How does resigning better serve the cause than conscientious refusal to take part in despisable activities and get fired instead?
[deleted]
Bye, Amazon
101–110 of 1001 posts
Re: Bye, Amazon
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean, he's absolutely explicit why: Smalls felt, by all evidence reasonably, that Amazon's working conditions were unsafe and unfair and wanted to advocate for better conditions for himself and his fellow workers. Why do you feel the need to ask this question? What ridiculous conspiracy theory are you concocting that somehow gives an ulterior motive to this situation?
Because he was fired for refusing to comply to the orders of his employer. Whether they seemed reasonable or not. And he seems to have switched from worrying about his safety to campaigning against Amazon. Why should anybody be forced to employ somebody who has made it their job to damage their employers reputation?
> Whether they seemed reasonable or not.
Isn't following unreasonable orders by definition you know unreasonable? I mean if your boss told you to jump of a bridge that seems unreasonable right? And you would still do it? After all he is your boss and you don't want to get fired, right?
Re: Bye, Amazon
#103> I quit in dismay at Amazon firing whistleblowers Assuming this is the real true reason (I would trust Tim, but you never know, so just being explicit here), it takes huge balls to do something like this. The economic loss has to be somewhat taken in relation to your total wealth (e.g. if you lose $1M by quitting but you already have $10M+ in the bank, it's not as hard as if you had zero in the bank), but still... V…
Also takes huge balls to publish an article about it publicly (rather than just resigning quietly). I'd be worried about being sued for defamation, etc.
it isn't defamation if it is true and I think everything not pertaining to Tim Bray was already a matter of public record.
Re: Bye, Amazon
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
A company that hires him signals that it has nothing to hide, so I think this might just work out fine for him.
That signal reaches a few industry insiders paying close attention. This will probably make the NY Times. They're many orders of magnitude apart in terms of impact. I believe Tim is making a real sacrifice here, which is why it's so rare and impressive.
I think you're underestimating the "wokeness" of industry. Especially how much a token good guy is worth, when they are scarce. And overestimating his sacrifice. His net worth is at least 9M USD. That's already enough so he doesn't need to work a minute more in his life and do almost everything he could think of.
Re: Bye, Amazon
#105> I quit in dismay at Amazon firing whistleblowers Assuming this is the real true reason (I would trust Tim, but you never know, so just being explicit here), it takes huge balls to do something like this. The economic loss has to be somewhat taken in relation to your total wealth (e.g. if you lose $1M by quitting but you already have $10M+ in the bank, it's not as hard as if you had zero in the bank), but still... V…
I think you can trust that it's the real reason, because either way it's going to make him radioactive for the next gig like this. No large company keeps its hands completely clean. Defense contracts, Chinese censorship, exploiting addiction, anticompetitive behaviour, sexism, the list goes on. Having a public figure at your company that's willing to martyr themselves to push the knife in just a little deeper when yo…
What an utter disaster this society is if having a conscience makes you "radioactive" to employers. I can only aspire to be as radioactive as possible, then.
Re: Bye, Amazon
#106Amazon is a great evil. It will not be remembered as a company that has had been a positive influence on the world but as a company that has treated its employees (both hourly and salaried) with contempt, driven independent stores out of business and refused to play on a level playing field both through its shady business practices or its refusal to pay tax. Well done to Tim Bray for acting according to his conscienc…
Which is the mythical company treating their low-skill workers far better than Amazon? Does the rest of big tech even employ their non professionals directly? Which of big tech directly employ their janitors and treat them much better than Amazon warehouse workers? Which of big non tech company does this? >its refusal to pay tax. What do you even mean by this? Companies can't refuse to pay tax. They have to pay tax a…
Ignoring the bad faith questioning, I dont have to provide a gold standard in order to criticise Amazon. Everything I've said is extremely well documented.
Re: Bye, Amazon
#107> I quit in dismay at Amazon firing whistleblowers Assuming this is the real true reason (I would trust Tim, but you never know, so just being explicit here), it takes huge balls to do something like this. The economic loss has to be somewhat taken in relation to your total wealth (e.g. if you lose $1M by quitting but you already have $10M+ in the bank, it's not as hard as if you had zero in the bank), but still... V…
> it takes huge balls to do something like this.
> The economic loss has to be somewhat taken in relation to your total wealth
> Very few people would have the courage to walk away from big sums of money purely on principle.
A good number of engineers refuse to even interview with FAANGs and other nasty companies on principle and they don't get any public praise.
Re: Bye, Amazon
#108> At the end of the day, it’s all about power balances. The warehouse workers are weak and getting weaker... Whenever I speak to someone working in a "low-skilled" job, I'm always astonished and embarrassed by how different their work environment sounds to the kind of offices I work in. There seems to be a consistent theme of employees being treated with suspicion, condescension and outright hostility. This gets to t…
> There seems to be a consistent theme of employees being treated with suspicion, condescension and outright hostility.
I'd suggest working with or managing a place with low-skilled people. They of course aren't all like that but it seems it attracts low-motivation, low-effort, or low-caring. I can only provide 2 anecdotes, but I can see why people get treated this way after time.
I highly doubt there are many people that just start their management role in a hostile, suspicion, condescension kind of way. Normally it takes something repeated over time to build up those kinds of traits of dealing with something
In college I used to work for RPS (they got bought by Fedex or UPS, I forget) sorting packages. To get the job you had to lift up to 50lbs and memorize the first 2 digits of the zip code (just the region so it was like 20-30 numbers) and you'd stand in front of a big chute and sort boxes onto 1 of 3 conveyors. The amount of anger people would take out on other's boxes was insane. Kicking, punching(??), throwing over the ledge (we were like 3 floors up), or just outright stamping of boxes was nuts. After working there I learned what it means to package something well as I could not count on any package of mine being treated with respect.
The other anecdote are my wife's pharmacy techs she has to manage. Some of them will bitch and moan if they have to remake a drug, sometimes outright REFUSE to make a drug if it means they have to gown back up and go back into the clean room. They will disappear for an hour after delivering a drug (up a few floors). They will take well over an hour for lunch breaks. It is a very maddening situation because all of these actions means the kids don't get what they need on time.
Re: Bye, Amazon
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
> ranking virtue signalling over monetary gain I'll cop to not being completely au fait with current right-wing rhetoric, but I thought a core part of "virtue signalling" (insofar as it might actually exist beyond "position I disagree with", which your post suggests it might not) was that it was low-effort / low-cost. In other words, no action where the alternative is non-trivial monetary gain could be virtue signall…
In pretty much every case, "virtue signalling" is code for "this person is being virtuous, and I don't like it".
right but there is a rhetorical undercurrent of this person doesn't really believe in this virtuous thing they are doing, and is thus a hypocrite. Because being a hypocrite is one of the top sins of our culture.
Of course it is weird because the person doing the accusation of hypocrisy is actually against the virtuous act, and is thus for people not believing in the virtue.
It's a weird rhetorical trick that sounds sort of unhinged the more you hear it.
Re: Bye, Amazon
#110> At the end of the day, it’s all about power balances. The warehouse workers are weak and getting weaker... Whenever I speak to someone working in a "low-skilled" job, I'm always astonished and embarrassed by how different their work environment sounds to the kind of offices I work in. There seems to be a consistent theme of employees being treated with suspicion, condescension and outright hostility. This gets to t…
That's why people work hard to acquire skills, to be able to work in better jobs. I have never run a warehouse, but I suspect that many of the strange seeming rules are in place because people otherwise try to exploit the system (like getting paid for smoking on the toilet for hours on end). It may seem inhumane, but perhaps it makes it possible to give people jobs who don't deserve automatic trust. Such people exist…
I suspect the same percentage of people exploiting the system in warehouses as in office jobs, still you can see very "inhumane" rules only in warehouses.