Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Bye, Amazon

tbray.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 1001 posts

Re: Bye, Amazon

#271

Post by sanity31415 »

ealexhudson wrote: post #22
miked85 wrote: post #6

> I’m sure it’s a coincidence that every one of them is a person of color, a woman, or both. Right? Including this bit is interesting. So he is accusing Amazon of being both sexist and racist in addition to treating workers poorly.

I think it's an important point. The warehouse staff get treated worse than the AWS staff because they're fungible; easily replaced and cost little. But they're also over-represented by women and people of colour, so the net effect is sexist and racist. The decision making might not be explictly sexist/racist, but that feels like hiding behind an excuse. It is exactly a power dynamic.

That's not what "sexist" and "racist" means unless you have evidence that sex and race are the cause of their overrepresentation.

If not, this is just race/gender baiting and it detracts from the broader issue of worker treatment.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#273

Post by luckylion »

adamc wrote: post #202
lkramer wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't think there are higher skilled people trying to exploit the system? I suspect the real difference here is developers are in higher demand. If we feel the checks becomes to unfair, we can go look for a different job. If a warehouse worker doesn't like his smoke breaks being monitored, there is little recourse, someone else can be hired who will accept these condition out of desperation for a job.

Your explanation seems off to me. Why would lower demand necessarily imply there was someone suitable who was desperate? It seems like your explanation suggests that the pool of "suitable" would be larger, i.e., the job is less skilled. I think it is definitely true that less skilled workers have bad options, because, by definition, they are easily replaced. More highly skilled workers can end up in this situation, t…

> More highly skilled workers can end up in this situation, too

And the moment that happens, all those nice benefits go flying out the window and the SWE find themselves having to clock out when going to the toilet. Demand (and therefore the easy of replacement) is what makes the difference.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#274

Post by Pet_Ant »

CalRobert wrote: post #235
bob33212 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Warren Buffet's has a famous quote about time being the only valuable thing he has. Once you have enough money to cover food/housing/healthcare/transportation it seems stupid to spend a lot of your time helping an organization that you don't like, even if they are paying you well. What is impressive here is that he make his decision public. Plenty of people have moral issues with their company and just say that they…

This is the challenge with large mortgages and heath care requirements taking away people's moral agency. Maybe that's the idea.

> Maybe that's the idea.

It literally is. The post-war housing boom was meant to discourage activism by having workers tied to something they could lose.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#275

Post by codazoda »

bob33212 wrote: post #189
nicoburns wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Very few people would have the courage to walk away from big sums of money purely on principle. On the contrary, bucketloads of people do this all the time. The world would be a better place if more people did.

Warren Buffet's has a famous quote about time being the only valuable thing he has. Once you have enough money to cover food/housing/healthcare/transportation it seems stupid to spend a lot of your time helping an organization that you don't like, even if they are paying you well. What is impressive here is that he make his decision public. Plenty of people have moral issues with their company and just say that they…

Many companies predicate things on you keeping your mouth shut, such as your severance.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#276

Post by sanity31415 »

simonhfrost wrote: post #12
miked85 wrote: post #6

> I’m sure it’s a coincidence that every one of them is a person of color, a woman, or both. Right? Including this bit is interesting. So he is accusing Amazon of being both sexist and racist in addition to treating workers poorly.

In my opinion it was more from the perspective that minorities may have a more empathetic view on problems, after likely experiencing dealing with problems other more privileged people don't have to. In this case: one of the biggest benefits of hiring minorities... ending up being the reason you fire them.

> In my opinion it was more from the perspective that minorities may have a more empathetic view on problems, after likely experiencing dealing with problems other more privileged people don't have to.

It's best to avoid making generalizations about people based on the color of their skin - even when you think it's a compliment.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#277

Post by sulam »

lazyjones wrote: post #214

Somewhat understandable reaction, but wise? As a VP you should have some influence at Amazon. Even if not, you'd still do more good by speaking out about it internally instead of resigning, thereby harming mostly yourself and apart from HN drama having little effect on the problem. Unless the real problem is that there is no actual reasonable argument against Amazon's actions because the danger is exaggerated and all…

He specifically addressed this in the post. He tried that first.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#278

Post by ReactiveJelly »

CalRobert wrote: post #235
bob33212 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Warren Buffet's has a famous quote about time being the only valuable thing he has. Once you have enough money to cover food/housing/healthcare/transportation it seems stupid to spend a lot of your time helping an organization that you don't like, even if they are paying you well. What is impressive here is that he make his decision public. Plenty of people have moral issues with their company and just say that they…

This is the challenge with large mortgages and heath care requirements taking away people's moral agency. Maybe that's the idea.

I think, if it's not done on purpose, it's very convenient to those in power, so they don't want to stop doing it.

When most people cannot afford to express morals, you have a host of hungry attack dogs. Some of them start to rationalize that having morals is wrong, that caring about people is wrong because, after all, they can't afford it, so the government can't either.

And if there weren't people desperate for careers and education, the military wouldn't get enough volunteers. So it's very convenient to that whole system.

Propagating the myth of houses as an appropriate working-class investment also sustains this. Index funds are far more liquid, far more diverse, and don't require debt or even a large amount of cash to start with, but a large mortgage is a tight leash.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#279

Post by AlexandrB »

lazyjones wrote: post #221
miked85 wrote: post #6

> I’m sure it’s a coincidence that every one of them is a person of color, a woman, or both. Right? Including this bit is interesting. So he is accusing Amazon of being both sexist and racist in addition to treating workers poorly.

Seems so, but it also shows he's particularly concerned with such issues and might have let emotions and peer pressure overwhelm him.

Yeah man. He let those emotions overwhelm him. Not like us: perfectly rational actors free of emotion.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#280

Post by sulam »

yalogin wrote: post #231

Am curious, what happens if an engineer quit like this after writing a blog about the company, does it have a negative impact on their hirability? Do other companies not want him or does it not matter?

Tim Bray? Won’t matter to his employability at all. May even help it, and low pass filter places he wouldn’t want to work anyway.
Post reply on HN