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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.
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."
if you finished reading the post (let alone the article), you would see that the article is about the corporate offices, not the warehouses.
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.
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 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.
read literally, it would mean "feeling like algae" (phykos/phycos=seaweed + pathos=feeling).
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
Because this is how you get unions.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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?
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