Last time there negative press about Amazon's culture, Bezos wrote an email encouraging people to contact him directly if they suffered abuse.<p>Apparently if you actually try it, you get fired:<p><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/thefaceofamazon/home/fired-for-contacting-jeff" rel="nofollow">https://sites.google.com/site/thefaceofamazon/home/fired-for...</a>
Everytime I hear these stories, there are 2 things that go through my mind.<p>1) I'm never going to work at Amazon<p>2) If you're judging a company based on the experiences of those who are dissatisfied, isn't that always going to be heavily biased?<p>At any large company, there will be many people who are unhappy and dissatisfied. If you go out looking for stories from such people, and compile them into a single digest, it's going to make any company look dysfunctional.<p>Using a glassdoor-esque rating system seems like the best way to judge a company. And Amazon's rating there is 3.4 (<a href="https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Amazon-com-Reviews-E6036.htm" rel="nofollow">https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Amazon-com-Reviews-E6036.h...</a>). Which is nowhere near Google (4.4) or Facebook (4.5), but it isn't horrible either. It's even slightly above average (3.3) across all companies in Glassdoor.<p>Which does kind of make sense... no tech company can churn out great technology products over many years, if the work-culture is dysfunctional. Purely for that reason alone, I'm sure Bezos would put a lid on how bad the work culture at Amazon can possibly get.<p>All of which is to say... I get the feeling that Amazon is probably an <i>okay</i> place to work. It's not great. It's probably a little below-average for the tech industry. But it's probably not as dysfunctional as these reviews and horror stories seem to suggest.
I thought this was pretty funny (from The Onion a year ago):<p>"Jeff Bezos Assures Amazon Employees That HR Working 100 Hours A Week To Address Their Complaints"<p><a href="http://www.theonion.com/article/jeff-bezos-assures-amazon-employees-hr-working-100-51121" rel="nofollow">http://www.theonion.com/article/jeff-bezos-assures-amazon-em...</a>
Just more fodder for my mental reasoning for why Amazon is on my lengthy blacklist of companies I will never work for. It's kind of amazing to me how many companies in the tech sector have given up even the vestige of being about technology and how it benefits people in favor of being some of the most ruthless and sharky people in the business world.<p>There was a point in my life where I'd say I'd never again work in government, finance, or healthcare related companies, and now I actually find I'd rather do that because management politics is /less cutthroat/ and more reasonable in those industries than it is in tech. I hope maybe we'll see a real revival in the tech industry one of these days, but so many of the companies that have made it big have done it by stomping on the people who actually matter. Tech these days is all about big egos fueled by big dollars, but the numbers don't actually matter so things are irrational from the top all the way down.<p>At least in finance, the numbers are all that matter at the end of the day. At least in healthcare there's a semblance of care given to the patients. At least in government there's an understanding if not a fulfillment of the social contract. In tech all we have are douchebags with big wallets and bigger egos (Bezos, Ellison, et al) destroying the lives of their employees (and sometimes their customers) to enrich themselves at the expense of all others. It's completely pathological.
PSA: In case you need more context, just go to the parent url:<p><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/thefaceofamazon/home" rel="nofollow">https://sites.google.com/site/thefaceofamazon/home</a><p>Which from my understanding is a collection of anonymous rants from Amazon employees, and the posted link is just an example.<p>As someone already posted, it would be interesting to hear if someone in HN can provide some counterexample, or if the rants are spot on.
Almost everything I've heard about employment at Amazon has been negative.<p>Now obviously, I can't say whether that's fair to the company, however it must be costing them a lot of money. I bet there are a lot of people that have heard the din of politics and would never consider working there.<p>Are there any HN readers that are currently working at Amazon and that are happy?
I got a glimpse of the craziness just interviewing there. I enjoy telling that story (sorry mentioned it many times here in the past).<p>* They missed first phone call.<p>* Then on interview day my future manager was not there. Heck, I suspect they didn't even know I was supposed to come in (yes, I did check my email 3 times that morning to make sure I wasn't crazy).<p>* People I talked to expected to be told about the stupid leadership principles. I talked more about those than actual cool stuff I did with distributed systems. One would think Amazon would care about distributed systems, but I guess not...<p>* Forgot about me during lunch. I was just left in a room by myself for an hour. After some point I started to walk around aimlessly hoping someone would ask if I am supposed to be there (I even had a funny comeback line ready)<p>* After promising to get back to me in 2 days, got back in 3 weeks.<p>* Didn't get the offer. Feels like dodged a bullet.<p>Take it as an anecdote, a fluke, but I see it as pointing to a systemic issue. I can see some problems, but it was just too many in row. From various people, at various points in time.
Worked at amazon for 4 years in late 90s and early 2000s. I think there are two distinct employment experiences: If the company (that is, your team and hierarchy) found you promising, the rewards were usually good, at that time that meant incentive stock options. More importantly, you were given significant managerial responsibility and opportunity to drive strategic initiatives. If you fell into this group, you could be reasonably well off in in 4-5 years, and wealthy in 10. Your job, while demanding, was generally fulfilling. For those that didn't fall into this group (by my guess about 80% didn't make the cut,) life was more brutish. Significant stress, poor rewards, and no possibility of advancement. The company didn't really care if you stayed or not, and actively managed you for maximum output. My guess was it usually took about a year for management to make decision as to which group you fell in. So my advice, join Amazon if you feel you can really be good (both technically, as well as in your ability to manage the politics of a large organization) The politics itself was not anymore than you would find in any org that size. One just had to make a point to understand and work the system.
The reason I refuse to work for Amazon is because they claim ownership of every side project you make on your own time, with your own equipment, just because you are employed there.
I constantly read how badly the pickers in the (European) dispatch centers get treated. They can get away with it because those are low wage jobs and the workers easy to replace. It becomes more evident that this is a fundamental issue in the company's culture.
I wish more of these stories had some indication of what department the author was from. I have a bit of a suspicion that the closer you get to the retail operation the worse it gets (and of course doing fulfillment in a warehouse is the belly of the beast). Part of it is certainly Amazon culture but part of it is surely that retail businesses are a grind. Margins are slim and there is constant pressure to gain every possible efficiency even at the cost of human pain.
What are the attributes of a crappy manager? A lot of people say what they hate, but there is a theme I have seen in tech.<p>When you think of these managers, you need to ask, who are they? Where are they from? How did they get the job? What did they do before (large/small org)? What is their social background? What is their style?<p>At the root, I suspect it's shitty leadership at the top. The Valley execs I have met, let's just say they are not the sort of guys you would willingly go into battle for. Tech lacks a real officer class that commands respect.<p>I have also yet to see a non-white person quit over company culture issues. Thar be some elephants in thar rooms.
This makes me wonder what would happen if you took a job there and just refused to do the sucking up? What if you just competently did what they asked and didn't worry about getting fired for bullshit reasons?<p>With that kind of turnover, it occurs me to that you very well could survive without doing all the soul-sucking bullshit because the managers simply couldn't afford to lose <i>more</i> workers.<p>I'm not the one to try it, though, as I've no interest in working in those high-stress situations in the first place. I'm fine with making a little less and having a personal life outside of work.
Don't work for Amazon, don't buy from Amazon if you can.<p>I've started to order my books through my local bookstore recently, it's surprisingly easy. I do my research online (often times via AMZN tbh) and pick up the books on my way from/to the office.
>Amazon is a great company for its customers. It's about time that it becomes a great company for its really hard working employees as well.<p>Hat off.
What do their turnover numbers actually looks like? Chances are they get a lot of management attention.<p>IIRC, 15% per year is pretty standard in the software industry. I think Google's figure was something like 5% when I was there.
Personal favorite:<p><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/thefaceofamazon/home/osha-and-bathrooms" rel="nofollow">https://sites.google.com/site/thefaceofamazon/home/osha-and-...</a><p>Don't often hear about health and safety in this business.
Everything I've ever read about working at Amazon has been terrible.<p>Despite this, from the outside at least they still seem to execute flawlessly and are still adored by geeks who don't work there.
No wonder they are on constant recruitment overdrive. Calls from consultants recruiting for them have become worse than from banks offering credit cards.
I've learned that there are only two things managers are responsible for - getting the performance and achieving the goals the company has set for them, and keeping their people. If you achieve goals but don't keep your people, you've lost.
Am I the only one who thinks that at least some of those reports may be complete bullshit? I've red couple and to be honest they don't go into details on what actually happened, like this one <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/thefaceofamazon/home/assaulted-at-amazon" rel="nofollow">https://sites.google.com/site/thefaceofamazon/home/assaulted...</a><p>Why was he assaulted? Just randomly, without a reason 40yo guy came to him one day and assaulted him?<p>How was he assaulted? Did the guy came with kitchen knife and said he's going to cut his fingers or something? Or he thrown a paper ball in his direction?
Another one on the site: <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/thefaceofamazon/home/osha-and-bathrooms" rel="nofollow">https://sites.google.com/site/thefaceofamazon/home/osha-and-...</a><p>This is not the only tech company I've heard this about, and it's been a problem everywhere I've been. I'm not especially opposed to open offices, but if companies are <i>routinely</i> cramming more people on a floor than the designers of the building ever imagined, it might be time to reconsider a few things.
Amazon was terribly run a decade ago, in 2006. At the time my manager had training to be a prison guard- that was his intended career. He didn't know how to run a spreadsheet well, and he was managing programmers. His boss was an ex-DMV employee, literally, and had carried the same sort of passive hostility over.<p>Amazon is a retailer that thinks it is a tech company and so its management is the kind of management you want at Walmart to keep the "associates" from pilfering the goods.<p>At least in 2006 it was that way.<p>I think the really interesting thing is, how can a company that is so notoriously terrible still be able to hire as many employees as they want? How is it that so many young (eg: 19-24 year old) engineers think that getting Amazon on their resume (or Facebook, Google, etc.) is somehow a big feather? Are further employees really that impressed by the name of the companies on the resume?<p>When I was that age I certainly did think that a big name meant something but after I got to the other side- where I'm interviewing people- I realized that it's a huge mistake to try and judge whether you should hire someone with these kinds of correlations (including college and GPA).<p>Amazon was the most terrible work experience of my career. I strongly urge everyone I meet who is considering them to avoid them.
I think we should limit the size of companies (in terms of number of people).<p>Because capitalism is great for competition, until a company has grown so big that there is no choice left. Both for the consumer and the employee.<p>Also, big companies usually have an internalized economy, which limits its usefulness for the outside world.<p>Basically, keeping companies small would increase the modularity of the economy.
Interesting to see Amazon people writing these complaints on Google's services.<p>Also, what effect will this have on people using Amazon?
Should we try to use Google cloud offering instead of AWS?<p>I guess with any service that offered super cheap costs, there was a place where something had to give...
Does Amazon offer relocation and tn visa sponsorship? There isn't a lot of great opportunities from where I'm from (western canada).<p>Wouldn't they look good as my first job in my resume for a person who recently graduated that never had a software job?
everyone's quitting... but Amazon's hiring does not seem to be picking up slack (unless they just increase the workload on current employees).<p>I mean, if a lot of people were quitting, recruiters would be trying their best to replace them. While I have seen a lot of open positions on amazon.jobs, they have been open for months (some even for a year) and are still accepting resumes (they seem to be taking their time replacing people if at all).<p>and in all honesty, I'd still want to work there if I can get a chance (so if Amazon employees / recruiters are hiring in Canada, please email me).
If Amazon try this in NSW, Australia then they want to watch out. If they get a complaint about bullying and it's not dealt with, directors can go to prison.
Sometimes you get a bad manager or you get into a bad situation. Sometimes you don't. Without the details on why this person actually was fired, we're just speculating and adding more to rumors.
The bad grammar makes it hard to take this post seriously (my something-is-off spam-detector goes off I guess, trained from years of sifting through fradulent emails).