Debate Over Amazon Working Conditions Goes Back Years 268
Nerval's Lobster writes: This weekend, The New York Times published a lengthy report about working conditions for white-collar workers at Amazon. Describing the e-commerce giant as a "bruising workplace," the report paints a picture of a Darwinian environment. But criticism of Amazon's working conditions actually goes back years. In The Everything Store, a book-length account of Amazon by Bloomberg BusinessWeek reporter Brad Stone, the Amazon of yesteryear is indeed described as an aggressive place in which Bezos pushed employees relentlessly. So is Amazon a terrible place to work? On Quora and Glassdoor, current employees suggest that the company presents its workers with interesting challenges, and that the culture is fast-paced. While there are complaints about the hours and workload, many don't seem Amazon-specific: The world is filled with tech pros struggling to achieve work-life balance in the face of incredible goals on tight deadlines. Many cite issues with the company's frugality—its lack of perks vis-à-vis Google or Microsoft. After the report was published Jeff Bezos wrote a memo to employees that reads in part: “The article doesn’t describe the Amazon I know or the caring Amazonians I work with every day. But if you know of any stories like those reported, I want you to escalate to HR. You can also email me directly at jeff@amazon.com. Even if it’s rare or isolated, our tolerance for any such lack of empathy needs to be zero.”
Sorry Jeff (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Sorry Jeff (Score:5, Informative)
They are in full damage control mode... top executives are writing pieces stating that they have never been asked to work on weekends [bbc.com]... on Saturday?
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Notice the keyword 'asked', implied doesn't count.
Re:Sorry Jeff (Score:4, Interesting)
The only major exception I've seen is on-call people - they are expected to take care of any issues that might happen at any time when they're on-call.
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I'd imagine quite a few current and former Amazonians feel compelled to say something.
[pulls up a chair]
Proceed.
Re:Sorry Jeff (Score:5, Insightful)
Threats are perfectly good substitutes for policy, when execution is arbitrary.
Re:Sorry Jeff (Score:5, Interesting)
The article was pretty balanced as far as content, the only hit piece nature was that all the good stuff was said upfront so you forgot it by the time you get past the stories about employee that just lost children, spouses or parents and were fired.
But honestly, those stories about people being fired after loosing someone or having health problems are a pretty good reason do the order they did. It was bad enough that Bezos made the public claim in the summary above about not being the amazon he knows. But the authors make a pretty good point early on that it's exactly the type of cutthroat performance at all cost Amazon that he's built. This is what happens when you build monsters where you are encouraged to attack your coworkers, they become monsters and attack them when they are down at the worst moments in their life. Because by attacking their coworkers they can advance.
This is the Amazon Bezos has built, one without empathy where the ends justifies the means. It's the reason every other fortune 500 is abandoning the very hiring and performance metrics Bezo's champions. Bezos shouldn't be disturbed by this (if he actually is) but I do understand his need to inject PR speak about how he wants everyone to email him or HR if this occurs. Which would probably just get you fired quicker.
Re:Sorry Jeff (Score:4, Interesting)
But honestly, those stories about people being fired after loosing someone or having health problems are a pretty good reason do the order they did.
Did we ever get the other side of those stories in particular? They sound horrible, inhuman, hard to believe. Just because a company promotes competition among workers does not mean they promote behaviors such as these. One behavior does not cause the other. Workers that feel slighted often exaggerate reality. Companies are not in a legal position to tell their side of the story regarding individual employees for a number of reasons, they can only generically respond (answering my rhetorical question above). And I am sure there are some bad bosses at Amazon, just like other huge companies. I am also sure that just like any company there are people that were let go for not doing a good job but would never admit their own performance was subpar. In these particular cases. We really don't know for sure the whole story.
Should Bezos be expected to NOT continue the style of management that helped make Amazon so successful to start with? Should employees expect the company culture to change or leave if they don't like it? There are no right or wrong answers, IMHO.
Re:Sorry Jeff (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly what side would the company have?
Upper management probably never heard about this because it's the culture they've built. Employees have tools to basically feed comments on co-workers where there is a practical guarantee of anonymity without the ability to confront the accusation. Because they fire a certain percent every year regardless of quality there is this competition to see other people fail so you can succeed.
In such an environment is it surprising that the person who had a devastating personal event suddenly starts seeing negative performance reviews because other employees that may not even know them are sending in negative comments to try to secure their own position? And that managers under pressure to fire a certain percent every few months wouldn't take advantage of this because their own employees performance metric effects their performance metric?
It's not really that hard to believe IMO. It's a cultural thing. As long as everyone is 20 or in upper management it's probably a great place to work.
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Exactly what side would the company have?
It could be a wide range of things, we'll never know. Was they employee a notoriously poor performer already on notice? Was the employee offered help in an assistance program but he/she refused. Was the employee exhibiting behavior that could be perceived as a threat to other employees.
I'm not suggesting any of those is the case, but I've seen some crazy stuff in my many years of managing people.
Re:Sorry Jeff (Score:4, Interesting)
I emailed a friend currently working at Amazon, with links to the NYT story and the CNN/Money story. I asked him/her if that sort of thing ever happened in their group.
The reply: "It seems all true, even!"
The friend is a former boss of mine, whom I know to be honest, fair, and a really good manager, who knows my skill set well, and would have been able to match me to some opportunities. But, now, I think I'll pass on Amazon as I'm getting confirmation of the environment from someone I know.
If Bezos truly doesn't condone the bad behavior, but also believes that it isn't happening underneath him, then, he's asleep at the switch.
Berating people in meetings is actually "creating a hostile work environment", which is actionable under U.S. labor law. But, anybody mentioning this to HR would probably mark the person as "not an Amazonian" and the person would find themselves being shoved out.
This is "stack rank" management [at MS], where the lower 20% must get bad reviews even if they're top performers. In a dept of five where all the team members are stellar performers, one must be singled out as a "low performer". This was started, IIRC, at HP, and is also at Cisco. So, the group gets together and mutually selects "the goat" for the quarter. After five quarters, each employee has been "the goat".
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NO! DAMMIT! NO! (says Bezos)
Okay, new rules, guys! Now you will follow all the previous suggestions that are making us the greatest company in the world.
And you'll be HAPPY about it!
And you'll RELAX!
Everyone who doesn't keep up all their previous expectations plus be relaxed is clearly not good enough and is to be fired
yeah go ahead, contact me -- I dare you. (Score:2, Insightful)
-- I dare you. Double Dare (Score:5, Interesting)
Word to the wise... Yes, CEOs can listen, and do listen.
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Yep, it is the Monkey Butt Syndrome. In a tree full of monkeys, the monkey at the top sees only smiling faces looking up at him. To the monkeys down where the dog pisses, all the monkeys see are assholes. I'm guessing the truth is not in the middle, but closer to the dog pee.
No thanks (Score:4, Interesting)
I work on cutting edge, genuinely innovative stuff that solves important real world problems (water network monitoring and leak location). I'd never want to work in an environment like this though. It's unnecessary, the company benefits at my expense.
I'm disabled so probably couldn't do it anyway, and wouldn't want to work in an environment that excludes people who work the way I do (at a sensible pace, good work life balance).
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Anything where safety or lives matter does not operate this way.
Right now I am back in school again working towards a PhD but I have worked with a biotech company and I have NEVER seen behavior even approaching this. If engineers where treated this way they would make mistakes and for many drugs you would not know about it until people started dieing. Then the FDA would investigate and find out why mistakes where made and the company would be SCREWED.
I can't imagine people doing this kind of working environ
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Engineers are leaving Amazon in droves due to how poorly they're being treated here in Silicon Valley. If they shut down a department they lay off everybody in that department even if they're quite talented and would be useful in another department. The politics are also growing quite bad. I say this knowing someone who was one of the first employees at Lab 126. They're making stupid decisions from high up (i.e. Jeff Bezos) like the doomed from the start fire phone. Despite flying back and forth to China fr
Re:No thanks (Score:4)
1. Amazon actually doesn't have a large direct presence in the Silicon Valley. They have only recently started to actively grow there. And yes, they're hiring.
2. But more importantly, when a department is downsized or moved - its employees are NOT fired. They are given freedom to shop around for a team to join.
3. The bit about flying coach is true, though. It's a company-wide policy that everyone flies coach, even VPs. Though you can use frequent flier miles from Amazon flights for your own personal travel.
it is hideous (Score:3, Interesting)
It doesn't have to be this way (Score:2)
Lots of people start profitable companies that have great working environments but that takes talent- I guess if your vision was to create BorgMart from the beginning there isn't much hope.
This article really changed my opinion (Score:5, Interesting)
As a former employee, this article really changed my view of the NY Times. I guess I expected more from such a well-known, established news source. But, this lengthy "expose" was clearly written by two authors with an agenda, and to what end? Readership?
I loved my time at Amazon.com. Yes, it was challenging. My time there forced me to grow as an engineer when I knew I was at risk of stagnation. But, I worked very reasonable hours (~7am-4pm, by choice to avoid traffic) and only very rarely (once very few months on average, typically leading up to Black Friday before all our deployments were locked down) worked nights of weekends. I traveled twice for Amazon - and had no trouble expensing the flight, hotel, meals, and transportation to/from the airport. I never saw anyone cry at their desk. Everyone who worked there was very civil.
I left for opportunity more than anything - an opportunity to both advance my career and be closer to my family on the east coast.
But yeah, I really have to wonder why the NY Times is busting Amazon's balls. I feel like a dope for not being more suspicious of them before now.
Re:This article really changed my opinion (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think you need to be suspicious yet. I worked one of the large telco carriers for more than a decade. When I had a reasonable manager, the job was delightful, lots of toys, big budgets, new problems every quarter. When I worked for a Twonk it was long hours, 3 large PowerPoints a week and more meetings than work.... Which is why I don't work there. My job didn't change for the last 9 years, only my managers and directors did. Their trust, style, and abject ignorance were the decisive factors in the rewards of my worklife.
Both you and the NYT may have very accurate views of pieces of this company. The idea that one of your points of view is the norm, and the other is the outlier could only really be proven with a statistically valid sample set.
Re:This article really changed my opinion (Score:5, Informative)
As a current employee, here are some things in a nice numbered list:
1) Amazon pays for your travel. You can even get a corporate card. The whole "they make you pay for your own travel" thing is downright dumb. Also, provide our own cell phones? Yeah, most companies do. But we can expense the plan if we're on call. Like most companies do. And desks? LOL. Please. I've never worked anywhere where you have to provide your own desk.
2) I work ~8 hours a day. If I work a night or weekend it's because I'm working on something that excites me and I'm bored or have nothing else to do (e.g. wife is out of town, I don't feel like going out, there are no good movies out, etc). Sometimes I get presented with very interesting problems to solve and I get really excited about. There will be mis-managed teams in a company this size. It's inevitable. It's unfair to classify the whole company because some people shouldn't be managers.
3) The yearly culling thing is a joke. Read Nick C's article on LinkedIn. I worked with him in Marketplace. Smart guy, he's telling the truth.
4) I joined Amazon mid-career. I worked in a lot of other companies. I stagnated in some, and got out. This is the first place in a long time that's challenged me in really awesome ways. I tell new-hires, especially fresh (or nearly fresh) out of college to take it easy and not burn out. I want people to stay. I plan to stay as long as I can - I love it here. Almost everyone I know loves it here.
5) If you don't like your team or work, you are absolutely encouraged to rotate to another group. It happens all the time. The cross-pollination of ideas (ha ha yes, make a 'worker bee' joke, go ahead) and disciplines is awesome, and makes us all a lot more well-rounded as engineers.
6) No one cries. Come on..if they do, it was probably a decade or more ago. *shakes head*
7) The entire article is architected as a slam piece. Open your eyes, people.
The article really bugs me. It's written with an insane amount of bias. If you interview 100 people who were unhappy at Amazon (of the hundreds of thousands we've employed over the years), then you will have a very unhappy-sounding article. How about interview 100 people who love their job and are still there?
Now excuse me while I munch on my free snacks and beers that were provided by leadership. kthx
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If you don't have free snacks and beers, AC, they're sure to give you some now :)
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Also an ex-amazonian, left after many years (& good performer in each one also not disgruntled). Can relate to the nyt article, tho have not seen anyone cry but rest is pretty accurate in silicon valley. too much politics, very toxic culture. plus they didn't even touch on seattle & sv struggle for control. there is a reason you build crap like firephone and not have voices of dissent reach upstairs even though nobody really believed in it.
To rebut your 100 people comment, I do not know of a single
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I know one recent ex-amizonian who had a very senior position who couldn't wait to jump ship as soon as he got his last stock grant. He was getting called at all hours of the night and weekends despite having what should have been a day job. He had to put up with a lot of shit where the people running the data centers wouldn't configure the firewall so he could get stuff done. He was in charge of software builds. I also have a close relative who was one of the first employees at Lab 126 who can't wait to qu
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I've never even met an Amazon employee or ever been to Seattle, so have no way of knowing of Amazon really is a good or bad place to work.
But I know or suspect the following:
1) This story has become big,
2) Amazon will take a hit if the idea becomes commonplace that it's a slave driving hell-hole. Top talent will be deterred from applying to work there.
3) Amazon's PR spin team are certain to be now working on damage limitation round the clock,
4) Slashdot is a significant tech news site, and so the spin team
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And the paid shills are checking in...
Well, I guess technically they are paid, being employees and all.
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Well put. Didn't the term "astroturfing" originate on Slashdot years ago? It certainly doesn't qualify if someone says up front they work for the company and then go on to praise something about it. Shilling, maybe, but not underhanded astroturfing.
Re:This article really changed my opinion (Score:5, Interesting)
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The article makes is pretty clear that these stories aren't applicable to every department in Amazon.
They also make clear that you will either love or hate working there. Did you even read the whole thing? Does it surprise you that this stuff goes on? Or are you in denial about the stories presented?
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Yes, rahvin112, I read every word of the article. :-) It was very well-written if not for the fact that it was extremely misleading. The article DOES make it pretty clear that they want to imply that what they describe is the norm rather than the exception.
I don't doubt that there are places within Amazon where management sucks. I socialized quite a bit while I was there, and, like any large company, there are places with poor management practices (demanding long work hours and burning people out, etc).
But
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Why is it that because the article contradicts your experience, you assume integrity problems with the publication that published it? There are a number of possible reasons for the discrepancy. And honestly, your emotional reaction makes me suspect your motives, not those of the New York Times. I've had some awesome workplaces, some mediocre and drudgery-filled, but never would I have an emotional reaction of any kind to people challenging my experiential knowledge of workplaces in either of those categorie
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Well, to offset your anecdata - here's mine. I know three people who worked for Amazon (as programmers, analysts, and managers, not line warehouse workers), all three shared the article on their Facebook pages and praised it.
And you should, you've made the classic error of generalizing from your experience.
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Amazon is a LITTLE rougher than the other big tech companies. The main thing is that, compared to Google (which also sucks, though not quite as much), their employees don't drink the koolaid nearly as much.
However, lately, with the second tech bubble, engineers in particular are used to the red carpet where its almost impossible to get fired, that shitty devs who can barely code still get titles like Principal Engineer, and never have to try very hard. Compared to that, Amazon isn't "a little rougher", its
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It's getting that in Silicon Valley as well. I know a recent ex-Amazon employee who couldn't take it any more, called up at all hours of the night and weekends to fix stuff and dealing with a lot of nasty politics. I have a close relative who currently works at Lab126 and is one of the first employees there. He can't wait to quit as soon as his stock vests in a couple months. He says the same thing, that the politics are quite bad and that when they shut down a group there they immediately fire everybody, e
Reporting (Score:5, Insightful)
But if you know of any stories like those reported, I want you to escalate to HR. You can also email me directly at jeff@amazon.com. Even if it’s rare or isolated, our tolerance for any such lack of empathy needs to be zero.”
. . . but probably best to do so anonymously, or with someone else's email account. We all know how large companies love whistle blowers.
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Bezos says
But if you know of any stories like those reported, I want you to escalate to HR. You can also email me directly at jeff@amazon.com. Even if it’s rare or isolated, our tolerance for any such lack of empathy needs to be zero.”
. . . but probably best to do so anonymously, or with someone else's email account. We all know how large companies love whistle blowers.
Sometimes the problem is one of technique: If you blow the whistle by tipping off the right people higher up that Pointy the Middle Manager is doing Illegal Things They Are Liable For, they're likely to be pretty happy with it, especially if you did that with enough time for them to get rid of Pointy instead of as just a token warning before they get the legal papers. (Remember, Pointy probably doesn't do it when they're looking, and the people whose rears Pointy orally services are definitely not the righ
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Even if it’s rare or isolated, our tolerance for any such lack of empathy needs to be zero.
Anyone else notice how aggressive this call for empathy is? Even if the whole of the article is complete bullshit, this tone-deaf response is so telling in itself. I sure as hell wouldn't feel comfortable talking about work environment concerns with a manager who talked to me in that tone!
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Bezos says
But if you know of any stories like those reported, I want you to escalate to HR. You can also email me directly at jeff@amazon.com. Even if it’s rare or isolated, our tolerance for any such lack of empathy needs to be zero.
Bezos doesn't get it.
The New York Times article criticized the informing culture and the negatively-focused work culture of Amazon (even if it did exaggerate some aspects of it through their own agenda, or through sampling bias). I must have missed the part where the authors of the article were calling for more ways to inform on others and for more zero tolerance thinking (like they didn't haven enough of these already). And even if they had, I don't think that most people would agree that empathy could be
Bwahahah! (Score:5, Funny)
SEATTLE (The Borowitz Report)—Saying that he was “horrified” by a New York Times article recounting callous behavior on the part of Amazon executives, company founder Jeff Bezos warned today that any employees found lacking in empathy would be instantly purged.
In an e-mail to all Amazon employees issued late Sunday evening, Bezos said that the company would begin grading its workers on empathy, and that the ten per cent found to be least empathic would be “immediately culled from the herd.”
To achieve this goal, Amazon said that it would introduce a new internal reporting system called EmpathyTrack, which will enable employees to secretly report on their colleagues’ lack of humanity.
The system will allow Amazon employees to grade their co-workers on a scale from a hundred (nicest) to zero (pure evil), resulting in empathy-based data that will be transmitted directly to Bezos.
Then, through a new program called Next Day Purging, any employee found lacking in empathy will be removed from the company within twenty-four hours of Bezos’s termination order. “We can’t be the greatest retailer in the world unless we are also the kindest,” Bezos wrote in his e-mail. “So my message to all Amazonians is loud and clear: be kind or taste my wrath. Love, Jeff.”
Yes, it's not new (Score:5, Informative)
Posting anonymously for obvious reasons. I am anonymizing some details too, to make people not quite identifiable.
This has been going on for a while, and it hits developers too. A friend of mine programmed there for years, on the retail side. Things weren't quite that bad for him originally, but as time went by, pressure keep adding, teams were pitted against each other, and things like family and health were seeing as secondary. Team X did all this stuff, so we have to work even longer hours to compete with them! Taking sick days was seen as letting the team down, so people worked through everything. One time a cold was worse than a cold. Going untreated, it turned to bronchitis, then pneumonia. By the time he did go to a doctor, permanent damage was done.
I wish he had quit before that, but having worked there for a while, he had an unwarranted sense of loyalty for the company. Now he can't even go on a trip without bringing medical equipment, because his lungs are shot. No amount of pay and stock options is worth that, but he didn't know the price he was paying until it was done.
I've only seen one place that created more stress, and it's a huge hedge fund that happens to be run a bit like a personality cult for his founder.
Putting the health of employees and their family first is a big thing for me now. A lax work from home policy, no fear of review trouble for too many sick days in a crunch. Coming to work sick should not be something to be proud of, but ashamed of, as the most you can accomplish is to get your team mates sick! Same thing for working long hours. A coworker of mine used to do weekend marathons, where he'd make major changes. Guess where all the bugs came from? Marathons where a lot was produced, but most of it was shit.
It's the wrong culture, and Amazon has managers working there, right now, that keep that culture running. Jeff should just fire the hell out of them, because they are doing him no favors. Stories get around, and that's why, when Amazon calls trying to hire very senior people. Many of us say no.
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The fish rots from the head.
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People who come in with a cold already well underway, with many sick days to spare, have a false sense of loyalty. Their image of a good loyal worker may be safeguarded, but it's at the cost of infecting everyone else.
I am not a manager, but I refuse to work with such people. They need to go home and get some rest. And managers need to send those people home, that's their job as managers, to see the entire picture.
The company should pay for their cab fare back home if it has to. And when this happens, HR sh
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I'm a software engineer who focuses on automating manufacturing equipment. I've been hearing bad stories about Amazon for at least ten years now. About a year ago I got a call from a head-hunter about a job opening dealing with autonomous warehousing and order fulfillment that sounded like a dream job. Five minutes on the phone got me the name of the company (Kiva Systems) and two minutes of google told me they were being purchased by Amazon.
Nope. Hard stop. I don't even need to know how much they are offer
I first heard about it during Steve Yegge rant (Score:5, Informative)
about 4 years ago now I guess. I thought Steve was exaggerating about Amazon, or trying to be humorous (or both), but now in hindsight I think he was probably being accurate.
The rant [google.com]
"Jeff Bezos is an infamous micro-manager. He micro-manages every single pixel of Amazon's retail site. He hired Larry Tesler, Apple's Chief Scientist and probably the very most famous and respected human-computer interaction expert in the entire world, and then ignored every goddamn thing Larry said for three years until Larry finally -- wisely -- left the company. Larry would do these big usability studies and demonstrate beyond any shred of doubt that nobody can understand that frigging website, but Bezos just couldn't let go of those pixels, all those millions of semantics-packed pixels on the landing page. They were like millions of his own precious children. So they're all still there, and Larry is not.
Micro-managing isn't that third thing that Amazon does better than us, by the way. I mean, yeah, they micro-manage really well, but I wouldn't list it as a strength or anything. I'm just trying to set the context here, to help you understand what happened. We're talking about a guy who in all seriousness has said on many public occasions that people should be paying him to work at Amazon. He hands out little yellow stickies with his name on them, reminding people "who runs the company" when they disagree with him. The guy is a regular... well, Steve Jobs, I guess. Except without the fashion or design sense. Bezos is super smart; don't get me wrong. He just makes ordinary control freaks look like stoned hippies.
So one day Jeff Bezos issued a mandate. He's doing that all the time, of course, and people scramble like ants being pounded with a rubber mallet whenever it happens. But on one occasion -- back around 2002 I think, plus or minus a year -- he issued a mandate that was so out there, so huge and eye-bulgingly ponderous, that it made all of his other mandates look like unsolicited peer bonuses."
Links you can send to friends (Score:5, Informative)
Working for Amazon Sounds Utterly Soul Crushing. [gizmodo.com]
Life in an Amazon Warehouse: Fear and Efficiency at 35 Orders Per Second [gizmodo.com]
Inside Amazon's Kafkaesque performance-improvement plan [gawker.com]
Inside Amazon's Bizarre Corporate Culture [gawker.com]
Amazon Is a Time Thief, by an Amazon Employee. [gawker.com]
Is Amazon an unpleasant place to work? [quora.com] Quote: "Based on my experience, I agree with what everyone has said about the company being a horrible place to work."
Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace [nytimes.com]
Glassdoor Reviews of Amazon [glassdoor.com]
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And please note, I'm not anonymous and I'm ready to stand for all my words.
Abuse or incompetence? Other examples. (Score:2)
That page shows a little information and then pushes visitors to buy other books. My opinion: Either Amazon is extremely abusive, or extremely incompetent.
There are plenty of other examples. Amazon allows sellers to abuse customers. Some items list low prices that
worked there (Score:2)
I'm Sure It's All Daisies and Unicorns (Score:2, Insightful)
Grounded. (Score:2)
Those with few --- if any --- choices left to them.
Workers said they were forced to endure brutal heat inside the sprawling warehouse and were pushed to work at a pace many could not sustain. Employees were frequently reprimanded regarding their productivity and threatened with termination, workers said. The consequences of not meeting work expectations were regularly on display, as employees lost their jobs and got escorted out of the warehouse. Such sights encouraged some workers to conceal pain and push through injury lest they get fired as well, workers said.
During summer heat waves, Amazon arranged to have paramedics parked in ambulances outside, ready to treat any workers who dehydrated or suffered other forms of heat stress. Those who couldn't quickly cool off and return to work were sent home or taken out in stretchers and wheelchairs and transported to area hospitals. And new applicants were ready to begin work at any time.
An emergency room doctor in June called federal regulators to report an "unsafe environment" after he treated several Amazon warehouse workers for heat-related problems. The doctor's report was echoed by warehouse workers who also complained to regulators, including a security guard who reported seeing pregnant employees suffering in the heat.
In a better economy, not as many people would line up for jobs that pay $11 or $12 an hour moving inventory through a hot warehouse. But with job openings scarce, Amazon and Integrity Staffing Solutions, the temporary employment firm that is hiring workers for Amazon, have found eager applicants in the swollen ranks of the unemployed.
Inside Amazon's Warehouse: Lehigh Valley workers tell of brutal heat, dizzying pace at online retailer [mcall.com] [2011]
This time last year, online retailer Amazon.com had ambulances parked outside its Breinigsville warehouse complex on hot days, with emergency medical personnel ready to take workers suffering from heat injuries to nearby hospitals.
Today, Amazon warehouse workers say the facility is refreshingly cool when it's hot and muggy outside. The company recently installed 40 roof-top air conditioners in its 615,000-square-foot warehouse, part of a $52 million investment in cooling its warehouses around the country.
The dramatic change comes nine months after an investigation by The Morning Call revealed difficult working conditions in the Lehigh Valley facility. Workers interviewed said they were pushed to work at dizzying rates in brutal heat. The heat index, a real-feel measure that considers heat and humidity, surpassed 100 degrees in the warehouse multiple times last year and sometimes exceeded 110, according to reports filed with the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
The company installed temporary air conditioning units last year after federal workplace safety regulators began inspecting the facility. But workers said parts of the warehouse, particularly its upper levels, remained unbearably hot even after the temporary air conditioning was installed.
Amazon gave water, fruit and popsicles to workers on hot days and relaxed its attendance rules on some days to let workers leave early, though they would lose pay.
The Morning Call obtained warehouse building permits using Pennsylvania's Right-to-Know Law. Those reveal that Amazon first sought permits to install temporary air conditioning last July, several weeks after warehouse workers and an emergency room doctor who treated some of them for heat stress complained to federal regulators about conditions...and a contractor sought permits to install permanent air conditioning in early March.
21/2 months before Bezos announced at an annual shareholders meeting May 24 that the company [was] installing air conditioning at warehouses around the country.
''It's not easy to retrofit an existing fulfillment center with air conditioning,'' The Seattle Times quoted Bezos as telling shareholders. ''We're really leading the way here.''
Amazon workers cool after company took heat for hot warehouse [mcall.com]
The first commercial . industrial building to be air conditioned in the US was the Sackett-Wilhelms Lithographing and Publishing Company in Brooklyn, NY, in 1902.
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Glassdoor (Score:2)
Warehouse Employees (Score:2)
hmm (Score:2)
Sounds like that Scientology movie (Score:2)
No one believes they're trapped in a cult until they get out.
It just got worse (Score:4)
" Even if it’s rare or isolated, our tolerance for any such lack of empathy needs to be zero.”
Sounds like all that's happened is that Amazon has found a new firing offense.
China ships to you too (Score:2)
From the factory in China, book printer, CD, Blu ray (region code allowed shipping?), on demand from what was the 'back catalogue", toys. Digital while you wait if an option.
Delivery can be done by private or government postage contractors locally around the world. Robots to pack the products in China. No staff issues as all skilled staff just repai
regarding perks (Score:2)
Re:Get Self-Employed (Score:5, Insightful)
If you don't like the working conditions then form your own business and work for yourself. It's that simple.
It's nice how complex problems have such simple answers. "If you don't like how much you pay in rent, then buy a house". "If you don't like your low pay, then get a job making more money". "If you can't hold down a job because your car keeps breaking down, then buy a new car".
The answer is easy, implementation, not so much.
Re:Get Self-Employed (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't tell if the OP is being sarcastic or not. Just like poor people just need to stop being so poor.
Re:Get Self-Employed (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't tell if the OP is being sarcastic or not. Just like poor people just need to stop being so poor.
There's nothing wrong with being poor. Stop treating the poor like there's something wrong with them.
Re:Get Self-Employed (Score:5, Insightful)
Absolutely true. Although there are practical issues with being too poor. Like being homeless or unable to eat.
Having said that, being somewhat poor is not necessarily an unhappy situation. Once you get beyond survival and have some creature comforts, it only really starts becoming a happiness problem when you are forced to deal with a large disparity.
In other words, people become unhappy with less if they are constantly shown things that other people have that they don't. This is also why many relatively richer (but still not actually "rich") people look down on poor people. There is a disparity that they have come up on top of, and they feel superior for it.
However, anyone who has things can tell you that First World problems can make you just as unhappy as being poor which seems ridiculous on the surface, but has everything to do with a feeling of *relative* inadequacy or poverty. You might have a nice home, decent education, and a relatively promising future, but if you're bullied or isolated socially, or just depressed, you could end up suicidal or even homicidal.
There are rich people who would have lived longer and happier lives if they'd been born poor.
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People don't resent the rich nearly so much as the guy next door, especially if he comes from a different cultural background. If a bricklayer lives next door to a bricklayer, and the neighbor has two new cars parked out front, bricklayer #1 is going to be miffed, and this has been proved repeatedly. Nothing drives spending like keeping up with the Kapinskies.
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well said
people who paint complex issues as simple choices are merely revealing their ignorance of the topic, their propagandized state, and/ or their low iq
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Re:Get Self-Employed (Score:5, Insightful)
where do you live? is it easy for you to move? do you have children and school concerns? is your spouse or significant other ready to move on a whim? are you yourself ready to pack all your shit sever your ties and try to find a new place you like as much as your current one?
what job do you work in? is it "tens of thousands" of other companies who would employ you? i guess you must be a short order cook or truck driver, careers like programming for example are niche: if you program web front ends you don't jump to OS programmer for example
do you have enough money to cushion the transition period form one job to the next? can you afford ancillary costs associated with the move?
how is the new job? the boss's personality? your work team, your work environment? job perks? business outlook of the new business sector?
if you aren't moving, how far away is the new job if you aren't moving? is the commute different (train/ car)? traffic jams? length of time commuting?
this is off of the top of my head. there are dozens more top level categories and thousands of specific concerns to each person
it is is EXTREMELY complex
you are either trolling and faking ignorance of something this obvious, or you are a genuine moron
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how is the new job? the boss's personality? your work team, your work environment? job perks? business outlook of the new business sector?
This is a big one that keeps people from leaving abusive relationships. How can you be sure the next place will be better? Of course, you can't be sure.
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maybe you're in a band with your best buds and you can't move and break up the band
maybe you love surfing and you have to be near a warm beach with waves
etc., etc.
or maybe you're a useless, low intelligence internet troll who has to work for a company that allows tor or proxies
does the last problem sound familiar?
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This concept that one should be forced into all-or-nothing between work and a life is truly something out of a fictional dystopia. One should not be expected to sacrifice hearth and home for basic financial security. The belief this is reasonable is evidence of something very wrong with this world. The concept that employees should be functional serfs is another piece of said evidence.
And yes, real world decisions can be tough. But here's something to consider: Something is very wrong when you have to give
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Something is very wrong when you have to give up a major positive in another aspect of your life just to have a minor one financially
At what point in history did this even become an option?
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so you don't mind if i come over and kill you and take your stuff
social darwinism is the failure of applying the rule of the jungle to human society
the simple fact is, we make the rules in human society, and we can enforce anything we want. we can use the spear as you say, to enforce basic fairness. and we do, and we shall. ever hear of a revolution?
human morality, basic right and wrong, has nothing to do with survival of the fittest in a darwinian sense. darwinian is: strongest guy kills second strongest g
Re:Get Self-Employed (Score:5, Insightful)
europe, land of free healthcare and cheap college and four weeks vacation, has much higher happiness and are richer societies
america, land of "get cancer and lose your house" and "become a slave under a crushing loan if you want an education" and "work 70 hours to barely tread water, vacation? lol" is less happy and poorer
because a true meritocracy, which conservatives apparently love, requires a level playing field, which means removing most of the problems of where you start in life: rich or poor (healthcare and education), as the determination of your fate
what conservatives policies really get us (whether they know it and not admit to it, the plutocrats, or simply don't know it, the propagandized morons) is classism: rich, you do fine. poor, die early and work your ass off and do *not* get ahead, as the fable promises
oh sure, you *should* work hard and get ahead. a proper society is a meritocracy. but since reagan the middle class is on a long term decline due to the plutocrat loving policies we get. the policies conservatives support means: if your daddy is rich, you'll get a cushy job due to connections and coast through life. impossible to fail no matter how hard you fuck up. and if your poor, work your ass off and lose everything due to one problem in life, the kind we all encounter
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Re: Get Self-Employed (Score:5, Insightful)
the most entitled people on this planet are conservatives: they are entitled to a society that be preserved according a mythological superior conservative past that never actually existed, and they are entitled to dictate to you how to run your private social life. "small government!" ... unless it has to do with who you marry or how you plan your births
meanwhile they get angry at entitlements like: healthcare, education, housing, clothing, food. because someone is poor. of course, if you are poor, it is 100% because of your own life failures, never what the society structures your possible life choices as: "put food on the table but be buried in a payday loan"... your poor life choices! pfffft
it's a pathological hateful creed, and it's quite pathetic so many losers can have their buttons pushed on these issues and vote for plutocrat agendas. they're just ignorant tools. just look at the hoopla over abortion and planned parenthood right now: "ignore the economy, war drums, police misconduct, social inequality, healthcare problems... some lady is going to remove a blob in her body that is just as alive as 20 year old!"
i am pro-life! they say. except if there is a war to fight or a convict to execute or they ran from a cop or they want housing, food, clothing, an education, then fuck them... but i'm pro-life, really!
perennial conservative wedge issue, used to deliver the morons to vote for the plutocrat agenda which keeps us all mired. dependable useful fools for a cause which keeps us all poor
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The answer is easy, implementation, not so much.
True, but the problem given by the OP isn't the real issue that people should be taking away from the article. The issue is not a mass of people suffering for long periods of time in a horrible business environment. Amazon is not the sort of working conditions that one can put up with for years on end. Unless you can consistently out preform everybody else in your group without stress while they work at burn out levels, you will eventually burn out or be let go. Friends that have worked there say that the a
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I think what OP meant is that life isn't a bowl of cherries. You can work at a job you don't like if it pays well, or you can look for an alternative
What qualifies as an alternative depends on your political philosophy:
1) Quit the job you have and find another (or start your own company)
2) Try to change your work conditions by negotiating with your employer
3) Force change by forming a union and giving the employer an ultimatum
4) Force change by overthrowing the government and taking control of all means
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Buying a house is cheaper than renting where I live. If you have no credit or bad credit, just get one credit card that you pay the balance in full every month and you easily hit 750+ credit rating. That's what I did anyways, and my credit score was 822 when I applied for a mortgage, and I'm not rich or anything.
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I'm reminded of this video (53 seconds, NSFW): "Simple Explanations" (or, 'How to get bitches on a boat') [youtube.com]
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"If you can't hold down a job because your car keeps breaking down, then buy a new car".
The answer is easy, implementation, not so much.
Alice Cooper said it best:
I can't get a girl 'cause I don't have a car.
I can't get a car 'cause I don't have a job.
I can't get a job 'cause I don't have a car.
So I'm looking for a girl with a job and a car,
And a house, with cable!
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If you don't like the working conditions then form your own business and work for yourself. It's that simple.
Most people do. That is what people I have known who have worked at Amazon and the article have said. The average time of employment there is 18 months. By that time, people have either taken their experience and put it on a resume to get a better job, or been chewed up and spit out by the review process. Anybody treating Amazon like a career, that isn't in some very lucky position, will be in for a rude surprise when they either burn out of are let go. Treat is like a stepping stone from the beginning, an
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If you don't like poverty, stop being poor.
Oh man, we had no idea. We should all do that, then everyone will be rich.
The ultimate laugh is that OP has probably complained about shitty ISP service, or other "simple"-to-beat monopolies.
Go die. And get a third world country on your next ovarian lotto draw.
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Don't forget hiring a lawyer, an accountant, an accounts manager to make sure you get paid, an HR department to make sure everyone does their job, and finally developers to do all that work you were going to do on your own but now you're just too busy being the boss of all these people to do it yourself.
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Oh, and of course, I forget what every other person who tries to start a company forgets: Marketing. Your salesperson probably can't build a webpage or do SEO or design a slick brochure to hand out to prospects. Better hire someone to do those too.
Better move fast, your seed money is burning.... wait, what do you mean you don't have half a million dollars in savings from your last job to throw at this one?
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Don't forget hiring a lawyer, an accountant, an accounts manager to make sure you get paid, an HR department to make sure everyone does their job, and finally developers to do all that work you were going to do on your own but now you're just too busy being the boss of all these people to do it yourself.
Do you want MBAs? Because this is how you get MBAs.
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We haven't allowed vacation time in nearly a year
And, that is now the new normal at Seattle tech companies. When I first moved here seven years ago, I asked how to notify the company of planned vacation time. I couldn't find it in the HR system. I got screamed at for using the word "notify" rather than "request." Our HR director called me "an arrogant little sh--" for that. Because she also bitched at my boss, he told me no vacation time for one year. The jerk was serious. I thought at first he was kidding. Since then, I haven't been allowed to ta
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Even though I might be accused of being a communist, I think this kind of practice should be against the law.
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requires "hundreds," as he calls it. That's sixteen a day weekdays and ten each day on weekends.
I once worked at a company that learned the hard way that if you make it official policy that exempt employees work long hours, the judge can find that they were not exempt after all, and are owed overtime retroactively for a great many years. Fun times.
The line between "cultural pressure to work long hours to deliver" and "official policy mandating long hours" is an important line.
ow it looks like we're not going to be finished until the end of November. I hope we finish then, because I want to go home for Christmas. We haven't allowed vacation time in nearly a year so I didn't get to do that last Christmas.
You know you're all going to be fired once you ship, right? Call me cynical, but I've seen the pattern many times before. Ch
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