What The New York Times Didn’t Say About Amazon • Hacker News Board

Re: What The New York Times Didn’t Say About Amazon

#181

Post by pm24601 » Mon, Oct 19, 2015, 5:53 PM UTC

baldfat wrote: post #46

dekhn wrote: post #4

There are several shockingly inappropriate things in this article. In particular, the PR person at Amazon is saying that they would have shared employee's personal records (including evaluations) as well as other employee's termination conditions (which I consider unrelated to their quotes). Amazon: what Carney just posted was very inappropriate. I am completely amazed you did this (assuming it was done with approval…

Devil's Advocate here: The people named in the article and refuted by Amazon put their personal story a public story. If someone "slanders" a business it can't reply with evidence? Must the company say it is a personal matter that we can't disclose, which reads they are guilty and don't want the truth to come out? End of Devil's Advocate Seems like they were making a statement of if you talk will will fully disclose…

What evidence?

Amazon, like most employer, can fire at-will. And Amazon has the money and lawyers to fight long and hard ( unlike most ex-employees ).

This is a pure ad hominem attack that has nothing to do with the question at hand:

how good or bad is amazon as a place to work?

What would the response be if Jay had casually outted someone as transgender or gay?

"Back when Mr. O. was a woman before the sex change operation, ...."

or

"When Mr. O. came out as gay, ..."

Neither statement has anything to do with the issue of how Amazon is as a work place.

But Jay's decision to reveal unsubstantiated accusations in a public forum designed to sabotage an ex-employee's future earning potential says a lot.

Re: What The New York Times Didn’t Say About Amazon

#182

Post by whatok » Mon, Oct 19, 2015, 5:53 PM UTC

saosebastiao wrote: post #148

whatok wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're approaching it from the employee perspective rather than the employer's. Given that Amazon put this out to repair their image, do you think they would risk a headline (even if eventually proven to be false) that says "Amazon lied about employee's resignation"? This guy could absolutely get someone to take a case pro bono with all the press it's getting.

I'll give you two hypothetical situations: 1) Vendor manager Jim tries to defraud a vendor. He gets caught, and confronted about it. He realizes he messed up, accepts responsibility, and resigns on the spot. 2) Vendor manager Joe gets pressured by boss to defraud a vendor because the boss is under pressure from his boss to cut costs or be fired. Joe pushes back, gets reprimanded for not following Amazon's "disagree a…

RE: #2, agree that this absolutely happens just seems implausible in this situation. For argument's sake, let's assume this happens but it's not widespread at Amazon. I have not read any former employee accounts of it and the NYT would have ABSOLUTELY published something even if they had a whiff of it. Under that assumption, this guy happens to be one of the few people quoted by name in the article that happened to have undergone something shady at work? I don't know why he put his name out there if what Amazon claims is true and I definitely don't know why he would have put his name out there if your second hypothetical is remotely true. Just doesn't make sense.

Re: What The New York Times Didn’t Say About Amazon

#183

Post by zaphos » Mon, Oct 19, 2015, 5:54 PM UTC

zaroth wrote: post #120

dekhn wrote: post #4

There are several shockingly inappropriate things in this article. In particular, the PR person at Amazon is saying that they would have shared employee's personal records (including evaluations) as well as other employee's termination conditions (which I consider unrelated to their quotes). Amazon: what Carney just posted was very inappropriate. I am completely amazed you did this (assuming it was done with approval…

Regarding sharing employee evaluations, two things; if you go on the record with press discussing your evaluation and says it says one thing, but it actually says another, I think the company is entitled to respond. Anyway, it's not clear to me if the employee isn't on Amazon's side here (angry at being misquoted) so how do we know this wouldn't have been after getting permission from the employees in question? Obvio…

fwiw, the NYT response points out that the quote from Dina does not contradict the reporting.

* NYT response: https://medium.com/@NYTimesComm/dean-baquet-responds-to-jay-...

Re: What The New York Times Didn’t Say About Amazon

#184

Post by ncallaway » Mon, Oct 19, 2015, 5:54 PM UTC

marcosdumay wrote: post #171

jessriedel wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I remarked when it first came out, NYTimes article was almost completely anecdotal. That's not damning, but it does require you to trust the reporters to distill a large complicated mess to representative pieces. What part of Carney's piece do you think similarly depends on us trusting him? Do you think he fabricated the email from Kantor? Do you think he's outright lying about the context of Olson's dismissal to…

You know, the bias against anecdotal evidence is great and everything, but it only applies if somebody somewhere has a credible anecdote opposite to the claims. Otherwise, it's as good as data. So, look at the ex-employees opinions, and see if there's one. (And no, PR pieces are not credible.)

I am an ex-Amazon employee and I had a totally fine experience while I was working there.

That said, my experience very much is totally an anecdote. It was a big company and different teams ran in very different manners.

Re: What The New York Times Didn’t Say About Amazon

#185

Post by mbca » Mon, Oct 19, 2015, 5:56 PM UTC

danso wrote: post #129

The NYT editor in chief has responded via Medium: https://medium.com/@NYTimesComm/dean-baquet-responds-to-jay-... > In response to your posting on Medium this morning, I want to reiterate my support for our story about Amazon’s culture. In your posting — as well as in a series of recent email exchanges with me — you contested the article’s assertion that many employees found Amazon a tough place to work. Specifically…

Public mudslinging between big names ... does that make Medium the new Twitter?

Re: What The New York Times Didn’t Say About Amazon

#186

Post by benten10 » Mon, Oct 19, 2015, 5:57 PM UTC

Nadya wrote: post #130

swehner wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling the NYT left-wing is pretty amusing.

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 wi…

>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.

I can't downvote, but I assume you're being downvoted for calling a relatively centrist paper left-wing. Perhaps if you'd said 'liberal'/'left-leaning', the downvotes would have been lesser? Who, in your opinion, is a centrist-ish paper in the US?

Re: What The New York Times Didn’t Say About Amazon

#187

Post by exodust » Mon, Oct 19, 2015, 5:57 PM UTC

danso wrote: post #129

The NYT editor in chief has responded via Medium: https://medium.com/@NYTimesComm/dean-baquet-responds-to-jay-... > In response to your posting on Medium this morning, I want to reiterate my support for our story about Amazon’s culture. In your posting — as well as in a series of recent email exchanges with me — you contested the article’s assertion that many employees found Amazon a tough place to work. Specifically…

Grabs popcorn.

Olson is clinging to a lie, trying to defend his reputation.

Notice how he tries to blame Amazon for his departure, the "revolving series of bosses" and "overwhelmed" with work. "He and others couldn't keep up". Deflection.

He's doing his best to construct a version of events where he is one of the innocents, caught up in the nasty Amazon shit-storm.

I bet he got a shock to see Amazon reveal his fraudulent activity in a medium post! You think Amazon would make such a claim if it weren't true?

Nobody wants to see personal information released like this, but Amazon were slapped in the face with that NYT piece. Let 'em have their medium return fire.

Fraudsters and liars stick to their guns till the bitter end and beyond. It's best to weed them out, and have karma deliver what is deserved.

Re: What The New York Times Didn’t Say About Amazon

#188

Post by Spooky23 » Mon, Oct 19, 2015, 5:58 PM UTC

dekhn wrote: post #4

There are several shockingly inappropriate things in this article. In particular, the PR person at Amazon is saying that they would have shared employee's personal records (including evaluations) as well as other employee's termination conditions (which I consider unrelated to their quotes). Amazon: what Carney just posted was very inappropriate. I am completely amazed you did this (assuming it was done with approval…

Employee reviews or reasons behind a termination for cause are not legally protected information. They are work product, owned by Amazon, subject to the contract with Amazon.

Re: What The New York Times Didn’t Say About Amazon

#189

Post by puredemo » Mon, Oct 19, 2015, 5:58 PM UTC

danso wrote: post #129

The NYT editor in chief has responded via Medium: https://medium.com/@NYTimesComm/dean-baquet-responds-to-jay-... > In response to your posting on Medium this morning, I want to reiterate my support for our story about Amazon’s culture. In your posting — as well as in a series of recent email exchanges with me — you contested the article’s assertion that many employees found Amazon a tough place to work. Specifically…

Baquet's response makes Carney's complaints seem infantile. Carney should have known better than to post this in this first place.

Re: What The New York Times Didn’t Say About Amazon

#190

Post by whiteboarder » Mon, Oct 19, 2015, 5:58 PM UTC

russelluresti wrote: post #178

I love how the start of this article reads like something out of Character Assassination 101. Step 1: start by bringing up something negative about a person that has absolutely NOTHING to do with the issue at hand. Okay, so the guy resigned because he did something bad. How does that make what he experienced while there not true? Oh, that's right, it doesn't. And the admission of fraud isn't a "crucial piece of conte…

And the fraud thing doesn't even look to be true. The NYT writer responded and said that was false.