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What The New York Times Didn’t Say About Amazon

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Re: What The New York Times Didn’t Say About Amazon

#51

Post by roymurdock »

baldfat wrote: post #46
dekhn wrote: post #4

There are several shockingly inappropriate things in this article. In particular, the PR person at Amazon is saying that they would have shared employee's personal records (including evaluations) as well as other employee's termination conditions (which I consider unrelated to their quotes). Amazon: what Carney just posted was very inappropriate. I am completely amazed you did this (assuming it was done with approval…

Devil's Advocate here: The people named in the article and refuted by Amazon put their personal story a public story. If someone "slanders" a business it can't reply with evidence? Must the company say it is a personal matter that we can't disclose, which reads they are guilty and don't want the truth to come out? End of Devil's Advocate Seems like they were making a statement of if you talk will will fully disclose…

The details provided in the response are probably being disclosed legally (doubt Amazon PR would screw up that badly), but it shows really poor taste that they would even respond to the NYT piece which was pretty clearly hyperbolic, emotional, and somewhat cherrypicked; even more so that they would adopt the same tactics of naming and shaming ex-employees.

The fact that it was also published on medium by the head of PR baffles me - why are they aiming this refutation at the tech crowd that would probably see through this cover-piece pretty easily, instead of getting it into a high-readership, Amazon consumer oriented publication? Poorly planned and executed all around, regardless of legality.

Re: What The New York Times Didn’t Say About Amazon

#52

Post by izacus »

O wow, this makes Amazon look really bad - it's like when politicians opponents try to discredit opponents with criminal charges or whatnot without actually refuting them.

Note how they don't really deny or refute the text of original article but just go full on to personally attack a person to discredit him.

Re: What The New York Times Didn’t Say About Amazon

#53

Post by et2o »

boxy310 wrote: post #47
hnamazon123 wrote: post #30

I recently quit Amazon. I don't doubt that New York Times purposely misrepresented or omitted facts to make this story. Their stories tend to be very agenda driven and the facts tend to be subservient to the narrative, a policy which is deemed acceptable because it "starts a conversation" or the story is "probably true for someone". This is typical of the left wing. However, I did in fact have an absolutely awful exp…

In a lot of ways Amazon reminds me of Wal-mart, both from the market space they occupy and how terribly they treat employees. I think this is really a byproduct of chasing after low costs without other substantial service improvements. At least with Uber you get a legitimately better hailing and payment experience, not just being cheaper.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves, Amazon offers pretty substantial service improvement from just about any other online retailer. $50/year for unlimited 1-day shipping?

Re: What The New York Times Didn’t Say About Amazon

#54

Post by jazzyk »

unethical_ban wrote: post #26

Does this kind of behavior indicate we should stop using Amazon? Despite loving my Kindle, is it time to boycott a company that behaves this way?

I can't completely quit them, but I have reduced the number of purchases from Amazon - based on many previous stories. Will probably give up Prime when it comes up for renewal.

Re: What The New York Times Didn’t Say About Amazon

#55

Post by JoeAltmaier »

et2o wrote: post #53
boxy310 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a lot of ways Amazon reminds me of Wal-mart, both from the market space they occupy and how terribly they treat employees. I think this is really a byproduct of chasing after low costs without other substantial service improvements. At least with Uber you get a legitimately better hailing and payment experience, not just being cheaper.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves, Amazon offers pretty substantial service improvement from just about any other online retailer. $50/year for unlimited 1-day shipping?

From Amazon. So, $50 fixed shipping cost from Amazon, whether you use that much or not.

Re: What The New York Times Didn’t Say About Amazon

#56

Post by jazzyk »

et2o wrote: post #53
boxy310 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a lot of ways Amazon reminds me of Wal-mart, both from the market space they occupy and how terribly they treat employees. I think this is really a byproduct of chasing after low costs without other substantial service improvements. At least with Uber you get a legitimately better hailing and payment experience, not just being cheaper.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves, Amazon offers pretty substantial service improvement from just about any other online retailer. $50/year for unlimited 1-day shipping?

Prime is $99/year for two day free shipping.

Re: What The New York Times Didn’t Say About Amazon

#57

Post by jsprogrammer »

FussyZeus wrote: post #39

Just weighing in on the Olson thing: Why is it considered unprofessional or inappropriate for a company rep to speak openly about the illegal/unethical practices of now former employees? Isn't that a good thing to hear about that a company you do business with is culling the ranks of those stealing from it, or whatever they happen to be doing? If he admitted it and resigned over it, sounds like a pretty cut and dried…

Why would you believe anything Amazon or Jay Carney says? Do you really think they are giving you an unbiased view of their company? That they have no ulterior motive in saying these things to you?

Re: What The New York Times Didn’t Say About Amazon

#58

Post by jhall1468 »

cryoshon wrote: post #23
ucaetano wrote: post #6

It's actually weird to see a company firing back this publicly, releasing performance data (no matter if positive or negative) on previous employees, and it all being posted not by the CEO or a HR VP, but by the head of PR. [Edit: Not only it smells of whitewashing, but it also looks deceptive. And PR? Seriously? Not only it's a sleazy piece, but Amazon chose the worst possible position to convey the message. Get som…

Yeah, it's the White House's former press secretary, Jay Carney. His whole existence is to whitewash, downplay, obfuscate, and pass a sanitized story to the media. I suggest we ignore Amazon's commentary and accept the worst vision as reality. That way, if we were to end up working there, we might be pleasantly surprised by a rosier picture, rather than upset by something that is below expectations. After all, the bo…

Holy ad hominem batman.

> After all, the bottom line can't accommodate the truth most of the time.

And pessimism will almost certainly become self-fulfilling prophecy.

Re: What The New York Times Didn’t Say About Amazon

#59

Post by TravelTechGuy »

whatok wrote: post #13

Did I miss out on some additional fallout after the article was initially published? I don't see why they're addressing this two months later.

My $.02: maybe they are starting to feel the fallout in their recruiting efforts about now. I get about one recruiting email from Amazon a month on average, and I assume others do as well. It's enough that 10% of candidates reply with "I wouldn't feel comfortable working there", or " I don't think it's a culture fit - I don't like crying at my desk, as is apparently encouraged over there" for them to realize they have to do something drastic. Sadly, for them drastic means going double-douche: outing ex-employees and attacking the media, rather than own up to even a small part of what was published, and say they are striving to improve their culture.
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