My husband needed therapy after working for Amazon • Hacker News Board

Re: My husband needed therapy after working for Amazon

#251

Post by antoniuschan99 » Wed, Aug 19, 2015, 4:25 PM UTC

nogridbag wrote: post #154

s3nnyy wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people are fooled by prestige. PG's elaboration on it changed my life: "Your opinions about what's admirable are always going to be slightly influenced by prestige, so if two options seem equal to you, you probably have more genuine admiration for the less prestigious one. [...] If you admire two kinds of work equally, but one is more prestigious, you should probably choose the other." ( http://www.paulgraham.co…

I chose a similar route because of perks and pay. My only fear is this choice hurting my future employment when I'll likely be discriminated due to age. I would imagine having Google or Facebook on my resume would surely make getting a job at age 50+ much easier.

Is that really true? Say it's 2015 and you take a job at google for 3-5 years and are 30 years old. 15-17 years later 1) would google still exist as the prestigious company and 2) would anyone care that you worked at google for 3-5 years a more than a a decade ago?

Re: My husband needed therapy after working for Amazon

#252

Post by deskamess » Wed, Aug 19, 2015, 4:25 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #17

bechampion wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree , also , Us as employees we need to learn when to say stop , i know we all work hard and we want to be the an important asset. But remember going the extra mile and getting recognition for it will only last until the next downtime/problem which could be tomorrow.

Us as employees we need to learn when to say stop There's a word for this, beginning with "U", that a lot of people don't like.

For me its past 'like'... I think we need them. Abuses will continue without some sort of oversight (legal or behavioral); corporations are beholden to their share holders and not their employees. Medical/construction workers have established safety and paid overtime policies going for them and we need to emulate something like that.

In addition, we (IT workers) should look at other avenues. Like the AMA (medical) and ALA (legal) professions we need an organization (or PAC/lobby) with political clout that influences law makers and fights for IT employee/labor rights. I would love for a David Boies or someone with that type of clout/knowledge to grow such an organization.

Re: My husband needed therapy after working for Amazon

#253

Post by knieveltech » Wed, Aug 19, 2015, 4:28 PM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #158

HarryHirsch wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a thread about employer abuse this comes across as remarkably tone-deaf. Note to self: do not go to work for Mr Stucchio.

Definition of "tone-deaf": I don't factually disagree with anything you said, but your mood affiliation goes the wrong way. In any case, I only hire people who demonstrate the ability to think logically rather than emotionally - it's vital in software roles.

Yeah, definitely not working on this guy's team. Sheesh.

Re: My husband needed therapy after working for Amazon

#254

Post by endtime » Wed, Aug 19, 2015, 4:28 PM UTC

bkeroack wrote: post #247

radiorental wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never understood the logic of giving up the things you enjoy in life to gain time in the future to enjoy life. I'm all for frugal but life isn't a dress rehearsal.

There's a great moment in the documentary about Joan Rivers[1] before she died (was killed, basically). Sitting in her opulent, probably immensely expensive Manhattan penthouse apartment, in the middle of a discussion about how much money she has to make to stay afloat, she said something to the effect of: "Sure I could live carefully and it would be easy, but who wants to live carefully?". The point being, if you en…

> I'm not convinced that it's helpful for offspring to get (or expect) a big windfall that they don't have to work for.

I hope your offspring never have any surprise medical issues or special needs, don't want to go to college, don't have surprise twins when they thought they were done having kids, etc. It is absolutely helpful to e.g. free your grandkids from student debt, and this does not conflict with instilling in them a work ethic.

Re: My husband needed therapy after working for Amazon

#255

Post by a_e_k » Wed, Aug 19, 2015, 4:29 PM UTC

omouse wrote: post #189

72deluxe wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without sounding too cynical, loyalty to a company (working out of hours) is not always returned as loyalty from the company. They wouldn't be pleased you turning up a few hours late every day to compensate for your extra time outside work. Of course, time off in lieu may be arranged.

Yep I got dinged for coming into work at 11am when I had stayed till 11pm the night before and had done weekend work. Fuck exploitation.

Yikes! First company I ever worked for wasn't particularly flashy, but I did like that they had a "12-hour rule" to guard against that. The policy was that you wouldn't be expected back at work in fewer than 12 hours after you'd left the day before.

Re: My husband needed therapy after working for Amazon

#256

Post by knieveltech » Wed, Aug 19, 2015, 4:30 PM UTC

madaxe_again wrote: post #169

ascendantlogic wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I was on call for five years. It nearly broke me - but this article is just whining You admit you worked a job for five years that "nearly broke you". You do understand that life is not supposed to be about how much punishment you can endure in exchange for money, right? There are ways to pay your bills that don't involve inducing physical and mental health issues?

Sure, but what's a reward without a challenge?

A sane and healthy lifestyle. Do you have Stockholm Syndrome?

Re: My husband needed therapy after working for Amazon

#257

Post by mrbill » Wed, Aug 19, 2015, 4:34 PM UTC

norea-armozel wrote: post #194

It's these sort of articles that questions my use of Amazon for my retail purchases. Not just from the ethical standpoint of overworking people but also from the practical effect of getting most of what I want on time at a price I want because I can't say that Amazon today really does a good job on that front either. For example, if I want to purchase electronic components for my PC New Egg still beats them every tim…

You know that Amazon owns Zappos, right?

Re: My husband needed therapy after working for Amazon

#258

Post by VikingCoder » Wed, Aug 19, 2015, 4:39 PM UTC

imgabe wrote: post #241

VikingCoder wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're moving you from a level 6 engineer to a level 3 engineer, with reduced pay and benefits. We don't think you're contributing at the level we hired you at. Your job has also been relocated to ISIS-controlled territory in Syria. And you need to learn COBOL. And your job now requires 85% time travel on small, yellow, inflatable boats that leak somewhat.

Eh, paid time to learn COBOL, then leave for a cushy job maintaining legacy bank systems. OSHA will definitely have some questions about why programming for a web retailer requires travelling on leaky inflatable boats.

OSHA.

In Syria.

Right.

Re: My husband needed therapy after working for Amazon

#259

Post by VikingCoder » Wed, Aug 19, 2015, 4:41 PM UTC

yarrel wrote: post #246

VikingCoder wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're moving you from a level 6 engineer to a level 3 engineer, with reduced pay and benefits. We don't think you're contributing at the level we hired you at. Your job has also been relocated to ISIS-controlled territory in Syria. And you need to learn COBOL. And your job now requires 85% time travel on small, yellow, inflatable boats that leak somewhat.

Hello constructive dismissal!

imgabe implied it's difficult for a company to fire someone. I'm responding that it's trivially easy for a company to make your life a living hell, and make you want to quit.

Re: My husband needed therapy after working for Amazon

#260

Post by aianus » Wed, Aug 19, 2015, 4:43 PM UTC

lordnacho wrote: post #6

Looking at this story (the wider Amazon story) it seems to me a lot of the value is getting extracted from employees in a sort of creeping way. So you might go to an interview where the manager says there's pager duty now and again, but it's not too intense. You get on the job, and it's a whole lot more intense than expected. You can't leave because you've just turned down a bunch of other offers and moved towns. You…

> There's no recourse for this

If they grossly misrepresented the job you can just leave in the first month or two and not mention it on your resume. It's not like it's a tough job market out there.