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From Burned Out Tech CEO to Amazon Warehouse Associate

jasonshen.com

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Re: From Burned Out Tech CEO to Amazon Warehouse Associate

#261

Post by grepfru_it »

brushfoot wrote: post #168
tristor wrote: post #61

I read the article, and... I get it. But something about this just seems weird to me. I grew up mostly on a family farm, worked every day of my life in some capacity since I was 9 or 10 years old, and did shit jobs to pay for college (which I eventually dropped out of right before graduation). I don't think my route into tech is that different from many of the other folks I've worked with... this guy lived a /very/ c…

> this guy lived a /very/ charmed and privileged existence His experience in tech doesn't sound so charmed to me. He was obsessed with climbing the corporate ladder. He slept in the office and woke up early every morning to start grinding again. He worked so much he didn't even have time to play a game with his son. He tried another kind of work to see how it compared, and he learned stuff. There's nothing patronizin…

A) that’s how Microsoft functions I had a director comment on how productive I was when I worked 60-70 hour weeks, how unproductive I was when I worked 40 hours. Coworkers would regularly work 6am-6pm plus respond to messages overnight.

B) in my early years I too worked my butt off in a very similar manner thinking this was The Way(tm) until I realized I was burning myself out (though if I was making Microsoft money back then I’m sure I would have accepted it) so maybe this is a rite of passage. Or maybe I’m still harboring completely unacceptable norms

Re: From Burned Out Tech CEO to Amazon Warehouse Associate

#262

Post by ornornor »

bxtt wrote: post #247

My parents post-retirement after not working for 10+ years both found roles at an Amazon Fulfillment Center - one at the ship dock and the other in returns. They are both in their 70s and built a nice nest for themselves, neither need it for the money. In fact, my dad was a machine learning professor, multiple publications, and they ran a small medium sized business for 20+ years (at their peak they were running 80M…

But then why enable such a shitty company actively working at eroding human dignity at work and make a billionaire asshole even richer instead if doing actual good like working at, say, a food bank or ant other charity?

Re: From Burned Out Tech CEO to Amazon Warehouse Associate

#263

Post by combatentropy »

helen___keller wrote: post #3

> For me, a lot of my meaning comes from two things. One is doing something in the world that feels like it's actually making things a little better somehow. And so contributing to society in some meaningful way. > But the other thing is socialization with my coworkers is a huge part of my daily satisfaction in a job. You might be free Monday through Friday but all of your friends are working when you want to grab co…

I came here to say the same thing and was glad to see someone else already did. So I simply upvoted you.

I might add that also he was looking for two more things that some times also are rejuvenating:

(c) physical exercise

(d) a relief from decision fatigue: "I did not want to be asked to make a lot of decisions everyday. . . . I wanted literally to be told what to do every day and I wanted that structure to be rigorous." This can get old after a while too, but routine can be a nice change for a while, if every day you at your old job you had to be a creative or always solve new problems, like if you were a designer, director, etc.

Re: From Burned Out Tech CEO to Amazon Warehouse Associate

#264

Post by junofan »

Bakary wrote: post #159
rib3ye wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does someone trying to understand something through first-hand experience get an -ism? I wish every white-collar role, especially c-suite and director level person at Amazon took the time to work on the warehouse floor, first-hand.

But there is no actual understanding. The person in question thinks it's a quaint little experience. The part about the food takeout illustrates this well: no comprehension about actually having to do this sort of labor your entire life. If this article does not seem like parody straight out of HBO's Silicon Valley I am not sure what to say

I think you’re judging this guy too harshly. It’s an entry-level job with everything spelled out and a very clear path to advancement. Anyone spending their entire life doing it knows exactly what choices they’re making. I could maybe see your point if this guy was trying to work as a carpenter or something.

Re: From Burned Out Tech CEO to Amazon Warehouse Associate

#265

Post by _huayra_ »

duped wrote: post #208
avgDev wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason I as a dev earn a lot more than our order picker where I work is that the software I have built is speeding up everything. I created massive improvements in efficiency. My high salary is justified because my work has a much bigger impact on the finances. It is that simple. I interview often to get a true market rate. Nobody would pay me what I'm making if the market for devs wasn't this good.

You're paid what it costs for you not to work somewhere else. This is largely decoupled from how much value you create. The only kind of compensation that is correlated to value are sales commissions, which most devs don't make. A lot of us get deluded from the fact that we're highly skilled labor that takes a ton of training and skill sets most people don't have, while at the moment we make products with zero margin…

> You're paid what it costs for you not to work somewhere else. This is largely decoupled from how much value you create.

I bet quite a number of HNers have liked a given workplace, but done the "job boomerang" where they jumped over to a much higher paying (but less desirable to them) job, only to jump back to their preferred place at much MUCH higher pay.

I hate interviewing as much as the next person, but it is the only way to actually get closer to what one is worth.

Trying to just save up for when the AI gets so good all of us will be going to FCs like this story /s

Re: From Burned Out Tech CEO to Amazon Warehouse Associate

#268

Post by [deleted] »

Barrin92 wrote: post #235
eckza wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why deny his experience, though? Because it was an option. He treated it like poverty tourism, like a middle-class youth group "missions trip" to build huts for third-world natives. Good on him for having an epiphany, but I'd wager that he'd have a different perspective if he had to do that job long past his soft-handed tendonitis episode in order to feed his family that he barely mentioned in his interview. Imagin…

>He treated it like poverty tourism, like a middle-class youth group "missions trip" to build huts for third-world natives. He literally didn't though if you read the piece, he's very aware of the nature of a rich guy going to work a manual job > "I am not going to bill an Amazon job as some sort of upper-middle-class panacea, something you go do just like you go enroll in survivalist camps or silent retreats. The jo…

[deleted]

Re: From Burned Out Tech CEO to Amazon Warehouse Associate

#269

Post by BlargMcLarg »

osigurdson wrote: post #243
mancerayder wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps, but the epidemic of sedentary lifestyle has lead to a large suite of problems, ranging from miserable back pain to cardiovascular problems to diabetes. The average office worker can barely run a mile, do a pullup, squat below parallel with their bodyweight, or climb a flight of stairs without panting. Some of us spend hours a week compensating for this. If lifting boxes and carrying them around all day long…

>> You prefer to be in meetings for 6 hours a day and scramble to code in between them How did we possibly get to this and what shareholder or customer thinks this is a good idea?

It's the 2000s, talking about problems ad nauseam without solving them unless pressing has been the status quo for a few decades now.

Re: From Burned Out Tech CEO to Amazon Warehouse Associate

#270

Post by firstSpeaker »

I have seen multiple PhD students that when finished went to work on physical type of works. From fish gutting (If I used the right translation of the term) to forest works. Any of them I asked said something along the line of: they cannot take it anymore and it has been too intense to continue with anything that needs them to analyse and think.
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