natural sense of mission when working at Tesla, and "turning the impossible into possible" is the credo of their work.
In the Internet factory, 996 is enough to be lamentable, but at Tesla, everyone is accustomed to 007.
Yao Yuan, a Tesla East China staff member, said that it may be difficult for outsiders to understand that Tesla is such a "desperate" company, and in Tesla, "excellence is only the passing line". Yao Yuan once ran three cities to tour stores in one day. The night before, I was still in Shanghai, and the next morning I appeared at the Tesla Beijing Huamao Experience Store.
"It's not easy to stick to it, it's all supported by the belief of 'being a colleague with Musk.'"
A front-line employee of Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory told Future Auto Daily that he deeply agrees with Musk's ideals and believes that Tesla can change the world, and "it is a fortunate thing to be involved."
Gu Lei, who has worked at Tesla for more than five years, was willing to take a two-thirds salary cut to join Tesla, and it was Tesla's vision to accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy. To this day, Gu Lei is also willing to show the enthusiasm of entrepreneurship and continue to pay for the great vision of Tesla.
Source: Network
Musk emphasizes efficient work, Tesla is like a high-speed machine, and everyone is wrapped up in it.
A former Tesla employee told Future Auto Daily that compared with traditional car companies, Tesla's biggest feature is agility, fast pace of work, KPIs and work tasks are also relatively heavy, and some people with bright resumes are difficult to adapt to Tesla's working environment.
"Working at Tesla is like a bullet"
With Musk's strong personal charisma, Tesla attracts a group of excellent people. However, Tesla has not been able to retain these talents for long.
This is not unrelated to Musk's strong management style.
There are many labels on Musk: a visionary genius, the richest man in a hurry, and an "crazy talker" Internet celebrity — this label is vividly reflected in Musk's methodology of managing the company. Musk famously said: If you want to fire someone, you should fire them right away, otherwise it's a waste of each other's time.
For Musk, many problems can be solved through layoffs, from grassroots employees to company executives, Musk has never been soft. In 2017, Silicon Valley media outlet Mercury reported that Tesla laid off 700 people in just one week, involving engineers, front-line workers in various departments, and even department heads.
Source: Pixabay
Musk's ruthless layoffs have met with a lot of condemnation. "Elon's worst flaw at the moment is the lack of loyalty or humanity." A departing Tesla employee said that many people worked hard for Musk, but he "mercilessly discarded us like garbage." "He was completely devoid of human feelings, and it was clear that the man who worked for him was like a bullet – thrown away when he ran out."
A typical case of Musk's cold-blooded layoffs occurred in 2014. Mary Beth Brown, an assistant who had followed Musk for more than a decade at the time, asked for a pay rise, and Musk put Brown on leave for a few weeks, during which time Musk personally took over Brown's job to assess whether he really needed a raise. When Brown's vacation ended, Musk fired her outright because he didn't think it was worth it.
Tesla vice presidents and executives who have direct contact with Musk have even been identified as high-risk occupations. According to the incomplete statistics of Future Auto Daily, since 2017, there have been more than 100 Tesla executives who have voluntarily left or passively left. Bernstein did a survey in 2019 that Tesla replaces more than 27% of executives each year, and the annual turnover rate of executives reported to Musk is 44%, which is much higher than the average of 9% for other tech companies in Silicon Valley.
Up and down, Musk's fierce management style has penetrated every link of Tesla, and the Tesla China team clearly pursues Musk's methodology. An industry insider commented on Evie's experience, "Largely influenced by Musk's management style. And once a company makes a decision, it's hard to change."
The employment contract signed by Evie and Tesla will expire on February 19, 2022. Evie said Tesla has made it clear that it will not renew its contract.
"The company's current attitude is to deal with it coldly, and my appeal is still for the reinstatement of the position and the company's cross-regional investigation into the matter." At present, Evie still insists on returning to Tesla, and whether she can get her wish is not known for the time being, but the next fate with Tesla may have to be severed.
(In order to protect the privacy of the interviewees, some of the characters in the article are pseudonyms)
The author | Qin Zhangyong
Edit the | Li Huanhuan