One more tweet from the LA Fire Dept reporting the fires were started by a Tesla catching fire and I can happily wank myself to sleep this afty 
4 Likes
Specifically his Cybertruck.
Amid Fires, TikTok Tells LA Staff to Use Personal/Sick Hours if They Canât Work From Home
By Sarah Perez
Wildfires are currently devastating the greater Los Angeles area, burning over 45 square miles, torching over 1,300 structures, and putting nearly 180,000 people under evacuation orders as of Thursday. And yet, TikTokâs LA-based employees are being told to either continue their work from home or use their personal/sick days if thatâs not possible, while the companyâs LA office remains closed due to power outages caused by high winds.
Already, the Palisades Fire is close enough to TikTokâs office that smoke can be seen out the windows. But although the Culver City-based office itself is not under mandatory evacuation orders at this time, both it and many employeesâ homes are impacted by the fires, windstorms, and related problems.
TikTokâs employees in the region hail from all over the broader LA area â some even commuting hours into work â and many of their homes are currently without power, Wi-Fi, or both, we understand from employee sources at TikTok. Some could even be under evacuation orders of their own (though we have not directly confirmed this at this time).
Unfortunately for staff dealing with this large-scale natural disaster, TikTok is telling them to use their personal or sick time to account for the days they need to take off due to these conditions.
That seems a bit cunty
Yes, yes it does.
1 Like
Normal American HR type shit.
US employees get very little or no paid holiday, and no sick leave.
If they are sick they have to use a holiday day to get paid and are expected to find someone to cover their absence.
The USA is also the only country in the world (apart from a few remote Pacific islands) that has no mandatory maternity leave. If you get pregnant, not only do you not get any paid mat leave, you also lose your job.
US employee rights are dreadful
2 Likes
Thatâs putting it very kindly.
When the company I worked for got taken over by Global Crossing one of the US guys told me about a policy that worldcom had.
If you thought your manager is shit you could go to their manager, tell them and they would swap your roles around. After a period of time if it was found you are better your manager would be sacked.
In theory, but in practice, having worked at a number of larger US based firms, they all seem to offer sick leave and increasing amounts of paid mat leave now. Appreciate that could be voluntary and not apply to smaller firms, though Iâm surprised that a tech firm like Tik Tok would be like that, when theyâre usually the most generous with allowances.
Tbf that policy is greatly needed at my current place.
And if you arenât?
I think if youâre in a high demand / high skill industry, it can be better, but the vast majority of Americans are in much more run of the mill work there, and the fragility of employment (most folks are âat willâ which means you can be gotten rid of without cause at any point) is used to then abuse the fuck out of employees.
Not sure it worked that well in the finance department.
1 Like
Some companies are moving toward this but there is no basic right to any of it. No legislation to protect employees. Larger companies with an international presence are getting better at this but it is also very much top down, the more senior your role the better your deal.
There are instances where companies âofferâ sick pay and holiday pay but only to full time employees. Full time gets defined as say 38 hours a week and most employees are offered 35 hour non qualifying contracts.
You tube is full of videos of gobsmacked Americans who do not believe the employment rights that exist across Europe
1 Like
you go back to your old roles
and then your manager sacks you for being a cunt 
1 Like
In Seattle, Amazon and Google actively performance manage all their employees every month.
If you are in the bottom 10% for the month you get a warning.
If you are in the bottom 10% two months running you are sacked.
And thereâs the downsideâŚ
worldcom was well known in the industry for being shit with money
the guy who did my cisco course was a co-author of BGP and was commissioned to develop a custom version of it for worldcom. They had a helicopter on retainer to fly him from Bishops Stortford where he lived into London when they had major issues.
Thereâs no logic to American thinking.
I worked in Texas for 6 months and people were regularly in the office at 0700 and wouldnât leave until 2100 (or later)
The company I worked for was quite good but I did find that everyone is suspicious of each other so thereâs little collaboration or sharing of info.
What we can get done in the UK by working together in a few hours would take days in the US.
It was a very strange place to work, it really is the home of âknowledge is powerâ
Nice understatement.
They are what they are. We call them dreadful. They call our levels of pay (lower than theirs, although itâs very hard to generalise and they do have more poor people) and taxation (higher) dreadful.
When misfortune shows up they also choose to share the consequences differently between the employee and employer. Their âpeople need to take care of themselvesâ culture would have staff plan ahead so they can continue to work in the event of trouble. The Fleetwood Mac skateboard TikTok guy from a few years ago got a good deal of public credit for getting himself into work when his truck wouldnât start.