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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

#111

Post by anigbrowl »

tjdetwiler wrote: post #103
anigbrowl wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no notion that they're essential to the business in any way. But firing people after 11 months just to avoid a deeper employment relationship is a terrible way to treat people.

It's likely government regulation that forces them to choose between letting them go or paying them more.

Well, we can't possibly go giving people raises after almost a year of productive work. Next thing they'll be wanting holidays and sick leave. Seriously, what does a low-level employee have to do to get treated as something more than an expendable labor unit?

Re: An open letter to Jeff Bezos: A contract worker’s take on Amazon.com

#112

Post by sliverstorm »

nostromo wrote: post #49

> In this terrible economy, I am grateful for the work Seattle's unemployment rate is 4%, which is basically optimal and near what it was before the recession. https://www.google.com/search?q=seattle+unemployment+rate Seattle real-estate has almost completely rebounded. http://www.zillow.com/local-info/WA-Seattle-home-value/r_160... People may not realize it yet, but the recession is over. If Amazon values the work t…

People may not realize it yet, but the recession is over.

Nobody wants to "realize" it. It makes for a better narrative if we're still in the throes of depression. "In this tough economy..."

It's easier to rationalize negative things in your life if you can attribute them to things outside your control, like the economy.

Re: An open letter to Jeff Bezos: A contract worker’s take on Amazon.com

#115

Post by 205guy »

jmduke wrote: post #17

A lot of people are jumping to the comments and assuming that the worker is either a developer or a warehouse worker, which makes me assume they didn't finish the article. The OP worked on quality assurance, which is staffed by a lot of contractors because (ideally) the ramp-up time for the position is much smaller than that of an SDE, and a lot of these positions don't last long enough to warrant full-time employmen…

Actually, I'm not sure the OP ever stated his job or job requirements. From reading between the lines, it seems like the OP and the other temps were content taggers: to watch a video/film and identify the characters and actors on the screen in real time.

If that is the case, I would guess it's a low-skills technician-like job, and frankly, I'm surprised it isn't automated with image recognition software.

On the one hand, I could understand how a company would want a group of temp workers to do this one-time essentially data-entry type work. On the other hand, if they make it temporary to avoid paying benefits, that's a loop-hole that needs legislation to close.

But I'm also sympathetic to what the OP is saying: event entry-level workers get better at their job with time and experience, they think of better ways to do their job, they learn the corporate culture and can even contribute outside of their job. I think it is a shame companies have practices like this.

Re: An open letter to Jeff Bezos: A contract worker’s take on Amazon.com

#116

Post by xyzzyz »

barista wrote: post #63
nostromo wrote: post #49

> In this terrible economy, I am grateful for the work Seattle's unemployment rate is 4%, which is basically optimal and near what it was before the recession. https://www.google.com/search?q=seattle+unemployment+rate Seattle real-estate has almost completely rebounded. http://www.zillow.com/local-info/WA-Seattle-home-value/r_160... People may not realize it yet, but the recession is over. If Amazon values the work t…

Given the razor thin margins that Amazon runs with, I am not surprised. This is a company that is struggling to make any money even after people bought hundreds of Billions of dollars worth of stuff from them. They are bound to cut corners to stay alive.

Amazon works hard to have a minuscule profit. If they have no profit, they don't have any tax liability. The business they're in lets them adjust their profits in real time -- whenever they expect to have large profit, they just lower their prices to eat it. Consumers love this, so they have huge turnover, and thanks to this, small increase of prices earns them big profit, if they ever need cash to fund acquisition, or new warehouse, or whatever.

Re: An open letter to Jeff Bezos: A contract worker’s take on Amazon.com

#117

Post by general_failure »

kilroy123 wrote: post #71

I was a contract developer at a very large "shoe and apparel company". I saw the same thing. Low quality / skilled developers were hired on in droves. Only to "train" other new contractors. (e.g. copy all these files from my machine and do these 30 steps, and then the local environment should work) They were hiring guys right out of India. Which made team communication difficult. It was a mess, and code quality reall…

How is the shoe company doing? I bet they are doing just the same...

Re: An open letter to Jeff Bezos: A contract worker’s take on Amazon.com

#118

Post by maddalab »

ntkachov wrote: post #42
mabbo wrote: post #5

Speaking 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.

I've been a dev at Amazon. They don't hire devs as contractors. They hire the people that support the devs. Testers, validators, vetters, etc. If you need someone to manually poke, prod, click on a button all day long, they hire temps for that. The testers for our app were temps, same thing with the people that would click the "approve" button on user submitted images or uploads.

This is not correct. I left Amazon last year after 3 years. I had a temp sit besides me for about 1 year. He did the same job as a SDE-2 would do. He worked for a team writing software for inventory management, my team worked in the same space. A month after he left, my manager asked me if I knew anyone who would be a good fit. I immediately mentioned his name based on what I had seen for over an year. I never heard back again.

Amazon has less then stellar hiring practices even for full time employees. From personal experience in no particular order (a) low balling new hires in salary and position (b) bar raiser ego trips and (c) if it isn't my answer it isn't the right answer.

I have also seen an engineer promoted to Principal for having accomplished nothing during the entire year (imo), and another principal say to me, why would anyone who has an offer from Google ever pick Amazon.

Re: An open letter to Jeff Bezos: A contract worker’s take on Amazon.com

#119

Post by rogerbinns »

steveklabnik wrote: post #67
rogerbinns wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you believe the workers are taken advantage of, could be managed in a different way that increases productivity, or providing far more value than they are paid, then you have an opportunity to start a business and profit handsomely at the expense of those "wankers". For some reason all the people making those observations never seem to start those businesses to show the "bad" guys up.

Econ 101 is simple and all, but in the real world the barriers to entry are more complex. I can see I now: "Hey Mr. VC, do I got a pitch for you! We're going to compete directly with Amazon, but pay our people more! Are you in?"

More accurately the pitch would be that existing methods of management and pay levels are resulting in a certain level of productivity, and that different methods and increased pay results in a disproportionately higher level of productivity. If spending $1/hr more per employee gives more than $1/hr in productivity increases then it is a no brainer to do.

I've yet to see a hypothesis of why all these companies are sitting there, can't see this, and to spite themselves decide to behave like "wankers" and somehow decide not to get richer!

In the real world things are complex. With higher value products there is definitely a benefit in management and pay increases, because your customers expect that. For example Costco does it. The value of shipping at Amazon is $0 because that is what lots of people pay. I wouldn't be surprised if the people packing Prime orders are paid more because those are more valuable customers.

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