Are Amazon's margins razor thin? I'm trying to understand what compels them to be so toxic in their work environment. Especially compared to the people I know who work at Costco, I struggle to understand why Costco treats employees so well, and Amazon treats their employees so poorly. It's really sad, regardless.
> Are Amazon's margins razor thin?
They don't make any money on distributing products.
Are Amazon's margins razor thin? I'm trying to understand what compels them to be so toxic in their work environment. Especially compared to the people I know who work at Costco, I struggle to understand why Costco treats employees so well, and Amazon treats their employees so poorly. It's really sad, regardless.
Retail in general is thin-margin. That is why you see Amazon try out all sorts of things from cloud to videos, because their core is so thin margin, that any non-core looks more like an opportunity rather than spreading out resources, say in contrast to a Google or Facebook, who have solid cores high margins.
AWS has pretty good margins afaik.
They have the money to make huge acquisitions and invest in planes, drones, etc. They have the money to treat their employees decently.
Long-haul truckers have been doing this for decades for the same reason-- they don't have time to pull over and use the restroom-- and no one is upset about that. I'm sure there are many industries, white and blue collar, where similar norms are expressed. Edit to add: I'm not endorsing the practice in any industry at all, just pointing out that its not a unique problem to Amazon. My comment would have been better ph…
Are Amazon's margins razor thin? I'm trying to understand what compels them to be so toxic in their work environment. Especially compared to the people I know who work at Costco, I struggle to understand why Costco treats employees so well, and Amazon treats their employees so poorly. It's really sad, regardless.
Bezos. Jeff Bezos is the reason why Amazon treats workers they way they do. Compared to other tech giants, Amazon is incredibly anti-employee. Look at how their stocks vest. I worked at Microsoft during Balmer's reign. The founder/CEO's attitude dictates the work culture. And causes harm if it's bad. I live in Seattle and often hear this joke: Being an Amazon customer is the best. An investor is great. An employee no…
| I live in Seattle and often hear this joke: Being an Amazon customer is the best. An investor is great. An employee not so much.
The ever-increasing home price in the Seattle area seems to indicate it isn't bad enough to stop them from working there.
They shouldn’t be pissing in a bottle period, they should be taking a break, they are just scared to. No one is forcing them to pee in a bottle.
Oh I totally agree. I'm just suggesting that perhaps this also affects the recipients of the packages.
You know how many nasty germs a package comes in contact with even before an Amazon employee touches it and long after it’s shipped? Trillions, with a t.
Are Amazon's margins razor thin? I'm trying to understand what compels them to be so toxic in their work environment. Especially compared to the people I know who work at Costco, I struggle to understand why Costco treats employees so well, and Amazon treats their employees so poorly. It's really sad, regardless.
Bezos. Jeff Bezos is the reason why Amazon treats workers they way they do. Compared to other tech giants, Amazon is incredibly anti-employee. Look at how their stocks vest. I worked at Microsoft during Balmer's reign. The founder/CEO's attitude dictates the work culture. And causes harm if it's bad. I live in Seattle and often hear this joke: Being an Amazon customer is the best. An investor is great. An employee no…
Well, him and the people higher up the food chain that enable him. Tech workers at Amazon could organize to prevent this kind of mistreatment of warehouse employeees. If the AWS team alone walked off the job in protest, the resulting panic and media coverage would squeeze Amazon to improve.
Exactly. If there's money to re-invest, there should be money to treat employees at least decently.
On the other side of the coin, if they hadn't spent the money on reinvesting, they wouldnt be the size they are now or employ as many people. (This is not saying they shouldn't treat employees better, just that the reason they employ so many people in the first place is bc of reinvesting and expanding to more areas. It's not as simplistic as, 'if they have the money they should spend it on people instead of business'…
If you can't grow your business to be a monstrosity without treating your employees like slaves, your business should not exist.
Long-haul truckers have been doing this for decades for the same reason-- they don't have time to pull over and use the restroom-- and no one is upset about that. I'm sure there are many industries, white and blue collar, where similar norms are expressed. Edit to add: I'm not endorsing the practice in any industry at all, just pointing out that its not a unique problem to Amazon. My comment would have been better ph…
Are Amazon's margins razor thin? I'm trying to understand what compels them to be so toxic in their work environment. Especially compared to the people I know who work at Costco, I struggle to understand why Costco treats employees so well, and Amazon treats their employees so poorly. It's really sad, regardless.
Costco employees interact with customers.. Having a healthy interaction with customers is important, and treating employees well goes a long way in helping grow a customer base. Customers will never interact with the person that boxes their amazon shipment. Those individuals are not seen as people, but just a necessity to continue operations.
Costco (retail) appears to treat their employees much better - much higher base wages, regular increases in wage, benefits, etc.
Also know a past Costco corporate employee and only had a positive impression.
What's so special about Amazon in comparison to the Chinese factories where those goods are manufactured? Are we just upset because these people are geographically closer? Or is it nationalism; Americans/Westerners are too good for such treatment? Racism?