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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

#221

Post by cmdrfred »

peripitea wrote: post #102
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…

The worst part to me was that despite all of the claims of meritocracy, there was zero financial incentive to perform well during my four years there. That's because any previously-granted equity is counted against you when determining your total compensation for the next year. When those big year 3 & 4 equity vests kick in, they just stop giving you additional stock, because the stock you already had went up so much…

The cult of management seems to think that they have some magic that will incentivize workers without any increase in monetary compensation (or often percentage increases below inflation). I've seen it at work for C and D players but anyone with half a brain won't stick around once Oz is exposed as just a man behind a curtain.

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

#222

Post by ceejay »

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…

I think people don't mind being judged / measured objectively. I think the problems / angst probably arise when you mix "managers" / subjectivity into the mix. I think objective measurement, that is truly useful, is hard to do in most cases.

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

#223

Post by drusepth »

vonklaus wrote: post #36
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 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…

I did a 3-month internship there and saw some of the ridiculous situations others are replaying here (my favorite of which was 8am-8pm work hours every day).

I decided to not go back, but in the end having Amazon on my resume (even as an internship, as I'm relatively young) was basically a free pass to interview anywhere else I wanted. I'd say it was a shitty experience while I was there, but net positive in the long run if only because of Amazon's klout.

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

#224

Post by arethuza »

intended wrote: post #188
praptak wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe that spreading rumors can magically transform a micromanaging boss. What it can do is keep them occupied, just as any other form of employee micro-sabotage. It also makes the workplace generally crappier.

This stuff is so deeply frightening, to someone like me. I am color blind to a vast range of interpersonal interactions, the fact that people have a vocabulary/taxonomy of interactions which includes or can generate - "micro sabotage"... hints at a world too exhausting to imagine

Have a read of this:

http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-o...

You probably won't thank me if you do read it - it changes the way you evaluate people...

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

#225

Post by candiodari »

77pt77 wrote: post #200
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 cle…

Exactly. But you forget one:

Any attempt at anything short of wildly positive feedback will be met with extremely aggressive reactions, because of the reaction from the organisation that will follow.

Plenty of managers do that today of course.

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

#227

Post by SolaceQuantum »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #212

Amazon-bashing aside, this is an example of why 'safe spaces' and 'trigger-free zones' may be a bad idea. Colleges should train students in responding to triggers; exercise their self-control regularly in the face of adversity not stunt it. Somebody jumps instead of walking away, they have priorities drastically miswired.

How does suicide have anything to do with safe spaces and trigger warnings? Did suicide not exist before college started incorporating safe spaces and trigger warnings? If there is a causation relationship between safe spaces/trigger warnings and suicide does this also mean that countries with high suicide rates have a lot of safe spaces/trigger warnings? What about the high suicide rate of teenagers? Trans people? Homeless? Did they all experience the woes of the safe space/trigger warning?

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

#228

Post by 77pt77 »

candiodari wrote: post #225
77pt77 wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 cle…

Exactly. But you forget one: Any attempt at anything short of wildly positive feedback will be met with extremely aggressive reactions, because of the reaction from the organisation that will follow. Plenty of managers do that today of course.

> But you forget one

Apart from that I forgot many more.

Yes. The cult of optimism and positive thinking[1], because like someone else on this post implied, the way you think about things changes physical reality.

At best it changes your perception which can be in your best interest or not.

[1] http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2015/02/happiness-conspi...

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

#229

Post by coldpie »

drusepth wrote: post #223
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…

I did a 3-month internship there and saw some of the ridiculous situations others are replaying here (my favorite of which was 8am-8pm work hours every day). I decided to not go back, but in the end having Amazon on my resume (even as an internship, as I'm relatively young) was basically a free pass to interview anywhere else I wanted. I'd say it was a shitty experience while I was there, but net positive in the long…

> if only because of Amazon's klout

"clout" :)

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

#230

Post by lucozade »

77pt77 wrote: post #200
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 cle…

> Nothing will change

No, but you can use it to your advantage if you're so inclined. Being in control most of the time but allowing a minor crisis to develop from time to time that you resolve heroically can work.

You can look at it as being underhand or you can look at it as occasionally checking that Pavlov doesn't just work for dogs. Your choice really.

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