SpaceX Must Pay $4 Million for Thousands of Underpaid Employees

[cppetrie]

I know two people who work there and the anecdotes about blisteringly hard work, long hours and burnout are true   I want this great company to succeed in every way, for a long time to come. And because they have built an amazing team - Elon and his management team need to work just as hard to reward and retain them.

Is it worse than farm labor, food processing like slaughterhouse and fresh produce processing and packaging, and food service like busboy and kitchen staff?

If putting in the time and effort to get a degree in engineering only bumps up your paycheck without reducing your expected labor input or improving your work-life balance, something has gone terribly wrong.

Some people becomes engineers for more than a larger paycheck. Some people just like spending their careers building cool s**t and an engineering degree is an enabler to do that. As an engineering degree holder myself I knew plenty of friends who were just like that, myself included.

[IRobot]

Google is more like 50 or 60 hours/week, but no breaks. 

And in Europe you are praised if you do 30min per day of overtime, i.e. 42.5 h/w...

[MATTBLAK]

I know two people who work there and the anecdotes about blisteringly hard work, long hours and burnout are true   I want this great company to succeed in every way, for a long time to come. And because they have built an amazing team - Elon and his management team need to work just as hard to reward and retain them.

Is it worse than farm labor, food processing like slaughterhouse and fresh produce processing and packaging, and food service like busboy and kitchen staff?

I hear what you're saying, but that is a slightly specious analogy. SpaceX is neither a literal sweat house, food prep place nor a slaughter house. And I've worked in a produce packing and distribution warehouse when I was a young man in the early and mid-80's. Working conditions in places like that have improved somewhat, at least in my country.

[philw1776]

I know two people who work there and the anecdotes about blisteringly hard work, long hours and burnout are true   I want this great company to succeed in every way, for a long time to come. And because they have built an amazing team - Elon and his management team need to work just as hard to reward and retain them.

Is it worse than farm labor, food processing like slaughterhouse and fresh produce processing and packaging, and food service like busboy and kitchen staff?

If putting in the time and effort to get a degree in engineering only bumps up your paycheck without reducing your expected labor input or improving your work-life balance, something has gone terribly wrong.

Some people becomes engineers for more than a larger paycheck. Some people just like spending their careers building cool s**t and an engineering degree is an enabler to do that. As an engineering degree holder myself I knew plenty of friends who were just like that, myself included.

Exactly.  Took most new jobs because it was an opportunity to do something new and what I perceived as cool.
Folks grousing here do not understand the Silicon Valley type engineering culture.   It has produced world class innovative products unequaled elsewhere, well at least before they get copied.  The personal cost can be high.  Thankfully there is a somewhat free market in employment so when you've had enough, if that happens, you can go elsewhere.

Read Tom M's transcript and you'll get a sense of the demanding culture.  I'd put Musk in the top echelon of demanding bosses, but his demands most often lead to paradigm shattering results.  That motivates really creative engineers especially if they share the Get Off This Rock vision.

[mlindner]

The Apollo contractor teams used to work bloody hard. But then again; they had landing on another World as their goal...

The process of working to help your country achieve a goal as a part of an overarching cold war against the Soviet Union is also perhaps a somewhat stronger motivation for this than working to help the dreams of a specific billionaire come true on an arbitrary deadline.

I sometimes wish this forum had a dislike button. You don't go to work at SpaceX because of the dreams of your CEO. People with high job mobility (experienced good engineers) work at companies because they care about making the company vision come true themselves. I would love to work at SpaceX but I am 1. neither good enough at what I do and 2. not driven enough to work that many hours. The true SpaceX-vision fans are the ones who work at SpaceX.

[AC in NC]

I sometimes wish this forum had a dislike button. You don't go to work at SpaceX because of the dreams of your CEO. People with high job mobility (experienced good engineers) work at companies because they care about making the company vision come true themselves. I would love to work at SpaceX but I am 1. neither good enough at what I do and 2. not driven enough to work that many hours. The true SpaceX-vision fans are the ones who work at SpaceX.

Well said. 

Everyone should have something they are passionate enough about that they would be willing to submit to a SpaceX-like regime during the window in their life where such commitments are possible.

[jpo234]

Not directly related, but here you go:
https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/6erjqi/elons_letter_about_factory_working_conditions_he/dicrg70/