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Bye, Amazon

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Re: Bye, Amazon

#571

Post by Aunche »

this2shallPass wrote: post #339
supergeek133 wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a two way street. If you've never been involved at a management or ownership level of a business that has "low pay" labor (e.g., food service, warehouse, retail sales). For every 2-3 decent workers there is one that just takes pure advantage of the environment (e.g., stealing product, stealing time, etc). Sometimes this occurs at great cost for a period of time before it is discovered. EDIT: This was…

Thankfully no "high pay" labor ever just takes pure advantage of the environment (e.g., stealing product, stealing time, etc) ;) And never at great cost for a period of time before it is discovered. Pay might be a factor. I think people are people, and their behavior and beliefs vary.

Anecdotally, my friends in finance say that their chats are monitored with extreme scrutiny. You'll be written up for anything that can be perceived as screwing over your clients, even if it's an obvious joke. If this happened in any other sector, society would be quick to call this draconian. However, few people are aware of this form of micromanaging, and if they do, they recognize that it must be done.

As for people stealing time, Amazon puts people on PIP all the time.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#572

Post by joeys7 »

ssklash wrote: post #539

I'm shocked that so many bright, talented engineers go to work for Companies like Google and Amazon and Facebook. While I'm glad some see the light about the real mission of these companies (it's not about "connecting people", "providing delightful customer experiences", "doing no evil" or any of that BS) and ultimately quit, but what concerns me is how so many clearly incredibly bright and talented people are able t…

Back when I was in university, I feel like they really brainwashed me to think these tech companies were making the world a better place. I was too naive. I think a lot of young software engineers started out like me.

There’s also the fact that these companies are so big, they have a lot of variation inside them. For example at Amazon Music, there really isn’t a lot of evilness there, it’s just getting people to pay up for music streaming. Still some unfairness in the music industry for smaller artists, but that’s often the labels stepping on them.

A lot of us at Amazon knows this company is kinda evil now. I was thinking about resigning over these recent firings, but another activist convinced me to stay so we can continue pushing the company to be less evil.

Essentially if we are willing to resign from a job, we have nothing to lose so we can take bigger activism risks.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#573

Post by lotsofpulp »

pm90 wrote: post #546
lotsofpulp wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a political problem to solve with higher minimum wages/max work hours or universal basic income and universal healthcare.

Well not quite. It’s an economic problem in that if you don’t pay your workers decent livable wages then they won’t be able to continue to do a decent living while working for you. The whole idea of “this is a low paying job, anyone can do it, I’m paying you very low because you should get a better job” now that sounds like a political problem! It is all the invented justification to keep wages low. It’s also a prett…

It’s a more immediate economic problem if paying employees more than competitors causes your products to become uncompetitive and you lose business because people shop elsewhere where prices are lower.

The wages aren’t low because of an ideology, the wages are low because if person A doesn’t agree to the low wages then the employer can hire person B.

Similarly, wages aren’t high in tech/finance/law/medicine because people think they “deserve” it, they are high because those employees have options to work elsewhere.

One employer deciding to be altruistic and paying more isn’t going to fix the problem.

Therefore the solution is to either give people better options for earning income (long term solution involving educating them and more), and increasing minimum wage and especially overtime wages.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#574

Post by dang »

esoterica wrote: post #481
hysan wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the example replies to this I’ve seen so far are where the power imbalance between business owner and worker is huge. So I’ll give my anecdote which is from the other side. I grew up watching, and often helping, my parents as they ran their own business. We were at best lower middle class. The economic gap between us and those we hired was far smaller than any of the examples given here. My parents treated the wo…

No one who runs a business that hires multiple employees can reasonably call themselves lower middle class. Showing my work: > My parents treated the workers well, paid them fairly[1] >His salary was lower than my mom’s. Not lower than the workers. Let X be a fair wage, Y be your dad's wage and Z be your mom's wage. Then Z>Y>X, so Z+Y>2X. Any household that makes more than twice a "fair wage" is not lower middle clas…

This comment was edited without saying so, which explains why some of the replies don't make sense.

If you're going to make an edit that changes the meaning of what other people have already replied to, please say that you're doing that. The best way is to make the edit append-only.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#575

Post by clevergadget »

joeys7 wrote: post #566
throw_m239339 wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am glad he said it so that people here can't claim it is not happening. I'm also glad he is making clear these policies come from the top at Amazon so that people can't claim that Bezos knows nothing about that and isn't involved in any of this. These are the most important things to me. People with principles are rare these days. And people here can't just spin these stories into something else now.

He is the only person resigning at Amazon over these firings. I’ve seen other emails sent to the activist email lists over people resigning due to this. But he’s the most high profile. I have tolerated a lot of evilness from Amazon and justified it as a “different organization”. I work in Amazon Music which isn’t responsible for facial recognition or warehouse abuses. But seeing them fire whistleblowers... that’s jus…

do it keep it up dont quit, he should have made them fire him for his activism rather than walk away. mad respect to him but there are better ways to go.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#576

Post by fooqux »

livingparadox wrote: post #549
jjtheblunt wrote: post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are "SJWs"? (i don't know that acronym)

It stands for "Social Justice Warriors". This originally meant someone standing up for minorities and the disadvantaged, but the term has been twisted into a derogatory insult for anyone who disagrees with conservatives on social issues.

The SJW term, like everything else touching this issue, is not black and white. Both of your definitions exist, yes, but so does everything else in between. By making things black and white, you are perpetuating the exact same behavior you seem to be fighting against.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#577

Post by vdnkh »

ssklash wrote: post #539

I'm shocked that so many bright, talented engineers go to work for Companies like Google and Amazon and Facebook. While I'm glad some see the light about the real mission of these companies (it's not about "connecting people", "providing delightful customer experiences", "doing no evil" or any of that BS) and ultimately quit, but what concerns me is how so many clearly incredibly bright and talented people are able t…

I think bright, talented engineers also want to get paid for their efforts. When FAANG pays 2-3x most other companies, it doesn't always make sense to go elsewhere.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#578

Post by hysan »

hysan wrote: post #534
esoterica wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one who runs a business that hires multiple employees can reasonably call themselves lower middle class. Showing my work: > My parents treated the workers well, paid them fairly[1] >His salary was lower than my mom’s. Not lower than the workers. Let X be a fair wage, Y be your dad's wage and Z be your mom's wage. Then Z>Y>X, so Z+Y>2X. Any household that makes more than twice a "fair wage" is not lower middle clas…

I guess it depends on where you live. I'm going by the definition based on the income ranges in the city/state where we grew up where "middle class" is significantly higher than the rest of the US. If you prefer to average across the entire US, then sure, I'll be happy to edit that to say "middle class". However, I don't see how this is anything but a nitpick without addressing any of the content I wrote in my commen…

Interestingly, esoterica replied and then deleted before I could respond, but since this is actually bothering me (I know it's the internet, it shouldn't), I'm going to post this reply with the quote anyway.

>> My parents treated the workers well, paid them fairly[1],

>>His salary was lower than my mom’s. Not lower than the workers.

> Let X be a fair wage, Y be your dad's wage and Z be your mom's wage.

> Then Z>Y>X, so Z+Y>2X. Any household that makes more than twice a "fair wage" is not lower middle class (many lower middle class people don't even make 1x a fair wage).

Like I said, I'd be happy to edit it (can't because of the time limit). However, you're nitpicking on a single part of the comment that honestly means very little. You're also doing that without even using any numbers or locations.

My question to you is, do you have anything constructive to say in response to the spirit and content of my comment with regards to the discussion thread?

Edit: Also, remember that the "fair wage" is based on what the union negotiated (including raises). We paid on the higher end compared to others in our industry. "Fair wage" does not automatically mean that the workers are middle or even lower middle class. So your calculation is already making a huge mistake there.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#579

Post by twblalock »

treve wrote: post #467
supergeek133 wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a two way street. If you've never been involved at a management or ownership level of a business that has "low pay" labor (e.g., food service, warehouse, retail sales). For every 2-3 decent workers there is one that just takes pure advantage of the environment (e.g., stealing product, stealing time, etc). Sometimes this occurs at great cost for a period of time before it is discovered. EDIT: This was…

If you can't afford to pay employees a decent wage, you shouldn't be in business. Minimum wages should be raised and nonviable businesses should adapt or go under. Amazon is not in this category

> Minimum wages should be raised and nonviable businesses should adapt or go under.

That's a recipe for significantly increased unemployment which would affect the most vulnerable workers the most.

For most people in a low-paying job, the alternative is no job. If they were able to get higher-paying jobs they would have already done so.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#580

Post by [deleted] »

raven105x wrote: post #536
stupidcar wrote: post #20

> At the end of the day, it’s all about power balances. The warehouse workers are weak and getting weaker... Whenever I speak to someone working in a "low-skilled" job, I'm always astonished and embarrassed by how different their work environment sounds to the kind of offices I work in. There seems to be a consistent theme of employees being treated with suspicion, condescension and outright hostility. This gets to t…

> This gets to the heart of the idea of "privilege", and why it can be so difficult to see yourself as privileged. Because it often involves nothing more than being given a basic level of trust and respect that, once you have them, can seem like a bare minimum, not something that you would need to fight for. I've wondered since coming to this country how such a large collective delusion continues to persist. The part…

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