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The Challenge of Working At Amazon
An anonymous reader writes: The NY Times has a lengthy exposé on the working conditions within Jeff Bezos's Amazon. "Even as the company tests delivery by drone and ways to restock toilet paper at the push of a bathroom button, it is conducting a little-known experiment in how far it can push white-collar workers, redrawing the boundaries of what is acceptable." Over 100 current and former employees were interviewed for the article, and they painted a picture of a demanding and punishing workplace that people tolerate in exchange for the ability to create. "In contrast to companies where declarations about their philosophy amount to vague platitudes, Amazon has rules that are part of its daily language and rituals, used in hiring, cited at meetings and quoted in food-truck lines at lunchtime. Some Amazonians say they teach them to their children." Of course, this attitude causes problems for people whose lives don't allow them extreme levels of effort: "The mother of the stillborn child soon left Amazon. 'I had just experienced the most devastating event in my life,' the woman recalled via email, only to be told her performance would be monitored 'to make sure my focus stayed on my job.'"
Who needs drones and robots when you can control the humans to do your bidding.
If you can quit and go work elsewhere, then it is not slavery.
The question is whether society is supposed to set things up so only these guys win everything.
That's what rules are for. Since the days of soot-covered London it's always been like this. Hell is what you make it and society is always drawn in the colors of the biggest hell it can get away with, and always will be.
Key points I heard:
- Midlevel mgmt can make their salary over again year upon year via bonuses and stock performance. (Implied: senior mgmt and up has it better)
- Tech workers are expected to pay for their own desks, cellphones, travel on their "competitive salary"
- It's regarded as reasonable to line up ambulances to cart away hourly workers who collapse than improve their working conditions
- Standard office joke: Work comes first, life second and searching for the balance is against company policy
- People weep openly at their desks, men exit conference rooms in shame, covering their faces so as to hide their tears
- Anonymous feedback on employee performance is encouraged
- Everyone is encouraged to confront every (non-manager) about sub-perfect ideas
- Amazon is proud of being unreasonable in their demands
Sounds like a toxic hell hole unless you're in the ruling class, then at least the money is good while it consumes your life.
Don't mistake the legality of quitting with the ability to quit: Many families do not have the savings to miss a single paycheck. Work them hard enough, make sure they can't take time off to interview for a new job, dismantle the social safety net, and you have wage slavery.
Why would they want healthy, long-term employees? Someone who has worked in the same place for a long time expects raises.
Instead they accept a high employee turnover and keep wages at entry-level.
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So only those with corporate parachutes are middle class (those who don't care about losing their job)? You seem retarded.
No. I haven't had to worry about losing my job since my late 20s, since, by then, I'd built up enough savings that I could live for a year or more without working. Most of my colleagues spent all their money and would have been screwed if they were sacked.
Knowing I can now live for a decade without having to work is always useful when an employer wants to screw me around.
Committing your life to retail? Really? You have to be a sick fuck yourself to be obsessed about pleasing sick fuck consumers who are obsessed about getting toys NOW.
I disagree. There are many possible ways of defining "middle class", but job security is not one of them - never has been. There used to be a time when middle class people enjoyed a lot more job security than they do now - but that's true of everyone.
Apart from politicians and those who are in a position to blackmail politicians, almost everyone nowadays has to worry about losing their job.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
If you can quit and go work elsewhere, then it is not slavery.
Hmmmm. Even if the pay and conditions elsewhere are not better than where you are?
Technically, you are not a slave unless you are legally someone else's property. But owning human property in the form of slaves has a downside. They represent a big investment, so you need to keep them healthy. That means reasonable shelter, board and lodging, clothes, some form of medical help when needed... it all adds up.
Today the wealthy have discovered that it pays much better to leave the "slaves" free. That way shelter, board, lodging, clothing, and medical care are their problem, not yours.
Exactly as modern imperialists have discovered that it's a mug's game to invade countries and take them over. Then, as Colin Powell memorably noted, you own them - and you're responsible for governing them. It pays better to stay outside their borders, lend their governments money, get them hopelessly in debt, and force all their citizens to work for you at rock-bottom pay for the rest of their lives. Followed by their children and their grandchildren.
Isn't finance wonderful?
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
Many families do not have the savings to miss a single paycheck.
That's a problem of money management, not lousy employers. America might not have the best social net, but if a family has no income, they can get welfare long enough to find another job.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
No, this happened before. They called it Enron, and exactly the same corporate attitude about 'culling everybody all the time' to force all the workers to work like rabid weasels was in place. There was even a movie about it which is quite good. "Enron- The Smartest Guys In The Room"
Youtube appears to be trying to sell it outright, so no link, but I'm sure you can find it (I actually own it on DVD, that's how good it was)
I could give you an Amazon link? ;) http://www.amazon.com/Enron-Th... $8.14 for the DVD.
This is sort of what you get with Googles and Amazons and such barging around. I can instantly give you that video for $8.14, but everybody now has to play by their rules to keep up. You can't do another 'marketplace' or 'internet' that's nicer to work at, the crazy people will just eat you for lunch, so it's increasingly impossible to work at all unless you want to work in this kind of way.
Anyway, Enron existed and was just like that and held all California for ransom because they could, it was an arbitrage opportunity. Once arbitrage opportunities come up for Amazon, they'll not only seize them but seize them harder and faster than anybody else because that's the culture. Look at the recent big Amazon Prime Day. That's what you get but only after they kill everything else that can do what they do.
"...in exchange for the ability to create." I hate this phrase! People work awful jobs for Amazon in exchange for the money!
this requires further examination. Amazon doesn't "create" *anything*. This is MBA-style creation, like creating new marketplace opportunities or new regional expansion initiatives. I'm not impressed.
The warehouse work is like slavery, just short of a whip - except they now use virtual whips to get their slaves straightened out.
Sure, there's a little perk called a slaves wage, after-all, they need them to be fed in order to do the miles of walking per day.
A written expose here.
It seems the highly 'exceptional' people in Jeff Bezos' circle have re-invented Taylorism, which is an abiding disregard for the well-being of workers. This indifference and disregard is called "scientific". Efficiency is something to be squeezed out of people second by second, the long-term effects be damned.
You have NO IDEA how fortunate you are. Or how bad things can be.
During the Great Recession, some people were unemployed for THREE YEARS or more. The Obama Administration had to extend and re-extend unemployment benefits for people. Quite a few of them finally found jobs, but at substantially less pay. So you'd better hope that you really can live for 10 years without a paycheck. And that that "10 years" isn't coming from your retirement savings.
It's not enough to have a really good skill set or be willing to move about the country like a migrant farm worker. Sometimes you don't know the right people in the right places, have the "perfect" match of skills or cannot manage to live on 120,000 Rupees a year.
Or worse. you could be over 40.
I got reamed for it the next day, dude was literally screaming at me that "that was no excuse" that I "needed to focus and not make excuses" and so on
When people yell at you, don't accept it. Remain calm. Say, "As soon as you are ready to calm down and act like an adult, we can discuss this." That will make him really mad, but eventually he'll calm down.
At that point, be sure to listen to his concerns, and promise to work hard, or whatever. Then of course, work hard, but don't let people act like screaming toddlers around you.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Sure, a bit. Uber's the same thing. It's designed to make maximum use of crazy people and force the others to live up to that standard or be fired.
I'll define 'crazy Uber people' not as 'danger to customers', but 'people who are bringing more value in terms of vehicle, skill and desire to please, than they are getting back in pay and benefits'. So the crazy Uber person is the one who keeps buying a new Lexus or whatever, vacuums their car three times a day and busts their ass to outperform all the other Uber drivers, so they can continue to win out over anybody else seeking to be a driver.
The key factor is that they are giving more than they get back, in the belief that they're cornering some kind of market or buying in to something important.
If you make a business that relies on people like this, you can demolish anybody else because you've worked out how to get voluntary unpaid labor, like the Amazon exec who was said to use her own money to hire subcontractors to do more. As long as there are people who are willing to do that, the market breaks and Amazon/Uber get to do what Wal-Mart did in small towns, break the back of other market participants so they can't break even or continue.
Another way to be a crazy Uber person is to put more depreciation and wear and tear on your car than you can afford to repair (or replace). It's easy to be crazy in these ways. It's externalities which are easy to overlook. These Amazon/Uber business models are designed to leverage that kind of crazy as hard as possible, and kick out everybody who's not willing to lose (one way or another) on the deal. Psychology is useful in getting people to buy into this stuff.
As they say, a cult.
You have NO IDEA how fortunate you are. Or how bad things can be.
Oh, yes. Because I saved money rather than spent it, I'm 'fortunate'.
No, I saved it because I have a middle-class attitude. And I have that attitude because I've seen exactly how bad things can be when you live paycheck to paycheck.
When I mention that I do not like to work more than 40 hours a week, I am dismissed and never hear anything again.
What I am saying is that your advice is worthless.
Because this is how you get unions.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
you are wrong.
speaking as someone who is out of work, savings near 0 (been out a long time) and there is essentially no social support. I can't meet my expenses on unemployment, not even close. and when unemployed, you cannot find a new place to live; they all insist you are currently employed! catch 22.
I know what I'm talking about. I'm in that role. you are simply ASSUMING and you are, quite frankly, wrong and talking out of your ass.
america will crush you and you can't expect the US to support its people when they are down and out. why the fuck do you think there ARE homeless people!!! dammit.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Amazon appears to pay white collar workers (the subject of this article) fairly well. If you cannot afford to keep a family of 4 on $9,000 per month, then you're doing it wrong. Yes, Seattle housing has gotten more expensive - but you can still find hundreds of houses for sale that would have 3+ bedrooms (so little Johnny and little Mary can have their own rooms), 2+ bathrooms, and are standalone homes - and are available for under $500,000 (meaning about a $2,000/month mortgage - should be simple for a monthly income of $9,000).
If the typical white collar Amazon worker cannot afford to feed their kids and pay a mortgage AND put away 10% of their income every month - then they really need some basic budgeting skills and self-control.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
We are a vendor who works on a lot of high profile jobs that Amazon can't handle in-house. We work 40 hour weeks and our median employee retention is about 10 years. We also pay well and definitely know how to speak our mind when we think something is wrong, even sticking to our guns against anyone else if we can defend our position.
Every. Single. Amazon. Employee. that comes to our office asks if we're hiring or know who is. I've never seen anything like it in my life. Every single employee is working on their exit strategy. And it's not some utopian meritocracy where the best remain the weak are purged. They're losing their best employees who are creative and smart because going into a 10 hour long meeting where everyone feels not just encouraged but required to criticize an idea isn't productive it's just everybody feeling they have to provide input or look like they're slacking. Sorry but sometimes something is good but Bob in accounting feels like he needs to add his 2 cents to be a contributor. Nothing is worse in a meeting than people who don't actually have anything to contribute feel mandated to speak up and derail a meeting because that's one of the 12 commandments.
And for a process supposedly based on data, it ignores the largest data point that has been validated with over a 100 years of research: after 40 hours your employees aren't contributing anything. In knowledge based economies it's even lower, after about 30 hours you're just killing time.
The model that they're chasing is the Chinese School system. What that accomplishes is cramming and metric pleasing but what it fails to accomplish is actual innovation and progress because all of your energy goes into satisfying the grading system not taking risks and giving your brain 2 seconds to step back and absorb what it's working on. There's no time walk around a problem when you're barely keeping up with your workload.
Toyota figured that out with their NUMMI plant. They learned that if you push employees too far and you simply reward quantity over quality you end up with shit product.
All Amazon is going to have in a few years is Type A assholes who are willing to kill themselves and they'll have no creatives, no inventors and nobody who actually is innovating. They'll have people who happily work 100 hour weeks to reduce the delay after clicking "Buy Now" and nobody coming up with the next Kindle.
If you have a family and that is more important to you than work, i.e. you want to be a husband/father/wife/mother first, you want to work to live instead of live to work, you care about your health and well-being, hate office politics (despite Bezos' claim to avoid red tap and politics, it is clear that things like Organization Level Review and Anytime Feedback Tool are clearly motivated and created simply for favorites and politics) then Amazon is not for you.
As a side note, with a wife and 4 children I am surprised he hasn't gotten divorce papers.
Most companies that value their employees understand the need for downtime, relaxation, family obligations and a flexible work schedule. It is clear that the only thing Amazon cares about is employees that are working..and working...at whatever cost. If you are not ok with that then you are not a 'Super star' , regardless of how good you can code or solve problems.
So again if you are not into the idea of pleasing your employer above anything else - then Amazon is not for you. It is clear that the "kind of company that amazon wants to be" is a company filled with people with no other life or personal committments and void of health issues (or family members that are ill). Again, since Bezos has a rather large family - it's amazing that things like 'paid maternity leave' doesn't exist at Amazon.
And then this quote, "he(Bezos), was able to envision a new kind of workplace: fluid but tough, with employees staying only a short time and employers demanding the maximum". So it appears that you really aren't supposed to retire at amazon. Work a little while - then leave. So if retiring at a company with 401k and stock options racked up (or with any kind of pension) is what you seek - then Amazon is not for you. If Amazon is not in it for the long haul with its employees then why should the employees return any kind of favors?
Basic conservative American "I've got mine" reasoning. This country is saddled with far too many who think like that. It's been holding back progress for generations, particularly since Reaganomics took hold.
Total inability to put yourself in another's shoes, the notion that what's important to them should be all that's important to anyone, an utter lack of appreciation of how much worker productivity gets siphoned off for the wealthy, and of course a visceral hatred for the idea that anybody should be able to get any benefits when something bad happens to them.
Your company got bought out and they're closing your division? Maybe you should have seen that coming years ago when you took that job. Get sick? Must be because you didn't work on being healthy. Have a kid with a birth defect? Maybe you should have had yourself and your spouse genetically tested before you had kids. Or maybe you should, you know, never have sex ever unless you have six figures saved up. I could go on, but the general sociopathic attitude of these people is rather disgusting.
The rest of the industrialized world solved this in a variety of ways and they persist in saying that no social programs (especially medicine or just medical payments) could ever possibly work anywhere despite the evidence that they work fine when not sabotaged by right wing cranks. The cognitive dissonance between what they say and demonstrable reality should make their brains explode but they traded brains in on selfishness ages ago.
No, you are lucky because you have that much money to begin with. Millions of people work harder than you and want to save as you do, but can't - no fault of their own; they aren't born into the right upper-class mob of people to have access to those opportunities.
Of course, I won't change your mind about your superiority; - you have an attitude, all right, but it's not "middle-class" - I'd go so far to say it's lacking in class entirely.
Don't trust any concentration of power.
No, saving money rather than spending it isn't "fortunate", it's prudent.
On the other hand, you can't save income if you don't receive it anymore than you can benefit from a tax cut when you have no income to tax. A lot of people out there don't receive it now and some never will. Sometimes they work 2 or more jobs and still don't receive as much as some of us can do working only one job.
I've always had a savings attitude. I haven't always been rich. I've seen jobs come and go, and often with uncomfortably long gaps between them. I repair when I can, and I forgo the "Always Low Price" cheap junk in favor of more expensive things that will last, when I can. And keep well away from the stuff that's neither low-priced nor durable.
When I do well, I do enviably well. When I don't, I get reminded not to sneer at those who are less fortunate.
My co-workers consider me one of the best in the business, my broker thinks I'm better than average at investing. I don't live in an overly-expensive house or own a luxury car. But I've felt the pain and expect to feel more.
Oh, yes. Because I saved money rather than spent it, I'm 'fortunate'.
Fortunate on 2 counts actually.
First You made more than you needed to live. Many people at or below the poverty line don't have extra money to set aside.
Second, Evidently, nothing substantially unpleasant ever actually happened. When you had your six months or whatever living expenses saved away, you weren't laid off, and then fell off your front porch, wiping out your savings one hospital trip, and then some, and THEN finding yourself unable to work for several months... because no matter how much you set aside, there's always the chance that something bigger will hit you. You were fortunate that nothing bigger than you saved for ever hit you.
I too have your savings attitude, and I think its extremely prudent. It lets you absorb life's little hits without it being a big deal. But I don't pretend for a second that I haven't been fortunate that life hasn't thrown a bigger hit than I can absorb.
"After reading this I'm not going to even entertain the thought of working there."
A few links to stories that say that's a good decision:
Dear Amazon interns, some advice from an old man who has been at Amazon way too long. Quote: "Amazon's work-life balance is awful."
Inside Amazon's Kafkaesque performance-improvement plan
Inside Amazon's Bizarre Corporate Culture
Glassdoor Reviews of Amazon
Amazon Is a Time Thief, by an Amazon Employee.
Working for Amazon Sounds Utterly Soul Crushing.
Life in an Amazon Warehouse: Fear and Efficiency at 35 Orders Per Second
I got reamed for it the next day, dude was literally screaming at me that "that was no excuse" that I "needed to focus and not make excuses" and so on
When people yell at you, don't accept it. Remain calm. Say, "As soon as you are ready to calm down and act like an adult, we can discuss this." That will make him really mad, and then he'll fire you on the spot.
Fixed that for you.
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