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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.
Yeah, we joke about it, but there are a few there who truly are devoid of empathy, far beyond being mere assholes.
I was contracting on a poorly-managed death-march project, where my job was basically to work night and day to make up for the product manager's lack of planning. (I willing accepted this, because I needed money, and they were desperate, and we came to terms that I was willing to accept: $$$ cha-ching.)
Then 1 day I had a really off day and got very little done. 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. Well, I'm sorry, but I tried, I really did. But man, all day I just couldn't seem to get work done no matter how hard I tried. I still remember the date, too: 9/11/2001.
Motherfucker.
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.
When you treat people like robots, the general level of need to keep over-indoctrinating on "company policy" becomes even larger as the word gets out and you primarily get 2nd rate people filling the shoes of those who left.
Eventually you get a dumbed down workforce, because the truly creative types can find a more enjoyable creative experience in companies that value their skilled people.
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.
So surprised this gets overlooked by so many. Want healthy, long-term productive employees? Make sure their LIVES are good. What happens outside of work will influence work quality much more than anything inside work, especially these cult-like attitudes. And realizing that 'work isn't everything', despite the blow to the CEOs ego, will go a long way to improving the whole system.
This is how the labour market is supposed to work.
I would never work for Amazon - I accept lower pay in exchange for work/life balance. But for those people for whom money is more important, Amazon provides them with that opportunity. To each their own. ...and to those who didn't know what they were getting into when they started working at Amazon, that's their own fault. Amazon's working conditions are pretty well-known.
This is all well and good, but the executives at places like Amazon have the ear of government policymakers. Sure, it's not slavery if you can quit...but it is when everywhere else can act the exact same way.
Until the economy is restructured such that you have no ability to chose not to participate. Which seems to be the goal of the very comfortable private-jet 0.2%
sPh
I interviewed with Amazon, everyone seemed rather depressed. Most people there had joined right after college, so they didn't realize there were better options.
The exception was a guy whose company had been bought by Amazon, who had the look of desperation, and all but said, "DO NOT WORK HERE." I was only practice-interviewing, but I took the hint.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
i make less than what i could have made if i had chosen to be a workaholic and never see my kids. there is a price for every lifestyle you choose
Oh so you are "not a team player" or some other bullshit term they'll use to describe the desire to actually have a life. Reminds me of the boss where I used to work. I'm surprised the guy doesn't sleep there. He works something like 60-80 hours a week (salaried, varies). He has been divorced, twice. His latest ex-wife considered taking him back and changed her mind after about a week. Turns out, when you're in a committed relationship with a woman, she wants you to spend time with her. He has two daughters he never sees and they probably hate him for it. They're grown now and he probably missed out on their childhood. He would hassle underlings about using legitimate vacation time because he can't comprehend the concept of work-life balance. Best of all, his own bosses higher up don't appreciate this and don't give a shit about him.
But hey, he sure is dedicated!
if you finished reading the post (let alone the article), you would see that the article is about the corporate offices, not the warehouses.
Sounds like a someone with absolutely no ethics thought up some of that.
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.
"This is how the labour market is supposed to work".
Unfortunately, that is literally true. Read those original 18th-century and 19th-century economists like Smith, Ricardo, Malthus, etc. They had it all worked out that wages - the price of labour - would be forced down to the minimum that would support life (plus a little extra to let the next generation of workers be born and brought up). Any attempt to pay more would inevitably makes matters still worse.
In the 20th century it looked, for a while, as if things would turn out differently. But maybe not.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
"...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.
While I don't disagree with you, there are people who thrive in an environment like Amazon's. Now, most other people would consider the people who are successful at Amazon as "assholes" and I think they'd be right.
It doesn't sound like Amazon is shy about telling prospective employees what it's like to work there, so, to a certain extent, there shouldn't be any surprises for their employees when they're working there. That doesn't mean that it's not shameful to harass/punish employees when they have unexpected personal challenges and tragedies.
The good thing about all this is that Amazon is taking the assholes out of the workforce.
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
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.
Having worked in a factory, shovelling oily hunks of metal from one bin to another, I laugh whenever anyone claims Amazon's warehouse work is 'slavery'. I'd have jumped at a job like that, if I'd had the option at the time.
The people who think it's awful have clearly never done a real, hard, manual job in their lives.
I could easily imagine having this degree of commitment to a job if I was working in a World War 2 fighter-plane factory, and it was a case of "build hundreds of these things every month or the Nazis will win". Or if I was in the team working on a rocket that delivers a giant hydrogen bomb that will deflect an incoming asteroid of dinosaur-killing proportions.
The woman worked four days and nights straight selling gift cards!
Anonymous denunciations and self-criticism have been lifted straight from the playbooks of Chairman Mao and David Koresh. So this management abuse of employees, and their willingness to suck it up comes across as some kind of cult that works on the gullible, desperate and greedy, after the relentless Darwinian firing process has sieved out everybody else.
Is that anywhere close to the truth? I'm sure I would have walked in under a month and I'm genuinely puzzled as to why anybody else wouldn't.
"The Challenge of working for Pricks"
Fixed.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
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
Well one of the big issues is that we currently get the worst of all worlds. Sometimes the 'middle road' is not the best way.
Whatever your political views, each side does offer a 'good life' in its vision.
The left/progressive way is rather standard and easy to see as good based on the way most of us live and been educated. Stable lifetime employment and a good safety net with rules to ensure improving standards. Again, that's the theory :)
In the case of the 'free market', the idea is that you'd give your all, work for a few years and then move on to something else with a big pile of cash.
Assuming a stable currency, that money can last you a long time.
Heck, I work at a bank which gets lots of foreign labor and this is the mindset of these people. It's not just Indians and Asians. For some reason, we attract a lot of French people (From France). They have the same mindset. Come to America/Canada after university, work, make a boat load of cash, return to France and do something relaxing.
The idea is that you work hard enough so you don't have to keep working. The US is really a good example of seeing the difference.
You can for example live a very low cost of living in the American South. If you want, you can work your ass off and live in a mansion, or just work a basic job and have a home, car...
Today, we don't live in any kind of a free-market, yet some companies still operate like that, but the benefits for those workers to work really hard for a few years and retire are decreasing. Currency questions are all over the place. I'm not saying inflation is crazy, but let's not pretend, anyone has any idea how their money is going to last 50 years. Higher taxes take away the pay for this hard work in a short period of time. Low interest rates are making housing going up, which increases your future costs...
But the powers that be don't mind. They get the benefits of the free market in Amazon and other firms, while they get to control society and have higher taxes in progressiveness. Luckily, they have a lot of foreign labor that can endure it and does benefit (at least for now).
Instead, Amazonians are instructed to “disagree and commit” (No. 13) — to rip into colleagues’ ideas, with feedback that can be blunt to the point of painful, before lining up behind a decision.
This is how things work in the REAL engineering world. (By REAL I mean industries when things fail people die and companies go bankrupt like shipping, aerospace, structural engineering, power generation, etc.)
We need to be brutal when reviewing designs and analysis becuase Mother Nature doesn't care how good you think your calculations are. Sure some people get their feelings hurt but if can't take it then you should get out of the business. I am thankful when someone finds a flaw in something I did because that could kill people.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The other engineers I work with are some of the smartest and best I've met in my career (i've worked at several other large companies), and there is certainly an overall goal of excellence. Feedback and discussion is strongly encouraged, but I've never seen anyone break down into tears at work. The leadership principles cited are accurate, but my experience with them has been seemingly more in line with their original intentions.
Their sampling seems biased to those who have left the company, either voluntarily or forced, which suggests to me there may be a negative bias. If you ever saw this comic: http://www.bonkersworld.net/im... , you may understand Amazon operates many independent divisions, I suspect the experience of employees varies by division. I don't know if NYT sought out particular opinions, but they only gave a sentence or two to those veterans they encountered with a positive experience - literally this line:
"Some veterans interviewed said they were protected from pressures by nurturing bosses or worked in relatively slow divisions".
It seems like focusing on those experiences wouldn't have made as sensational of an article though.
There are some of us who have attained financial independence and refuse to play this game. What we are seeing with the labor participation rate is two components. Those which are truly unemployable, and those which refuse to play the game with the current rule set because they are financially independent and
chose to work on things which are personally rewarding such as open source software.
These are reasons the labor participation rate is so low. The only way to change it is to go back to the way employment was structured in the early to mid 20th century, implement a universal basic income, or cull the citizenry which cannot sustain themselves. Historically, the latter option was chosen (War Famine, Disease). Let's hope that the middle option occurs, as due to global competition, the first option may not be viable.
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.
Are they the only ones that win? Do they win everything?
My neighbor across the street has a house about the same size as mine. He buys a new BMW or Mercedes every year; I get 3-4 years out of my Ford. He has a top-of-the-line MotoGuzzi - I ride a mid-line Honda. He and his family vacation in Barbados - I make due with Cabo San Lucas and Hawaii. He's at work right now (and nearly every Saturday, and many Sundays), and I'm at home, relaxing with some music, the cats, and Slashdot.
Did he win everything? I dunno - but I do know that in an hour or so I'll go play a little basketball with his kids...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
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?
Take the idea that people are too conflict averse. I absolutely agree with that. But the danger is when beating the other guy starts to become an end in itself. Having mutual respect and support is also important. I've had really productive work relationships that were full of heated arguments, but respect enabled us to see when we were both right (or wrong) and were just arguing past each other.
The solution to a false dichotomy (creative conflict vs. mutual respect) isn't to choose the other side; it's to find a way to do both.
Or take the boast that standards are "unreasonably high". That makes no sense. It's illogical to be proud of anything that's "unreasonable", because "unreasonable" equals "irrational". It shows a defect in thinking. Now I really like the idea of being more data driven; people make too many decisions based on their "guy" (aka personal prejudices); it's just lazy, emotional decision making. But data doesn't make you infallible, and covering up your failures with an illogical slogan is just as lazy and emotionally driven.
The thing is being a contrarian has its advantages; when all the other investors are selling, you're buying, and that tends to give you an edge. But it's not the same as knowing what you are doing. Ultimately both the conventional and contrarian choice in a false dichotomy is wrong.
The culture at Amazon strikes me as only superficially rational, and I expect in the long run they'll pay the price.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
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.
All this is.
Do they talk about business culture in failing companies? Because that would be more interesting. I don't see it.
Mostly they investigate successful companies and then shit talk whatever they're doing that makes the place work.
As to the poor woman with the stillborn child... anyone that can't spot the pathos being injected into the story there is blind.
In the old Roman days, if you were being taken to court you could hire children... typically orphans... or unmarried women... often prostitutes... to cry at your trial. The presumption by the jury would be that they were your children and the woman was some family relation. And by having them crying openly in court... you could influence the jury because they'd feel sorry for the children and crying woman... and thus go easy on you.
This tactic in rhetoric of attempting to play on the heart strings of the minds judging a situation is a very old one. And its frankly an offensive one.
I'm sure there are people that work really hard at Amazon and I'm sure the company does their best to get the most value out of people as possible. But no one has to work there. You're not a slave. You sent your resume to Amazon. You talked with the HR rep over the phone. You went to an interview and did your best to make them want to hire you.
So... no one forced you to be there. Amazon is not breaking any law. And while there are a few sob stories in there, the majority of the employees seem very happy.
It is typical of the NYT to run a story of "Look, someone is successful - KILL HIM"... its what they do. But I'd think more readers would be aware of it by now.
Its one of the reasons the NYTs is losing national clout despite trying very hard to remain relevant. They're biased. All news you could say is biased... but the editors are biased as well. One of the great things about the internet is that you can do version tracking on articles.
You see an article published on a Saturday night... it changes on Sunday... It changes again on Monday... The author changes on tuesday. This happens all the time on their site. No declaration that anything changed. No declaration of why.
Just presenting the story as if it was always X from the start. When clearly there is evidence that it changed many times.
The NYTs is not the only site that does that. But its the only major news source I know of that does it as commonly or completely. I expect that from Buzzfeed or Gawker or something. But when the NYTs starts playing by the same rules... they become the same.
You are not only what you do but what you don't do.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
No, you need to be accurate and complete. Painful/brutal is totally optional.
You need to ensure a drone doesn't kill someone. You can accomplish that through quite a few methods. Being a dick is unnecessary.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
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
Cult members have a difficult time leaving too and they usually have a way out.
Dogs can break free of their electric fence too... or when the fence is off they can do so easily... yet both situations work quite well at keeping the dog policing it self.
Modern Psychology is powerful enough to get many people to enslave themselves. It's not perfect, but it only needs to work well enough on enough people. Once caught up in such a situation, it has to be difficult to escape - and since it requires a deeper understanding to really grasp, outsiders will be clueless in their judgements of the victims.
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