Wait? I thought only Google did stuff like this, and AWS was an amazing, customer obsessed(tm) organization?
It is…. in the imaginations of management.
AWS Fired the One Employee Who Gave a Damn
61–70 of 117 posts
Re: AWS Fired the One Employee Who Gave a Damn
#62A challenging writing style on a really difficult to read page with a sloppy AI header image means that this article was a not a great experience.
Just have Claude digest it, that's the future we're heading toward. But what is after that?
Re: AWS Fired the One Employee Who Gave a Damn
#63fired or laid off?
Re: AWS Fired the One Employee Who Gave a Damn
#64I think this kind of overly dramatic writing makes me struggle to respect the arguments in the piece. Like the blog writer has this style like they’re documenting the collapse of humanity or something when really it’s just a massive cloud company taking some direction that may be suboptimal. I understand this tone can be helpful to drive effective change but I think it should be reserved for situations where people a…
It's just Claudeslop. It's everywhere. An epidemic. If you're familiar it stands out instantly. (Would you let someone else talk for you? In real life? Like open up your mouth and let a TTS system spit out the sounds and pick the words? No? Then you shouldn't do the same thing with writing!)
I actually think many people would choose this option, if it was possible.
21% of Americans are functionally illiterate according to the University of Alabama.
Re: AWS Fired the One Employee Who Gave a Damn
#65> that’s not a career pivot. That’s a trauma response. > he wasn’t being philosophical. He was describing the exact contradiction that made his own job impossible. Is this written by AI? It has the typical "That's not X. That's Y." phrasing. A bit ironic given the content.
> Is this written by AI?
Would an author come here on hacker news and just post rage-baiting AI slop? For sure not!
Re: AWS Fired the One Employee Who Gave a Damn
#66Your management not caring about 1 user's satisfaction in Computing is as old as multi-user systems. Nice to see someone in this day and age still cared to help out a user.
Re: AWS Fired the One Employee Who Gave a Damn
#67The way the author thanks the person from AWS who helped him with a human approach is an AI generated article blaming AWS for using AI. Brilliant.
> Not AI-generated. Not everyone is born writing flawless English. If it sounds like an LLM, maybe it is because people like me had to learn how to write clearly from LLMs because English is not our first language.
Re: AWS Fired the One Employee Who Gave a Damn
#68I think this kind of overly dramatic writing makes me struggle to respect the arguments in the piece. Like the blog writer has this style like they’re documenting the collapse of humanity or something when really it’s just a massive cloud company taking some direction that may be suboptimal. I understand this tone can be helpful to drive effective change but I think it should be reserved for situations where people a…
I get that the writing was a bit over the top. But the story, my goodness. Giving a damn is such a rare commodity. It makes me sad when companies throw away people with that quality. I hope that Tarus Balog finds a good spot to land. Here's his LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tarusbalog/ if you're in the market for an "Open source wonk. Catalyst. Storyteller. Collector of Memories"
i dont think employees are expected to prioritize one customer of (we would assume) little monetary consequence in this way. amazon would rather everyone keep heads down, dont let the casualties slow down the machine or create exception cases, and definitely dont bother upper management with your personal salvation quests.
Re: AWS Fired the One Employee Who Gave a Damn
#69I think this kind of overly dramatic writing makes me struggle to respect the arguments in the piece. Like the blog writer has this style like they’re documenting the collapse of humanity or something when really it’s just a massive cloud company taking some direction that may be suboptimal. I understand this tone can be helpful to drive effective change but I think it should be reserved for situations where people a…
I quit reading after the first paragraph when I saw this pattern: "Not X, not y, not z, A!" The overly emotional paragraph headlines were also off putting.
> "Not X, not y, not z, A!"
You know, humans do that sometimes as well. Not GenAI's, not Agents, not automated systems, but actual humans!
Re: AWS Fired the One Employee Who Gave a Damn
#70I think this kind of overly dramatic writing makes me struggle to respect the arguments in the piece. Like the blog writer has this style like they’re documenting the collapse of humanity or something when really it’s just a massive cloud company taking some direction that may be suboptimal. I understand this tone can be helpful to drive effective change but I think it should be reserved for situations where people a…
This extra dramatic writing style really appeals to the current doomer zeitgeist. The rhetorical trick is to write everything so dramatically and exaggerated that when any point is challenged the critic gets attacked for taking it too literally. These articles exist in a duality of wanting to be taken as deadly serious but also immune to criticism; If you try to challenge any point in the story it will be brushed off as taking it too literally. The real point remains hidden in the mist behind the dramatic tone and will shape shift any time it is challenged.
Even the premise of the article has built-in ridiculousness, as if the author has enough special insight into all of AWS to conclude that all of the other employees are bad. Of course by point that out I’m sure this comment will be critiqued as missing the point. The point is you’re supposed to be angry and not think about the details of the story in a way that diminishes that anger!