Jeff Bezos Says Amazon Won’t Tolerate ‘Callous’ Management Practices • Hacker News Board

Re: Jeff Bezos Says Amazon Won’t Tolerate ‘Callous’ Management Practices

#191

Post by asgard1024 » Mon, Aug 17, 2015, 7:24 PM UTC

Karunamon wrote: post #159

asgard1024 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a revolutionary idea! Seriously though, I wonder why humans tolerate the hierarchical structures so much. I am proponent of direct democracy and worker cooperatives but curiously enough, to many people the idea seems wrong.

Just about every human endeavor out there tends toward hierarchal structures - ones that do not are statistical outliers, and even then it's questioned whether all that's happened is that the hierarchy is implicit rather than explicit.

> Just about every human endeavor out there tends toward hierarchal structures

I agree, but why? It doesn't make much sense to me. Although I should have said "authoritarian" rather than "hierarchical".

> it's questioned whether all that's happened is that the hierarchy is implicit rather than explicit

In democracy, you can have hierarchy but it's not a big deal, because you have a formal rule that everybody has the same power (one vote). It is certainly different (although for some reason many people do not feel that way) than when there is no such rule.

Re: Jeff Bezos Says Amazon Won’t Tolerate ‘Callous’ Management Practices

#192

Post by serge2k » Mon, Aug 17, 2015, 7:25 PM UTC

richmarr wrote: post #96

anotherangrydev wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're the 1%, then. Honestly, I haven't met one decent guy in HR in a loooong time. Quite the contrary, I have plenty of bad experiences with HR that made me believe those things. I'll give you my favorite examples: I once got fired because I told some bitch (she was really a bitch, and that's not just my opinion, the whole workplace thought of that) to mind her own business. I was on a break and reading a magazine…

> I once got fired because I told some bitch... In that one line I think there's two issues you might want to think about. First of all, you're passing judgement apparently without empathising with where she's coming from. If you try to empathise with people rather than letting your amygdala control your response then you'll find life gets much easier. Secondly, that language crosses the line of acceptability, both i…

> and on HN

why?

Re: Jeff Bezos Says Amazon Won’t Tolerate ‘Callous’ Management Practices

#193

Post by dpark » Mon, Aug 17, 2015, 7:36 PM UTC

jazzyk wrote: post #189

dpark wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't miss the word. I just don't believe it's accurate. If the intended message was "fuck off", there's no polite way to deliver that. You might deliver it without literally saying the words, but if the meaning is intact, you're not being polite. I also don't believe a politely delivered message can result in a 3-month plot filled with false reports, culminating in job termination. How does that play out? "Wow, h…

My developer friend had to work with a program/product manager from hell. They hated each other's guts from the minute they met. He was tasked by the CTO with implementing new software and kept asking her for definitive requirements. She never came up with them and told him to propose something based on some loose, very high-level requirements. When he did, she critiqued the solutions in a meeting attended by many pe…

Sure. Bad chemistry happens. And in that instance, it sounds like bad chemistry with a bad person. But if your friend had been "politely" telling this woman to fuck off, then I'd have to say that he was at least contributing to the bad relationship.

I feel like anotherangrydev is more likely than not "contributing to the bad relationship" in his (or her) work environments. When someone has multiple bad interactions with HR, at multiple companies, it starts to look like they're the problem and not HR. Why are they having so many interactions with HR at all? Or was there just one bad experience that they're extrapolating to "99%" of HR employees?

Re: Jeff Bezos Says Amazon Won’t Tolerate ‘Callous’ Management Practices

#194

Post by greenyoda » Mon, Aug 17, 2015, 7:39 PM UTC

austenallred wrote: post #130

mfringel wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

....and thus it all cancels out? Show your work.

It's just all so anecdotal. Finding five frustrated employees of a company with things would not be hard to do, and the response pointed out how many of the major complaints were severely taken out of context. It just reeks if someone trying to make a story when there is none.

It's not just the employees interviewed by the Times. I've read roughly 100 comments (across this and several related HN articles) from ex-Amazon employees who confirmed that their experiences at Amazon were similar to what was described in the Times article. And maybe 100 comments from people who wrote that they would never work at Amazon based on what friends they knew at Amazon have gone through. At some point, the evidence begins to build up. I think it's pretty unlikely that there's a vast conspiracy of former Amazon employees and their friends who want to spread nasty lies about Amazon.

Re: Jeff Bezos Says Amazon Won’t Tolerate ‘Callous’ Management Practices

#195

Post by serge2k » Mon, Aug 17, 2015, 7:53 PM UTC

MCRed wrote: post #160

satai wrote: post #32

Jeff Bezos is definitely the new Steve Jobs.

Jobs was a good guy who, under it all, had engineering skill and design chops. He was compassionate and intelligent. Jobs built a great company that makes real profits by selling real products. Bezos is a psychopath, a hack who only cares about manipulating the situation in his favor. He has built a shell of a retailer whos only profitable product is its own stock.

Jobs was a good guy. Wasn't he known for being outright cruel to employees? Didn't he foster a culture of infighting and ridiculous hours? Wasn't he a deadbeat dad for a couple decades?

Did he have engineering skill? He had vision and a level of genius, but I'm not sure it applies to Engineering skill. Odd that you give that to him but not to Bezos.

Re: Jeff Bezos Says Amazon Won’t Tolerate ‘Callous’ Management Practices

#196

Post by klibertp » Mon, Aug 17, 2015, 7:56 PM UTC

dpark wrote: post #171

jazzyk wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You missed one word - "politely". One can be polite and still convey the intended message :-) She obviously got it, hence the revenge.

I didn't miss the word. I just don't believe it's accurate. If the intended message was "fuck off", there's no polite way to deliver that. You might deliver it without literally saying the words, but if the meaning is intact, you're not being polite. I also don't believe a politely delivered message can result in a 3-month plot filled with false reports, culminating in job termination. How does that play out? "Wow, h…

> I just don't believe it's accurate.

I have no idea why would you accuse GP of lying. You don't know him. Do you routinely judge if a person tells the truth based on some words he used?

Also, you confuse the GP's feelings about the situation right now with his attitude back then. Back when it happened, he didn't know of a 3 months long plot against him. Now he does know. He was shown the (obscenity censored because it would apparently alter the meaning of my post) documents, he read it black on white. Just before getting fired, too. It's nothing strange that his wording now is emotional and blunt, it says nothing about how he was back then.

Lastly, of course, there are polite ways of telling people to censored, you know why off politely. It's what assertiveness is all about. There are people, however, who don't really care about the form: they just can't stand others disagreeing with them. I don't think it's that rare a trait. How about that line of thinking:

"He's too polite, he's trying to hide something. And he dared to disagree with me, his superior. More than once! I don't have the time to deal with a time-bomb like him, which can blow up behind my back at any time. I need an army of easily controlled people to help me further my career. Yeah, it would be safer to spend a few minutes more and slip a couple of lies when working on his evaluations."

Preparing reports which are not true, yet are not outright lies, and which make some person look really bad doesn't really take much time. Especially if one does it for a living.

Re: Jeff Bezos Says Amazon Won’t Tolerate ‘Callous’ Management Practices

#197

Post by klibertp » Mon, Aug 17, 2015, 8:00 PM UTC

dpark wrote: post #193

jazzyk wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My developer friend had to work with a program/product manager from hell. They hated each other's guts from the minute they met. He was tasked by the CTO with implementing new software and kept asking her for definitive requirements. She never came up with them and told him to propose something based on some loose, very high-level requirements. When he did, she critiqued the solutions in a meeting attended by many pe…

Sure. Bad chemistry happens. And in that instance, it sounds like bad chemistry with a bad person. But if your friend had been "politely" telling this woman to fuck off, then I'd have to say that he was at least contributing to the bad relationship. I feel like anotherangrydev is more likely than not "contributing to the bad relationship" in his (or her) work environments. When someone has multiple bad interactions w…

OMG, the level of bad faith in your comments is astounding. Do you know 'anotherangrydev' personally? Or do you have a link to some resource which is objective and makes his "contributing to the bad relationship" more probable?

Re: Jeff Bezos Says Amazon Won’t Tolerate ‘Callous’ Management Practices

#198

Post by jazzyk » Mon, Aug 17, 2015, 8:00 PM UTC

dpark wrote: post #193

jazzyk wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My developer friend had to work with a program/product manager from hell. They hated each other's guts from the minute they met. He was tasked by the CTO with implementing new software and kept asking her for definitive requirements. She never came up with them and told him to propose something based on some loose, very high-level requirements. When he did, she critiqued the solutions in a meeting attended by many pe…

Sure. Bad chemistry happens. And in that instance, it sounds like bad chemistry with a bad person. But if your friend had been "politely" telling this woman to fuck off, then I'd have to say that he was at least contributing to the bad relationship. I feel like anotherangrydev is more likely than not "contributing to the bad relationship" in his (or her) work environments. When someone has multiple bad interactions w…

Sure - it takes two to tango. My friend from the story above definitely does not suffer fools gladly :-)

But there is quite a bit of politics/plain stupidity in (bigger) corporations. Should reasonable people just keep quiet and suffer abuse? [my friend WAS reasonable wrt work- he tried his best to get the job done]

Re: Jeff Bezos Says Amazon Won’t Tolerate ‘Callous’ Management Practices

#199

Post by pinaceae » Mon, Aug 17, 2015, 8:09 PM UTC

computer wrote: post #61

pinaceae wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

seems like people in the US mistake the Human Resources department with Workers Councils. in Europe, you go to the Council, never to HR. the Council is job protected, guaranteed pay - hence no way to apply pressure from the company. HR is not a bad department, they are very important, but they serve the CEO, their role is to keep the whole thing going, avoid waves of any kind and keep a good hiring pipeline. surprise…

You speak about "Europe" like it's a country with a single set of regulations. It's not-- it's a continent. Even for the European Union, the rules are actually extremely varied: http://www.worker-participation.eu/National-Industrial-Relat... And even those countries with councils have (as the link also mentions) very varying rules on exactly what the councils do. Please don't say "Europe" when you mean "some European…

so Germany has not taken over all of Europia? color me surprised.

oder aber du checker überlegst mal, für wen die simplifizierung 'Europa' gedacht war.

Re: Jeff Bezos Says Amazon Won’t Tolerate ‘Callous’ Management Practices

#200

Post by dpark » Mon, Aug 17, 2015, 8:24 PM UTC

klibertp wrote: post #196

dpark wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't miss the word. I just don't believe it's accurate. If the intended message was "fuck off", there's no polite way to deliver that. You might deliver it without literally saying the words, but if the meaning is intact, you're not being polite. I also don't believe a politely delivered message can result in a 3-month plot filled with false reports, culminating in job termination. How does that play out? "Wow, h…

> I just don't believe it's accurate. I have no idea why would you accuse GP of lying. You don't know him. Do you routinely judge if a person tells the truth based on some words he used? Also, you confuse the GP's feelings about the situation right now with his attitude back then. Back when it happened, he didn't know of a 3 months long plot against him. Now he does know. He was shown the ( obscenity censored because…

> I have no idea why would you accuse GP of lying.

He claims that he "politely" told someone to "fuck off". It's not really a question of lying, but a question of possibility. You can't politely tell someone to fuck off. Either you didn't tell them to fuck off or you didn't do it politely. "Fuck off" is not polite. It's not supposed to be polite. If you politely ask someone to leave you alone, you're not telling them to fuck off.

> Do you routinely judge if a person tells the truth based on some words he used?

Not that it's really relevant, but yes. How else would you judge a person's truthfulness except through the words they use? Your words matching the facts is basically the definition of truth.

Do you routinely assume that everything anyone claims is accurate?

> Also, you confuse the GP's feelings about the situation right now with his attitude back then.

No, I'm reading his description of what happened. He gives two versions, one of which (fuck off) is intrinsically unpolite. The other (mind your own business) is pretty rude, too. Given his descriptions in general, it's hard to imagine that this was actually a polite exchange.

It's also difficult to believe that his politeness was rewarded by months of revenge plotting and spite. It would be easier to believe this if he presented this as an isolated story. Instead he presents this as an example of how terrible "99%" of HR employees are. So either 99% of HR employees are actually pointlessly spiteful and terrible, or he's intentionally lying, or he has had so many bad interactions that he believes it to be true. If it's the last case, I've got to wonder if the problem is really all of HR or if it's the one guy who keeps having problems with HR.