What The New York Times Didn’t Say About Amazon

Calling the NYT left-wing is pretty amusing.

Disclaimer: I am a former Amazon employee. I worked there for exactly a year. I assume I was doing well, I was offered increase bonus and base after my initial year.

This response from Amazon continues to amaze me - first a post from Bezos that quoted an employee's anecdotal experiences and makes the (totally absurd) claim that Bezos doesn't know what life is like working there.

Then they have a post (http://recode.net/2015/09/25/why-i-work-for-amazon-a-respons...) from a Senior VP who doesn't have the same experience as someone who isn't a Senior VP.

Now they are digging up dirt on employees to paint them with a bad brush. First, the person with the killer quote should have been removed, no question. Huge bias.

But the second and third people? Nothing in the piece is wrong - they could have been strafed with aggressive language and/or they could have been berated in their reviews. Look at the wording:

  All three included positive feedback on strengths as well as thoughts on areas of improvement.
  Far from a “strafing,” even the areas for improvement written by her colleagues contained
  language like: “It has been a pleasure working with Elizabeth.” 

This is the best you can do? "Contained language like"? This is truly terrible spin. At Amazon, they teach managers to give the classic "shit sandwich" - good/bad/good. I saw many examples (I was a manager and reviewed many pieces of feedback in OLRs - Organizational Leadership Review) written EXACTLY as ham-handedly as this: "Overall, it has been a pleasure working with Elizabeth. However, the fact that she did not know the margins for a specific warehouse group when presenting to our VP shows a complete lack of diving deep, and makes me question whether or not she really wants to work at this level."

The third example is similarly vague/wrong: "Chris Brucia, who recalls how he was berated in his performance review before being promoted, also was given a written review... Mr. Brucia was given exceptionally high ratings and then promoted to a senior position." That doesn't mean he wasn't berated - it could have been overly aggressive/wrong (and you cannot dispute ANY claims written in the feedback, all you can do is complain to your manager), just because it ended on a good note doesn't make it less hurtful.

But what this really shows is that Amazon is as ruthless as ever. They WILL go after you, they will dig up dirt on you, and they will terrify you into never speaking out. If you are a former employee (as I am), you know the stories are very very true, and NEVER speak out publicly.

  When the story came out, we knew it misrepresented Amazon.

I'm sorry, Mr. Carney, the story was as accurate a representation of Amazon as I've ever seen in press.

If you worked for Amazon and you saw that Jay Carney was willing to reveal your personnel records if you talk to the media about unethical or illegal labor management practices, would it change your decision about speaking to reporters?

I think we should consider the possibility that this post will be more effective at intimidating current and former Amazon employees into silence, rather than persuading NYT readers.

That's a good question. Let me see the original article:

> Bo Olson was one of them. He lasted less than two years in a book marketing role and said that his enduring image was watching people weep in the office, a sight other workers described as well.

If other workers described the same sight, I don't think his input's important enough to require personal credibility, so I'm not too concerned. But the use of "lasted less than two years" would be more honest written as "spent less than two years" or something, because there's an implication that he chose to leave voluntarily.

Thinking the NYT isn't left-wing shows more how far left you must stand. Even the NYT calls itself liberal/left. Even after 11 years - and as an independent - I see the NYT as decidedly left.

>“Of course it is....These are the social issues: gay rights, gun control, abortion and environmental regulation, among others. And if you think The Times plays it down the middle on any of them, you’ve been reading the paper with your eyes closed.” — New York Times Public Editor Daniel Okrent in a July 25, 2004 column which appeared under a headline asking, “Is The New York Times a Liberal Newspaper?” [0]

>Some conservative critics of the media say liberal bias exists within a wide variety of media channels, especially within the "Main Stream Media", including network news shows of CBS, ABC, and NBC, cable channels CNN, MSNBC and the former Current TV, as well as major newspapers, news-wires, and radio outlets, especially CBS News, Newsweek, and The New York Times. [1]

[0] http://archive.mrc.org/biasbasics/biasbasics2.asp

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_bias_in_the_United_State...

E:

So I'm being downvoted for pointing out that a liberal newspaper calls itself liberal? Next thing I know I'll be getting downvoted for calling Trump a right-wing presidential candidate.