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Amazon Worker Jumps Off Company Building After E-Mail to Staff

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Re: Amazon Worker Jumps Off Company Building After E-Mail to Staff

#191

Post by michaelt »

dagw wrote: post #174
erentz wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

50 hours seems to be normal in some effects houses, which are increasingly operating like sweat shops. Weta Digital is also the same. And they strictly expect minimum 50 hours there.

Yup. Movies (and games) often have very hard deadlines and missing the release window can mean losing a fuck-ton of money. I remember working on a TV Christmas special once, and let's just say that letting the release slip to early January was Not An Option.

Companies have deadlines, sure, but that doesn't mean they need to routinely require overtime.

I mean, if all my recent projects required 10% overtime, I've got a bunch of options for my next project:

a. Hire 10% more staff

b. Increase my existing staff's efficiency by 10%

c. Reduce scheduling and rework inefficiencies by 10%

d. Quote 10% longer delivery times to customers

e. Promise customers 10% less

f. Start work 10% earlier.

g. Plan to make my employees work 10% overtime.

If my company was choosing option g every time, I'd expect my employees to quit for better jobs because planned overtime is a pretty big 'fuck you' from your employer.

Why employees in the games industry put up with this sort of thing is frankly beyond me.

Re: Amazon Worker Jumps Off Company Building After E-Mail to Staff

#192

Post by kefka »

shawabawa3 wrote: post #178
dagw wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Do you think it weird that most Windows user couldn't write a .bat script? I've worked support at a large university that used Unix as its main desktop OS for staff and students in most departments. I'd bet that most people there couldn't write bash script. 90+% of peoples interaction with the OS was click browser icon, click e-mail icon, click text editor icon and click icon/type in name at command prompt of wh…

Aren't we talking about software engineers not just generic users? I would be very surprised if an engineer working primarily in windows couldn't write a .bat/powershell script

I guess that's the superiority of Linux admins. I'being one of them, can write scripts in bash, python, perl, and plenty of other langs. And just recently, taught myself powershell as well. Screwedup-LangwithLongKeywords...

Re: Amazon Worker Jumps Off Company Building After E-Mail to Staff

#193

Post by jordache »

joshstrange wrote: post #181
u489utaa wrote: post #19

Amazon screws employees in ways unseen in other companies. From the perspective of an engineer, this is a terrible place for people to work and grow. To list a few things: - Equity vesting schedule is 5%, 15%, 40%, 40% over 4 years - Relocation package is prorated for TWO years. If you leave after staying for a full year, you still need to return 50% of it. - 401K matching only vests after working for 3 years. If you…

I don't work in SV so maybe my comment doesn't matter but most of these things seem pretty trivial.... > - Equity vesting schedule is 5%, 15%, 40%, 40% over 4 years I haven no equity in my company or opportunity to get any. > - Relocation package is prorated for TWO years. If you leave after staying for a full year, you still need to return 50% of it. I don't think my company offers any relocation packages (I could b…

i think his complaint is in the context of amazon's aggresive and stressful work culture. For all of that, you ought to get some pretty good benefits

Re: Amazon Worker Jumps Off Company Building After E-Mail to Staff

#194

Post by coredog64 »

IndianAstronaut wrote: post #90
Spooky23 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Managers are cogs too. The way to work that kind of system is to identify and exploit the fears of the boss or his boss. I've seen this happen with employees under the thumb of micromanaging PMs in particular. They start spreading rumors, then undermine PM. My solution is to eliminate micro managers asap.

I work under a micromanaging boss (who doubles as a PM). It is stifling. I can't function, get much done, move projects forward, etc. It's horrendous.

Just wait until you get a femtomanager as a supervisor.

Re: Amazon Worker Jumps Off Company Building After E-Mail to Staff

#196

Post by coredog64 »

notyourwork wrote: post #99
vonklaus wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this. Amazon seems to have seriously cutting edge infrastructure; they sell it as a service and operate more servers than google. Also, according to the article 20k people work for them, although I am not sure if that was total or engineers. I am curious how they can retain people to manage all of their operations. Those terms sound terrible and not competitive. I would take those terms, but I am d…

Remember that the most vocal are the most dissatisfied. Also remember that at a company that large there are going to be more dissatisfied than smaller companies. Lastly, don't forget that no one wants to read a story about an upset engineer from a small no name company. People like seeing big brand names fail and we as a society are a sucker for a negative drama. They retain people because not every team is like wha…

Interviewed with Amazon, and they were offering less than my current salary in a market where housing isn't nearly as crazy as Seattle.

Re: Amazon Worker Jumps Off Company Building After E-Mail to Staff

#197

Post by yummyfajitas »

mrob wrote: post #159
yazaddaruvala wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I work under a micromanaging boss I don't have a "boss" I have a "manager" or "team lead". I don't work "under" or "for" my "manager", I work "with" them. If you understand that connotations of words matter, you should use other words. When you start to use other words, you might start to act differently. When you start to act differently your manager might too. Meanwhile, your manager sounds terrible. My condolenc…

There's nothing subconscious about it. A boss by definition has more power. Pretending it's not so won't change the facts.

The boss has the power to terminate your employment relationship. You have the same power. If you are in software, most likely you'll find a new job long before they find a replacement. That's certainly true of my team.

What "power" do you believe the boss has that an employee doesn't?

Re: Amazon Worker Jumps Off Company Building After E-Mail to Staff

#198

Post by jonathankoren »

gohrt wrote: post #120
jonathankoren wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard Apple's equity grants are stupid though. Instead of the standard grant-value / share-price-at-hire = number of shares, and then then vesting the number of shares over 4 years, Apple vests the grant-value over 4 years and then converts to stock using the share price at the time of vesting. This of course results in lower compensation over the vesting schedule assuming an appreciating stock price.

They don't convert like you say, what they do it cut refreshes. Example: You get $100K and $50K of stock (grant value): "target compensation" = $150K Next year, when stock vests, your target compensation is $160K, so you get $110K cash plus a stock refresh grant: * Stock went down to $0 -> $100K refresh to make up. * Stock stayed flat: -> $50K refresh * Stock went up to $100K: -> 0K refresh to cancel out. * Stock wen…

So you're saying your initial grant remains untouched? So assuming $50k per year in stock for 4 years, after 4 years you'd get $200k plus the delta on 4 years of stock growth?

Re: Amazon Worker Jumps Off Company Building After E-Mail to Staff

#199

Post by herge »

joshstrange wrote: post #181
u489utaa wrote: post #19

Amazon screws employees in ways unseen in other companies. From the perspective of an engineer, this is a terrible place for people to work and grow. To list a few things: - Equity vesting schedule is 5%, 15%, 40%, 40% over 4 years - Relocation package is prorated for TWO years. If you leave after staying for a full year, you still need to return 50% of it. - 401K matching only vests after working for 3 years. If you…

I don't work in SV so maybe my comment doesn't matter but most of these things seem pretty trivial.... > - Equity vesting schedule is 5%, 15%, 40%, 40% over 4 years I haven no equity in my company or opportunity to get any. > - Relocation package is prorated for TWO years. If you leave after staying for a full year, you still need to return 50% of it. I don't think my company offers any relocation packages (I could b…

Whatever your work conditions may be, it still stinks for him to be given an offer on paper which looks comparable to other companies of Amazon's reach, and yet in the small print wind up being a lot worse.

Re: Amazon Worker Jumps Off Company Building After E-Mail to Staff

#200

Post by 77pt77 »

Futurebot wrote: post #7

Tyler Cowen has written a lot about this: "Individuals don’t in fact enjoy being evaluated all the time, especially when the results are not always stellar: for most people, one piece of negative feedback outweighs five pieces of positive feedback. To the extent that measurement raises income inequality, perhaps it makes relations among the workers tenser and less friendly. Life under a meritocracy can be a little to…

> We may end up favoring “goody two-shoes” personality types who were on the straight and narrow from their earliest years and disfavor those who rebelled at young ages, even if those people might end up being more creative later on."

We'll keep on doing what we've been doing since the dawn of time: reward Machiavellian behavior.

The guy that creates a controlled fire and puts it out will be praised.

The guy that cleans the dead foliage to prevent future fires will be punished for being unproductive and a dead weight.

Nothing will change.

Edit: punctuation

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