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Bye, Amazon

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Re: Bye, Amazon

#441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd suggest working with or managing a place with low-skilled people. They of course aren't all like that but it seems it attracts low-motivation, low-effort, or low-caring Pay low wage, get low motivation. No one's going to bust their ass over a mcgriddle for minimum wage.

I sure did. Harder than I worked at some better paying jobs, for sure. Wage itself does not seem to be the determining factor in motivation. I'd say it's more about barriers to entry and the work environment itself.

You're a chump lol

Re: Bye, Amazon

#442
> Only that’s not just Amazon, it’s how 21st-century capitalism is done

This type of business practice is a big threat to capitalism. Bottom-line thinking is over-optimization w.r.t. to revenue that doesn’t even consider those who generate the revenue. It’s a local maximum that makes crummy business people look smarter than they are. Conscientious capitalism is not a socialist concept, it’s a human concept. If the leaders have no empathy, people will leave, revenue will go down.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#443
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“perhaps it makes it possible to give people jobs who don't deserve automatic trust. Such people exist, unfortunately.” They may exist, but I doubt there are enough of them, even in Amazon’s warehouses, to warrant the draconian rules for all employees. I also think people more behave that way then that they are that way. The way you treat your personnel will affect whether they behave like that.

>The way you treat your personnel will affect whether they behave like that. Anecdotally, I have family members that run a business that require low skilled workers. They don't really need full time workers, so they hire part-time and don't pay a living wage to them, even though it is viable to their business to do so. So what do they get? They get unreliable people. People who steal from them. People who don't clock…

Relevant book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evolution_of_Cooperation

Re: Bye, Amazon

#444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Talking to US friends about jobs is always weird because they're so afraid of quitting/being fired, because their health insurance is tied to their jobs. This whole system conspires to make people afraid and subservient. Why you guys haven't replaced it with someone that actually frees you, is always a mystery to me.

It's especially ironic in that people are regularly ruined by health or mortgage issues even with insurance and a steady job. Once you realize this, it becomes a lot easier to look at your situation with clear eyes. More Americans should be walking away from their jobs, because it would make it easier to improve the conditions people work under if they held a credible threat to corporate stability.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's one thing to refuse interviews, and another thing to quit a job you love and invested 5 years of your life and that paysvery well.

The latter it's much easier: the stocks are vested after 5 years, the unspent disposable income is saved somewhere and now and you are ready to leave. Also the turnover of engineers in Amazon is among the highest in the industry and only a few stay beyond 5 years. In comparison, refusing to work for some FAANG takes 10 times more courage for someone out of college and without saving.

I think you dramatically underestimate how hard change is for people.

Sure, rationally it's easier to quit. But humans are not perfectly rational spherical volumes. Quitting means not having a place to go every day, not seeing the tribe you're used to spending most of your day with, not knowing what "normal" will look like tomorrow, and signing yourself up for making a series of very difficult, stressful executive decisions around what to do next.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People work in less profitable industries and choose less-profitable majors all-the-time. Teaching, non-profit, nursing and research are fields where the pay doesn’t always match the schooling or knowledge required.

Sure, I'll grant you that, but it's much harder to give up something you already have than to abstain from something you don't have.

This is just extemporizing to deny a strong point...and in any case, it is easier to give up on an income of you have a lot in the bank.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ignoring the bad faith questioning, I dont have to provide a gold standard in order to criticise Amazon. Everything I've said is extremely well documented.

How are these questions in bad faith?

Internally accusing people of bad faith can be a mechanism for dealing with cognitive dissonance. Publicly accusing people of bad faith, with no evidence or justification, can be a rhetorical tactic.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#448
post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree, but we, as a society tend to look down more on the low paid people who do this versus the high paid ones.

Exactly, and the high paid thieves are those who can wreck the lives of millions vs the low paid thieves take an infinitesimal bit away from the bottom line of a multi billion dollar company.

"We hang the petty thieves, and appoint the great ones to public office" -Aesop

Re: Bye, Amazon

#449

> I quit in dismay at Amazon firing whistleblowers Assuming this is the real true reason (I would trust Tim, but you never know, so just being explicit here), it takes huge balls to do something like this. The economic loss has to be somewhat taken in relation to your total wealth (e.g. if you lose $1M by quitting but you already have $10M+ in the bank, it's not as hard as if you had zero in the bank), but still... V…

>Very few people would have the courage to walk away from big sums of money purely on principle.

Some people are wise enough to understand that having 20 million vs 10 million does not actually do much to improve your quality of life.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#450
if he’s so against capitalism he should donate his considerable net worth to amazon workers instead of pointless virtue signaling.

but somehow think that won’t happen :)

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