'I don't recognise Amazon as a bullying workplace' says Bezos

Sounds like what I heard

Friend worked in line management at one of their warehouses. He was asked by a senior manager to look into allegations that another shift had been falsifying their numbers. He found and presented evidence that supported that. Not too long afterwards, he was baited by an employee in that group into saying a naughty word, grounds for termination according to Amazon.

The senior manager who asked him to work on the project declined to intervene on his behalf with HR.

the beatings will continue until morale improves.

I did a little research before interviewing there and it becomes really clear on Glassdoor very quickly that your experience there is "purposefully Dawinian."

It also becomes abundantly clear that your experience will be at least 50% dictated by your direct supervisor. So, a$$hole boss == crying at desk. Nice boss == competitive but interesting environment.

The guy I interviewed with turned out to be not that nice, so I ran. It was an interesting experience nonetheless and I am quite confident that a lot can be learned from working there.

Fun fact: one interviewer said he'd been there 3 yrs (he was the sole developer for one of their web products) so I joked that he must be a real veteran of the company. He immediately went to check and found he was in the 86th percentile for length of time at Amazon. Good grief, that place has turnover.

This is exactly the Amazon I know - As a customer

I've been through the process of onboarding as a reseller with two different companies and Amazon are horrific to work with - They are arrogant and have a hugely inflated sense of self-worth for a generic online store.

I'm not at all surprised that they treat each other like crap internally, when they do that to their corporate customers too.

Oh boy!

Anybody who can make marketeers cry is OK with me. It makes up for the times marketing has brought tears to my eyes.

was a good article to read

As someone who worked in the Seattle area from 2000 -> 2011 I heard a lot of these kinds of stories from amazon folks, though I didn't know of things that were *that* bad, I knew enough by 2005 that I knew I would never want to work there though.

The article did enlighten me on one point though, I had one co-worker, ex amazon 11 years ago (maybe he is reading this I was tempted to email him). When he joined our company at the time people thought he had tourettes by his behavior especially in meetings he would semi regularly attack people(verbally). Nobody wanted to work with him. He was (probably still is) a really smart and knowledgeable person(though I'd never work with him again if he is still like that). He spent several years at Amazon. After reading the article I figure he is perfectly normal he was just raised that way working for years at Amazon from an early age.

By 2010 I determined that I was mostly incompatible with ex-amazon people from a work perspective(last company I was at had MANY ex-amazon people including my 2nd boss though 2nd boss was a great guy), very few that I came across did we see eye to eye on things.

One interview I had in 2011 some mid level technical guy(from amazon) was hired by a mid sized company to be an architect, he wanted to re-implement AWS at this new company, build them their own cloud. Nice concept if you have the talent to do it, I knew they didn't. It was the only interview I've ever had that I was ready to stand up and just walk out, my ears were hot, this guy was toxic. I was able to put on a good bullshit screen though he liked me, and they offered me the job (I declined of course).

I'm sure very smart but very amazon. He proceeded to drive most of their IT staff away (I was told at one point the entire network team quite en masse). He had an idea but it was the wrong idea for the company(they lacked the ability to build OR operate such a system). This amazon guy thought hey let's go buy the cheapest shit we can find and make a cloud.

Within a year of my interview I was told that not only was he fired but he was escorted out of the building. The company had such a bad reputation for work environment they had to pay through the nose(good for them realizing this) to get quality people after that(last I heard they had a good team in place). He went on to do consulting and I heard from another contact that he encountered him at another employer I had, though other than seeing him there I haven't heard anything since.

Amazon tries to recruit me 1-2 times a year(my resume hasn't been updated since I left WA so I get people contacting me 4 years later not having checked LinkedIn profile thinking I am still in WA), I just laugh and say I'm not interested. I'd ask them to not contact me anymore but I don't think that would work. Can't pay me enough to work there.

Amazon's influence in the region is one of the things that drove me away from WA, and keeps me away. Just a toxic bunch of folks for the most part, like a cult or something.

I cringe every time I see one of my acquaintances going to work for them (linkedin says 23 of my contacts are there).

Hear of such stories over here in Amazon India. Sadly the employees from there also spread that culture everywhere else.

Did he...

Forget to wipe the KY off his head after removing the condom?

a soulless, dystopian workplace were no fun is had and no laughter heard.

Obviously not been to see the Windows 10 hardware testers at Microsoft...

It's funny how the king can walk through the city and see no poverty.

I'm willing to bet all his parcels arrive on time as well.

He looks in that picture like Charlie Runkle ( the masturbating agent ) from Californication.

BBC Panaroma - Amazon: The Truth Behind the Click

Full programme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXWJ4GfQ22E

"bruising workplace"

Clarkson will fit right in.

Interview Experience

I interviewed there several years ago for a corp side engineering role (Exchange, AD, etc). It was a most of the day event, lunch provided. Manager was nice, most of the folks I interviewed with were nice, but by the time I was finished, I didn't want the job.

Each engineer revealed more and more about how things worked, what they had to work with and how overworked they all were. I love tech, but I have a family to raise and a life outside of work. This just seemed like a self inflicted prison term!

Hmm

I hope he is sincere and tries to sort out this problem. It does no good for Amazons image and so reflects badly on him too. Unfortunately a bad manager is a bad manager and they need to be thrown out. I am sure we all have our tales to tell in that department

"Escalate to HR"... a sick joke. Could Bezos really be that out of touch, or is it just rhetoric for consumption by clueless outside investors? Everyone in the the business for more than a month knows that HR is just the enforcement arm of management, and always takes the side of management.

HR is not there for the employees benefit

"But if you know of any stories like those reported, I want you to escalate to HR."

HR's reason for existence in American companies is to ensure employees are paid the least possible, and be an early warning system for potential legal problems.

"Escalating" to HR in an American company is rarely (almost never) a good idea for an employee. :/

When the job market is such that people know being fired will prevent them from getting a new job, employers can pretty much treat them as shitty as they want.

the real question

Is it going to be Amazon or Walmart that ends up being the one that wins and is in the lineage of Omni Consumer Products?

Never go up against a sicilian when DEATH is on the line!

Don't call him if you have a problem. And don't call HR. No, you need to call the man in black.

The use of the weasel phrase "I don't recognise Amazon as . . ." tells me that he knows perfectly well it's true. Otherwise he would directly deny allegations, with no fear of contrary evidence appearing.

Pot. Kettle. Twaddle.

Of course as they're not a UK company or UK taxpayer why should we care?

We have hired several people from AWS and Amazon.com, and Amazon has tried very hard to prevent them from leaving by threatening them with lawsuits because they were forced to sign non-compete agreements when they joined. The non-competes say they cannot work at any company Amazon deems a competitor for 6 months after they leave, which of course would make them unemployable anywhere else if enforceable.

Now these Draconian non-competes are not enforceable in California, but they still make the lives of these people a living hell by threatening them with crippling legal costs. They are, regrettably, enforceable in Washington state. So, as an employee wanting to leave, who do you believe -- the new employer who says you won't get sued, or the crazy guy from Amazon legal foaming at the mouth threatening to sue you for everything you have?

What's particularly chilling is that they even do this for the people Amazon fired. Yes, the folks they culled for whatever reason, Darwinian or otherwise. They fire them and then still want to enforce the non-compete, ensuring the poor fired people have no income for another 6 months for daring to want to work somewhere else and earn a salary. Do not work there -- you will regret it, even after you leave.

canned reply

can you believe that their PR department didnt have contingency plans for exactly this type of article and Bezos memo wasnt drafted well in advance? no? me neither

Arsehole and gets things done

Amazon go boom. Problem with dog eat dog at the workplace, the rabid dogs last the longest only because they are better at taking credit for the work of others whilst blaming others for all the mistakes. This burden of corruption work practices in order to survive eventually kills the company. Decent people do not want to work there, only taking the job if they are desperate and leaving as possible there after.

Think about staff turnover, each one gone is now an ex-employee and most definately an ex-customer, keep it up and you have very few customers left because one thing disgruntled customers do is create more ex-customers.