Slashdot Mirror
Amazon Work-Life Balance Defender: Prior Employer Nearly Killed Me and My Team
theodp writes: New York Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan questions whether her paper's portrayal of Amazon's brutal workplace was on target, citing a long, passionate response in disagreement from Nick Ciubotariu, a head of infrastructure development at Amazon. Interestingly, Ciubotariu — whose take on Amazon's work-life balance ("I've never worked a single weekend when I didn't want to") was used as Exhibit A by CEO Jeff Bezos to refute the NYT's report — wrote last December of regretting his role as an enabler of his team's "Death March" at a former employer (perhaps Microsoft, judging by Ciubotariu's LinkedIn profile and his essay's HiPo and Vegas references). "I asked if there were any questions," wrote Ciubotariu of a team meeting. "Nadia, one of my Engineers, had one: 'Nick, when will this finally end?' As I looked around the room, I saw 9 completely broken human beings. We had been working over 100 hours a week for the past 2 months. Two of my Engineers had tears on their faces. I did my best to keep from completely breaking down myself. With my voice choking, I looked at everyone, and said: 'This ends right now'." Ciubotariu added, "I hope they can forgive me for being an enabler of their death march, however unwilling, and that I ultimately didn't do enough to stop it. As a 'reward' for all this, I calibrated #1 overall in my organization, and received yet another HiPo nomination and induction, at the cost of a shattered family life, my health, and a broken team. I don't think I ever felt worse in my entire career. If I could give it all back, I would, in an instant, no questions asked. Physically and mentally, I took about a year to heal."
I really did
FTFS:
"I've never worked a single weekend when I didn't want to"
Employee: "I wanted to work this weekend. I really did"
Interviewer: "Oh, that's good. Why did you want to work this weekend?"
Employee: "Cuz they'd fire my ass otherwise, doofus!"
'nuff said. Sure, some management type work weekends to "set an example" but otherwise I don't buy it.
I was a mid-level IT dept manager for a major newspaper. I was never specifically asked to work overtime, but I often did so because it was my responsibility to ensure production readiness. So yeah, I chose to work, but to say I "wanted to" would be stretching it.
Peace,...
Your company regularly makes everyone work 100 hours a week, and you wonder why they're having problems hiring developers?? It's a fucking miracle the rest of your team hasn't left yet to go work for a less shitty company!
Manager passionately disagrees with complaints of managers abusing staff, did I get that right?
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
you are having trouble because word on the street is that you work 100 hours. Everyone knows, no one applies.
Hmm, but that is why you are having problems. You think it is easy to hide the fact that you are all overworked and you can tidy up the place to hide evidence that you live at your work, but people aren't stupid. They know the culture. Just like employers can look up information about candidates on the Internet, the same way candidates can look up working conditions. And Amazon isn't a place many people would like to work.
In my province there is also an IT company that makes custom made software. They also have a 'flexible' team of programmers, which just means that the programmers have to be flexible in their working hours. They still have to do the usual 8 till 5, even when there is no work. But when there is work, the flexibility kicks in. They have to work lots of hours, they have to work in the weekend. Having a child that needs attention isn't showing flexibility and loyalty to the company. You can still phone someone like your neighbor to pick up your child from the child care center. That's their culture.
But lately they have been complaining that they can't find new programmers and this with so many unemployed people. And they offer so many benefits like a laptop, a smart phone and a company car and the chance to work in a wonderful team.
Well of course you can't find people willing to work under these conditions. Only very few people are willing to have a life like this. If you love your family, you can not have a live like this. It is even better to just remain unemployed for some time until you find the right job, than having to endure this flexible team spirit that is fueled by many team building events. It almost sounds like religious indoctrination and I'm well aware that some people are vulnerable to this kind of indoctrination. But many people are not and do not even want to try to work at that company because they know about the working conditions.
Yet that doesn't stop the local news paper to have a monthly full page infomercial about that company where they can still try to attract new candidates. It probably costs them quite some money to have this full page advert that looks like a news article. But why not just change the working conditions. The company grew too fast in its history but they handled it wrong. Instead of hiring enough people, and slowing down growth when you can't find them, they just demand unhealthy working ethics from their programmers.
That isn't why we're having trouble. We, of course, don't mention that.
You don't have to - word gets around. If your coders are being expected to regularly put in 2.5 times the "normal" hours per week, the company should be expected to be paying them at least 2.5 times what the going rate is. Offer that deal, and you might see more interest from competent people.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
The overseer whipping the slaves: "Damn, that one time, my arm got so tired, I didn't know if I could keep going. But I persevered." :)
You apparently work in a hell-hole. I take off around a month a year, and have been doing so for almost a decade with no ill effect. You need to find a job that treats you (explicitly and implicitly) as a human being.
Wow. This is what's wrong with the American work ethic.
Everyone is afraid to take their vacation time out of fear of being let go because they're not seen as " important " or " critical ".
Tip: You work for a very shitty company if you're so damned critical you can't even take your own vacation time off. Tell them to hire more employees and quit relying on one person. You can bet your ass the CEO and the rest of the executive branch takes their time off. . . .
Trust me when I say you're not the super-hero you think you are. You'll burn out or die from a heart attack or stroke and they'll replace you within two weeks. From overseas if necessary. Then they'll work that one into the ground. Wash, rinse and repeat as necessary.
Remember, the brightest star burns out the fastest. . . .