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Amazon shut down a Slack channel where 2k employees talked about PIPs

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Re: Amazon shut down a Slack channel where 2k employees talked about PIPs

#2
Corporate Slack instances are probably not a great place to discuss such things. One could in a pinch fire up one of the ssh chat daemons [1] on an EC2 assuming that most of the employees are familiar with using SSH. There is a demo documented in that git repo. People can ssh under a pseudonym rather than using a real name. The daemon uses private keys to track identity so make a new SSH key specific to that server. Not my repo but the maintainer is here on HN.

    # append to ~/.ssh/config
    # ssh-keygen -q -t rsa -b 2048 -N "" -C "chat" -f ~/.ssh/ssh-chat
    Host chat
        Hostname some-ec2-ip
        Port 22
        User some-username
        IdentityFile ~/.ssh/ssh-chat
        # Go's ssh lib is old
        HostkeyAlgorithms +ssh-rsa
        PubkeyAcceptedKeyTypes +ssh-rsa
Another quick, lightweight and simple option is uMurmur but it would require people installing Mumble on their laptop or Mumla on their phone so that's extra friction.

[1] - https://github.com/quackduck/devzat

Re: Amazon shut down a Slack channel where 2k employees talked about PIPs

#3

Corporate Slack instances are probably not a great place to discuss such things. One could in a pinch fire up one of the ssh chat daemons [1] on an EC2 assuming that most of the employees are familiar with using SSH. There is a demo documented in that git repo. People can ssh under a pseudonym rather than using a real name. The daemon uses private keys to track identity so make a new SSH key specific to that server.…

https://slack.com/pricing/free for expediency, https://mattermost.com/ as you scale. Make it easy to onboard folks in the org from their personal devices, no corp devices.

Re: Amazon shut down a Slack channel where 2k employees talked about PIPs

#4

Corporate Slack instances are probably not a great place to discuss such things. One could in a pinch fire up one of the ssh chat daemons [1] on an EC2 assuming that most of the employees are familiar with using SSH. There is a demo documented in that git repo. People can ssh under a pseudonym rather than using a real name. The daemon uses private keys to track identity so make a new SSH key specific to that server.…

I have no clue why anybody would use work slack for anything more than friendly conversation. The idea of using company-monitored communications to discuss dissatisfaction with your jobs is insane to me

Re: Amazon shut down a Slack channel where 2k employees talked about PIPs

#6
Amazon had an “anonymous” internal Slack channel where you could discuss pay by using a bot to post on your behalf. It was called #pay-equity and there was another one called #pay-equity-discussion.

I’m surprised anyone is crazy enough to try to work through a pip. They give you the choice of trying to work through an impossible, subjective list of requirements or take a severance that’s one month severance for each year you worked there + the partial year or “leave Amazon”.

If you fail the PIP you only get 1/3 of the amount.

If you appeal and lose you only get 1/2 of the 1/3.

Who would want to work there after they have already showed their true colors?

Amazon ain’t that serious to work for.

I worked there remotely knowing full well what Amazon was about from day one. It was my 8th job. I made my money, put it on my resume and gladly chose to “Leave Amazon” with a decent severance and had a job within three weeks.

People who choose to try to fight and stay after a PIP is like begging to stay in an abusive relationship.

Re: Amazon shut down a Slack channel where 2k employees talked about PIPs

#7

Amazon had an “anonymous” internal Slack channel where you could discuss pay by using a bot to post on your behalf. It was called #pay-equity and there was another one called #pay-equity-discussion. I’m surprised anyone is crazy enough to try to work through a pip. They give you the choice of trying to work through an impossible, subjective list of requirements or take a severance that’s one month severance for each…

If you're looking for a serious answer, not everyone has the extreme privilege of being as in demand and finding another job quickly, particularly in this economy. People may also have financial situations where they need to hold on to whatever hope they can of a job because it is less scary than taking the money and then taking the leap.

I generally agree a company who has pipped you is effectively saying they want you gone outside of rare companies and circumstances. But don't presume that everyone's circumstances are your own.

Re: Amazon shut down a Slack channel where 2k employees talked about PIPs

#8

Amazon had an “anonymous” internal Slack channel where you could discuss pay by using a bot to post on your behalf. It was called #pay-equity and there was another one called #pay-equity-discussion. I’m surprised anyone is crazy enough to try to work through a pip. They give you the choice of trying to work through an impossible, subjective list of requirements or take a severance that’s one month severance for each…

What reasoning did your manager provide when putting you on the pip? That’s also not there worst severance. I assumed you didn’t get anything.

Re: Amazon shut down a Slack channel where 2k employees talked about PIPs

#9
Why did Amazon close this?

Were people succeeding their PIPs? Isn't that a good thing?

Were people discovering that they were in secret pre-PIP (pivot), and then giving up earlier than the company wanted?

Were people taking the severance instead of working themselves to death just to get fired anyway?

Was there mounting evidence that Pivot/PIP at Amazon is quota-based, not performance-based?

Were employees getting wise to how performance is documented, and either documenting their own side, or interfering with the company's documentation efforts, which increases legal risk?

Re: Amazon shut down a Slack channel where 2k employees talked about PIPs

#10
post #7

Amazon had an “anonymous” internal Slack channel where you could discuss pay by using a bot to post on your behalf. It was called #pay-equity and there was another one called #pay-equity-discussion. I’m surprised anyone is crazy enough to try to work through a pip. They give you the choice of trying to work through an impossible, subjective list of requirements or take a severance that’s one month severance for each…

If you're looking for a serious answer, not everyone has the extreme privilege of being as in demand and finding another job quickly, particularly in this economy. People may also have financial situations where they need to hold on to whatever hope they can of a job because it is less scary than taking the money and then taking the leap. I generally agree a company who has pipped you is effectively saying they want…

I worked as an average CRUD developer in Atlanta and first landed at AWS (ProServe) at 46 years old. I never did a coding interview in my entire life and didn’t do one for that job. That was my first job at any company of note.

I had only opened the AWS console two years prior.

When you get a PIP at Amazon you might as well give up. Would you rather give up $40K+ or $20k 6 weeks later or $7K when your appeal fails. I was making less than the average software developer at Amazon 5 years out of school or one working for any major tech company. Why weren’t they saving money? I knew what Amazon was about why didn’t they?

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