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Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

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Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

#461

Post by lisper »

amzn-throw wrote: post #449
lisper wrote: post #119

I would not work for Amazon unless my life depended on it (and even then I would have to think twice) but I have to say (reluctantly) that as a customer, both retail and AWS, I absolutely love them. The power that Amazon is acquiring scares the hell out of me, but at the same time, when I need to buy some random thing, no one else even comes close in terms of convenience and reliability. Sometimes I will make an effo…

For the record, being on the other side, and working hard to CREATE these experiences that customers love is absolutely addictive and intoxicating. You have to actually give a shit about it though. Which most of us do. It requires effort and grit to have this level of "customer obsession", and to be fair, I would say we are mostly well compensated for it. But it's not for everyone. Plenty of SDEs, including in this m…

Kudos to you. If you think it's a fair deal, more power to you. I'll sleep better at night knowing that you feel like you're not being exploited, and that you're being fairly compensated for the work you do.

But I've heard too many horror stories to ever take that risk myself.

Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

#462

Post by burlesona »

youessayyyaway wrote: post #81

I think this article might bury the lede a bit: >Walmart is offering some workers with past warehouse experience as much as $25 an hour. An Amazon executive told Reuters in late 2021 that the company was bumping the average starting wage for new hires in the US to more than $18 an hour, attributing the decision to intense competition among employers. People used to work for Amazon warehouses in the 2010s because $15/…

There's a big regional disparity problem with the FEDERAL minimum wage. There's no dollar amount you can pick that is both fair in high COL areas like SF, Seattle, New York (median home price over a million), and also feasible in low COL areas like rural Ohio or Mississippi (median home price around 100k).

If you want a fun thought experiment, what if minimum wage was tied to local cost of housing? In the Bay Area you might need minimum wage >= $50/hour to offset the prices caused by gross artificial housing scarcity. That would force a lot of businesses to close, and would push jobs out of to lower COL areas where the jobs are sorely needed. It would also punish the NIMBYs by taking away their dog walkers and hamburger joints, which might finally change the politics to actually permit affordable housing to be built.

Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

#463

Post by throwaway894345 »

scarface74 wrote: post #418
throwaway894345 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"use illegal immigration for meat packing" isn't a broadly-held right-wing position, it's something certain unprincipled business owners do (and I'm not even sure that they're universally right-wing). In contrast, "increasing wages" and "increasing mass immigration" are broadly-held left-wing positions. Again, this doesn't suggest incoherence on the left.

“Unprincipled” business owners, farmers, and basically every other company that wants cheap labor in “rural America”.

Maybe, but that doesn't support the generalization that this is a broadly-held right-wing position, which is what we were debating. Note also that plenty of ostensibly left-wing companies want cheap labor as well.

Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

#464

Post by burntoutfire »

lisper wrote: post #453
jstummbillig wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When unpacking the quote I read: 1) Jeff Bezos saw his warehouse workforce as necessary but replaceable 2) He feared that workers who remained at the company too long would turn complacent or, worse, disgruntled The two statements seem relatively disconnected (which makes the "and" a little confusing). Anyway, while I understand a) (not saying I agree) and am a little confused by b), how both or either would logicall…

"Complacent and disgruntled" is the problem Bezos was trying to solve. "Replaceable" is the circumstance that he leveraged to produce his solution: hire a continual stream of fresh non-complacent non-disgruntled people and fire them before they have a change to become complacent and disgruntled. Creating a work environment where long-term workers become happy and productive rather than complacent and disgruntled, i.e…

> Creating a work environment where long-term workers become happy and productive

Is there a large (or even mid-sized) tech company that managed to achieve it? I've never heard of one and I don't think it's possible. At scale these companies operate, senior level jobs are about navigating the organization and its bureucracy and there aren't many people who find that kind of work fun. Especially people who have an engineering mindset.

The tech jobs in bigger companies are mostly meh at best an their biggest saving grace is the pay. Bezos realizes that and tries to work with this reality. Most big cos work because they've found way to extract enough value of out their people who'd rather not be there (but the pay and stability is too good), and tech is no exception.

Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

#465

Post by pjbeam »

simonw wrote: post #360
madrox wrote: post #282

Earlier 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.

Was that Amazon or AWS? I've heard that the cultures are different between the two. I would expect AWS to value holding onto their most experienced engineers.

There are differences of course, but culturally there is One Amazon. Both take a meat grinding approach, even for software engineers. Source: worked at AWS.

Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

#466

Post by mc32 »

nemo44x wrote: post #423
mywittyname wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 econo…

> Inflation is being experienced globally, even in regions with little/no economic ties to the USA. Oil is priced in USD.

Most oil, but some oil is now being priced in Rubles (and being source-washed thru India). But the Ruble has been appreciating as well...

Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

#467

Post by robocat »

nemo44x wrote: post #423
mywittyname wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 econo…

> Inflation is being experienced globally, even in regions with little/no economic ties to the USA. Oil is priced in USD.

Oil was a similar price from 2007 to 2013. What is your point?

Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

#468

Post by throwaway894345 »

Spooky23 wrote: post #405
throwaway894345 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"use illegal immigration for meat packing" isn't a broadly-held right-wing position, it's something certain unprincipled business owners do (and I'm not even sure that they're universally right-wing). In contrast, "increasing wages" and "increasing mass immigration" are broadly-held left-wing positions. Again, this doesn't suggest incoherence on the left.

Please. It’s deeply embedded in GOP power brokering. Principles are for the mass of idiots. The only difference today is that after years of taking the votes of reactionaries and doing little, the populist blocs of reactionary voters are the tail wagging the dog.

So what's the idea? Republicans secretly favor the cheap labor that immigration provides, but they obstruct themselves at every turn by opposing said immigration? Anyway, we're talking about "right wing" people generally rather than GOP politicians specifically--these two groups often have somewhat different agendas (yes, even in a representative democracy).

Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

#469

Post by vishnugupta »

madrox wrote: post #282
lisper wrote: post #269

> 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…

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.

> stock

You left out a big part here; RSU vesting schedule is back loaded. It's something like 5-20-25-50

Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

#470

Post by lisper »

type0 wrote: post #454
lisper wrote: post #269

> 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…

> many commercials lately about how great it is to work for Amazon. South Park had a realistic vision on how it is to work at Amazon Fulfillment Center https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yO9VRtrTJwc

Wow, that was really poignant.
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