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I worked at Amazon to see if anything's changed

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Re: I worked at Amazon to see if anything's changed

#131

Post by mentat »

mahyarm wrote: post #107
mentat wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need the time to teach yourself. There are hard limits on the amount of physical and mental work a person can do, especially if the mental work requires significant concentration. I don't see you taking account of that at all.

I did say "time to teach yourself", please read more closely.

> With almost anything else you need all of the above plus a college or other formal education.

I did misread this. Still I'm not sure this is true. Is it really the case that only in computers you're not required to have formal education to get a well placed job? That seems unlikely. I don't feel that I have enough information either way from my own experience (in computers, without a formal education in it and knowing many others lacking formal education) but it seems like an exceptional claim that there is only one field that works this way. Construction is the first other than comes to mind. It's also funny because this is one of the things we get criticized most about, the lack of professional qualification while using potentially very dangerous tools.

Re: I worked at Amazon to see if anything's changed

#132

Post by rdtsc »

chroma wrote: post #111
eropple wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The term "privilege" is being used here in the social sense of the word, not the generic sense of the word. Which, to me as somebody who's spent a decent bit of time wrestling with the fact that, yes, I am incredibly privileged, is actually a little irritating--it's jargon but many people try to wedge it in as a normal word, much like (but less egregiously than) how Stallmanites try to co-opt "free". > If a person wa…

If I were a demon from Hell, tasked by Satan himself to ruin discourse about opportunity and egalitarianism, I could scarcely do better than calling people "privileged". Think about it from the accused's point of view. Yes they were lucky in many ways, but they also worked hard to get to where they are. Then someone belittles their efforts, claiming it's simply because they are privileged. Privileged? Even an average…

Nobody is accused here. Let's not get too excited.

Privilege is a loaded word so I should have used another one perhaps. Privilege is strategic position of advantage. You have or have access to time, money, wealth, power, super-power etc that other don't have. And it is relative.

I'd say tech people have that power compared to workers in an Amazon warehouse. We can work from home, can demand our own salaries, jump to cool exciting companies. Don't have to break our backs. Instead of thinking about what to feed the children with we think what type of Apple watch to buy etc.

So far we haven't talked how each individual or cohort as a whole reached that level. Some worked hard, some didn't. Some got lucky by picking the right field to go on. Some were just passionate about a hobby (me). Some were bullied and got to spend more time inside (me) and apparently OP.

> Privileged? Even an average person has to overcome a ridiculous amount of adversity to be successful.

And now if they live in a Western country, with a great healthcare, good weather, police protection. They are privileged compared to those that are being bombed, raped, or are starving in many parts of the world.

And my point is, looking back those people will say "I am here because I worked hard and everyone one else who is complaining is kind of lazy and should have worked hard as ". I say "it's complicating" and people will often attribute too much to their hard work and discount luck, and other factors -- family connections, good neighborhood, safe area, a good health insurance, maybe a specific literacy program promoted by their government, or other factors (even negative ones like "I was bullied nerd so I was in the house more and that gave a me a chance to focus more on study").

> Instead, I think it's much more effective to use "lucky" or "fortunate".

Those are good to describe how they got to the position of privilege. Which often has a mix of things like luck, hard work, and others. That is why used the word. Using something like "strategic life advantage" sounds a bit odd though.

Re: I worked at Amazon to see if anything's changed

#133

Post by throw2048-AZ43 »

CydeWeys wrote: post #120
d23 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I had the privilege of having a basic computer with dialup as a kid. My family moved so I had no friends and was bullied constantly. For this reason, I became obsessed with the computer, learned to program, and ultimately it got me a job. I'm not sure I would describe that as the height of privilege. I spent most of my childhood living in a trailer. Plenty of people I know had access to the same thing (most of t…

How old are you? You might be under-estimating how lucky you were to even have access to a personal computer at home at all. See the chart on page 2 here: https://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/p20-569.pdf For example, when I first started using computers as a kid, it was at a time when less than one in eight households had computers. That's pretty privileged. > I'm not sure I would describe that as the height of privi…

> You can be privileged in some areas and not in others. Wow, I can totally get behind this statement. Everyone is privileged in some areas. Those stronger than me, those more beautiful or more persuasive or those who can use their charisma to achive things I cannot. I get it, sounds reasonable.

Now tell me then: WHY exactly the fact that some non-tech people have mediocre work conditions and I don't should remind me of this?

Re: I worked at Amazon to see if anything's changed

#134

Post by Lawtonfogle »

eropple wrote: post #95
d23 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we're just misunderstanding what each other means by privilege. > why can't coal miners just start writing single page apps in React.js over a few weekends, why can't this part time middle aged mom from Walmart who was laid off as an HR person just write Android apps and make more money Absolutely, I don't think they can. They don't have the free time, and they're worn out after a long day of work. That's not t…

The term "privilege" is being used here in the social sense of the word, not the generic sense of the word. Which, to me as somebody who's spent a decent bit of time wrestling with the fact that, yes, I am incredibly privileged, is actually a little irritating--it's jargon but many people try to wedge it in as a normal word, much like (but less egregiously than) how Stallmanites try to co-opt "free". > If a person wa…

>Privilege is referring to the difficulty slider.

It is more often used to try to stereotype and discriminate against someone, insisting their setting as being higher than others. And when this brought up, the general response is to then say the issue is really a bunch of different sliders, such as one for race, one of gender, one for sex, one for sexuality (and all of these are still simplified to stereotypes). It is often accompanied by an insistence that we pay extra attention to some sliders are more important than others, with the side bringing it up tending to shift focus to the sliders that minimize the view point of the one being told they are privileged.

Privilege is an attempt to simplify complex issues in a manner that benefits certain positions and it can be used as a thought terminating cliche.

For example, privilege being brought up here to detail how it is privilege for some to have turned to computer as a coping mechanism for the abuse and exclusion of their peer groups; that they had free time to focus on computers because their peers didn't want to spend time with them is a privilege.

Re: I worked at Amazon to see if anything's changed

#135

Post by bane »

stcredzero wrote: post #83
djtriptych wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to soften this viewpoint a bit. I had similarly bungled experiences with both Facebook and Google (eventually got offers from both, accepted at Google). Missed phone calls, mistaken identity, inter-office communication problems and more. It's not a fair reflection of the company at large; recruiting is very often a shit show for all kinds of reasons.

recruiting is very often a shit show for all kinds of reasons I never before experienced the kind of rudeness and incompetence during hiring I had encountered while being interviewed in the Bay Area tech scene. Interviewers not keeping phone appointments. Interviewers blatantly not listening. Interviewers basically (incorrectly) implying that I'm lying. I will observe that the YCombinator companies fared much better…

I'm on the East Coast, and I've interviewed with a fair number of East Coast and West Coast companies and the West Coast ones were by far the worst. Google and Amazon have been fair to middling, but there's been some that were probably so inept it has to fall under some kind of criminal law somewhere.

Re: I worked at Amazon to see if anything's changed

#136

Post by bane »

I think what's important to think about here is how the type of company we think of Amazon as (a tech company) informs our belief in how the work conditions should be. HN isn't exactly full of articles about how terrible the work conditions at Macy's or the local trash pickup service are, and that's because we think of retail or sanitation as different kinds of work. If we think of Amazon as a big warehouse fulfillment company or a retail department store, our expectations drop and Amazon starts to look more like the other companies in those spaces.

Instead we should realize what Amazon is (or overlaps with), and get upset about poor work conditions in the entire sector.

Re: I worked at Amazon to see if anything's changed

#137

Post by simonebrunozzi »

marknutter wrote: post #20
js8 wrote: post #8

I think it's great articles like that get posted here - it's a window to employment conditions that techies would never accept. It's a good reminder of privilege.

> it's a window to employment conditions that techies would never accept. I absolutely would accept those employment conditions if I didn't have any other options and needed to make money to survive. I would also spend my free time learning a skill so I could get a better job at some point in the future. > It's a good reminder of privilege. It's not a matter of privilege, it's a matter of ability. In tech more than a…

If you think that it's not privilege, at least partially, you are really deluded.

Re: I worked at Amazon to see if anything's changed

#138

Post by dang »

vernie wrote: post #26
ra1n85 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's a good reminder of privilege. En vogue Orwellian group think for simple minds. Implying that some have undeserved fortune is reprehensible with this complete disregard for context.

Blah blah Orwellian peabrains! Look, I'm doing it, too!

Please don't post unsubstantive comments to HN.

Re: I worked at Amazon to see if anything's changed

#139

Post by dang »

ra1n85 wrote: post #25
js8 wrote: post #8

I think it's great articles like that get posted here - it's a window to employment conditions that techies would never accept. It's a good reminder of privilege.

>It's a good reminder of privilege. En vogue Orwellian group think for simple minds. Implying that some have undeserved fortune is reprehensible with this complete disregard for context.

> En vogue Orwellian group think for simple minds

Please eliminate name-calling from the comments you post to HN, as the site guidelines ask:

When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. E.g. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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