to most people amazon is a box arriving via parcel delivery but there is another side to this company at all levels!
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-wrestling-big-ideas-in-a-bruising-workplace.html?_r=0
I don’t see the best people choosing to work in such a place. I have a friend whose kid does. Don’t know anything about his job other than the product he’s worked on. But like I said, when there’s so much competition for talented people, I gather their experiment is basically “can we intimidate to a better result?”
I couldn’t finish the article. Just reding about the environment stressed me out.
Ugh.
While reading all I kept thinking about was L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology.
Very creepy, imo.
I rarely buy anything from Amazon but after reading this I’ll never buy anything from them again.
This article was really disturbing to me. I had totally reduced my Amazon purchases to almost zero after the Hachette situation and I am tempted now to cancel my membership but instead I will keep it active but reduce from almost zero to zero.
(single) sibling worked there in corporate for 7 years; got in right before they started mainly hiring IVY grads/JDs. It was a HUGE ball of stress nonstop everyday. Running between offices; shouting at co-workers. No time for hello/goodbyes. Dogs were brought to work and lived in co-workers offices -because there was no time for workers to go home to care for their pets. Like the article said, sibling saw people crying at desks.
My Sibling finally left for a high-tech company out of state; and is much happier and also seen as “the expert.”
sibling still orders from amazon though, and slightly defends them because of first-hand knowledge of the amount of work and time put in by staff to start and get certain programs going.
“Amabot” sound like nascent “Borgs”. I know I am dating myself but my 17 yr old S has been binge watching all the different Star Trek series this summer on Netflix.
Thanks for pointing out this article.
I know lots of people who avoid them as they do Walmart.
I’m happy to buy things from amazon, and intend to do so again shortly.
Whether I’d want to work there is another story.
The article looks like an opening salvo in the typical hysterical “somebody should do something about this” screed. I expect there will be many, many more.
Amazon, a “grown up”'co, still does its business the way startups do. On a shoestring budget. It is an interesting business model, not the company I would want to work for, but they seem to have no shortage of applicants.
Another thought… The way Amazon corporate offices operate is no different from the way a law firm or a biotech co conducts its business. Client needs to file a patent application by the end of the day? Sure, just tell me what the invention is, I will have a 100-page draft in a couple of hours. Mice need to be fed on Christmas Day? Of course, otherwise they will keel over and ruin a valuable experiment.
White collar workers pick the furnace they jump into. I’m more concerned about the warehouse workers, but that issue seems to have been resolved.
No one is forced to work at Amazon. That’s all there is to say, really. And so long as people are willing to work there, for whatever reasons they may have, I see no sense in refusing to do business with the company. If you want to engage in a meaningful boycott, don’t buy things made in countries where individuals have no choice but to labor under sweatshop conditions or start working at age 10. Some Amazon employee with the skills and resume to work elsewhere doesn’t like it there? Boo hoo.
They do promise interns that they will have meaningful internships.
bunsen burner
“I’m more concerned about the warehouse workers, but that issue seems to have been resolved.” not sure why you think that those warehouses issues have been fixed. I have not heard they have. I think those issues are still very real .
Reading articles, I was thinking Scientologists too! What’s kind of scary with companies like Amazon and their drones and robots is that with ‘advances’ in artificial intelligence humans might eventually get kicked out of the company all together by the smart robots…scary stuff for the future!
lizard…agreed but I like robots for certain things. dangerous jobs or tasks like delivering medicine in large hospitals to the nursing stations 24/7/365 etc…
In the NY Times article you linked, it says the issue has been resolved since the reports of 2013 - the warehouses are now AC conditioned. As far as packing X boxes per hour… that is very typical of manual labor.
It’s a good training place to be for a short time before you realize what hell in the work place could be and move on. It’s a good article to pass on to my kid.
Exactly, Dr. Google, I have already forwarded the article to both my kids, who could potentially get on Amazon’s radar. Neither are currently looking for a job but have seen how recruiters will come after attractive candidates. We know 2 guys now who are Amazon employees (one on West Coast, one at a east coast location). I was pretty disturbed by this article and hope it is not as bad for them as this article portrays it to be. It sound like a pretty crazy work environment if the article is at all accurate. No work environment is perfect but this one sounds very toxic.
Last year according to senior survey Amazon was the top employer for students graduated from UCB L&S CS. In 2013, it was for both UCSD and UCLA. I haven’t seen the senior survey for 2014 yet.