Amazon is blocking promotions of employees who don't comply with RTO policy • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon is blocking promotions of employees who don't comply with RTO policy

#101

Post by fjweo » Thu, Nov 16, 2023, 8:11 AM UTC

nikole9696 wrote: post #97

aathromzn wrote: post #71

Amazon employee here, currently sitting in an office that is overcrowded, smells bad, and is too cramped to get any work done without distractions. The phone rooms are always taken, usually have broken lights or trash on the floor/desk. There’s absolutely no perks. The office cafe is expensive and awful food quality. My team wanted to have a holiday dinner and was told the company won’t pay for it, we have to pay out…

So why are you still there? Just the money, or it takes time to find a new job, or something else? There's plenty of smaller companies hiring still, but not at those salaries. What is it that DOES retain the staff there?

Yeah it's the money, I know Amazon "managers" with zero technical knowledge pulling in easily 500k+ and engineers with little experience or skills who got offers 250k+, amazon pays a lot of money and then tries to run software teams like a warehouse

Re: Amazon is blocking promotions of employees who don't comply with RTO policy

#102

Post by jwestbury » Thu, Nov 16, 2023, 8:13 AM UTC

kulahan wrote: post #94

aathromzn wrote: post #71

Amazon employee here, currently sitting in an office that is overcrowded, smells bad, and is too cramped to get any work done without distractions. The phone rooms are always taken, usually have broken lights or trash on the floor/desk. There’s absolutely no perks. The office cafe is expensive and awful food quality. My team wanted to have a holiday dinner and was told the company won’t pay for it, we have to pay out…

Amazon has always struck me as a pretty aggressive employer. I wonder if it'll ever come back to bit them in the ass. One free coffee a day is asinine. MS gives you all the free soda and coffee you could want, and their food courts are great. I assume this is true of Google as well. How the hell does Amazon keep finding employees?

> I wonder if it'll ever come back to bit them in the ass.

It already has been biting them. There was a leaked memo last year about how they're exhausting the labour supply in many of their warehouse markets. And while there hasn't been a memo as such, people I know who are still there say it's been borderline impossible to hire good engineering candidates for the past few years. A former teammate said he was being pulled into interview blitzes where they'd interview six candidates in a day, then the recruiter would apply as much pressure as humanly possible to "just pick one and say yes."

Re: Amazon is blocking promotions of employees who don't comply with RTO policy

#103

Post by danaris » Thu, Nov 16, 2023, 1:50 PM UTC

voisin wrote: post #93

danaris wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why? Imagine a world where big tech was cool with remote workers. They would be able to out-pay and acquire all the best talent, everywhere. Assuming this is true (which I think is very much in doubt), then it indicates there is a much bigger systemic problem that needs to be dealt with: namely, big tech functioning as essentially the landlords of the Internet and skimming profit off of everything that happens ther…

> indicates there is a much bigger systemic problem that needs to be dealt with: namely, big tech functioning as essentially the landlords of the Internet and skimming profit off of everything that happens there. Seems like you haven’t been paying attention as this is precisely what has happened. Or are you being ironic?

Neither: I'm pointing out that this is a problem that needs to be dealt with, rather than simply a fact of the world. We shouldn't be giving up on improving people's lives just because Big Tech would take advantage of it; we should be changing the system so Big Tech can't leverage those improvements to screw everyone else over.

Re: Amazon is blocking promotions of employees who don't comply with RTO policy

#104

Post by nsxwolf » Thu, Nov 16, 2023, 3:23 PM UTC

paradox460 wrote: post #99

nsxwolf wrote: post #51

My career has been one long carrot and stick of promised promotions that never materialize, so this threat would have no effect on me.

Ooh sorry you just missed promotion targets this time. Keep working hard and you'll be up for it next time

We won't be able to consider it until the start of the next fiscal year. Oh, we've been having some financial difficulties, maybe next year. Oh, you're laid off.