Jeff Bozos negs employees

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > YOSPOS > Jeff Bozos negs employees

The Management: Jan 2, 2010; sup, bitch?

so the NY Times has a piece on how the white collar side of Amazon is run. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-wrestling-big-ideas-in-a-bruising-workplace.html

highlights include:
Amazon gives no (none, zero) paternity leave.
Attacking others in meetings is expected
There is a feedback system where people are encouraged to snitch on their colleagues. if you take sick time, expect to get negative feedback.
woman that had a miscarriage forced to work the next day
woman taking care of dad with cancer put on notice for lack of performance
if you're not on call always you are accused of not caring about your job
taking vacations is discouraged and you are expected to work during
Amazon is cheap as gently caress and spends nothing on employees
those that won't leave admit to hating it but being addicted to it
Jeff bozos has convinced all of these nerds that this is a good thing and what it takes to be successful, and they take this abuse.

quote:

A woman who had breast cancer was told that she was put on a �performance improvement plan� � Amazon code for �you�re in danger of being fired� � because �difficulties� in her �personal life� had interfered with fulfilling her work goals. Their accounts echoed others from workers who had suffered health crises and felt they had also been judged harshly instead of being given time to recover.

A former human resources executive said she was required to put a woman who had recently returned after undergoing serious surgery, and another who had just had a stillborn child, on performance improvement plans, accounts that were corroborated by a co-worker still at Amazon. �What kind of company do we want to be?� the executive recalled asking her bosses.

quote:

Company veterans often say the genius of Amazon is the way it drives them to drive themselves. �If you�re a good Amazonian, you become an Amabot,� said one employee, using a term that means you have become at one with the system.

quote:

In 2013, Elizabeth Willet, a former Army captain who served in Iraq, joined Amazon to manage housewares vendors and was thrilled to find that a large company could feel so energetic and entrepreneurial. After she had a child, she arranged with her boss to be in the office from 7 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. each day, pick up her baby and often return to her laptop later. Her boss assured her things were going well, but her colleagues, who did not see how early she arrived, sent him negative feedback accusing her of leaving too soon.

�I can�t stand here and defend you if your peers are saying you�re not doing your work,� she says he told her. She left the company after a little more than a year.

Ms. Willet�s co-workers strafed her through the Anytime Feedback Tool, the widget in the company directory that allows employees to send praise or criticism about colleagues to management. (While bosses know who sends the comments, their identities are not typically shared with the subjects of the remarks.) Because team members are ranked, and those at the bottom eliminated every year, it is in everyone�s interest to outperform everyone else.

Craig Berman, an Amazon spokesman, said the tool was just another way to provide feedback, like sending an email or walking into a manager�s office. Most comments, he said, are positive.

However, many workers called it a river of intrigue and scheming. They described making quiet pacts with colleagues to bury the same person at once, or to praise one another lavishly. Many others, along with Ms. Willet, described feeling sabotaged by negative comments from unidentified colleagues with whom they could not argue. In some cases, the criticism was copied directly into their performance reviews � a move that Amy Michaels, the former Kindle manager, said that colleagues called �the full paste.�

surprisingly, they have a huge retention problem.

bonus, I learned about the term Amholes for former Amazon employees that bring their toxic culture with them.

# ? Aug 15, 2015 23:06

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Apr 23, 2024 18:09

Space-Pope: Aug 13, 2003; by zen death robot

what's worse in terms of employees loving each other over: amazon or microsoft?

# ? Aug 15, 2015 23:13

Sham bam bamina!: Nov 6, 2012; ƨtupid cat

don't hate, it worked for k-mart

# ? Aug 15, 2015 23:14

leftist heap: Feb 28, 2013; Fun Shoe

sounds like a randian shithole.

# ? Aug 15, 2015 23:31

Shakespearean Beef: Jul 12, 2008; Ask me all about how I proudly marched alongside literal NEO-NAZIS to protest against the GOVERNMENT taking away our FREEDOMS because of nothing mote that the common FLU!!! I'm holding aloft the TORCH of FREEDOM!!

what a bozo

# ? Aug 15, 2015 23:33

pram: Jun 10, 2001

a giant, zero margins retail company is lovely to work for :aaa:

# ? Aug 15, 2015 23:35

Fuzzy Mammal: Aug 15, 2001; Lipstick Apathy

my wife was interviewed and photographed for this piece but didn't have anything bad to say so they didn't include it haha

# ? Aug 15, 2015 23:36

ADINSX: Sep 9, 2003; Wanna run with my crew huh? Rule cyberspace and crunch numbers like I do?

My favorite part was the one guy who was like "treating employees like garbage is the only way we could have accomplished what we have".

I mean sure Amazon is successful but gee I wonder if anyone can name OTHER successful technology companies that started around the same time as Amazon that DON'T treat their employees like crap.

# ? Aug 15, 2015 23:39

Roargasm: Oct 21, 2010; Hate to sound sleazy
But tease me
I don't want it if it's that easy

I tried to get a job there and he didn't even call me back! Major rear end in a top hat

# ? Aug 15, 2015 23:39

pram: Jun 10, 2001

ADINSX posted:

My favorite part was the one guy who was like "treating employees like garbage is the only way we could have accomplished what we have".

I mean sure Amazon is successful but gee I wonder if anyone can name OTHER successful technology companies that started around the same time as Amazon that DON'T treat their employees like crap.

amazon is not a technology company. see thats where you're all confused. theyre not google, theyre walmart

# ? Aug 15, 2015 23:41

Fuzzy Mammal: Aug 15, 2001; Lipstick Apathy

pram posted:

amazon is not a technology company. see thats where you're all confused. theyre not google, theyre walmart

lol if you think dis

# ? Aug 15, 2015 23:44

pram: Jun 10, 2001

haha, yeah. lol. a company that is solely concerned with the logistics of moving cheap garbage from china around the country. definitely not like walmart. rofl

# ? Aug 15, 2015 23:46

pram: Jun 10, 2001

quote:

�Some big companies develop ardent fan bases, are widely loved by their customers, and are even perceived as cool,� he wrote.

Examples of companies that category, in Bezos� assessment, were Apple, Nike, Disney, Google, Whole Foods and UPS.

Examples of companies not well-liked by their customers, as Bezos viewed it, included Walmart, Microsoft, Goldman Sachs and ExxonMobil.

He went on to list a series of attributes that led to companies being loved, concluding that it was important to be polite, reliable, risk-taking and customer-obsessed, but also to be perceived as inventive � an �explorer not a conquerer,� as Stone summarized it.

Bezos wrote, �I actually believe the four �unloved� companies are inventive as a matter of substance. But they are not perceived as inventors and pioneers. It is not enough to be inventive � that pioneering spirit must also come across and be perceivable by the customer base.�

its almost like bezos has intentionally cultivated the perception that amazon is a cool innovator .. and a bunch of rubes bought it

# ? Aug 15, 2015 23:53

echinopsis: Apr 13, 2004; by Fluffdaddy

does amazong even work

# ? Aug 16, 2015 00:00

Visual GNUdio: Aug 27, 2003

pram posted:

haha, yeah. lol. a company that is solely concerned with the logistics of moving cheap garbage from china around the country. definitely not like walmart. rofl

AWS is a runaway success that posted $4.6B last year, and it's growing quickly and making actual profits. You're right, Amazon is still very much a logistics company, but AWS is going bonkers and they are absolutely crushing the competition in the IaaS space. They do have other areas of business outside of retail that make an impact on their bottom line.

# ? Aug 16, 2015 00:07

fart simpson: Jul 2, 2005; DEATH TO AMERICA

im the manager who agreed to special working hours but "cant stand here and defend" his employees

# ? Aug 16, 2015 00:14

pram: Jun 10, 2001

Visual GNUdio posted:

AWS is a runaway success that posted $4.6B last year, and it's growing quickly and making actual profits. You're right, Amazon is still very much a logistics company, but AWS is going bonkers and they are absolutely crushing the competition in the IaaS space. They do have other areas of business outside of retail that make an impact on their bottom line.

yes you are right. not only do they sell cheap stuff from china, they also are a hosting company. and easily dominate over giants like rackspace, softlayer, hostgator, and the missouri colo that the something awful forums are sitting in

# ? Aug 16, 2015 00:15

pram: Jun 10, 2001

so they dont actually break out aws revenue, its just lumped in the 'other' category. but that whole group is around 6% total

the other 94% of their revenue is from suspiciously walmart like activities

# ? Aug 16, 2015 00:32

bump_fn: Apr 12, 2004; _{two of them}

seriosu q someone suggest a better place to buy toilet paper &c online

# ? Aug 16, 2015 00:33

H.P. Hovercraft: Jan 12, 2004; one thing a computer can do that most humans can't is be sealed up in a cardboard box and sit in a warehouse; Slippery Tilde

bump_fn posted:

seriosu q someone suggest a better place to buy toilet paper &c online

costco

# ? Aug 16, 2015 00:39

echinopsis: Apr 13, 2004; by Fluffdaddy

don't buy that poo poo online????

# ? Aug 16, 2015 00:51

oh no blimp issue: Feb 23, 2011

i buy toilet paper online because i cannot leave my house for any reason

# ? Aug 16, 2015 00:52

rabble rabble: Mar 24, 2015; Nap Ghost

Space-Pope posted:

what's worse in terms of employees loving each other over: amazon or microsoft?

Amazon is far worse. at Microsoft all the politics are more or less on the level, people try and gently caress products, groups, stuff like that. at Amazon it's personal and it's stupid as heck. then again, what do you expect from a company run by rear end in a top hat libertarians

# ? Aug 16, 2015 00:54

Rahu: Feb 14, 2009; let me just check my figures real quick here; Grimey Drawer

I worked there for a while, then left because it wasn't really my thing.

Well that's my story thanks for reading :tipshat:

# ? Aug 16, 2015 00:57

echinopsis: Apr 13, 2004; by Fluffdaddy

don't, I wish I hadn't

# ? Aug 16, 2015 01:07

fart simpson: Jul 2, 2005; DEATH TO AMERICA

Rahu posted:

I worked there for a while, then left because it wasn't really my thing.

Well that's my story thanks for reading

youre welcome

# ? Aug 16, 2015 01:08

BONGHITZ: Jan 1, 1970

this is just good business

# ? Aug 16, 2015 01:12

bump_fn: Apr 12, 2004; _{two of them}

echinopsis posted:

don't buy that poo poo online????

i live in a city and free slow shipping is cheaper than having to get a zip car or w.e to ferry poo poo from a store to my apartment

# ? Aug 16, 2015 01:13

echinopsis: Apr 13, 2004; by Fluffdaddy

no one gives a poo poo about how badly the employees are treated when they give a business money

if they did the world would be epic

# ? Aug 16, 2015 01:13

echinopsis: Apr 13, 2004; by Fluffdaddy

customer : do you employee slaves?

nervous sales rep : um yep

customers : so that means I'm getting a good price?

# ? Aug 16, 2015 01:14

echinopsis: Apr 13, 2004; by Fluffdaddy

bump_fn posted:

i live in a city and free slow shipping is cheaper than having to get a zip car or w.e to ferry poo poo from a store to my apartment

what the gently caress do you not have a car and live in the suburbs???

# ? Aug 16, 2015 01:14

pram: Jun 10, 2001

customer : how is babby formed

# ? Aug 16, 2015 01:14

fart simpson: Jul 2, 2005; DEATH TO AMERICA

bump_fn posted:

i live in a city and free slow shipping is cheaper than having to get a zip car or w.e to ferry poo poo from a store to my apartment

how do you live in a city where you dont need a car but are far away from a store that sells toilet paper? there are 4 supermarkets within a block of my apartment

# ? Aug 16, 2015 01:17