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I lasted three minutes at Amazon

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Re: I lasted three minutes at Amazon

#31

Post by beaconstudios »

Waterluvian wrote: post #22

I don’t mean to be rude to those who are seeking a living, but let’s call this what it is. It’s not a hiring process. There is no interview. They aren’t interested in working with you to figure out if you’re a good fit for each other. They’re trawling the ocean and filtering the catch through drug and background tests. They process countless people every day, constantly replacing others who have broken down or reache…

and in the meantime, we need to counterbalance the power of such corporations with workers' rights and union representation. I'm all on board for fully automated luxury c̶o̶m̶m̶u̶n̶i̶s̶m̶ democracy, but we still need to get through the next 500 years before that happens.

Re: I lasted three minutes at Amazon

#32

Post by nexuist »

johnny35 wrote: post #4

Systematizing and optimizing every detail of operations to create as large of a pool as possible of positions requiring the least possible skill, reducing the cost of turnover, training, and management complexity... seems to be externalizing a heavy toll on mental health. Regulation can tackle many cases of "socialized losses, privatized gains" but I am at a loss to understand how we can mitigate this one.

Other than the drug test it didn't seem like there was a single thing OP was required to do that wouldn't be solved by automation. At my current job we set up direct deposit, filled out info for background checks, completed training videos and quizzes, etc. all through online forms. Everyone OP interacted with shouldn't even be in the picture.

It's a warehouse job; I struggle to see why you even need any humans in the loop above the workers at all. Clock in, move the boxes, mark tasks completed on your handheld, clock out. Frankly I have no idea why the people org as described by OP exists the way it does for a company known for its cloud services. None of these morons OP dealt with needed to be employed.

Re: I lasted three minutes at Amazon

#34

Post by jldugger »

stitched2gethr wrote: post #25
dekhn wrote: post #5

I had to read carefully into the article before I understood this is probably a fulfillment center job, not an AWS SWE.

I'm not convinced the distinction is that important.

Well, lets try taking a zero off your paycheck to confirm that then.

Re: I lasted three minutes at Amazon

#35

Post by version_five »

Waterluvian wrote: post #22

I don’t mean to be rude to those who are seeking a living, but let’s call this what it is. It’s not a hiring process. There is no interview. They aren’t interested in working with you to figure out if you’re a good fit for each other. They’re trawling the ocean and filtering the catch through drug and background tests. They process countless people every day, constantly replacing others who have broken down or reache…

Yeah, the idea of automation replacing manual labor to free the workers for higher value work never really panned out. All the free thought got automated and the only reason people are needed is because they are best at grabbing and manipulating arbitrarily shaped objects. It feels inhumane.

Re: I lasted three minutes at Amazon

#36

Post by CoastalCoder »

ushakov wrote: post #9
dekhn wrote: post #5

I had to read carefully into the article before I understood this is probably a fulfillment center job, not an AWS SWE.

what else did you expect from the antiwork subreddit? it's a boiler room for low-skilled wagies /s edit: c'mon people, stop the downvotes, this was a joke

I think the issue with your original comment was that it's wasn't obvious you were joking.

I guess that's just a limitation of this medium :)

Re: I lasted three minutes at Amazon

#37

Post by diveanon »

ushakov wrote: post #27
Waterluvian wrote: post #22

I don’t mean to be rude to those who are seeking a living, but let’s call this what it is. It’s not a hiring process. There is no interview. They aren’t interested in working with you to figure out if you’re a good fit for each other. They’re trawling the ocean and filtering the catch through drug and background tests. They process countless people every day, constantly replacing others who have broken down or reache…

isn't this the same with tech jobs though? you are just as replaceable and the interview process is only there to filter out the bad candidates it's only more intense because the cost/risk ratio is magnitudes higher

This is a gross simplification and really trivializes the struggle of people not privileged enough to work in our industry.

Re: I lasted three minutes at Amazon

#38

Post by systemvoltage »

Waterluvian wrote: post #22

I don’t mean to be rude to those who are seeking a living, but let’s call this what it is. It’s not a hiring process. There is no interview. They aren’t interested in working with you to figure out if you’re a good fit for each other. They’re trawling the ocean and filtering the catch through drug and background tests. They process countless people every day, constantly replacing others who have broken down or reache…

This is a ridiculous view. So then all software engineering is pressing the right keys on the keyboard at the right time just like a pianist.

Reductionism used to throw rocks at a labor intensive enterprise that Amazon is preposterous and distracting from real issues.

Re: I lasted three minutes at Amazon

#39

Post by lookalike74 »

beaconstudios wrote: post #10
johnny35 wrote: post #4

Systematizing and optimizing every detail of operations to create as large of a pool as possible of positions requiring the least possible skill, reducing the cost of turnover, training, and management complexity... seems to be externalizing a heavy toll on mental health. Regulation can tackle many cases of "socialized losses, privatized gains" but I am at a loss to understand how we can mitigate this one.

this reads like the opposite of a systematised process - this reads like a bunch of departments who don't talk to each other striving to check off tasks in the onboarding process without actually making any effort to complete the intent of the task. Which would make sense at a highly metric-driven company like Amazon.

It's a systematized process that's fractured and whoever you talk to in HR is either too arrogant to help or too ignorant to know how to. I worked for Amazon twice.

Re: I lasted three minutes at Amazon

#40

Post by rendang »

It appears like they have failed to "raise the bar" in hiring the HR reps/middle managers that the poster interacted with. Not surprising given how fast they've grown, and I'd imagine it is hard to find competent workers at that level.
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