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I lasted three minutes at Amazon

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Re: I lasted three minutes at Amazon

#91

Post by crooked-v »

torbTurret wrote: post #57

After reading that, I can’t help but feel like this is just someone experiencing awful anxiety and unable to cope with work: “ I go home absolutely drained and i didn’t even do anything. I wake up with the worst existential dread I’ve ever experienced. I cried for an hour straight. Not because amazon specifically, but for the broader state of labor in general. Sometimes id rather die then suffer until I die from an i…

The experience here, particularly being told to be at a workstation immediately without being told where that workstation is, goes well past mere anxiety into Kakfaesque absurdity.

Re: I lasted three minutes at Amazon

#92

Post by ushakov »

908B64B197 wrote: post #70
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

> 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. T…

what would be your suggestion then? become a 10x developer?

i think we should stop competing and just self-employ ourselves

Re: I lasted three minutes at Amazon

#93

Post by ProjectArcturis »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #90
hhmc wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

There was a new article a few months ago about Amazon being worried about that very thing. So they're aware of it but corporate America has an ace up their sleeve they can always rely on: work visas. Politicians aren't going to say no when Amazon wants to import guest workers. Amazon done it for the white collar workers for decades, no doubt they'll be quite happy to do it with their blue collar workforce too.

I think there would be enormous political pushback by elements of both parties to expanding the guest worker program to unskilled labor.

Re: I lasted three minutes at Amazon

#94

Post by MerelyMortal »

poulsbohemian wrote: post #52
Bostonian wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the last sentence is unrealistic. People work at Amazon or any other company because that's the best job they can find. A large fraction of the population does not have the brains for high-end white-collar work.

What's nutty to me though is that we don't have enough of any kind of skilled tradespeople either. Electricians, plumbers, carpenters, cabinet makers, roofers - and I know it isn't just isolated to my geographic area. I've got a friend who is in the middle of building a luxury home to sell - he's basically doing all the work himself because he can't find guys who will just show up , stay off drugs on the job (hazardo…

I've annecdotally heard that appraisers do not make good money.

However after getting several houses inspected, making good money doing that, I can believe.

Re: I lasted three minutes at Amazon

#95

Post by mikewave »

version_five wrote: post #54
throwawaylinux wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your feeling on the state of labor? The state of Amazon's blue collar working conditions are widely considered to be crap of course, and there are a lot of complaints about labor laws, unions, outsourcing and immigration, etc. I didn't quite see how he connected the issues in the post though. I mean beyond state of labor = not good (and maybe that's all you were saying too).

I was broadly agreeing with the poster that it's worth crying over. Without writing an essay, automation (and I mean mainly business process automation) has sucked the humanity out of work (maybe its always been that way), and people are treated at "resources". This happens at all levels but is worst, to the point of being potentially inhumane, in low skill jobs.

I think it's important to note that it has sucked the humanity out of levels of worker above the bottom-of-the-pole labourer, as well; the HR people and trainers in the post are similarly labourers, though instead of using their muscles they're using their words; but they're still required to work like hands of the automation, with scheduled onboarding sessions and processes they have to follow.

Given enough time, and a smooth process, eventually this should not be so painful; but when it is painful, it is supposed to be the job of a human (especially once in HR) to act as a bridge between process and person, so as to keep morale at a good level and to provide a channel for feedback from employees up to the teams responsible for process automation. It doesn't sound like this is in place here, at all; instead we have people who are displaying all the signs of not caring about the human anymore because they have become so subservient to the machine that they cannot afford to.

Re: I lasted three minutes at Amazon

#96

Post by crooked-v »

tux3 wrote: post #66
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.

Well, as one prerequisite for further torment, you'd need a system that actually allows employees to work for some period of time, rather than the first-day experience being "lol I dunno, also figure it out yourself or you're fired".

Re: I lasted three minutes at Amazon

#97

Post by mypalmike »

dekhn wrote: post #47
preetamjinka wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. Do SWE/SDE roles also involve drug tests and orientations?

Sure (to orientations). Here's how a pre-COVID SWE orientation at Google (for folks in professional jobs in Mountain View, not data center contractors in The Dalles): there is a dedicated lobby and theater with multiple people staffing the area welcoming you in. You're handed a laptop, configure your credentials, log in, access benefits, etc, then sit down for a couple motivating videos/speeches and some details on y…

Same experience more or less exactly at Amazon hq in Seattle. The sheer number of people onboarding every week in that room was kind of stunning.

Re: I lasted three minutes at Amazon

#99

Post by ProjectArcturis »

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.

Most of the top posts have very similar construction:

Employee: I can't come in today for a very good reason.

Boss (rudely): You have to come in or you're fired.

Employee: I quit.

+1000 karma

Re: I lasted three minutes at Amazon

#100

Post by kbelder »

crooked-v wrote: post #78
poulsbohemian wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's nutty to me though is that we don't have enough of any kind of skilled tradespeople either. Electricians, plumbers, carpenters, cabinet makers, roofers - and I know it isn't just isolated to my geographic area. I've got a friend who is in the middle of building a luxury home to sell - he's basically doing all the work himself because he can't find guys who will just show up , stay off drugs on the job (hazardo…

If people aren't doing it, then the money isn't reasonable.

Or the people are irrational and self-destructive.
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