Amazon Worker Jumps Off Company Building After E-Mail to Staff • Hacker News Board

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

#41

Post by SomeCallMeTim » Tue, Nov 29, 2016, 5:53 AM UTC

dmoy wrote: post #30

discodave wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon aims for total compensation, cash + stock. So, the package for a typical SDE I will look like the following: Salary: x Starting bonus year 1: 0.2x Starting bonus year 2: 0.15x RSU grant is 0.6x, vesting 5/15/40/40 (4 years). So when you add it up, assuming a constant stock price, you get: Y1:1.23x Y2:1.24x Y3:1.24x Y4:1.24x So at a basic level the back loading of stock is just making up for the starting bonuse…

Wait there are no refresh equity grants at Amazon? I'm at Google and making over double what I was when I started, almost all from additional equity grants every year. It worked out to more like 1.3x, 1.5x, 1.8x, 2.4x, ...

I only stayed at Amazon for one year, but I was told that if I'd stayed for two years they would have offered me more equity.

So yes, there are refresh equity grants. I've heard from a good source that they do that at Apple as well.

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

#42

Post by amazon_employee » Tue, Nov 29, 2016, 5:53 AM UTC

rdtsc wrote: post #22

I was interviewing for AWS, and it was a circus. Completely disorganized. However, I have to say, I enjoyed the parroting back of "the leadership principles" part. It was like being in the Soviet Union again and singing praises to the great party leaders. Very much worth wasting a day over it. However my nephew didn't have such a fun time. He was working for one of their warehouses in Kentucky and they were ruthless…

Sorry to hear that. I work for AWS, and I like to think we're pretty organized. I'm not sure what part of your experience was "unorganized". You probably caught the team on a busy day or something.

LPs are just guidelines for what the company "wants" out of its employees. They're used heavily in hiring to weed out small thinkers and bad culture fits, and a bit in performance reviews. Outside of that, nobody really cares about them. You get upper management worship anywhere. It's the same thing as obsessing over celebrities.

Judging corporate based on fulfillment center working conditions isn't fair. One is a $15k job, and the other is a $115k job.

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

#43

Post by linkregister » Tue, Nov 29, 2016, 5:54 AM UTC

kafkaesq wrote: post #2

The man had recently put in a request to transfer to a different department, but was placed on an employee improvement plan, a step that can lead to termination if performance isn’t improved, said the person, who asked not to be identified discussing company personnel matters. PIPs are bullshit, and fundamentally degrading. Just tell people "Maybe it's your fault, maybe it's our fault - but either way, it's not worki…

Can anyone think of a single instance where an employee survived the PIP in any organization? I've never heard of one.

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

#44

Post by Bombthecat » Tue, Nov 29, 2016, 5:55 AM UTC

ams6110 wrote: post #13

itg wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doubt it, that nytimes article about their work culture spread everywhere but not much has changed.

People keep working there, so why would they change? Edit: s/should/would/

Exactly. And other firms will adapt that working style. Why shouldn't they? Amazon gets away with it.

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

#45

Post by SomeCallMeTim » Tue, Nov 29, 2016, 5:56 AM UTC

zzalpha wrote: post #10

Tempest1981 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently got an email from an Amazon recruiter, who, for whatever reason, told me that their team is "largely working The fact that they felt it important to mention this (and qualify it) definitely started me thinking...

The fact that he views less than 50 hours a week (ie less than ten hours a day... ten!) as somehow worth bragging about says even more.

I considered working at Pixar at one point, and spoke to their hiring department.

Curiously, they considered the salary they were offering you to be for 50 hours per week. This wasn't an upper limit; no, you were expected to do occasional overtime past 50. But 50 was the baseline.

I didn't follow through with the interview process. Screw that.

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

#46

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Nov 29, 2016, 5:59 AM UTC

dilemma wrote: post #31

Spooky23 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Managers are cogs too. The way to work that kind of system is to identify and exploit the fears of the boss or his boss. I've seen this happen with employees under the thumb of micromanaging PMs in particular. They start spreading rumors, then undermine PM. My solution is to eliminate micro managers asap.

Interesting, never heard about this dynamic before. How does spreading rumors help them get out of being micromanaged? (sincere question)

[deleted]

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

#47

Post by JoshTriplett » Tue, Nov 29, 2016, 5:59 AM UTC

kafkaesq wrote: post #2

The man had recently put in a request to transfer to a different department, but was placed on an employee improvement plan, a step that can lead to termination if performance isn’t improved, said the person, who asked not to be identified discussing company personnel matters. PIPs are bullshit, and fundamentally degrading. Just tell people "Maybe it's your fault, maybe it's our fault - but either way, it's not worki…

It should work that way (especially for people who want to leave anyway), but things like "performance improvement plans" exist in part because outright firing someone without a long paper trail risks a wrongful termination lawsuit. If you fire someone months after putting them on a "performance improvement plan", you have a hard-to-refute paper trail that makes it much harder to prove any non-performance-related cause.

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

#48

Post by SomeCallMeTim » Tue, Nov 29, 2016, 6:02 AM UTC

pinewurst wrote: post #6

khnd wrote: post #4

wow. i wonder if bezos is going to address this.

Hardly. According to Jeff, nothing is wrong and everything is for the best in his best of all possible worlds. Read enough https://sites.google.com/site/thefaceofamazon/ and it's a consistent picture though. Speaking as a Seattle local, I hear these sort of anecdotes all the time.

I read a bit of that site based on your link. It almost makes me feel like I was working at a different company.

I had a great manager. I had a wonderful time working there. My biggest problem was that I was too fast; I'd get things done too quickly and run out of things to do. This happened even when I would ask for more work.

Otherwise the people were great, the pay was amazing, and I did most of my work from home, coming into Seattle for a few days every month to connect with the team in person.

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

#49

Post by sssilver » Tue, Nov 29, 2016, 6:02 AM UTC

Following some of the discussion on this thread, I am constantly reminded of a priceless advice I got from a senior friend years ago.

When thinking about an employer, above a certain size threshold, never judge a company. Always judge a department. You don't work for a company. You work for a department. Above a certain (fairly small) size, the only thing you'll share with the employees in the other departments will be the domain name in your email. Everything else will be coincidental.

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

#50

Post by jimmywanger » Tue, Nov 29, 2016, 6:06 AM UTC

It's great how this no content article has been turned into a huge Amazon bashing thread that confirms everybody's biases against Amazon employment practices.

The facts are: a guy put in for a transfer, got put on a performance improvement plan, threatened self-harm, and then jumped off a building.

There are no details why he requested a transfer, the reasons he got put on a PIP, and if he was mentally unstable or not, where these fairly common life events would cause him to contemplate self harm.

Nope, the pitchforks and the torches come out.