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

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

#51

Post by amazon_employee »

SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #37
u489utaa wrote: post #19

Amazon screws employees in ways unseen in other companies. From the perspective of an engineer, this is a terrible place for people to work and grow. To list a few things: - Equity vesting schedule is 5%, 15%, 40%, 40% over 4 years - Relocation package is prorated for TWO years. If you leave after staying for a full year, you still need to return 50% of it. - 401K matching only vests after working for 3 years. If you…

I was at AWS for six months as a contractor and a year as an SDE3. Equity vesting was low for the first year, but they gave me a (cash) signing bonus that made up for it. Pretty much one-to-one based on the starting value of the equity, and it paid out monthly instead of waiting until the end of the year. The cafes were awesome and the prices there were decent. I was paid more than enough to buy my own lunch. Catered…

Wow, someone that isn't comparing Amazon to Stalinist Russia.

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

#52

Post by acomjean »

linkregister wrote: post #43
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.

I had a co-worker survive the PIP he was put on. He was very thorough coder, but not particularly fast (when he delivered code it always worked really well, comforting for radar software), so when he was put on a new project that didn't value that over scheduling he had to adjust. Between that and a change of language he ended up on a pip. He lasted 5 years after that and one round of layoffs, before being let go in a second round. He's somewhere else now.

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

#53

Post by brazzledazzle »

vonklaus wrote: post #36
u489utaa wrote: post #19

Amazon screws employees in ways unseen in other companies. From the perspective of an engineer, this is a terrible place for people to work and grow. To list a few things: - Equity vesting schedule is 5%, 15%, 40%, 40% over 4 years - Relocation package is prorated for TWO years. If you leave after staying for a full year, you still need to return 50% of it. - 401K matching only vests after working for 3 years. If you…

I don't understand this. Amazon seems to have seriously cutting edge infrastructure; they sell it as a service and operate more servers than google. Also, according to the article 20k people work for them, although I am not sure if that was total or engineers. I am curious how they can retain people to manage all of their operations. Those terms sound terrible and not competitive. I would take those terms, but I am d…

I know not every part of every company is the same since your direct manager plays a big part in your experience but I have to wonder why people put up with the bad experiences. Maybe the pay for AWS consulting gigs is worth a couple years in that kind of environment.

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

#54

Post by cwilkes »

amzn-336495 wrote: post #11

Amazon tries to trap people through control by visas, and they will go so far as to relocate people overseas to Seattle. They have a fucked up system where rank and file get the darwin treatment but management gets the rewards. They will pay bonuses around $250k, $500k, $1 million to senior managers, directors, and VPs respectively to abuse the shit out of employees. The "PIP someone who is trying to get away from th…

What really angered me about that article was Amazon trying to say that this was a "colleague" -- he was on a PIP. Which is pretty much Amazon speak for a dead man walking (no pun intended).

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

#55

Post by wbsun »

SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #45
zzalpha wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A: hey, that company sucks. B: but this company sucks too. we are good.

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

#56

Post by kosei »

vonklaus wrote: post #36
u489utaa wrote: post #19

Amazon screws employees in ways unseen in other companies. From the perspective of an engineer, this is a terrible place for people to work and grow. To list a few things: - Equity vesting schedule is 5%, 15%, 40%, 40% over 4 years - Relocation package is prorated for TWO years. If you leave after staying for a full year, you still need to return 50% of it. - 401K matching only vests after working for 3 years. If you…

I don't understand this. Amazon seems to have seriously cutting edge infrastructure; they sell it as a service and operate more servers than google. Also, according to the article 20k people work for them, although I am not sure if that was total or engineers. I am curious how they can retain people to manage all of their operations. Those terms sound terrible and not competitive. I would take those terms, but I am d…

Amazon headcount from mid-2015 said over 24k in Seattle: http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/techflash/2015/07/ex...

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

#57

Post by joesmo »

cylinder wrote: post #29
pinewurst wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And this is in white collar, imagine how they treat blue collar in their warehouses, where the supply of new cheap labor is unlimited.

For those whose imagination is lacking: http://www.businessinsider.com/brutal-conditions-in-amazons-...

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

#58

Post by asddddd »

linkregister wrote: post #38
morganvachon wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They had a snow storm, he got stuck in the snow and instead of being understanding they reprimanded him for it. Punishing an employee for risking their life to try to come in to a job they already hate? That's textbook sadism, ruthless is too weak a word. In inclement weather our critical staff can depend on officers in 4x4 vehicles to bring them in, with no reprimand for being late due to the weather. Non-essentia…

This is the reality for the lower quartile of the American workforce. When I was a part of it, I faced either braving the snow and icy roads or getting fired. I left an hour early because I knew I would be driving about 20 miles per hour. I'm not condoning this practice, just providing context. The state governor's prohibition on road travel be damned. The next time it snows, think about how the workers in your pharm…

On the other hand, working in a union warehouse (UPS), this has in fact happened - people getting picked up so they can make it in despite weather, since it's the lower management that would get shafted otherwise. This time of year nominally part time workers are pulling 10+ hour days due to massive volume, so missing a lot of people is a huge issue.

Amazon warehouses are notorious for being shitty to work in even considering the type of job, considering logistics jobs like this are sucky in general, that's tough to do.

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

#59

Post by rbcgerard »

SuperPaintMan wrote: post #15

>The man survived the fall from Amazon’s 12-story Apollo building at about 8:45 a.m. local time Monday and was taken to a Seattle hospital, police said. Aside: That is a testament to the resilience of a body. The physics behind that fall would be astounding to analyze! I come from a long line of suicidal people we're not jumpers, but swingers.

Try 47 stories... http://mobile.nytimes.com/2007/12/08/nyregion/08collapse.htm...

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

#60

Post by praptak »

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)

I don't believe that spreading rumors can magically transform a micromanaging boss. What it can do is keep them occupied, just as any other form of employee micro-sabotage. It also makes the workplace generally crappier.
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