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Amazon Will Pay You $5,000 to Quit Your Job

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Re: Amazon Will Pay You $5,000 to Quit Your Job

#21
post #4

The first (and stated) effect of this policy is to weed out the unmotivated employees. However, Dan Ariely has explained that the secondary effect is potentially more powerful. For those that choose to stay, they will forever live with their past action of having turned down lots of money to work there. So, when they're having a crappy day and hating their job, they're probably thinking "why didn't I take the money a…

"The only way to reconcile their thoughts and actions is to explain that, in fact, they must really love this job and therefore should work hard at it." Is my mind supposed to work like that? I'd think "I should've taken the money, oh well, I had my reasons at the time, they've turned out to be wrong, nevermind, time to go."

That's why they're common fallacies. Not everyone has them, and not all the time, but they're common. There's also a fallacy for thinking you're not susceptible to them, and one for being too hard on yourself.

Re: Amazon Will Pay You $5,000 to Quit Your Job

#23
post #18

It starts with 2000$ then 1000$ increment per year up to 5000$ This deal is for warehouse employees only and most of the people(90%+) working in warehouse are contractors. They handpick employee(s) and once a year and offer him/her this deal. BS!

The article made it sounds like a universal offer, maybe I could see per-business unit, but not per-employee. That would require you to already know who the dissatisfied workers are. The stated point was to discover early who is not satisfied in their job.

Do you have a source on that?

Re: Amazon Will Pay You $5,000 to Quit Your Job

#26
post #4

The first (and stated) effect of this policy is to weed out the unmotivated employees. However, Dan Ariely has explained that the secondary effect is potentially more powerful. For those that choose to stay, they will forever live with their past action of having turned down lots of money to work there. So, when they're having a crappy day and hating their job, they're probably thinking "why didn't I take the money a…

That's horrible. So you have miserable people doing unmotivated work because they think they are stuck here because they passes up $5 to be here.

Or because taking the money makes the feel guilty, but quitting and not taking it makes them feel stupid, so they just plod along feeling angry.

Re: Amazon Will Pay You $5,000 to Quit Your Job

#27
post #4

The first (and stated) effect of this policy is to weed out the unmotivated employees. However, Dan Ariely has explained that the secondary effect is potentially more powerful. For those that choose to stay, they will forever live with their past action of having turned down lots of money to work there. So, when they're having a crappy day and hating their job, they're probably thinking "why didn't I take the money a…

Your theory might explain why the offer is only made once a year. Most likely, your bad day isn't going to line up with the availability of the offer. If it was always on offer, you might be more inclined to jump ship impulsively.

Re: Amazon Will Pay You $5,000 to Quit Your Job

#28
post #20

Purely on a legal level, getting your most disgruntled employees to identify themselves and waive all claims in exchange for $2,000-5,000 is probably a pretty good deal.

From what I've read, they have plenty of employees with zero rights to claims, under schemes like German "minijobs" ( www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1szub2/9000_workers_at_amazoncoms_german_operations_were/ )

Re: Amazon Will Pay You $5,000 to Quit Your Job

#29
post #18

It starts with 2000$ then 1000$ increment per year up to 5000$ This deal is for warehouse employees only and most of the people(90%+) working in warehouse are contractors. They handpick employee(s) and once a year and offer him/her this deal. BS!

So, you take employees with a hard, physical job... and you offer them $5000 to leave and waive all claims against you...

I wonder if they target the ones that are starting to limp...

Re: Amazon Will Pay You $5,000 to Quit Your Job

#30
post #4

The first (and stated) effect of this policy is to weed out the unmotivated employees. However, Dan Ariely has explained that the secondary effect is potentially more powerful. For those that choose to stay, they will forever live with their past action of having turned down lots of money to work there. So, when they're having a crappy day and hating their job, they're probably thinking "why didn't I take the money a…

> For those that choose to stay, they will forever live with their past action of having turned down lots of money to work there.

$5,000 isn't really lots of money; it's probably about six months of mortgage payments in an average town.

On a 25-year mortgage that doesn't make much of a dent.

Better to keep grumbling, keep earning and keep a roof over the family.

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