Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Bye, Amazon

tbray.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

501–510 of 1001 posts

Re: Bye, Amazon

#501

Post by downerending »

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.

I suspect that those of us who worked our ways through school at menial jobs can think of many examples right off the top of our heads.

In my experience, "1/2" is too much (depending on how you define stealing). But it was quite common for both employees to steal from their employer, and for employers to steal (wages) from the employees.

It was also quite common for employees to simply walk off when they felt they'd had enough.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#503

Post by jshevek »

oppositelock wrote: post #485
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…

I can confirm this, having first hand experience with it. We hired many low-skill workers at a big tech company that you've heard of about ten years ago. These workers received a couple of weeks of training, and then were set to do a rather simple, menial, repetitive job. These workers didn't sell products, but did very low level tech work, but the entire operation was mired in drama. For example, we had a strict no…

I can see how dehumanization could be a common occurrence when "coming down hard" or "covering your butt", but I don't think it's intrinsic. Having and enforcing standards isn't intrinsically dehumanizing. Going too far in the other direction could also involve dehumanization, in the form of denying people's agency and capacity for personal responsibility.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#504

Post by flavmartins »

While I don’t disagree with the decision to step down from the organization, I’m always concerned that in the long run, if committed, principled individuals just leave the organization, who will be left to stand up for those who don’t have that option.

The Amazon warehouse workers certainly don’t have the power in the organization. And they don’t have the representation at the highest management levels of the organization. So if the ones that do in the VP and Director roles leave, who will standup for them?

Re: Bye, Amazon

#505

Post by LatteLazy »

I think a lot of the reason people hate on Amazon is just bad PR. Plenty of other companies are just as bad, or worse. Walmart has been a shit hole long before Amazon even existed and its worse than amazon. But Amazon steadfastly refuse to pretend they care. Bezos isn't constantly paying people to lie and pretend Amazon is a family and its workers are deeply valued.

Perversely, I actually think that's more honest and more likely to bring about changes to actually help workers...

Re: Bye, Amazon

#506

Post by TYPE_FASTER »

zelon88 wrote: post #412
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…

> This makes companies take extreme policy measures... Governing to the lowest denominator is just poor management. > ...because the financial impact is so disproportionate... For who? Bob "steals" an hour of overtime worth $25 but he's still in your facility at your disposal. God forbid... > "If you pay me more I won't act like this" This I agree with. You get what you pay for. Period. > But depending on the busines…

> Instead we crutch along shitty businesses for no reason.

The cost of healthcare to employers has more than tripled over the last 17 years[1]. We're not "crutching them along," we are passively watching as opportunities to grow are eroded by rising costs.

[1] - https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BF-AU065A_INSUR_9...

Re: Bye, Amazon

#507

Post by voldacar »

solarwind wrote: post #427
generalpass wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a shocker that the upper middle-class users of HN immediately vote down a perspective on the world that they have never been exposed to. It must all be a lie, right? And even more shocking is the cowards can't even leave a comment. This is pervasive now and makes for terrible communities.

[flagged]

[flagged]

Re: Bye, Amazon

#508

Post by cbsmith »

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…

There's also the reality that "low-skilled" really means "there's more supply of the skill than there is demand", or "depends purely on a skill that can be developed, as opposed to natural talent/advantage that few people have".

Re: Bye, Amazon

#509

Post by smoe »

bob33212 wrote: post #189
nicoburns wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Very few people would have the courage to walk away from big sums of money purely on principle. On the contrary, bucketloads of people do this all the time. The world would be a better place if more people did.

Warren Buffet's has a famous quote about time being the only valuable thing he has. Once you have enough money to cover food/housing/healthcare/transportation it seems stupid to spend a lot of your time helping an organization that you don't like, even if they are paying you well. What is impressive here is that he make his decision public. Plenty of people have moral issues with their company and just say that they…

I wouldn't put the threshold at basic necessities. There are lots of people that are just barely better of than living from paycheck to paycheck for whom it is not easy to take the risk to quit a secure job.

But after you can afford having savings as well as a desired lifestyle it always struck me as odd to still have money as the main factor on deciding where to work and why you would ever want to deal with a workplace you actively dislike.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#510

Post by radlad »

oppositelock wrote: post #485
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…

I can confirm this, having first hand experience with it. We hired many low-skill workers at a big tech company that you've heard of about ten years ago. These workers received a couple of weeks of training, and then were set to do a rather simple, menial, repetitive job. These workers didn't sell products, but did very low level tech work, but the entire operation was mired in drama. For example, we had a strict no…

Maybe you can work on your hiring practices? Even for low-skill jobs, you can hire for soft skills.

edit: I am being downvoted and don't know why. Can you please explain what's wrong with this idea? I think the parent paints a false dichotomy.

For example - another option is to deal with problematic individuals on an individual basis. You don't have to ruin the entire company culture.

Post reply on HN