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My husband needed therapy after working for Amazon

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Re: My husband needed therapy after working for Amazon

#311

Post by backtoyoujim »

The thing is ... at companies that I was the bane of because of my lack of technological ability past lithic ... every one made fum of me working 10 hours at work and two or three at home at night and the weekends.

So now ... Amazon has created a culture where everyone feels like the guy that no one wants to work with ... they have found a way to make that exploitable among some pretty smart people.

And everyone looks around and lifts their shoulders and shows their palms because the US work experience sucks.

Amazon reads like the zenith of the suck.

Re: My husband needed therapy after working for Amazon

#312

Post by aperrien »

ucaetano wrote: post #171
weland wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This . It's easy to shift the blame to faceless Amazon and pretend "the company" is at fault. It's not. The people who are running the company (and I'm not referring strictly to top management here) are the ones with the blatant disregard for their employees. This is not a result of some inherent forces our Universe suddenly concentrating over Amazon. They're the result of business decisions. A bunch of people wearin…

Tell me, if it was your money being invested, would you act differently?

Yes, because I think about profit more than one or two quarters down the road.

Re: My husband needed therapy after working for Amazon

#313

Post by mathrawka »

worklogin wrote: post #265
no1youknowz wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've turned down plenty of offers whenever the subjects come up. There is a pager that rotates There are meetings after office hours There is a night-shift that rotates There is support that everyone is expected to do There is no training paid for by the company There is no advancement in career (small company) There is no payrise for the next N years All of these things are a huge RED flag for me and I move on to an…

oncall and support are instant turnaways? How do you get employed in IT?

By working at a place that recognises a need for these tasks and hires specifically for them!

Re: My husband needed therapy after working for Amazon

#314

Post by mikestew »

kyllo wrote: post #213

I work for a company in Seattle whose technical employees are getting picked off by Amazon. Amazon offers probably 25-50% more in salary for similar positions, and we also can't compete with their equity offering. But in exchange for all that money, you have to work probably at least 50% more hours, tolerate weaker boundaries between your work life and personal life, and deal with a whole lot more stress. It's a trad…

Well, if your SDETs or test managers are getting picked off, my address is in my profile. :-) I've already told Amazon to quit calling, if that helps.

Re: My husband needed therapy after working for Amazon

#315

Post by kamaal »

schrodinger wrote: post #305
kamaal wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Some might argue that one ought to save so one's children can get a nice inheritance. Why would you not do that if you can. Having money gives your kids access to good education and freedom to stay away from a lot of crap poor kids have to deal with every day. Plus there is no advantage greater in life than getting a good head start over other people. A lot of people spend a big part of their lives just to get a de…

But why is your kid more deserving than anyone elses'? They didn't do anything to earn the money, just won the genetic lottery. (Not saying I won't want to help out my kids, but I think it's worth questioning / considering these things.)

People get an unfair advantage for all sorts of reasons. That's not just restricted at the level of having good/rich parents, it exists at every level of human existence. People are born in rich family, raised in good neighborhoods, go to a better school, get employed in better companies and even to the extent are born in better countries.

One can't deny their children the right to a better life, simply because other children don't have it.

This isn't about an unfair award, but about an unfair punishment.

Re: My husband needed therapy after working for Amazon

#316

Post by imgabe »

VikingCoder wrote: post #308
imgabe wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry for what your mother and the rest of your family went through. I have no doubt that the company acted unfairly. Encouraging an attitude of fatalism and "they'll screw you no matter what!" is only going to exacerbate the problem. Companies will only continue to get away with things like that if everyone just accepts them as a fact of life.

Want to hear something weird? I actually think it should be really easy for a company to fire someone, for whatever reason they want to. And I think we should have social services that make you not fear for your life to be unemployed. Free education. Free health care. Basic Income on top of that. But maybe I'm just completely nuts.

Sure, I'm all for that. But as long as we have this system where we want corporations to be responsible for citizens' welfare instead of the government, we should make them step up to the plate and actually do it.

Re: My husband needed therapy after working for Amazon

#317

Post by VikingCoder »

imgabe wrote: post #316
VikingCoder wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Want to hear something weird? I actually think it should be really easy for a company to fire someone, for whatever reason they want to. And I think we should have social services that make you not fear for your life to be unemployed. Free education. Free health care. Basic Income on top of that. But maybe I'm just completely nuts.

Sure, I'm all for that. But as long as we have this system where we want corporations to be responsible for citizens' welfare instead of the government, we should make them step up to the plate and actually do it.

Encouraging an attitude that corporations can be responsible for citizens' welfare is only going to exacerbate the problem. Governments will only continue to get away with ignoring citizens' welfare if everyone just accepts it as a fact of life.

Re: My husband needed therapy after working for Amazon

#318

Post by mikestew »

hwstar wrote: post #245
hwstar wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You write your state assembly person, state senator, federal congressperson, and federal senators and state that you want labor law reform similar to the European Working Time Directive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_Time_Directive for exempt employees. It enough people applied pressure to elected officials, this could be a reality.

Boilerplate to use to write your senators and congresspersons: In light of the recent allegations of employee mistreatment at Amazon.com, maybe it is time to redefine what an exempt employee is under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. I would like to propose changes similar to the European Working Time Directive if 1993. Here is the link with more details: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:3…

I wish there a way to sift this to the top. Awesome reply with boilerplate for the lazy (amongst which I count myself). Me, I just don't put up with the crap anymore, either by not taking the job in the first place, or leaving if I discover it's a sweatshop. But not everyone is as well off as I, and this kind of crap needs to change for all.

Re: My husband needed therapy after working for Amazon

#319

Post by lordnacho »

ucaetano wrote: post #171
weland wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This . It's easy to shift the blame to faceless Amazon and pretend "the company" is at fault. It's not. The people who are running the company (and I'm not referring strictly to top management here) are the ones with the blatant disregard for their employees. This is not a result of some inherent forces our Universe suddenly concentrating over Amazon. They're the result of business decisions. A bunch of people wearin…

Tell me, if it was your money being invested, would you act differently?

Yes, this is a classic example of a skew risk. Cheap out, don't hire anyone, and you'll probably save money. But your company is at risk of collapsing if you get an event you hadn't planned for. Reputation can vanish fast if you have an IT problem and customers can't get their stuff.

And of course this will never, ever come up in your case studies as a recurring risk, because you're encouraged to read everything as a nice little story in business school. The one or two cases where it does happen will just be chalked up to some admonition about hiring better staff or some other BS.

Re: My husband needed therapy after working for Amazon

#320

Post by tsotha »

Tloewald wrote: post #177
s3nnyy wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That might sound crazy but on a software engineering salary, you can retire before 50 if you get used to spending little on food, transportation and shelter. My most favorite online resource on how to live frugally is this: http://earlyretirementextreme.com/how-i-became-financially-i... .

I think that retiring before 50 is not the solution to unemployment after 50, although the idea of living frugally so you can retire early seems great until you try it.

Think of it from another angle, then. Would you rather be unemployed after 50 with or without enough money to retire?
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