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Public protest against Amazon

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Re: Public protest against Amazon

#241

Post by nojvek »

ownagefool wrote: post #14

I had a manager that took over from a previous person when I was working remote. There were a few issues, but the one that stands out is they flew me down to London for a week, set me up in a hotel, and had me take taxis back and fourth to the office and expense food etc. After returning home, he rejected my expenses because of variance of costs of the taxis, despite me pointing out that I was using the stipulated ve…

Well amazon hires a ton of H1Bs. When they let go, they have to go to back to their country unless they can find another company to sponsor their H1B.

So people go to extreme lengths and managers can get away with anything.

I’m super grateful for Microsoft to help me with my green card. However my life there was miserable and my manager frequently asked us to work weekends. Pagerduty was hell and I once came home at 5am from work.

F that.

I’m glad I wasn’t born in India. My Indian x-colleagues didn’t have that freedom simply due to where they were born.

I imagine Amazon is a worse slaveshop.

Re: Public protest against Amazon

#242

Post by objektif »

gotocake wrote: post #212
john_moscow wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being racist would be discriminating someone based on their race without actually looking into the circumstances. Pointing out cultural roots of a very real problem and openly taking about it is a totally different thing.

Pretending that “Indian” describes a single culture composed of more than a billion people is the defintion of racism. India is an incredibly diverse place full of people who have less in common in terms of culture (not to mention language) than a Californian does with a New Yorker.

It does not describe every single person in a country. However, if you deny that certain countries have certain cultural identities you are lying to yourself.

Re: Public protest against Amazon

#243

Post by org3432 »

castlecrasher2 wrote: post #204
org3432 wrote: post #12

This kind of retribution is pretty normal from the companies I've worked it, it's clumsy that it ended up in writing here and a bit more vicious than usual with a child involved. Normally it's done offline in private conversations or simply as something that's understood between like minded managers with passing comments. One manager I had was pretty candid about it, he said he couldn't find another job and was looki…

>One manager I had was pretty candid about it, he said he couldn't find another job and was looking to retire so he was going to give me a bad performance review despite actually being the top performer so he wouldn't be affected. He was otherwise very apologetic that his hand was forced. I must be dense because I don't understand this. Your manager couldn't find another job, was instead looking to retire, and gave y…

Yep, the tl;dr is that at the time my manager's manager didn't appreciate me being transparent on mistakes our department made with other depts. So in an effort to make me quit, aside from other things, he wrote a review for my direct manager and required him to say it was his review. If he didn't he would be fired.

Pretty normal stuff at a certain level with insecure managers. Not exactly the same, but Steve Jobs wrote about how they relocated him into an empty building at Apple to make him quit. I was relocated too in fact.

The red flags I look for now:

- clearly not as smart as their peers in their own or other depts, they're likely struggling and will act irrationally

- very ambitious, but risk averse

- tells people what their title is whether they asked or not

- been at the company their whole career and just went along with the flow

There's likely some others, but I'm careful around those folks, they're just trouble.

Re: Public protest against Amazon

#244

Post by objektif »

karthikshan wrote: post #221
thtthings wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, There is nothing racist about my observations. I love India and Indians, not fond of Indian bosses.. most of them

How is making negative generalizations about people from a specific country not racist?

Americans are loud, obnoxious tourists. Is that racist?

Re: Public protest against Amazon

#246

Post by deathanatos »

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.

I am also a former Google employee. I also had a GCard, and it is exactly as easy to get one as described.

Google is the exception here, IMO. Every other employer I have had has generally required the employee to front the cash for expenses, and used something like Expensify to get reimbursed. There are some exceptions, such as hotels or airfare, which I've booked through corporate booking systems; these only let you see "approved" flights/hotels, and once booked, is charged direct to the company.

Re: Public protest against Amazon

#247

Post by gpm »

kokokokoko wrote: post #236
ashelmire wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I mean one one thing your missing (but probably also the person you're replying to) is that in the actual lawsuit he alleges racial discrimination with some credibility.

But also disability discrimination with regards to his kid.

Anyways, here's the brief he filed (unfortunately pro se) https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wawd.269265...

Re: Public protest against Amazon

#248

Post by nojvek »

> One Amazon employee said when her father was dying, her boss told “you are the problem” and prevented her from visiting the father. Another Amazon employee saw his unborn child died during pregnancy when he was under oppression by his manager. There are a lot of cases like that. Amazon is built on blood.

Holyshit. This sounds like modern day slavery. Isn’t this bordering on crime against humanity?

Re: Public protest against Amazon

#249

Post by HarryHirsch »

ethbro wrote: post #195
setquk wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked for a similarly horrible person many years ago. I was doing on call support for a bunch of Linux machines. Literally it was him and me left because the moment I started the other two engineers bailed. One went to work packing salad because it was a better job (big warning!) and the other one had a breakdown. So didn't get paid properly, argued mileage down to the mile, the clients and him constantly gave me…

Stories like this are important. Because sometimes the situation is bad for your boss too, the company is in financial straits, miscommunication, {insert other extenuating circumstances}. ... but sometimes your boss really is just an asshole, liar, alcoholic, and/or a sociopath. Never assume the later off the bat, but never completely discount the possibility either. Because it'll probably happen at least once in an…

Who cares if the boss has substance abuse issues or Cluster B personality disorders? These considerations don't put bread on the table!

Re: Public protest against Amazon

#250

Post by mikeash »

whatshisface wrote: post #92
TallGuyShort wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This guy I know, we can call him Jim, left a large tech company and was honest in his exit interview about why he was leaving, and it was mostly his manager. He was later asked to apply for a job with a different team after his manager left the company years (and promotions) later. HR blocked the hire because he was "disgruntled" in his exit interview. As far as I know, they did nothing to recognize or fix the proble…

"I'm leaving because your company is too good."

It's the inverse of the ubiquitous "why do you want to work for us?" interview question. "Because you give money to your employees and I require money for food and housing" is somehow never what they're looking for.
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