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Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

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Re: Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

#201

Post by rejectedandsad »

maybelsyrup wrote: post #179
rejectedandsad wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The poor fellow at Amazon can always go to Zillow or Microsoft not really the same as deaths of despair here.

Yes, correct, but he isn't -- and I'm sure he knows he can leave to some other firm. He isn't leaving to the point of being hospitalized. Which is unbelievable to me!

If I didn’t have so many distractions that could be me, honestly, but not for the same reasons - for me Amazon is just evidence that I’m innately intellectually inferior and will forever be a lower social class and that hurts like hell.

Re: Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

#202

Post by simfree »

a3n wrote: post #184
thephyber wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why aren't they? Do you have evidence they aren’t? I was under the impression Amazon warehouse logistics employees had extremely high turnover (averaging less than 1 year). I suspect I agree with you that logistics workers realize they are on a lower rung of the ladder and are willing to work for less compensation. I suspect much of janitorial and security staff in Amazon HQ probably have no access to stock options…

> I suspect much of janitorial and security staff in Amazon HQ probably have no access to stock options either. It's likely that security and janitorial are 3rd party contractors and have no access to anything available from Amazon whatsoever.

Amazon's security works for Securitas at the Seattle campus, and turnover is extremely high as they try shenanigans like "Cover the Alarm Panel, do entryway guarding at the main entrance at the same time (despite both requiring 24/7 physical presence and not being in the same area of the building)".

Amazon has very high security staffing requirements compared to most other Seattle companies. Absolutely bonkers IMO

Re: Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

#203

Post by sokoloff »

kapp_in_life wrote: post #193
VRay wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, some morons at Microsoft do it too My skip-level manager put me on a performance improvement plan there because he said someone else had done 10x as much work as me. It turned out that the other engineer had closed out something like 1 "bug" ticket per day, and I'd closed out 1 "task" ticket per day PLUS some bugs, so I'd done substantially more work. I just waited until my next stock vesting, then took a…

>retarded dead-end boondoggle of a device It was the amazon dash button wasn't it.

It sounded like that story was at Microsoft to me, but now that I know you thought it was Amazon, I can see that it’s ambiguous and could be read either way.

Re: Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

#204

Post by rejectedandsad »

sokoloff wrote: post #196
rejectedandsad wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s irrelevant they give you the same amount in “signing bonus” with a 55/45/0/0 “vest”.

But you’re vesting 40% of your initial grant this year was the point, not that you didn’t get the initial “fill in” cash bonus.

Fair but if you decide to invest in Amazon with the proceeds you’re in the same boat. And other companies do frequently at least attempt to match scenarios like this (if you’re smart enough to get better offers).

Re: Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

#205

Post by Apocryphon »

rejectedandsad wrote: post #198
Apocryphon wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also wondering if the creation of platforms like Glassdoor, Blind, even r/CSCareerQuestions have allowed these issues to come to light.

Ironically, those are all the same platforms that made me want to contemplate ending it all because I work at Amazon. After I blocked them at the router level I started to feel better, until I realized people think I’m inferior no matter if I see them say it or not.

Those places are absolutely toxic (Glassdoor less so) when people praise themselves, but I think they're useful in sharing some of the harsh truths about different company cultures, including Amazon. But I'm sure they also miss the overall picture as corporations like Amazon are massive.

Re: Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

#206

Post by slumpt_ »

ferdowsi wrote: post #130
lakevieew wrote: post #111

I had joined Amazon as my first job out of school. I was super excited and would not mind working the long hours as the project was interesting. I enjoyed working with my team and manager. Just near the end of the year, my manager quit. The new manager ran my performance review and assessed that my performance didn’t meet expectations. I was not put on PIP. Instead, there would be a development plan that I had to com…

I still can't believe that Amazon measures performance by "numbers of commits" and "SLOC". Pure insanity.

Morons at Google do it, too.

I knew a manager who wore a suit to every fucking meeting, and would make a point to bring up IC’s CL counts and lines of code changed during calibration / promo review.

He still works there and likely has sway over the careers of countless more competent individuals than himself.

Quitting Google was the best decision I ever made. Good teams are outnumbered by shitty teams with shitty managers there.

Re: Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

#207

Post by colinmhayes »

casefields wrote: post #183
plank_time wrote: post #55

When the stock goes from 200 to 3500 in 10 years, and consistently goes up and to the right, you won’t find too many of the workers complaining no matter how bad the job conditions are. I have a friend up in Seattle who is suffering, to the point of being hospitalized for mental health issues, but refuses to leave. So HR and leadership believe that their system “works” but it’s really that their employees are willing…

[flagged]

6

Re: Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

#208

Post by myroon5 »

rejectedandsad wrote: post #194
myroon5 wrote: post #163

Highly Valued 1 (HV1): we expect 35% of Amazonians are HV1 Least effective (LE): we expect 5% of Amazonians are LE HV1 Compensation recommendation: 0% YoY

That doesn’t sound right, I was HV after promotion and still got 2%.

To clarify, HV1? There are 3 levels to HV

Re: Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

#209

Post by thebean11 »

ndesaulniers wrote: post #119
thebean11 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the stock comes in a 4 year grant. You can't trade your GOOG for AMZN until vesting.

Grants vest over a period of 4 years, with overlapping grants generally granted each year. So you don't need to wait a full 4 years to begin selling.

Right I know, my point is that if AMZN doubles two years in and GOOG doesn't, the AMZN worker is better off because their entire grant has doubled. The GOOG worker buying AMZN has only doubled half their grant, the unvested portion is in GOOG which hasn't moved.

Re: Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

#210

Post by rejectedandsad »

myroon5 wrote: post #208
rejectedandsad wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn’t sound right, I was HV after promotion and still got 2%.

To clarify, HV1? There are 3 levels to HV

Ah, I see. Perhaps it falls under the new “needs improvement” bucket while hv2 does not.
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