An open letter to Jeff Bezos: A contract worker’s take on Amazon.com
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Re: An open letter to Jeff Bezos: A contract worker’s take on Amazon.com
#2An outsider was brought in who knew nothing about X-Ray. I was later told the new manger was hired based on management experience. She spent her first week being trained by one of the temps who had been deemed unqualified for the product manager position. After spending a week training the manager, and being her go-to person for the next three weeks whenever there was a problem, he was let go because he reached the maximum of eleven months on his contract.
I fail to see how it would be worse to make a commitment and provide some employees with benefits and some sort of job security. This HR policy is pathologically dysfunctional, and seemingly widespread, not just in the tech sector. I really wonder how long CEOs and management people in general think this party can go on.
Re: An open letter to Jeff Bezos: A contract worker’s take on Amazon.com
#3This is rather strange if it is accurate. Everywhere I've worked where they hired contractors as developers, the company always preferred contract-to-hire, assuming the person worked out well. I've had two jobs that way, 6-12 month contract to full-time regular employee. The only time people didn't transition to full-time is if they sucked, basically a 6-month interview. And sometimes they would go full-time even if they did suck.
Re: An open letter to Jeff Bezos: A contract worker’s take on Amazon.com
#4[deleted]
Re: An open letter to Jeff Bezos: A contract worker’s take on Amazon.com
#5Speaking as a developer at Amazon.com, what contractors? I've never met any, and I only have heard of one who left a while ago.
Edit later: Developer contractors at least. I mean, sure, cleaning staff are contractors/temps.
Re: An open letter to Jeff Bezos: A contract worker’s take on Amazon.com
#6This is rather strange if it is accurate. Everywhere I've worked where they hired contractors as developers, the company always preferred contract-to-hire, assuming the person worked out well. I've had two jobs that way, 6-12 month contract to full-time regular employee. The only time people didn't transition to full-time is if they sucked, basically a 6-month interview. And sometimes they would go full-time even if…
In one organization where I was a manager, our HR policies limited the contractors we hired to 'two terms,' 36 months. If I wanted to keep that person on staff, I would have to wait 12 months before I could bring them back. The result: The really good people I WANTED on my staff could not keep any longer than three years.
Re: An open letter to Jeff Bezos: A contract worker’s take on Amazon.com
#7This is rather strange if it is accurate. Everywhere I've worked where they hired contractors as developers, the company always preferred contract-to-hire, assuming the person worked out well. I've had two jobs that way, 6-12 month contract to full-time regular employee. The only time people didn't transition to full-time is if they sucked, basically a 6-month interview. And sometimes they would go full-time even if…
From the story, the author doesn't sound like a developer.
Re: An open letter to Jeff Bezos: A contract worker’s take on Amazon.com
#8Ama-Mart
Wal-zon
Take your pick.
I don't care whether you are "online" or off. Treat your workers like shit -- yes, your workers, you wankers; I don't care what shell employment manoeuvring you use -- and run a business model that takes advantage of, if it's not outright predicated upon, the public dole, and I will be disinclined to send my business your way.
Other readers here: If you don't like it, vote with your dollars (or whatever currency). It's the only way, in today's world.
And name them for what they are. They hate the bad publicity.
HN relevance: Being a "tech" company does not absolve you of being a good citizen. Some "tech" advocates are sounding far too much like Wall Street bankers, these days.
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P.S. Good grief -- a bit of upvote. Karma negating though it may prove to be (feh), I'll add that while authoring my original comment I was thinking more of the now much reported warehouse staffing situation than of the OP's situation. ALTHOUGH... I, too, have experienced the "blessed" "management" employee phenomenon -- more than once, when I stop to think about it.
Once even personally, where a VP's... "pet" was moved into a role that I was in line for. They received some months of half-day or more one-on-one training from a senior supervisor. They never really got the hand of the role, especially the technical details; nonetheless, it was enough of a resume builder for them to shortly thereupon move on to "bigger and better" "management" things.
Whereupon, they belatedly put me into the role. Which I then did from day one, with effectively zero additional training. Oh, and while holding down my old job -- and at times, repeatedly, also portions of the job I'd left before that, which they continued to underhire for and so continued to fail to fill successfully.
"Management". The best management I've seen worked up to the role. "Formal" credentials are to me not outright anathema, but definitely a caution.
Re: An open letter to Jeff Bezos: A contract worker’s take on Amazon.com
#9Did this person actually go ahead and apply for any other full time jobs that were on offer on the amazon job site?
I have seen this before where people expected to be presented full time jobs, when all they needed was a little prodding to go through the hoop jumping and formally apply.
Re: An open letter to Jeff Bezos: A contract worker’s take on Amazon.com
#10Speaking as a developer at Amazon.com, what contractors? I've never met any, and I only have heard of one who left a while ago. Edit later: Developer contractors at least. I mean, sure, cleaning staff are contractors/temps.
Presumably this person was annotating movies with which actors were on screen when, and possibly where in the frame.