Bye, Amazon • Hacker News Board

Re: Bye, Amazon

#361

Post by ApolloFortyNine » Mon, May 04, 2020, 2:59 PM UTC

gilrain wrote: post #349

supergeek133 wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a two way street. If you've never been involved at a management or ownership level of a business that has "low pay" labor (e.g., food service, warehouse, retail sales). For every 2-3 decent workers there is one that just takes pure advantage of the environment (e.g., stealing product, stealing time, etc). Sometimes this occurs at great cost for a period of time before it is discovered. EDIT: This was…

You're claiming that 1/2 to 1/3 of employees are criminally stealing time or product from their workplace. I need some robust citations for that, because it's ridiculous on its face.

When I worked at Kmart, on more than one occasion they were forced to first to fire a large number of cashiers (10+) due to stealing. And the Kmart I worked in was definitely in the 'good' part of town.

Now Kmart also paid literally the minimum wage, but it still shocked me the number of people who would steal when they clearly had video, and regularly fired people for doing so. And some of the people who stole got caught for stealing bottles of soda to drink while at work...

As for stealing time, that was much more common, but I actually never saw anyone fired for that, no matter how often they took half hour long bathroom breaks, or spent an hour putting away 5 items. I guess Kmart understood they had to put up with something when paying literally as little as possible.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#362

Post by jimbokun » Mon, May 04, 2020, 3:00 PM UTC

stupidcar wrote: post #20

> 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…

> Because it often involves nothing more than being given a basic level of trust and respect that, once you have them, can seem like a bare minimum, not something that you would need to fight for.

This is exactly why privilege is not an accurate or constructive term to use in these conversations.

Privilege implies something undeserved. So it sounds like an argument for taking away those bare minimums, so everyone is equally treated with suspicion, condescension and hostility.

Better words are "oppression", "discrimination" and "bigotry". Make it clear that the goal is treating everyone with a basic level of trust and respect, as a bare minimum, and nothing less than that is acceptable.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#363

Post by elliekelly » Mon, May 04, 2020, 3:01 PM UTC

IAmEveryone wrote: post #303

krig wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The real disaster is that people are cynical enough to believe and continue to popularise this myth. Most people think of themselves as fundamentally good . Considering someone who has made decisions based on (well-argued) ethical beliefs to be dangerous would contradict their image of self. And if there's one thing people abhor, it's being inconsistent in their believes about themselves. Ergo: nobody not working for…

I think at least part of the hiring problem for the next employer has to do with the amount of effort involved to get the whole story. I’ve been with two organizations that hired a “radioactive” whistleblower with two very different conclusions.

In the first case the President put in quite a lot of effort and determined the person probably acted ethically before extending the offer. The individual (later proven correct) was exceedingly grateful and has since been incredibly loyal to the organization. He absolutely could have been recruited away a thousand times since but he hasn’t left because they gave him a chance when no one else would. His hiring has been, without a doubt, an excellent investment.

The second case was more or less the complete opposite. The CEO hired a friend who had been a “whistleblower”. His claims against his prior employer weren’t entirely without merit but it later became clear they were... tenuous. And it turned out he was a giant headache. He was difficult to work with, made mountains out of molehills, and didn’t last long at the company. The company lost quite a bit of money getting rid of him, the CEO lost a lot of respect internally, and he lost a friend. I think it’s unlikely the CEO would ever consider hiring a whistleblower again.

I don’t think companies or hiring managers see a whistleblower and are immediately turned off by the prospect of hiring someone with morals. It’s more that there are two sides to every story and they often don’t think it’s worth the effort to get the information necessary to make the decision: is this person a problem-solver or a problem-starter? If there’s another candidate with 90% of the qualifications that doesn’t require similar vetting it’s just easier and less risky to hire that person instead.

That being said, I’ve seen first hand that if you’re willing to do a little due diligence a recent whistleblower can be a really fantastic hire.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#364

Post by JoeAltmaier » Mon, May 04, 2020, 3:02 PM UTC

qppo wrote: post #326

Miner49er wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's not really the case. It doesn't matter if something is done on the basis of race or sex. If the end result hurts those groups disproportionately it's racist/sexist. I guess this just may be a difference in definitions, but I think when most people are talking about racism/sexism on a macro level, they are using this definition. You're right, the broader issue is worker's rights, but it's definitely worth p…

You're basically identifying the difference between institutionalized racism and individual racists.

Getting pedantic here. Folks can 'see' race and not be racist. The Census taker for instance. Or the affirmative-action recruiter.

To be meaningful, conventional racism has to include damage. Its an old debate technique for racists to complain that affirmative action is 'reverse racism'. Because, you see, it sees race and takes action.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#365

Post by iandanforth » Mon, May 04, 2020, 3:02 PM UTC

enitihas wrote: post #88

mercury_craze wrote: post #81

Amazon 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…

Wegmans is another good example. Decent company, happy workers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wegmans

Re: Bye, Amazon

#366

Post by ashconnor » Mon, May 04, 2020, 3:02 PM UTC

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #2

> 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…

Assuming Tim is in Canada he's probably not eligible for Employment Insurance too.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#367

Post by supergeek133 » Mon, May 04, 2020, 3:03 PM UTC

this2shallPass wrote: post #339

supergeek133 wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a two way street. If you've never been involved at a management or ownership level of a business that has "low pay" labor (e.g., food service, warehouse, retail sales). For every 2-3 decent workers there is one that just takes pure advantage of the environment (e.g., stealing product, stealing time, etc). Sometimes this occurs at great cost for a period of time before it is discovered. EDIT: This was…

Thankfully no "high pay" labor ever just takes pure advantage of the environment (e.g., stealing product, stealing time, etc) ;) And never at great cost for a period of time before it is discovered. Pay might be a factor. I think people are people, and their behavior and beliefs vary.

I completely agree, but we, as a society tend to look down more on the low paid people who do this versus the high paid ones.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#368

Post by da_chicken » Mon, May 04, 2020, 3:03 PM UTC

sargun wrote: post #121

stupidcar wrote: post #20

> 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…

I briefly worked on a timekeeping system (the one that records work hours). When I started running it against real data, I hit some bugs. The system was reporting that people had worked a few hours rather than a full shift. I had no idea how this could happen. When I started digging into the data, it became obvious. People were punching in at 08:00 on Monday, and wouldn't punch out until something like 12:00 on Frida…

> It's not so much the individual being bad that's bad, it's that in industries where profit margin is razor thin, an individual can have an outsized effect on the group.

If a business isn't capable of supporting it's labor at a rate where their employees can maintain their cost of living, then that business has already failed. It means the business subsidizing the cost of goods and services with the quality of life of the employees providing those goods and services. That's not a sustainable economic model, because it means those same workers are effectively excluded from the economy; they're only able to participate with essential goods and services, which harms the markets for anything else by artificially constraining demand. That means economics of scale won't pay off, which increases the effects of overhead on business.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#369

Post by defnotashton2 » Mon, May 04, 2020, 3:04 PM UTC

DagAgren wrote: post #300

OJFord wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think GP meant that everyone who works in a warehouse should be joining 'coding bootcamps' and striving to become '10x ninja devs' instead. I took it as referring to people working hard (or to varying degrees) through compulsory education, and sometimes choosing to continue it. We need people working in warehouses too!

We absolutely need people working in warehouses. Our society would collapse far faster without them than if all of us reading this would go away. And that means we need to treat them with respect, and pay them properly.

I'm not disagreeing people deserve respect. But with automation do we need people in factories? Answer is no.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#370

Post by schnischna » Mon, May 04, 2020, 3:04 PM UTC

bluntfang wrote: post #174

Someone wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“perhaps it makes it possible to give people jobs who don't deserve automatic trust. Such people exist, unfortunately.” They may exist, but I doubt there are enough of them, even in Amazon’s warehouses, to warrant the draconian rules for all employees. I also think people more behave that way then that they are that way. The way you treat your personnel will affect whether they behave like that.

>The way you treat your personnel will affect whether they behave like that. Anecdotally, I have family members that run a business that require low skilled workers. They don't really need full time workers, so they hire part-time and don't pay a living wage to them, even though it is viable to their business to do so. So what do they get? They get unreliable people. People who steal from them. People who don't clock…

It's a nice thought. But where would all the unreliable people work then? Or you think they would just become reliable if they would get paid more? That seems unlikely to me. There are unreliable rich people, too. People with gambling addictions or drug habits. More money doesn't automatically cure bad habits.