Earlier quoted context omitted.
If anyone that worked at the fed could predict the future, they wouldn’t work at the fed.
The future is notoriously difficult to predict.
The dark side clouds everything. Impossible to see, the future is.
Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire
381–390 of 764 posts
Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire
#382Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is paid labor, (historically) above market rate, entered into voluntarily, necessarily exploitative because it includes productivity measures? look, I don't want to work for Amazon, but, I don't think it is exploitation to expect productivity concomitant with wage. I think Amazon has offered poor working conditions. All that said, the market will solve this. I've been told recently by a company providing outsourced h…
i mean, if Amazon is getting more out of the worker than it costs to keep them around, that's by definition exploitation. it's silly to avoid the word, it's purely material. how you feel about it is up to you, but the more it sucks for the worker the less they'll like it. it's important that for most people, "voluntary" in this situation involves the threat of fairly immediate homelessness, hunger, and family separat…
> if Amazon is getting more out of the worker than it costs to keep them around
That's a pretty simplistic argument. For one thing, it assumes a zero-sum game. But in economic theory both sides need to gain something in order for a transaction to occur. Walmart is not exploiting its customers just because it gets more from the customer than it cost (i.e. profit). Both sides are benefiting: the customer gets thousands of products in one location at pretty much the lowest possible price. Likewise, Target is not exploiting its customers just because it has higher prices than Walmart; customers get thousands of products in one location with somewhat higher quality than Walmart and a good deal better style. Target has a fairly loyal following, in fact, indicating that customers derive value from Target, even though Target is turning a profit; they could always go to Walmart if they were unhappy.
My employer is (hopefully) getting more value from me than they are paying for. I do not see it as exploitative at all: I could be in business for myself, but I already tried it and I discovered I did not want to bother with a lot of the business stuff, and people were not interested in paying for my product. So I switched the (internally perceived) product I am selling: now I am selling my software engineering services. In return I get some money. I'm a lot happier now than when I felt like I was an employee.
The problem is not that Amazon is getting more perceived value from the worker than the perceived value that they are paying the worker. The problem is that Amazon is abusive; people work for them either because they pay enough to make up for the abuse (at least the initial perception), or the worker does not feel like they have other options. The latter is not a problem of companies making a "profit" on workers, though; that is required for any employment to take place. It is a problem, but it is a different problem.
Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire
#383Earlier quoted context omitted.
Quoted post unavailable.
We do it in the medical and legal field under the guise of “experience” and “career development”. Is it different because it’s blue collar hourly work and not used as a foundation for a lucrative career. I think it should stop in all places but we seem to disregard shitty work arrangements for the few prestigious and financially lucrative careers and cry wolf for those hourly souls. Why is that?
Abuse is OK because it's universal? Come on.
> I think it should stop in all places
This is the only appropriate answer across the board.
Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire
#384Earlier quoted context omitted.
This isn't a secret. Engineers are treated this way as well. At my time at Amazon, it was explained to me that this is why their comp structure is so wrapped up in stock and salaries are so low. Unless you keep getting promoted and get more stock, employees will naturally want to leave within four years.
> employees will naturally want to leave within four years That also explains why the breadth of AWS services keep growing, but the depth of the existing ones remains the same. Seems they would, every 4 years, lose a bunch of people with deep knowledge in the existing ones, the ones who'd be able to add new and deep features.
The number of services is just crazy - I've worked with AWS solutions architects in trying to find the perfect solution to our particular problems, and even they don't seem to know what half the stuff does.
Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire
#385> Amazon founder and former CEO Jeff Bezos saw his warehouse workforce as necessary but replaceable, and feared that workers who remained at the company too long would turn complacent or, worse, disgruntled, according to reporting by the New York Times. Wow. Think about what this is really saying: Amazon adopts the explicit policy of not wanting their workers to stay on long enough to figure out that they are getting…
People need to read some history. The early 20th century industrialists talked about all the same stuff. People are fickle and managing them at scale is hard. There's more to it than just "give them a good deal". There are plenty of people who are getting a "good deal" who become complacent or disgruntled.
> People need to read some history.
But they'll get distracted before getting around to it. Gore Vidal wasn't kidding when he used the words "United States of Amnesia" in his essays.
(Also, "our owners". Good stuff, tangy with aristocratic vinegar - acerbic, I believe the tasters call it.)
Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire
#386Earlier quoted context omitted.
> employees will naturally want to leave within four years That also explains why the breadth of AWS services keep growing, but the depth of the existing ones remains the same. Seems they would, every 4 years, lose a bunch of people with deep knowledge in the existing ones, the ones who'd be able to add new and deep features.
The number of services is just crazy - I've worked with AWS solutions architects in trying to find the perfect solution to our particular problems, and even they don't seem to know what half the stuff does.
Let alone which ones are the good ones. That only comes from experience.
AWS never cancels anything... but they never complete anything either and they abandon 80% of their products in minimum viable state, where "viable" is defined by the PM's bonus packet, not by anyone who has to use the damn thing.
Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire
#387Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cars are this big advertising moving billboard. Car companies employee thousands who work in cities built around these plants. Having employees driving around earning high paying wages spending it around town has a big influence on the rest of the town/region.
seems tenuous and hard to objectify. You could also use the same argument to say that raining $5 bills from your company offices has net positive value, eg. 1. dump a sack of $5 bills from your office 2. people associate your company with giving them free stuff, thereby giving you positive influence 3. ??? 4. profit
It can but each situation requires a multiplier. A $10,000 cash drop as a media story picked up nationally or regionally will be worth more.
In Ford's case he doubled the daily pay to 5 dollars but this also provided a steady workforce so it had other benefits because a steady workforce means a trained and more productive workforce.
Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire
#388Is that why I get recruiter emails almost daily?
If you really are, my recommendation is to get stern with your responses. I got them to stop for a little while by just asking them to stop, and then to stop entirely by asking again while mentioning who I sent my previous request to. Like "Hi John, please stop contacting me", and then a few months later like "Hi Steve, a few months ago I asked John Doe (johndoe@) to stop contacting me". The second step seems to have been the trick.
Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire
#389The Fed is about to induce 3 years worth of rising unemployment by their own estimates, so the days of workers not needing to take crap jobs out of desperation will soon be at an end. https://qz.com/2178359/the-fed-predicts-3-years-of-rising-un...
Those idiots! Everyone and their mother knew that printing money since 2008 was going to blow up one day. Technology and unsubstantiated sectors allowed them to print without repercussions for a while and the administration and them also tried to fool people into believing the inflation was transitory... Reckless idiots. And now wage labor is the one to suffer most. 4TT in spending for BBB? Uhhuh! Even Yellen said it…
> Everyone and their mother knew that printing money since 2008 was going to blow up one day.
You can't "predict" that something will cyclical will happen on some indeterminate timeline then claim success when it eventually does. Impactful actions have pretty immediate results. So if you "predicted" that the actions of 09-10 to have an effect, if effect didn't happen by like 2012, your prediction was wrong. The economy is way too complicated to predict out more than a few years because it's constantly undergoing major shifts and changes.
Inflation is being experienced globally, even in regions with little/no economic ties to the USA. And the USA is experiencing less inflation than in many other countries. This suggests that the underlying cause is external to the USA and whatever actions Americans are taking in response is more effective than what other countries are doing.
Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire
#390Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is not unusual at all. My first job as a developer was with a big consulting firm. Undergraduate seniors were hired en masse every year as entry-level staff consultants. The expectation (not stated, but not hard to figure out) was that many would leave within a few years. Some would remain and get promoted, even fewer would stick around long enough to be considered for partnership. The work hours were long (50 h…
Big consulting firms are exactly the place you should avoid, especially if you're a developer with plenty of better options. If you like working in the office / overworking just get into a fang and get more money. If you want a quiet environment go for smaller companies and get the same money as your big consultancy. Nobody cares where you worked unless it's a fang, anyway
At the time, FNG didn't exist, and Apple was gasping for life. It was one of the top paying options for a new graduate with no experience.