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I lasted three minutes at Amazon

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Re: I lasted three minutes at Amazon

#61

Post by ProjectArcturis »

mherdeg wrote: post #17

Hmm this is an interesting anecdote to compare against the view ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29459245 ) that: > In the Earnings Call in July of this year, they said they now employe 950,000 warehouse workers. They're probably over the 1 MM mark right now due to the holidays. Yes, there are plenty of people working there that are overqualified, but that is the beauty of what Amazon is doing. Their onboarding…

That's... not an anecdote?

Also, fun math question: if they have 1MM workers, and hire 500k every year, what is their turnover rate?

Re: I lasted three minutes at Amazon

#62

Post by ineedasername »

I know Amazon isn't known for the same work environment as other SV places, but most of this post are about HR issues. And HR is awful in lots of places, and not representative of the rest of a workplace.

Maybe at Amazon it is representative? But it's often not.

Re: I lasted three minutes at Amazon

#63

Post by csours »

mherdeg wrote: post #17

Hmm this is an interesting anecdote to compare against the view ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29459245 ) that: > In the Earnings Call in July of this year, they said they now employe 950,000 warehouse workers. They're probably over the 1 MM mark right now due to the holidays. Yes, there are plenty of people working there that are overqualified, but that is the beauty of what Amazon is doing. Their onboarding…

If you hire 500,000 people per year, you may be rejecting 500,000 people per year. Where and how you reject them may also be bad stories.

Re: I lasted three minutes at Amazon

#64

Post by hoten »

idontwantthis wrote: post #24

I highly mistrust anything on /r/antiwork. So many of the posts are the “and everyone clapped” variety but get hundreds or thousands of upvotes, I’m pretty sure it’s at least half a troll karma farm.

Content from that subreddit has gotten a ton of play on social media in recent months. It does seem the most viral stories from the subreddit are embellished, but I can't pinpoint why they seem that way.

Re: I lasted three minutes at Amazon

#65

Post by whoknowswhat11 »

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…

You'll appreciate that HR is done through an app. If you want to quit you can literally do that on the app, no need to talk to anyone. Same with apply for the job, accepting your offer, etc. It's mostly computerized.

That said, it's not THAT hard to get through process, and something of the steps are just filter. We don't know the posters work history / capacity / etc. We do know amazon probably cares very little that this person made it only 3 minutes?

I did hear that for older workers they have a work hardening process during peak to try to harden up workers a bit more gradually to be able to handle full shifts.

Re: I lasted three minutes at Amazon

#66

Post by tux3 »

version_five wrote: post #14

I clicked feeling like it would be impossible to give them a fair chance in 3 minutes, but reading it I definitely am on the workers side and he gave them way more than 3 min. This is a Kafka level story, having long dealings with an obviously incompetent and labyrinthine organization, only to be immediately penalized for the slightest miss on his own part. Especially the "if you're not at your workstation in one min…

Kafka is one way to look at it, but if anything the description of the process evokes The Good Place to me.

It must be an accident that the process is so catastrophically bad that it leaves new hires drained and crying. But you'd almost start to wonder how much worse you could really make it, if you were optimizing for "plausibly deniable torment”. I don't have it in me to imagine how.

Re: I lasted three minutes at Amazon

#67

Post by rowanajmarshall »

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.

There was this chap about 150 years ago, wrote about the alienation from labour caused by breaking down jobs into tiny, mindless motions that slowly eat away at your sense of self.

This stuff isn't new.

Re: I lasted three minutes at Amazon

#68

Post by grp000 »

diveanon wrote: post #37
ushakov wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think it captures the main point that Amazon hiring procedures for 99.9% of people are based on optimizing their bottom line. If they want something specific, they'll acquire it/copy the idea. Backend optimizations/tooling stuff I don't know. Maybe they're recruiting those people based on their research credentials.

Re: I lasted three minutes at Amazon

#69

Post by hhmc »

mherdeg wrote: post #17

Hmm this is an interesting anecdote to compare against the view ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29459245 ) that: > In the Earnings Call in July of this year, they said they now employe 950,000 warehouse workers. They're probably over the 1 MM mark right now due to the holidays. Yes, there are plenty of people working there that are overqualified, but that is the beauty of what Amazon is doing. Their onboarding…

At what workforce size/turnover do you run into the issue that you might churn through your entire countrywide hiring pool?

Re: I lasted three minutes at Amazon

#70

Post by 908B64B197 »

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

> you are just as replaceable and the interview process is only there to filter out the bad candidates

That's one way of running a tech company but what you'll end up with is going to look more like one of those comically bad bodyshops that's used for outsourcing. These have a turnover so high it's almost impossible to find someone with more than two years of experience. And, well, the results speak for themselves.

Truth is there are people out there that are trying really hard to commoditize software engineering, with bootcamps and whatnot. And honestly, I'm not impressed one bit. Best way to build the best software (it's a winner take all market remember?) is simply to bite the bullet and go get the best talent out there. The 10x rule is well and alive.

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