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Public protest against Amazon

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Public protest against Amazon

#281

Post by kevinventullo »

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.

FB is similar, especially in remote offices.

Re: Public protest against Amazon

#282

Post by EpicEng »

r00fus wrote: post #273
chrisco255 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Say what you will about Darth Vader, but he was a pretty effective manager.

Exactly! I sure bet the lifts ran on time in the Death Star...

Unfortunately he wasn't trained in mechanical engineering and failed to spot a serious error during design review.

Re: Public protest against Amazon

#283

Post by justesjc »

alistairSH wrote: post #234
bsenftner wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I have a corporate Amex card, and even though its a "Corporate" card, given to me by my employer, it is in my name and I am legally responsible for it. My company will reimburse me for my expenses if approved by my manager. I have always thought this was a liability and weird, but everybody else at the company (a 500 company) thinks it's normal. So any expenses not approved at the end of the month are my responsibility. Anybody else have similar experiences?

Re: Public protest against Amazon

#284

Post by EpicEng »

dpcan wrote: post #68

This may seem mean, and feel free to argue with me and prove my statement below wrong. Well, which was it? Was he taking his daughter to therapy or working from home? If his daughter requires additional care, he needs to care for his daughter, but that can't interfere with work. If your kids are not disabled, they may not be interfering with your work, and therefore, when you are working from home - you are, in fact,…

I judge my teem members by the quality of their work and the efficiency with which they do it. Ass in the seat time is a dumb metric and is always used in a power play.

Re: Public protest against Amazon

#285

Post by kevinventullo »

not_kurt_godel wrote: post #272
all_blue_chucks wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software engineer pay at tech companies in the US tends to be $150k for junior engineers to $300k+ for senior engineers.

Both of those numbers are possible, but much higher than average by my estimation. Glassdoor says average ~$111k for software engineering as a whole[0]. A more realistic expectation for a 'good' compensation package would be ~$80-95k for junior engineer and ~$180-250k for senior. Obviously there are many factors to account for, and both those numbers can vary widely, but the ones you gave are not what one should be e…

At least for big tech companies, Glassdoor has notoriously low numbers. Last I checked, levels.fyi was closer to the truth.

Re: Public protest against Amazon

#287

Post by Apocryphon »

jancsika wrote: post #258
plainOldText wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking of payments: I was actually amazed to find out how much certain union leaders make. Some of them are in the top 1%, with yearly salaries of over $400,000. [1] [1] https://laborpains.org/2018/06/04/union-president-pay-watch-...

For reference-- that's $318,160 more than Jeff Bezos' salary. That's insane. How is a union able to pay that much to their leader on the one hand, yet completely unable to help defend this Amazon employee against an abusive manager? If journalists focused on developer unions for even a fraction of the time they spend criticizing Amazon, I'd bet we'd have some blogs that sound just as damning as the one the author has…

The bulk of Bezos's compensation is all in his equity.

Re: Public protest against Amazon

#288

Post by ajhurliman »

This seems like a tiff with a particular manager, not all 600,000 people that compose Amazon.

Also, I'm not sure if he ever learned this, but his manager doesn't control whether he can transfer or not. All he needed was a hiring manager to say s/he wanted him on the team and he could've just left.

Re: Public protest against Amazon

#289

Post by forgotmypw3 »

morley wrote: post #57
forgotmypw3 wrote: post #13

I want to preface this comment with a statement that in no way am I trying to blame the victim here, only to point out what can be learned from this situation. This is certainly not the first time I've heard of Amazon being a shitty place to work at, and I don't see much reason to doubt the story of a vindictive boss doing everything they can to make an employee miserable after learning that the employee submitted ba…

Re #1: I realize this is the safest option for your own self-preservation, if you don't give negative feedback, how do you expect your work environment to change? The way I see it, if you're in a bad situation at work, you have two options: try to change it, or leave. If you're going to leave anyway, why not at least try to improve your situation first so you give yourself the best chance of success? And that way, th…

Option 3: Accept it, deal with it best you can, and keep looking. (As the other reply says.)

Re: Public protest against Amazon

#290

Post by m0zg »

>> Amazon HR protects company from employees

This is true of _any_ company, _especially_ if you happen to be a straight white male (i.e. not a minority in any way).

Go to HR only if you're 200% sure you can make the company suffer if they don't listen to your complaint. I'm talking _documented, corroborated_ sexual harassment, or _very heavily documented_, strictly illegal discrimination of other types. It is best to also take a medical leave if you're being hazed like this, that way you will have what passes for evidence should they try to sweep things under the rug, which they almost certainly will (and truth be told, after the abuse described in the article, I'd probably need to take a leave for real).

And of course do not under any circumstances go to HR if you're an H1B without first rounding up another job in a 100% guaranteed fashion. If you don't, it becomes very easy for them to get rid of the problem by simply firing you. By law, you have to leave the country in 2 weeks. They know this.

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