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Bye, Amazon

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Re: Bye, Amazon

#691

Post by blueline »

raven105x wrote: post #610
blueline wrote: post #587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Based on my observations, SJWs are the modern day gestapo really? are you sure? "SJWs" are comparable to the state-sponsored secret police of nazi germany, which had unilateral power to imprison (physically imprison, you know, in a real jail where they would be tortured. not on twitter) anyone without justification, and who were instrumental in the genocide of millions of people? do you mind justifying that claim i…

Sure thing. How would you say the ability to wage free, self-fueled defamation campaigns (who bored people on the internet carry out for you) or things like false harassment / even worse (touchy topic, I do not say this lightly) false rape accusations are any different from the unilateral power to imprison (physically imprison, as in yes real jail ...maybe sans the torture) - just like you said? Better yet, in the go…

i'm going to leave all the minutiae of this response aside, because i don't want to get lost in the weeds.

the REALLY important part that you're missing is that the gestapo were an _arm of the state_. some blue checkmarks on twitter cancelling people can _never_ compare to a literal secret police force run by the government.

the scale of effect is just comically different. even if i suspend my disbelief that outrage about false rape accusations and people being harassed for their opinions are 100% true exactly as stated, how in the everloving shit is that comparable to a secret police force that orchestrated the systematic torture/murder of MILLIONS of people?

it's just not even close. use a better analogy.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#692

Post by three_seagrass »

Aunche wrote: post #571
this2shallPass wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 peop…

>If this happened in any other sector, society would be quick to call this draconian.

Believe it or not, finance is under extra scrutiny.

That company has to log all chat messages in order to keep their FINRA certification, but that also means a court can subpoena and display the messages in a public trial. If they're a serious shop they will monitor and keep comms clean to the point of being Orwellian.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#693

Post by alkibiades »

blueline wrote: post #672
alkibiades wrote: post #450

if he’s so against capitalism he should donate his considerable net worth to amazon workers instead of pointless virtue signaling. but somehow think that won’t happen :)

having money means you aren't allowed to critique capitalism? what kind of logic is that?

if you made your money off the thing you’re criticizing seems a tad hypocritical. he should try socialism and redistribute his wealth

Re: Bye, Amazon

#694

Post by xondono »

whymauri wrote: post #56
schnischna wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why people work hard to acquire skills, to be able to work in better jobs. I have never run a warehouse, but I suspect that many of the strange seeming rules are in place because people otherwise try to exploit the system (like getting paid for smoking on the toilet for hours on end). It may seem inhumane, but perhaps it makes it possible to give people jobs who don't deserve automatic trust. Such people exist…

>That's why people work hard to acquire skills, to be able to work in better jobs. I know it's a common mantra in these circles to 'acquire skills' and 'learn to code!' And by all means, if you are capable go for it - I know I did. But it's really hard to do this when your priorities are your day-to-day expenses. When your uncertainties are whether you'll have a home or food. It's also hard when traditional means for…

I’m sorry but the “day-to-day doesn’t let me learn” always sounded like an excuse to me (not implying anything personal). It can be true for some time, but it’s always a temporal situation.

Adquiring skills has pretty much nothing to do with college, some of the most skilled people I know in sales or executive office didn’t even got a high school degree (they’re old, I live in Spain).

Re: Bye, Amazon

#695

Post by herdodoodo »

sneak wrote: post #680

> What about AWS? · Amazon Web Services (the “Cloud Computing” arm of the company), where I worked, is a different story. It treats its workers humanely, strives for work/life balance, struggles to move the diversity needle (and mostly fails, but so does everyone else), and is by and large an ethical organization. I find it very difficult to reconcile this statement with the fact that AWS provides services to the US…

[flagged]

Re: Bye, Amazon

#696

Post by sulam »

GVIrish wrote: post #479
sulam wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As he said, you don’t go to the media when you’re a VP at a company. You go through channels. Anything else -would- make you radioactive, because it means you can’t be trusted to work at fixing things that you carry some responsibility for as a senior leader. Caveat: companies where everyone is a VP probably have another title that denotes senior leadership: Managing Director, Partner, etc.

He did go through the proper channels: "At that point I snapped. VPs shouldn’t go publicly rogue, so I escalated through the proper channels and by the book. I’m not at liberty to disclose those discussions, but I made many of the arguments appearing in this essay. I think I made them to the appropriate people. ¶ That done, remaining an Amazon VP would have meant, in effect, signing off on actions I despised. So I re…

I think you're reading something I didn't say. I was responding to the comment that said he should have gone public while still an employee.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#697

Post by 0xy »

dessant wrote: post #669
o10449366 wrote: post #635

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which warehouses are "sweat shop" level?

I think all of them, given that workers are severely underpaid compared to the value they provide, and have no means to influence the future of the company, other than to speak up and be fired. Though it's possible that the parent was referring to Amazon warehouses where workers had to pee in a bottle to keep their productivity points above the cutoff level.

They're paid at the level they will accept for the job they provide. Amazon couldn't hire 100,000 people in a month if they were underpaying anyone.

Also, why should they have means to influence the future of the company? They're hired voluntarily to do one job, not to lead the company.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#698

Post by xendo »

sneak wrote: post #680

> What about AWS? · Amazon Web Services (the “Cloud Computing” arm of the company), where I worked, is a different story. It treats its workers humanely, strives for work/life balance, struggles to move the diversity needle (and mostly fails, but so does everyone else), and is by and large an ethical organization. I find it very difficult to reconcile this statement with the fact that AWS provides services to the US…

You are basically calling US Military and Government terrorist organizations. If you start with that assumption you can easily get to the point where no US company is ethical and you can't work anywhere.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#699

Post by gnicholas »

bitcurious wrote: post #685
gnicholas wrote: post #679

> What with big-tech salaries and share vestings, this will probably cost me over a million (pre-tax) dollars ... > The average pay [in his group, AWS] is very high, and anyone who’s unhappy can walk across the street and get another job paying the same or better. Not sure how to square these two statements. Is the lost money all in stock vesting? If so, why bother mentioning the salary? If not, how does that fit wit…

He’s an executive, most employees are not.

I considered that, but it also means that his blog post gets lots of publicity (case in point: top of HN). Even if he doesn't land another job immediately, this creates goodwill among certain folks which could increase his future earnings or put him on the speaker circuit.

Not saying he isn't losing money here, just that it's a little odd to make those two contradictory statements without any explanation.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#700

Post by myu701 »

ajhurliman wrote: post #620
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…

When I switched from mechanical engineering to software engineering people would ask me how the switch went, and I would tell them it was like I became a new class of citizen. The pay was better, I didn't get drug tested anymore, management was friendly, the rules were lax. This made a lot of people uncomfortable (software engineers didn't want to acknowledge the privilege they've been living with and non-software fo…

> This made a lot of people uncomfortable (software engineers didn't want to acknowledge the privilege they've been living with and non-software folks interpreted it as bragging). I think it must be pretty tough to understand the gap unless you've been in both.

I agree. Anecdote: The difference in treatment between a permatemp ('seasonal' worker at an entertainment facility working more than 9 months per year, later round-the-clock) and F.T.E. is massive.

In the former, you are guilty until proven, if not innocent, then merely suspicious.

In the latter, you are innocent until proven guilty or more commonly incompetent.

I'm glad I work at one of the latter places now.

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