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Public protest against Amazon

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Re: Public protest against Amazon

#461

Post by Aeolun »

noitsnot wrote: post #188
halbritt wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pro-tip: never expect your work environment to change. The chances of a report overcoming the whims of a shitty manager are very, very small especially in the context of a company that tolerates the shitty manager in the first place. Generally speaking, the best thing to do is to smile, appear to do reasonably decent work, and begin looking elsewhere.

I second this. You'll almost never convince upper management the smooth-talking buddies they promoted could ever possibly be terrible to their employees.

They’ll believe it alright, and then laugh about their silly peon’s protest together.

Re: Public protest against Amazon

#462

Post by viraptor »

kamaal wrote: post #397
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…

>>Never submit negative feedback via "anonymous" or "confidential" feedback processes at work Never give feedback at work, unless positive. This includes things like code review. The dirty little secret of human relationships is every one wants to be made to feel special, error less and look good. Only thing any kind of feed back, correction or criticism leads to is rivalry/enmity, and it won't end well. The question…

> Never give feedback at work, unless positive. This includes things like code review.

> There can be no friends at work.

I think that's a bad advice. I'm sad that this is an experience someone can take from a job and that there are jobs where this applies. Unless you can't lose a job, do disagree on technical reasons and do make friends with good people.

Not every place is so restrictive and full of backstabbers. And if it is, maybe it's worth discovering that and leaving.

Re: Public protest against Amazon

#463

Post by circlefavshape »

kamaal wrote: post #413
BOOSTERHIDROGEN wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any good resources how to give feedback in work/relationships?

Robert Greene's books: The 48 Laws of Power, The Art of Seduction, The 33 Strategies of War, The 50th Law, and The Laws of Human Nature. Stealing the Corner office by Brendan Reid Assorted works of Niccolo Machiavelli and Balatazar Gracian. It will be hard to impossible to make transition even after reading these books, but at least you can detect and avoid problems at work. Or at best set up a firewall around you. L…

> expecting goodness from people is wrong. The fact of the matter is people are bad

Oh for goodness sake! This is just silliness. Either you have watched too many gangster movies or you are a sociopath

Re: Public protest against Amazon

#464

Post by viraptor »

kamaal wrote: post #457
kurtisc wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>your code review feedback can wait. Nothing productive ever comes out of these processes Then the errors get merged and I'm liable.

Of course if you are the person signing off on a piece of code, then your work is code review. But other wise, unless some one is doing 'rm -rf /', there is no real reason to go criticize some one's work on a company wide visible text wall.

Sure there is. Maintainability in the future, non-obvious edge cases, potential security issues, etc. Either you keep each other accountable for stuff like that or end up with a monster system which you can't realistically work on.

"criticize some one's work on a company wide visible text wall" is a depressing way to look at it. Try "collectively learning about better approaches on a company-wide visible text wall". You'll need to convince people that it's one and not the other.

Re: Public protest against Amazon

#465

Post by StudentStuff »

amztawy_1190 wrote: post #434
selfselfself wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since you mentioned you want to protest, are you going to join Oleg? Seems like a good starting point.

I’m not located in Seattle, but if I was there, and got the details, and was convinced Oleg is right I’d try to mobilize some like minded people, make sure there is no clause forbidding me to do so as I like to have a job, maybe give my boss a heads up (maybe he would even join) and I’d be happy to join his protest. But I believe this should start internally, it will look better to leadership if some of us for exampl…

> make sure there is no clause forbidding me to do so as I like to have a job

You realize that any retribution would be a violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act, right? You can't sign away your right to protest, unless you work for the government as a critical employee (read: firefighters, police).

Re: Public protest against Amazon

#466

Post by alttab »

selfselfself wrote: post #427
tozeur wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you get access to a specific managers yearly feedback? That doesn’t seem normal that all managers’ feedback is publicly posted.

Can confirm, this info isn't public at Amazon

You are wrong "bro." It's called the Tech Survey and you can see anyone's feedback going back like 3-4 years.

Re: Public protest against Amazon

#467

Post by Aeolun »

Rescis wrote: post #231
seltzered_ wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Isn’t this why you have a corporate card?

Re: Public protest against Amazon

#468

Post by gjm11 »

vxNsr wrote: post #407
btilly wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lose respect for any man who cheats on his wife, no matter the reason... That's some sanctimonious bullshit. There is zero public information indicating any cheating. We know that there was a trial separation. We don't know what agreements there were. We do know that the divorce is being presented as being amiable. My attitude is that if his soon to be ex wife is not upset, then random strangers like yourself have…

I thought Bezos admitted to cheating in his medium post.

If you mean the "No thank you, Mr Pecker" one, then it doesn't look to me as if he does any such thing.

(He certainly implicitly admits that he is in a relationship with Ms Sanchez. But, at least in my book, that's only cheating if it happened before his "trial separation" with his wife, and I don't see that he's admitted that it did.)

Re: Public protest against Amazon

#469

Post by kamaal »

viraptor wrote: post #464
kamaal wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course if you are the person signing off on a piece of code, then your work is code review. But other wise, unless some one is doing 'rm -rf /', there is no real reason to go criticize some one's work on a company wide visible text wall.

Sure there is. Maintainability in the future, non-obvious edge cases, potential security issues, etc. Either you keep each other accountable for stuff like that or end up with a monster system which you can't realistically work on. "criticize some one's work on a company wide visible text wall" is a depressing way to look at it. Try "collectively learning about better approaches on a company-wide visible text wall".…

All your arguments are valid, in ideal scenarios. In an ideal scenario any comment or feedback should be taken in the right spirit and acted upon.

But in these days of stack ranking and subjective evaluations. You giving a lot of feedback can be considered of lack of ability to write good code on the part of that person(after-all if they could write good code, why would it get so much criticism?). Then the next thing that happens- Which is that your CR comments being used as a proof to downrank them in the stack. Your colleague will and right so think you are actively criticizing them to ensure you get promoted over them.

Enmity and rivalry begins from there. Then they could raid your CR wall and do the same to you. Then all kinds of backstabbing and self-promotion activities start.

Before you know it you would have made a few enemies within the team.

Re: Public protest against Amazon

#470

Post by kamaal »

circlefavshape wrote: post #463
kamaal wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Robert Greene's books: The 48 Laws of Power, The Art of Seduction, The 33 Strategies of War, The 50th Law, and The Laws of Human Nature. Stealing the Corner office by Brendan Reid Assorted works of Niccolo Machiavelli and Balatazar Gracian. It will be hard to impossible to make transition even after reading these books, but at least you can detect and avoid problems at work. Or at best set up a firewall around you. L…

> expecting goodness from people is wrong. The fact of the matter is people are bad Oh for goodness sake! This is just silliness. Either you have watched too many gangster movies or you are a sociopath

I'm only suggesting you wear a seat belt when you drive. You seem to be suggesting I'm a sociopath for wearing a seatbelt and not trust fellow car drivers on the road.

You need to understand how department wide politics work. There are fixed budgets when it comes to giving raises, bonuses and RSUs. The person who negotiates and deals better wins. That means lesser for everyone. Note how even without wanting to harm you, they actually have. Then come the second rounds of power play. One way to negotiate is to prove they are better, second way to prove it is you are not. Setting team mates up for failure happens all the time, even without one realizing it. Plenty of other things happen. Actively building a bad case for other people. It might not be overt, but leave a bad CR comment or two, keep doing it actively. Make it a point to drop a bad comment or feedback for the person you might want to harm. Then over a time you tend to build a case against them mentally in the mind of your manager. These tactics are super common. Wrong people get promoted, and right people get shafted all the time.

In almost every company- promotions, raises and RSUs require building a case(like a promotion packet), which is basically a pile of documentation. That can only be done over time, its chiseling away at a rock wanting to make it into a statue. Part of that is also making sure other people's statue isn't as good as yours. As a part of building that documentation, you need your name plastered to important things in a positive way. Appreciation emails, feed backs, positive CR text walls etc. This is why so much ceremony goes in most companies when it comes to rewards and promotions. Basically quotas are fixed, and you manager needs to build a case for you. Building that requires negotiating and dealing with them to build you a better promotion packet. Almost anybody can be made to look good or bad, regardless of their efforts. Given stack ranked systems, somebody always has to take the fall for the person who negotiates better.

These things are not even new. The world of Politics(regardless of the system(Democracy/Monarchy/Republic)) has had this for 1000s of years now.

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