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

businessinsider.com

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

#21

Post by scarface_74 »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #16
LinuxBender wrote: post #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.…

> 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. If you want any non-engineers in on your conversation, you absolutely should not assume that.

Yep, they could just fire up an EC2 instance after creating an AWS account on Isengard and go ham. /s

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

#22

Post by scarface_74 »

avidiax wrote: post #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 wi…

It wasn’t a secret that I was in pre-pip. But here is how it escalated

1. A project that I was peripherally involved in under a new project manager went bad and even after escalating I was made the scapegoat

2. My manager that I actually respected left shortly thereafter and the new manager put me on focus as their first act two days after I started reporting to them

3. I met all of the requirements to get off with flying colors and got perfect customer sat scores from two customers (Professional Services). I led both engagements. First goal accomplished. I lasted through a six month vesting event

4. The manager added on more requirements for me to get out of focus and told me a date to meet them. I met the requirements and the manager kept declining my meeting invites and I thought I was off.

5. Finally when they did have a meeting with me three weeks later after the deadline, the manager cooked up more things that I hadn’t done that wasn’t related to any of my projects and mostly geared toward my refusing not to take on a new project that I knew was going to fail on top of my current project that was going well and that would have had me working 60 hours + a week.

By the time #4 came up, I saw the writing on the wall and started putting feelers out. I was just waiting to be offered a severance. I had something basically already lined up.

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

#23

Post by scarface_74 »

coredog64 wrote: post #20
oldbbsnickname wrote: post #13

Wait a minute: does Amazon even tell white-collar employees they're being PIP'd? I though they just fired people without giving them any reason.

There’s a secret (to the employees) period pre-PIP where management is either collecting evidence of your inadequacy or setting you up to fail so they can hit URA quota. You’re absolutely notified your in PIP as you can just take the money and run.

It’s not a secret. They tell you your on “focus”.

Let me take that back. I knew I was on focus. But thought I was off since I had met all of the criteria and my manager went on radio silence for a month.

I mostly worked with project managers and customers (consulting division) day to day. That’s when my manager was finding things to use against me.

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

#24

Post by oldbbsnickname »

coredog64 wrote: post #20
oldbbsnickname wrote: post #13

Wait a minute: does Amazon even tell white-collar employees they're being PIP'd? I though they just fired people without giving them any reason.

There’s a secret (to the employees) period pre-PIP where management is either collecting evidence of your inadequacy or setting you up to fail so they can hit URA quota. You’re absolutely notified your in PIP as you can just take the money and run.

Which makes sense. Cool, wise managers would mention the pre-PIP possibility to otherwise good employees informally because surprises are Generally Bad™ for indicating a lack of transparency and mutual understanding between manager-employee. Performance reviews EOY or EOHalf should never be arbitrary or magical surprises, but a stack of accomplishments and positive "thanks" notes for specific assistance.

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

#25

Post by oldbbsnickname »

scarface_74 wrote: post #23
coredog64 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a secret (to the employees) period pre-PIP where management is either collecting evidence of your inadequacy or setting you up to fail so they can hit URA quota. You’re absolutely notified your in PIP as you can just take the money and run.

It’s not a secret. They tell you your on “focus”. Let me take that back. I knew I was on focus. But thought I was off since I had met all of the criteria and my manager went on radio silence for a month. I mostly worked with project managers and customers (consulting division) day to day. That’s when my manager was finding things to use against me.

Radio silence is generally ambiguous: either you're doing really well or really badly. xD

Meta is obsessed with "impact", a illusion of precisely-quantifiable innovation and productivity setting up perverse KPIs to never refactor, never invest in employee career development (because "the year of efficiency" and "we're moving to fast"), and never bother with anything other than looking good. And everything diff has to be reviewed by someone on your team, but if your team doesn't include actually seasoned coders, they're going to nit pick because they don't understand the programming language and take their time, slowing you down.

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

#26

Post by heisenbugs »

scarface_74 wrote: post #18
BoorishBears wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a 29 year old Black guy who was born in a 3rd world country, I think people underestimate what counts as a privilege.

When you get stopped by the police going home to your own neighborhood in a city where only 4% of the people look like you, it doesn’t matter where you are from…

When you get booted out of the country if you lose your job, it really doesn’t matter what neighborhood you lived in.

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

#27

Post by ryzvonusef »

scarface_74 wrote: post #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…

What %age of Amazon employees "pass" the PiP? is there even hope of succeeding, or PiP just an extra-advanced termination notice?

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

#28

Post by scarface_74 »

oldbbsnickname wrote: post #25
scarface_74 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not a secret. They tell you your on “focus”. Let me take that back. I knew I was on focus. But thought I was off since I had met all of the criteria and my manager went on radio silence for a month. I mostly worked with project managers and customers (consulting division) day to day. That’s when my manager was finding things to use against me.

Radio silence is generally ambiguous: either you're doing really well or really badly. xD Meta is obsessed with "impact", a illusion of precisely-quantifiable innovation and productivity setting up perverse KPIs to never refactor, never invest in employee career development (because "the year of efficiency" and "we're moving to fast"), and never bother with anything other than looking good. And everything diff has to…

so my success criteria in ProSerbe and metrics were simple - stay 80% billable, keep the customer happy and make sure my projects were done on time, on budget and met requirements.

No matter how hard my manager tries, they couldn’t get me on those metrics. Mind you that my manager is not involved in my day to day work. I worked witg project managers and other consultants.

My previous manager had left and my new manager went hard on me from day one. I had ever had any previous interaction with them. They couldn’t even find anyone to give me bad feedback internally or the customers during the focus periods.

The only thing the manager could do was try to keep adding more work on me until I refused or failed.

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

#29

Post by scarface_74 »

ryzvonusef wrote: post #27
scarface_74 wrote: post #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…

What %age of Amazon employees "pass" the PiP? is there even hope of succeeding, or PiP just an extra-advanced termination notice?

Who knows? The only way I would gamble on succeeding or getting half my compensation would be to bye time if I were here on status and the minute I lose my job the clock started ticking and I would have to leave the country.

I guess if I were close to my next vesting date I would have tried to hang on.

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

#30

Post by ipaddr »

scarface_74 wrote: post #29
ryzvonusef wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What %age of Amazon employees "pass" the PiP? is there even hope of succeeding, or PiP just an extra-advanced termination notice?

Who knows? The only way I would gamble on succeeding or getting half my compensation would be to bye time if I were here on status and the minute I lose my job the clock started ticking and I would have to leave the country. I guess if I were close to my next vesting date I would have tried to hang on.

If the vesting date falls within that period or if you have only been there for 2.5 years or less then hang on. At 3 years you get 2.75 months pay compared to the full 3 months pay.

If this is your first year take the pip plus the appeal for the maximum payout.

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