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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

#31

Post by adamman »

jordn wrote: 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…

They might also think, "What other place would offer me $5,000 to quit? I'm staying here."

It's classic reverse psychology.

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

#32

Post by sixothree »

dingaling wrote: post #30
jordn wrote: 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.

I'm guessing for many people at amazon it might be two months salary.

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

#33

Post by adamman »

ninv wrote: 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!

If this is true (handpick), they need to update that article.

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

#34

Post by tomasien »

vaadu wrote: post #25

Can we get the US federal government to institute this policy? With the caveat that once you quit you are prohibited from collecting a federal paycheck elsewhere.

At first I thought you meant that the US Government would just pay anyone to quit their job AND I LOVED IT! I still think it's a good idea, and I know everyone probably thinks that first idea is stupid, but I think it's great. Getting people to feel comfortable quitting their jobs is the only way we're going to reinvent this economy.

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

#36

Post by fecak »

sixothree wrote: post #32
dingaling wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I'm guessing for many people at amazon it might be two months salary.

$2500 a month is 30K. The average warehouse worker at Amazon is around $25K (1), so the temptation might be there for them. For engineers, that amount is not likely to be considered.

1 - http://money.cnn.com/2013/07/30/news/companies/amazon-wareho...

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

#37

Post by mathattack »

dingaling wrote: post #30
jordn wrote: 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.

Much less than 6 months of a mortgage in Seattle, no? Or have I been spending too much time in New York?

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

#38

Post by bobjordan »

About 5 years ago during worst of the downturn, I took $20,000 USD option our consulting firm gave and voluntarily quit a $120,000 base salary job. At the time, I thought that job sucked pretty bad and was looking for an out anyhow. I've been an entrepreneur ever since.

No quick success story to tell - I've been bootstrapping for 5 years in China and it's been hard. But I've been happier overall focusing everyday on pretty much whatever-the-hell I want to think about, and my business just broke $1M USD revenues this year by doing that, so overall it seems right decision for me.

Policies like this are probably a win-win for all involved.

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

#40

Post by vidarh »

disputin wrote: post #16
jordn wrote: 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."

Your mind almost certainly works like that whether you like it or not, unless you're a substantial outlier. There's tons of research that attacks this effect from various angles, and pretty consistently it finds that we have an exceedingly strong drive towards consistency between thoughts and emotions and actual physical behaviour.

Of course this is not an absolute: It will not work on everyone all the time. But that is not the point.

There's a multitude of effects that conspire to make us easy to manipulate in this way. I'd recommend Ciadini's book "Influence" as a good introduction to this topic - it's popularised, but full of references to the actual studies, and covers a long range of effects.

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