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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

#301

Post by blacksmith_tb »

chris_wot wrote: post #162
rifung wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They don't even know how to write bash scripts Is this weird? I only know of one or two coworkers who knows how to write bash scripts.. Despite almost knowing no bash, I was hired as an SDE1 at Amazon so your story adds up though!

It's super weird that anyone exposed to a Unix system can't write a bash script!

Well, I think shell scripting is fun, so I might agree that you'd hope users who had spent at least a little time using the CLI _could_ write a bash script. That said, I suspect a lot of people, devs included, just haven't needed to automate/batch things outside of whatever their normal toolset is - and don't know what they're missing. Portability makes shell scripting especially nice - instead of fiddling with rbenv or npm or pip so that your elegant little script can run, your handy.sh is going to be easier to move to another box...

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

#302

Post by jsolson »

uw_rob wrote: post #217
jsolson wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Principal, maybe, but SDE3 is a position you can be easily hired into with enough experience. As a promo it's a bitch, though, and absolutely not worth it. Jump ships for something level equivalent at a company with better comp and get promoted there. I say this having stuck it out at Amazon for SDE3 before jumping ship. My only regret is that I stayed too long.

How long did you stay at Amazon? Did you start as a SDE1?

I should really find a better way to phrase that comment. I wasn't actually there for that long (a bit over two years), but I still regret not leaving sooner. I was hired in as an SDE2, which at the time was probably the right level due to lack of experience with large companies, but I outgrew it pretty quickly. The SDE3 promo process involved a staggering amount of hoop jumping specifically so my manager could put together my packet. My manager was fairly transparent about the checklist nature of the process, but it clearly involved an even more staggering amount of work for him preparing a packet for me.

When I say I should've left sooner it's because for all the effort put into it I ended up taking a substantial pay raise and a level drop when I finally did leave five months later (and went through a much lighter weight promo process shortly after joining my new gig that I would've been able to pursue regardless). It's possible the promo put me in a better negotiating position, but given that I didn't disclose my current compensation during negotiation I can't say that with any confidence.

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

#303

Post by plandis »

You know what the worst part of my job at Amazon is? That I continually have to read about how terrible I am both on the internet and in real life (your average Seattlite seems to hate Amazon).

Just in this thread alone I've been accused of:

* Screwing employees over * Being a slave in a sweatshop * Insulted for not being able to use Bash (I can) * Disorganized * Not be trusted to talk about working at Amazon (lol) * Fostering a toxic workplace * A communist (my favorite insult)

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

#304

Post by mikestew »

tyingq wrote: post #179
cwilkes wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What really angered me about that article was Amazon trying to say that this was a "colleague" -- he was on a PIP. Which is pretty much Amazon speak for a dead man walking (no pun intended).

I'm pretty sure the real purpose of a PIP, everywhere they are used, is to build up sufficient documentation to fire someone. That can't be a good experience on the receiving end.

I'm pretty sure the real purpose of a PIP, everywhere they are used, is to build up sufficient documentation to fire someone.

Of course it is. As I was telling coworkers this morning, any time I've had a direct on a PIP it's to do the hoop-jumping paperwork to satisfy HR. I've already decided I don't want that person on my team. And to be fair, that's because I've already tried "performance improvement" (regular 1:1s, goal setting, the like), and concluded that more of it isn't going to turn a bad fit into a good one.

So, yeah, if you find yourself on a PIP best start polishing that resume, because you're not long for that company no matter what HR tells you.

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

#305

Post by mikestew »

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.

So what you're saying is that despite Christmas coming on the same day every year for the last few hundred years, management still can't plan their way out of a wet paper bag. Yeah, not my problem, nor am I paid to make it my problem.

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

#306

Post by mter »

turar wrote: post #290
mter wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been reorged quite a few times. More than most people who have spent 5 years here. > You may find that you got extremely lucky in where you first landed. I have 3 other teams with previous coworkers who are currently having good experiences that I can go to if this one goes south. Yes there are a lot of teams that burn people out. I'm not blind. But there are also a number of us that have resisted the amazon way…

> But there are also a number of us that have resisted the amazon way and try to actually be human. This last sentence was such a stark contrast with the rest of your comments above, that it almost feels like a slip or a that meme with a guy blinking an S-O-S signal with his eyes.

The amazon way is not always friendly to normal humans. That's just the truth of it. My team has taken pains to not be that way.

The company is trying to change the culture and frankly, have done some mind blowing things. No one would have ever though paternity leave would be a thing 5 years ago. Or that part time work would ever be discussed. But there is a long, long way to go and a lot of senior peoples attitudes need to be changed before I'd call the culture here awesome.

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

#307

Post by sctb »

nir wrote: post #65
umeshunni wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the Seattle PI article said that he fell 20 feet (2 stories) into a balcony after jumping from the 12 story building.

Following this, he was assigned to Amazon's employee suicide improvement plan.

This kind of comment might not look so out-of-place elsewhere on the internet, but on Hacker News we try to behave like decent human beings.

> Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say in a face-to-face conversation. Avoid gratuitous negativity.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#308

Post by kamaal »

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.

The only problem is life is pretty much an accumulation of incremental experiences.

Most people just can't wake up one day perform like a superstar at work for the same reason why a person can't just wake up and run a marathon without any practice. Like physical stamina, mental stamina too comes from a lot of practice done over years and "from their earliest years" performance matters.

Plus rewards come to a lot of long time sloggers, because they've been around long and have been putting their heads down and doing a lot of work.

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

#309

Post by turar »

mter wrote: post #306
turar wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But there are also a number of us that have resisted the amazon way and try to actually be human. This last sentence was such a stark contrast with the rest of your comments above, that it almost feels like a slip or a that meme with a guy blinking an S-O-S signal with his eyes.

The amazon way is not always friendly to normal humans. That's just the truth of it. My team has taken pains to not be that way. The company is trying to change the culture and frankly, have done some mind blowing things. No one would have ever though paternity leave would be a thing 5 years ago. Or that part time work would ever be discussed. But there is a long, long way to go and a lot of senior peoples attitudes…

> My team has taken pains to not be that way.

But that's the thing though. Your team is not being discussed, but the entire company is. And if it feels to you that it's your team that's swimming against the current, then maybe there's a lot of truth to the general perception of the whole company.

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

#310

Post by btdiehr »

sulam wrote: post #286
btdiehr wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you're not privileged enough to be a software developer. Being a software developer isn't a privilege, it's a choice.

Being able to make that choice is a privilege.

How do you figure?
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