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
#2The 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 working out", offer a (truly decent) severance, and move on.
(I know, I know, I know: "because laywers.")
Re: Amazon Worker Jumps Off Company Building After E-Mail to Staff
#3The 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…
It's kafka-esque, kafkaesq.
Re: Amazon Worker Jumps Off Company Building After E-Mail to Staff
#4wow. i wonder if bezos is going to address this.
Re: Amazon Worker Jumps Off Company Building After E-Mail to Staff
#5wow. i wonder if bezos is going to address this.
Doubt it, that nytimes article about their work culture spread everywhere but not much has changed.
Re: Amazon Worker Jumps Off Company Building After E-Mail to Staff
#6wow. i wonder if bezos is going to address this.
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.
Re: Amazon Worker Jumps Off Company Building After E-Mail to Staff
#7Tyler Cowen has written a lot about this:
"Individuals don’t in fact enjoy being evaluated all the time, especially when the results are not always stellar: for most people, one piece of negative feedback outweighs five pieces of positive feedback. To the extent that measurement raises income inequality, perhaps it makes relations among the workers tenser and less friendly. Life under a meritocracy can be a little tough, unfriendly, and discouraging, especially for those whose morale is easily damaged. Privacy in this world will be harder to come by, and perhaps “second chances” will be more difficult to find, given the permanence of electronic data. We may end up favoring “goody two-shoes” personality types who were on the straight and narrow from their earliest years and disfavor those who rebelled at young ages, even if those people might end up being more creative later on."
http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/09/the...
Pervasive employee monitoring and feedback isn't costless. Some people will improve, others will get fired/quit find a new job, but there will be some who cannot take it at all. If losing a job wasn't so punishing economically and status-wise, it would take a lot of, but certainly not all, of the sting away.
Re: Amazon Worker Jumps Off Company Building After E-Mail to Staff
#8The 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…
PIPs are far more insidious than even that. sure, they are advertised as a way to get rid of bad apples or underperforming hires that slipped past the bar raiser. in practice, though, they are used by managers to further their own internal politics and goals as a no-fuss way of removing any existing employee that might make them look bad or be in the way of a friend they would like to get onto their team. all the manager has to do is give you a task with low visibility and then wait 6 months before calling you out as trailing in performance and bam, no way to defend your career. they know that most devs will just quit rather than put up with the bullshit or the humiliation. I feel terrible for the younger or less aware folks who don't see the process for what it is and take it as a genuine indication of their skills, talent, dedication, or worth.
Re: Amazon Worker Jumps Off Company Building After E-Mail to Staff
#9wow. i wonder if bezos is going to address this.
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.
I recently got an email from an Amazon recruiter, who, for whatever reason, told me that their team is "largely working The fact that they felt it important to mention this (and qualify it) definitely started me thinking...
Re: Amazon Worker Jumps Off Company Building After E-Mail to Staff
#10Earlier 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.
I recently got an email from an Amazon recruiter, who, for whatever reason, told me that their team is "largely working The fact that they felt it important to mention this (and qualify it) definitely started me thinking...
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.