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'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

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Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#381

Post by TheRealSteel »

merpnderp wrote: post #276
skrtskrt wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bezos has created nearly 200 billion dollars (!) of wealth for himself Bezos' employees have created nearly 200 billion dollars of wealth for Bezos

Your implication is that Bezos was inconsequential to the creation of all that brand new wealth. Surely you don't actually believe that and this is just your ideological rhetoric to further your politicized beliefs?

False dichotomy - they never said he was inconsequential, just that his workers have done the majority of the work - which is objectively true.

If Bezos didn't need those workers - if he genuinely created every cent of value in his empire on his own, picked and boxed and delivered every book himself - why did he ever hire anybody?

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#382

Post by TheRealSteel »

refurb wrote: post #354
stnmtn wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? The workers have created enormous value, more than any other time in the history of humanity. Why shouldn't we frame this in terms of where that value goes to?

Workers enter into an agreement - compensation for labor. There are plenty of people at Amazon who are now millionaires or very highly paid.

People have rent to pay. The "you agreed to it" argument only works if the person genuinely had other realistic options available to them. Nobody would work for peanuts and pee in bottles if they had another realistic option.

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#383

Post by nexuist »

argc wrote: post #194

As a current AWS employee, I can say I'm proud to be working for AWS (at least my organization) but incredibly embarrassed to be working for Amazon. I had written a much more scathing comment about the Amazon side of the business but I'm not sure what is allowed under hacker news's community guidelines.

At a risk of sounding holier-than-thou, this is why I never cared to apply to FAANG like my fellow CS students did. You can spend your entire career doing useful, impactful work that helps millions of people and all it takes is one out of touch bozo in management to pull some embarrassing stunt like this to ruin all the trust you've built with disadvantaged communities. Of course this is true for all large companies, but nobody fights fire with astroturfing quite like big tech. I wish these people would get it together so we wouldn't have to be ashamed of working for them.

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#384

Post by TheRealSteel »

ActorNightly wrote: post #320
marricks wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon warehouses have a far, far, higher turn over rate than other warehouses, probably because the conditions are so cruel. It’s really sad how many people get super invested in defending mega corporations. I hope it’s just employees trying to move up but you never know. https://labor411.org/411-blog/warehouse-worker-turnover-rate...

>Amazon warehouses have a far, far, higher turn over rate than other warehouses True >probably because the conditions are so cruel. Ugh, thats the crap I am talking about in the last sentence of my original post. There is nothing wrong with high turnover at a minimum wage manual labor job. Amazon hires seasonal workers that happily work overtime for $30 and then quit. Nobody is making a career out of being a warehous…

>Nobody is making a career out of being a warehouse associate.

The majority of people on Hacker News, yourself included (I can tell from your comments) have privilege that means we never had to consider something like making a career out of working in a warehouse. But this is absolutely a reality for alot of smart, hard working people, because they didn't have the opportunities you and me had.

If unionization didn't lead to better outcomes for workers, Bezos wouldn't care about it. If it was going to be so bad for workers, he would just let them do it and let them fail. The fact that Amazon is doing anything about it is proof that it will benefit workers.

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#385

Post by krick »

RandallBrown wrote: post #288
skohan wrote: post #3

I feel like authenticity of online communication is an unsolved problem. The web was supposed to be a democratizing platform: all you need to communicate with the world is an ISP and a keyboard. But if there's no way to control for authenticity, online sentiment will just be an arms race for who can pay for the best astroturfing.

Neal Stephenson's latest novel deals with this a little bit. The solution he found in the book basically involved signing everything with your own personal identifier and putting it into a blockchain so everyone could verify it.

"Fall; or, Dodge in Hell"? Is it worth reading? I think I've read only his Cryptonomicon, which was sort or good for a first half, and then rolling downhill ending with something so pompously pathetic I had to cringe sometimes.

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#386

Post by Natsu »

skohan wrote: post #3

I feel like authenticity of online communication is an unsolved problem. The web was supposed to be a democratizing platform: all you need to communicate with the world is an ISP and a keyboard. But if there's no way to control for authenticity, online sentiment will just be an arms race for who can pay for the best astroturfing.

> But if there's no way to control for authenticity, online sentiment will just be an arms race for who can pay for the best astroturfing.

I have bad news for you, but there's no way to control for authenticity.

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#387

Post by strken »

rhizome wrote: post #338
mrfredward wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 For Dietrich's version of it. He renames sociopaths, clueless, and losers to opportunists, idealists, and pragmatists, and in general tones the theory down a bit, and I think the result is something that is both more palatable and more reflective of reality. The opportunists see the corporate world for what it is and do what is best for their careers, the idealists believe in the shared corporate myths and put in…

Is the corporate world "what it is" without the actions of these categories of employees? You may have the causation arrow pointing the wrong way, because to me, being more "reflective of reality," it's better worded as, "the corporate world is composed of the decisions, actions, and personalities of (sociopaths|opportunists), (the clueless|idealists), (losers|pragmatists)." Your choice of terminology is only a value…

The words absolutely do change the meaning of the principles. The idea that actual literal sociopaths are common in corporations is much more contentious than opportunists being common. Losers implies that going home at 5pm because you have other things going on in your life is morally wrong, in a way that pragmatists doesn't. Clueless implies that believing in the corporation is wrong, in a way that idealists doesn't.

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#388

Post by thebigman433 »

ActorNightly wrote: post #309
pavel_lishin wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unionization is messing with the free market Your conception of what "free market" means is wrong, and the thing you're imagining has never existed. Anyway, here's a few other things that mess with "the free market" as much as unionization: - Workplace safety laws - Environmental protection laws - Minimum wage laws - Accounting regulations

Hmm its almost like goverment regulations that apply to ALL companies are somehow different than selectively unionizing the labor force of a certain company or sector. Where are all the comments about Walmart unionization?

> Where are all the comments about Walmart unionization?

You would probably see more of these in regular times, when there isnt an absolutely massive push for Amazon unionization at this very moment.

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#389

Post by tommilukkarinen »

taormina wrote: post #103
TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For decades, I never thought people who kiss ass could have been serious. I was sure they were just cynically playing a game of advancement, and I despised them for it. What I've come to learn -- as disappointing as it is to me -- is that some people view this sort of thing as actual, legitimate opportunity, and are acting out of internal integrity. They don't see the hypocrisy of the power imbalance and how the comp…

https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-... This is a fantastic read.

This article is interestingly promotes kinda flawed communist thinking about 'overperforming losers'.

Most companies make 'reasonable' profits or even losses. You could say normal range for profits is -5% to +10%. When the company is people intensive, it basically means, that revenue is paid in salaries.

For better salaries to be paid, profits must grow first. For profits to grow, existing people must perform better. If profits don't grow, salaries can't follow.

Now when profits grow, we face a decision on how to split the new profits, and it does not always fall on the existing employees. Sometimes profits go into hiring new people, sometimes they go into pockets of the owners. But I have also often seen in my 25 year career, that performers are compensated.

I have also always seen the costs rise, and the costs been mostly salaries. So profits eventually go to the pockets of the employees.

So actually it is good idea for everyone to perform, because if the profit growth stops, salary growth stops as well.

Anyway, my bottom line is that this 'sociopath, clueless, loser' is flawed thinking, but probably something people genuinely believe in just like many people believe that vaccines are bad.

Re: 'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter

#390

Post by xtat »

hooande wrote: post #71

No way a company with the resources of Amazon is using several day old twitter accounts with first google result profile pictures. This is the equivalent of someone spray painting "We hate workers! signed, Amazon" on a wall I don't think even twitter can verify who made those accounts because it's so easy to vpn and use google voice numbers. You can choose what to believe, though

it could be consultants
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