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Public protest against Amazon

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Re: Public protest against Amazon

#231

Post by Rescis »

seltzered_ wrote: post #147
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was recently offered a job by a software company, work from home, paid monthly. I presently work in metal fabrication. Not only was their offer $30,000 below my current income, their deal was I front cash for expenses and submit claims monthly. Is this standard in the software world? Because from my perspective there’s only one possible answer to paying expenses out of pocket and having to claim them back: No.

Echoing the HP employee, submitting claims monthly for remote work expenses (phone/internet bills, office supplies, travel) is normal. Ive worked as an apps engineer at a couple BigCos with same policies and the process never bothered me, I submit my claims as soon as a trip ends or when I get the bills. The thing I would press is to get paid fairly, and bi-weekly. I’ve never had a salaried job that was paid monthly.

I'm currently a software dev getting paid monthly, and fronting around 3 grand this month. It happens.

Re: Public protest against Amazon

#232

Post by illumin8 »

taurath wrote: post #83
Scramblejams wrote: post #61

Amazon employee here, though I do not speak for the company. At any big company, your management chain is the #1 influence on the quality of your culture. My experience at Amazon has been extremely positive, but then my org head is a great guy, so it's all been in line with my expectations. I've also left critical feedback through the Amazon Connect survey for my immediate manager and not suffered for it. That manage…

That's always been the argument to people who are on the fence about Amazon: "I've heard some bad things, but haven't seen it in my department". Amazon, and the people that work on the "good" teams never seem to be terribly concerned about horrific reports, and I frequently wonder why that is. In companies I've worked for, had I heard about people crying at their desk and being forced to choose between their child's…

There are a couple reasons. First, Amazon has hundreds of businesses and almost 700,000 employees globally now. Every business has different culture and managers. You are not going to find a consistent good/bad/indifferent experience here, because it's highly varied. I can guarantee you a seasonal worker in a fulfillment center has a vastly different day to day experience from a software development engineer in Seattle.

The second reason is that people tend to write about negative experiences more often. You see this all the time in Internet forums where people complain about products they bought. There could be millions of happy customers of a product, but the few thousand that got a defective one or had a bad experience with customer support will loudly and vocally scream about it on the Internet, which at first glance, seeing hundreds or thousands of reports of a terrible product, might seem bad, but the millions of people who used the product and had no problems with it are not going to write about it.

Disclaimer: I've worked at Amazon for a few years now, and I've had 3 decent managers and one terrible one. The good thing about Amazon is that it is relatively frictionless to switch teams.

Re: Public protest against Amazon

#233

Post by vkou »

alecco wrote: post #69
femiagbabiaka wrote: post #29

Workers need unions, plain and simple. The addition of an impartial arbitrator at any step along this process could’ve helped so much.

I used to believe that. But I saw very close how an IT union was taken over by old school, corrupt fat union guys. And they just pander to the lowest common denominator. They go against meritocracy. I'd rather pay attention and vote with my feet.

> They go against meritocracy.

So does management. The difference is, you can vote shitty union reps off the island.

Re: Public protest against Amazon

#234

Post by alistairSH »

bsenftner wrote: post #168
alistairSH wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My employer issues corporate Visas to any employee expected to incur >$500/year in expenses. Which means most of us have cards, at least in the US. We still have to complete expense reports, but we don’t pay anything out of pocket.

Sony Computer Entertainment does this, but then they don't pay back for 6-9 months, forcing your personal credit to be their credit cushion. One of the reasons I quit.

I don't understand, if it's a corporate Visa, there's nothing to pay back - the bill goes to accounting, not the employee.

Re: Public protest against Amazon

#235

Post by vkou »

Tehchops wrote: post #130
femiagbabiaka wrote: post #29

Workers need unions, plain and simple. The addition of an impartial arbitrator at any step along this process could’ve helped so much.

Absolutely not. We don't want union cruft within a hundred miles of tech. It's already far too hard to shed incompetent people.

I don't want corporate politics and all the worst parts of MBA culture within a hundred miles of tech, yet here we are.

Solidarity is the only way that workers can negotiate on an even playing field.

Re: Public protest against Amazon

#236

Post by kokokokoko »

ashelmire wrote: post #222
kokokokoko wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A strong court case for what? Washington is an "at will" employment state. You can be treated poorly and fired for any reason unless it is for a protected class(race, sex etc). Amazon and his manager could have fired him because they put a bunch of names on a dart board and his was the one hit. I do think the treatment was incredibly unfair and unjust. Unfortunately, in "at will" employment states in the US, this app…

https://hkm.com/seattle/retaliation/ Most US states are at will; and people still win lawsuits against their employers quite often for just run of the mill toxic behavior, and not just for things as cut and dry as bigotry (although, being a visa holder, he may have a case for, especially since it was a part of these discussions - national origin and immigration status are protected classes).

From the link

> Retaliation is defined as any action taken against an employee for daring to file a discrimination or harassment claim

And then for harassment: https://hkm.com/seattle/hostile-work-environment/

> Harassment in the workplace is a form of employment discrimination. Unlawful harassment is a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and as such is illegal. Unfortunately harassment can come in many forms, both verbal and physical and can be based on any of the following forms of discrimination:

> Race, Color, Religion, Sex, Sexual orientation, Age, Disability (mental or physical), Retaliation

See above about "Retaliation"

Is there something I'm missing in there? Because that again appears to only protect one from a protected class. It does not mean if your boss is being mean or insulting to you for things outside of those protected classes. But again, am I missing something in there that is different? Do you have an example of a civil or criminal case won by a plaintiff for "toxic behavior"?

I'd be very interested in that, as that would mean the advice I've recieved from two diffent legal counsels I've contracted for advice. If you are correct, it appears I may have a civil claim against those attorneys.

Re: Public protest against Amazon

#237

Post by opportune »

nicoburns wrote: post #182
flatline wrote: post #124

Welcome to life in practically any large US corporation. Most employees will never complain to HR, they may need some routine services that HR provides and that’s the extent of their interaction. But there are a few who do complain. If these are peer-related complaints, HR will work with the employees managers to resolve the issue. But let’s say someone has a problem with their manager. Maybe no one else has complain…

If you have a problem with your manager, wouldn't the person to speak to be their manager rather than HR?

Might work, but that's a very high-stakes maneuver that could backfire possibly even worse than through HR because now you have two people with the power to make your life hell and potentially no record in HR about the situation (potentially losing first strike opportunities - now your manager or manager's manager can begin to record problems caused by you before you can record problems by them). And also IME it is basically impossible to read how your manager's manager feels about your manager

Realistically if you have a bad manager your only 100% safe option is to switch companies. Switching teams internally can work depending on the place, but it does carry risk, especially if you're on a visa

Re: Public protest against Amazon

#238

Post by Proven »

nostrademons wrote: post #185
avinium wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is this standard in the software world? This is standard in every world. Corporate credit cards are usually reserved for senior executives or people who travel/entertain a lot (e.g. sales reps). Cash advances aren't a thing outside of small companies.

Huh? Google made it super easy to get a GCard, you just request it on a web form and it arrived a few days later. It was pretty common for L4 engineers (that's the level below senior) to have them.

And GCard lets you get cash advances. Okay then.

Re: Public protest against Amazon

#239

Post by MK_Dev »

napo wrote: post #76
mothsonasloth wrote: post #52

I used to think big tech companies like Amazon and Google would be different, however now I see they are just becoming like any older traditional corporation with a HR department functioning like the stasi and the ability to oppress through mass policies and hiring contracts. We are lucky as developers to have a fairly easy way of life but I still follow my Grandpa's advice from years working in the shipyards of Glas…

"* When things are good, think about leaving" => Wait what? So what do you do when things are bad?

ABL (Always Be Leaving)

Re: Public protest against Amazon

#240

Post by metacritic12 »

Tehchops wrote: post #158
sdinsn wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it also seems to not be ' Amazon ', it seems to be his immediate manager that's the larger problem

>it seems to be his immediate manager that's the larger problem Not discounting this, but someone that thinks comparing to Jeff Bezos to Adolf Hitler is either legitimate or merits public attribution is bringing their own issues to the table, and is likely not telling us the whole story.

Now I know an ad-hominem is ipso facto against HN's rules, but look at not just the Hitler comparison, but the writing style.

Disconnected sentences. Run ons. This is more than a case of someone who's a bad writer or a non-native English speaker. I've written in non-native languages before -- organization, paragraphs, and spacing transcend language.

To not mince words, this blog post seems 50% in the format of one of those crazy political ranters that show up in your inbox, or Timecube ( http://timecube.2enp.com/ ).

Inference-wise, is there a good (>20%) chance this guy's story is legit and he's really just a very, very, jumbled writer. Yes. But is there also a good (>20%) chance this guy is kinda off his rockers? Also yes.

This is not meant as an ad-hom itself. It's merely statistical inference (like inferring someone writing about Python but mispelling it as "Pyton" all the time is probably not that proficient at Python)

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