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Debate Over Amazon Working Conditions Goes Back Years
Nerval's Lobster writes: This weekend, The New York Times published a lengthy report about working conditions for white-collar workers at Amazon. Describing the e-commerce giant as a "bruising workplace," the report paints a picture of a Darwinian environment. But criticism of Amazon's working conditions actually goes back years. In The Everything Store, a book-length account of Amazon by Bloomberg BusinessWeek reporter Brad Stone, the Amazon of yesteryear is indeed described as an aggressive place in which Bezos pushed employees relentlessly. So is Amazon a terrible place to work? On Quora and Glassdoor, current employees suggest that the company presents its workers with interesting challenges, and that the culture is fast-paced. While there are complaints about the hours and workload, many don't seem Amazon-specific: The world is filled with tech pros struggling to achieve work-life balance in the face of incredible goals on tight deadlines. Many cite issues with the company's frugality—its lack of perks vis-à-vis Google or Microsoft. After the report was published Jeff Bezos wrote a memo to employees that reads in part: “The article doesn’t describe the Amazon I know or the caring Amazonians I work with every day. But if you know of any stories like those reported, I want you to escalate to HR. You can also email me directly at jeff@amazon.com. Even if it’s rare or isolated, our tolerance for any such lack of empathy needs to be zero.”
I work on cutting edge, genuinely innovative stuff that solves important real world problems (water network monitoring and leak location). I'd never want to work in an environment like this though. It's unnecessary, the company benefits at my expense.
I'm disabled so probably couldn't do it anyway, and wouldn't want to work in an environment that excludes people who work the way I do (at a sensible pace, good work life balance).
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
it turns everyone in the company into an informer. Enron used this approach, it worked so well.
As a former employee, this article really changed my view of the NY Times. I guess I expected more from such a well-known, established news source. But, this lengthy "expose" was clearly written by two authors with an agenda, and to what end? Readership?
I loved my time at Amazon.com. Yes, it was challenging. My time there forced me to grow as an engineer when I knew I was at risk of stagnation. But, I worked very reasonable hours (~7am-4pm, by choice to avoid traffic) and only very rarely (once very few months on average, typically leading up to Black Friday before all our deployments were locked down) worked nights of weekends. I traveled twice for Amazon - and had no trouble expensing the flight, hotel, meals, and transportation to/from the airport. I never saw anyone cry at their desk. Everyone who worked there was very civil.
I left for opportunity more than anything - an opportunity to both advance my career and be closer to my family on the east coast.
But yeah, I really have to wonder why the NY Times is busting Amazon's balls. I feel like a dope for not being more suspicious of them before now.
The article was pretty balanced as far as content, the only hit piece nature was that all the good stuff was said upfront so you forgot it by the time you get past the stories about employee that just lost children, spouses or parents and were fired.
But honestly, those stories about people being fired after loosing someone or having health problems are a pretty good reason do the order they did. It was bad enough that Bezos made the public claim in the summary above about not being the amazon he knows. But the authors make a pretty good point early on that it's exactly the type of cutthroat performance at all cost Amazon that he's built. This is what happens when you build monsters where you are encouraged to attack your coworkers, they become monsters and attack them when they are down at the worst moments in their life. Because by attacking their coworkers they can advance.
This is the Amazon Bezos has built, one without empathy where the ends justifies the means. It's the reason every other fortune 500 is abandoning the very hiring and performance metrics Bezo's champions. Bezos shouldn't be disturbed by this (if he actually is) but I do understand his need to inject PR speak about how he wants everyone to email him or HR if this occurs. Which would probably just get you fired quicker.
Word to the wise... Yes, CEOs can listen, and do listen.
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
But honestly, those stories about people being fired after loosing someone or having health problems are a pretty good reason do the order they did.
Did we ever get the other side of those stories in particular? They sound horrible, inhuman, hard to believe. Just because a company promotes competition among workers does not mean they promote behaviors such as these. One behavior does not cause the other. Workers that feel slighted often exaggerate reality. Companies are not in a legal position to tell their side of the story regarding individual employees for a number of reasons, they can only generically respond (answering my rhetorical question above). And I am sure there are some bad bosses at Amazon, just like other huge companies. I am also sure that just like any company there are people that were let go for not doing a good job but would never admit their own performance was subpar. In these particular cases. We really don't know for sure the whole story.
Should Bezos be expected to NOT continue the style of management that helped make Amazon so successful to start with? Should employees expect the company culture to change or leave if they don't like it? There are no right or wrong answers, IMHO.
I emailed a friend currently working at Amazon, with links to the NYT story and the CNN/Money story. I asked him/her if that sort of thing ever happened in their group.
The reply: "It seems all true, even!"
The friend is a former boss of mine, whom I know to be honest, fair, and a really good manager, who knows my skill set well, and would have been able to match me to some opportunities. But, now, I think I'll pass on Amazon as I'm getting confirmation of the environment from someone I know.
If Bezos truly doesn't condone the bad behavior, but also believes that it isn't happening underneath him, then, he's asleep at the switch.
Berating people in meetings is actually "creating a hostile work environment", which is actionable under U.S. labor law. But, anybody mentioning this to HR would probably mark the person as "not an Amazonian" and the person would find themselves being shoved out.
This is "stack rank" management [at MS], where the lower 20% must get bad reviews even if they're top performers. In a dept of five where all the team members are stellar performers, one must be singled out as a "low performer". This was started, IIRC, at HP, and is also at Cisco. So, the group gets together and mutually selects "the goat" for the quarter. After five quarters, each employee has been "the goat".
Like a good neighbor, fsck is there
I've been working at Amazon for 6 months (after an acquisition) and I haven't yet heard of anyone asked to work on weekends.
The only major exception I've seen is on-call people - they are expected to take care of any issues that might happen at any time when they're on-call.