
Amazon Workers Facing Firing Can Appeal to a Jury of Their Co-Workers - jsoc815
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-25/amazon-workers-facing-firing-can-appeal-to-a-jury-of-their-co-workers
======
solidsnack9000
This is such a poor implementation of what has proven to be a very robust
mechanism.

Since the employee is being fired (deprived of something), they are "the
accused" and "the burden of proof lies with the accuser". All the charges that
are presented must be presented in such a way as to be challenged. Allowing
the manager the last word -- and not allowing the employee to even be aware of
what was said -- indicates that accusations are being made without being
challenged.

The selection of jurors -- three non-managers or one manager -- seems strange
in part because it recognizes a hierarchy of people and in part because it
involves such a small number of people. The validity of a jury hinges in part
on a certain notion of the equality of people -- we don't have juries of 12
ordinary people or 2 senators in the United States because we don't expect
that senators are "more just" than ordinary people. It's hard to see why
expecting managers to be "more just" is any more reasonable.

~~~
ignoramous
This isn't all. Sometimes, even when you're not a _fire-worthy employee_ (for
lack of a better term), just to fuck you up, the manager could choose to mark
you as "least effective" in the year-end / mid-year review and not really put
you up for a PIP... Now... even though you performed good enough, there's no
jury to appeal to. What happens next is that the manager could then
systematically deprive you of quality work and come year-end / mid-year
review, s/he has a solid case to PIP you and throw you out. Note that, being
marked "least effective" essentially means that one can't transfer internally
to other teams unless someone wayy higher up the management chain approves of
the transfer.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't see this seemingly happen with multiple people
across multiple Amazon development centers.

This place is toxic and puts way too much power in the hands of the managers,
and the net result is that the managers have their favourites, and that the
engineers are nothing but puppets, and that engineers are busy back-biting
each other, and the managers enjoy the shit show from the sidelines. Despite
not having any moral high-ground, all managers in an org review every reportee
in that org with absolutely zero fairness, there's no integrity whatsoever,
from what I've heard.

And I'd be lying if I said this _thinking_ didn't take it roots right at the
very top of the management hierarchy (...according to employees I've spoken
to).

~~~
paulsutter
Why do you stay?

> I'd be lying if I said I didn't see this seemingly happen with multiple
> people across multiple Amazon development centers.

~~~
StudentStuff
I've asked this question to multiple Amazonians who have worked there for 4
years or more, and I've yet to hear a decent answer. There are many companies
that have sub-40hr work weeks that will pay you as much as Amazon (plus stock
grants), but yet most won't make the time for an interview.

All the people I know at Amazon in Seattle consistently get home after 7pm
most nights, and a handful of those people come in on the weekends for 10 to
12hrs to fix mundane bugs that aren't in need of immediate fixing. Amazon's
high pressure work culture encourages this terrible practice of burning the
candle from both ends, but Amazon definitely doesn't create quality products
on the first try in part due to this.

~~~
chibg10
>All the people I know at Amazon in Seattle consistently get home after 7pm
most nights, and a handful of those people come in on the weekends for 10 to
12hrs to fix mundane bugs that aren't in need of immediate fixing.

I can't speak on everyone at the company, but the campus is basically empty at
the times I leave at 7-8 (which isn't often and usually happens when I show up
at 11-12). My own building is 95% cleared out by 6pm on a daily basis.

Not saying what you hear isn't true, but it's definitely appears to be the
exception rather than the rule from my experience.

~~~
StudentStuff
Payments and Alexa don't appear to be that way from what I've seen.

------
ben509
I think the immediate problem with setting this up as a legal preceding is
that it gives everyone involved a fundamentally wrong idea.

It suggests that the employee is on trial, but you can't be on trial if your
performance is poor because poor performance is not a crime. Yes, I'm sure
everyone involved understands academically that it's not, but reading the
article, the comments here, I think the internalized intuition at work is
casting this as a matter of justice.

Hiring, retention and firing are not mechanisms to enforce some sort of
justice, they're about ensuring that employment is mutually beneficial.

It's extremely hard for someone looking at being fired to have this kind of
detached view of it, especially if you're already inclined to view the world
in terms of justice, but you shouldn't because it will mess with your head.
The first thing you want to do if you leave a job for any reason is move on,
not feel like you've been exiled or ostracized. And if you come into an
interview with a chip on your shoulder, that makes it significantly harder to
get a new job and move on.

And this is not just a problem employees have, many managers are prone to
criminalize employees who don't do well or hold grudges against people. That
leads to capricious behavior and corrosive office politics, and you do not
want them in leadership roles.

~~~
walshemj
You are I think jumping to your conceived ideas about how labor law works if
labor law and precedent says that this is how it is.

You have been in the army so during your time you were employed and the UMJC
is a legal system is it not?

~~~
ryanmarsh
The employment status of a soldier is very different than an at-will employee,
not to mention the differing nature of the work...

~~~
ben509
I know, we had demo day last week. Turns out it's short for "demonstration,"
not "demolition." :-(

------
deckar01
> She wasn’t invited to watch her boss’s presentation, and he got the last
> word.

Hearing the argument of your accuser and being given time to rebut with
evidence contradicting it is a critical part of a justice system.

~~~
walshemj
And in the UK this would be an automatic lose in court - even if say the
employee was found bang to rights.

And best practice is to have an appeal stage so you can appeal the verdict to
a manger completely outside of your reporting chain.

~~~
duxup
In the US it could be too.

While many companies in the US can fire an employee for "no reason" that
doesn't mean ANY reason or any process. If the company has a process that
isn't fair, an employee could potentially sue over that. Granted other factors
come into play but if a company sets up a system like this they still have to
do it fairly, a judge could potentially decide the process is unfair.

~~~
jasode
_> While many companies in the US can fire an employee for "no reason"_

Side note since you mentioned "firing". The article's title ("facing firing")
may unintentionally overstate what Amazon's appeal process is actually
appealing.

Based on the text, Amazon's "appeal process" is to challenge the status of
being put on PIP - the Performance Improvement Plan. It isn't to appeal a
firing. (Although I understand that some see that as no difference if a PIP is
~99% equivalent to getting fired eventually.)

If the employee wants to keep working (at least temporarily) for Amazon,
he/she doesn't need to appeal. What a successful appeal does is let them work
_without_ PIP targets hanging over their head.

~~~
optimuspaul
PIPs are the worst. I've seen them basically emotionally destroy people when
they were probably not the right tool. In many of those cases firing would
have been better for them.

~~~
philjohn
I've only ever seen one person successfully negotiate a PIP and keep their job
(for another year, until they took a much better offer at a company that paid
them more and treated them better).

The biggest thing is to ensure that the targets in the PIP are both realistic
and measurable. All too often I've seen people being asked to meet a bar far
higher than is possible (and not even met by top achievers at a company) and
with no real way to measure it other than "if I think you're doing good
enough".

------
refurb
My thought is, why would you try to appeal?

If you've been marked for firing, obviously management has a poor perception
of you. Sure, your coworkers can vouch for you and stop the firing, but to
management you're still a marked man or woman. You might still have your job,
but you're probably looking at poor performance reviews and no raises for a
few years. I know very few people who've ever dug themselves out of a
situation like that.

You'd be far better off to just leave for another company and start fresh.

~~~
JimboOmega
You also could, it's implied, find a job elsewhere in the organization.

I agree that continuing to work with a manager who wants to fire you doesn't
really work for anybody.

~~~
rorosaurus
I believe if you're labelled as non-performant or whatever, they don't allow
you to move elsewhere at Amazon.

~~~
pseudalopex
My understanding is that it's technically allowed but almost impossible in
practice. Few managers and even fewer of their managers want to take a chance
on an underperforming worker.

------
everdev
I like the idea of breaking off a boss/employee relationship that's not
working and allowing the employee to find a different position in the company
rather than just terminating the employee.

However, why not hire an independent mediation firm to judge? Why put current
employees in a position of taking sides? It seems like the unfairness cited in
the article would be nearly unavoidable as relationships and reputations
between the judges, the bosses and the employee would all be put to the test.

~~~
shados
> I like the idea of breaking off a boss/employee relationship that's not
> working and allowing the employee to find a different position in the
> company rather than just terminating the employee.

Yeah, there's two sides to it though. On one hand, its very, VERY common when
an employee isn't performing that the problem is incompatible team/manager (it
might be incompatible with the company, but often its a localized problem).

On the other hand, I've also worked at companies that -always- assumed the
problem was the employee/team relationship, and critically incompetent
employees would linger around and waste the time of several teams before they
were canned, which was an obvious outcome to anyone who had worked with said
employee. In one case of a company being way too nice, some dude I worked with
took almost 2 years before being fired, when NO ONE wanted to work with him.
Imagine how many things we could have done with the 150k+ a year he was paid
during that whole ordeal...

~~~
rifung
> In one case of a company being way too nice, some dude I worked with took
> almost 2 years before being fired, when NO ONE wanted to work with him.
> Imagine how many things we could have done with the 150k+ a year he was paid
> during that whole ordeal...

Sure but you shouldn't consider the 150k+ on its own; you should compare it
against all the goood employees who would've been fired in a different system
that you ended up saving.

I like to think that it's better to keep one bad person than to fire good
people for no reason but I admit that may be more an emotional stance than a
logical one. And let me also say that by bad person I mean one who isn't
technically able to do well, not one who is a jerk.

~~~
shados
The bad employee does do untold damage though. They don't live in a vacuum.
Good people quit over them (and not everyone is comfortable with blaming it on
an individual, so management may not even know they're the reason). Workspace
can become toxic. Rumors can start spreading making people not accept a job.

So you lose a lot of people by keeping a bad apple, too. In the example I gave
above, at least 4-5 people I know for a fact quit over them before they were
dealt with.

~~~
rifung
> Workspace can become toxic

Well this is why I tried to specify only keeping people who were performing
poorly not because they were unpleasant to work with. Do people quit because
they feel like their coworkers aren't smart or hard working enough?

~~~
shados
All the time. The worse is at a high level people don't even realize it,
because very quickly the entire workplace becomes "mediocre", and you don't
even realize its lacking in "good people" from lack of reference points.

------
alistairSH
Do the employees given the three options know this is coming? IE, has their
manager communicated to them as part of their daily communication that there
is a problem? If not, Amazon really needs to start there. If I have to fire an
employee for performance problems, it should not be a surprise to them.

------
kadenshep
If only there was some sort of organization that workers could collectively be
apart of and contribute to. An organization dedicated to worker's rights, an
organization that would make sure whimsical decisions couldn't aversely affect
people's lives because they're in the wrong class in an organization/society.

I understand the comment is snarky, but it's really quite absurd in my mind
that this is an actual headline, instead of it being a bad joke (which I guess
it kind of is). Because it's not even your "peers." It's mainly still just
upper management trying to put on a facade of peer judgement.

------
hitekker
In the most charitable light, this is organizational cargo-cult.

"What if we brought the court of employment law into Amazon? Wow, wouldn't it
be great for Amazon? It'd cost less, move faster, and be more fair! Oh and the
employee too, because whatever is good for Amazon is good for everyone!"

It's the similar to how some school district replace superintendents with
CEO's and then blush when cost-cutting and sexual harassment kick in [1].

Unthinkipng, these prganizatibs replicate the trappings and rituals of the
seemingly successful without understanding why they're successful; doing so in
the faith that a new world is right around the corner if they just believe
hard enough.

Right under the surface, of course, is our collective loss of faith in
society, and thus the impetus to award public power to private entities.
Handing over healthcare, our rights, our freedoms in the "hopes" that
companies will govern us "better" than our elected government. From a single
modern republic to multiple feudal realms: the reality of Libertarianism
realized.

[1] [http://graphics.chicagotribune.com/chicago-public-schools-
se...](http://graphics.chicagotribune.com/chicago-public-schools-sexual-
abuse/index.html)

------
throwaway0625
There can be plenty of reason not to trust a jury of co-workers.

Somebody I worked with was fired. He wasn't doing much work and seemed to
devote most of his days to manipulating his image. He was not just "managing
up", in fact if he were better at that maybe he could have survived longer.
What he did especially well was molding perception of peers.

Maybe tops ~3 people working closest with him knew he was full of shit. But in
very far breadths of the organizational tree, he spread the word that he was
the guy to talk to on the team, pulling all the weight. If you asked most of
his colleagues to this day, they would probably tell you he was a productive
to high-performing contributor, which he was not.

I think this is actually how he got the job in the first place. He schmoozed
far and wide in company X, then more productive employee lands a gig at
company Y, where I worked, and he greased the wheels through social connection
to also go there. I suspect he collected stock options at some pretty good
places over the years doing this.

~~~
andrei_says_
Are you implying that he was doing anything wrong? Unless he was especially
unproductive or ignorant at his job, then the schmoozing can be seen as a
multiplier.

At a certain level in a company, playing golf with the client _is_ the job, as
it closes the deal.

~~~
throwaway0625
I am implying that. In the time since this story I've had a lot of time to
think about the ethics of this situation. Even if he was a sleazy liar, sleazy
liars are people too, and someone getting fired is drastic. But to use your
terms, a multiplier on a negative quantity is more deeply negative. He was
doing his job duties none at all or poorly. Other people had to clean up after
his messes and lies. I created a throwaway account to tell this story because
he was the most sociopathic IC I've seen in the business, and my career is not
brief, I am not normally phased or automatically put off by sociopaths.

------
elicash
I mean, I suppose this is better than no review process whatsoever. But the
real solution is to just have a union, so that the fired worker has some
representation.

(For management workers, I favor a similar process but that would require some
changes to labor law to be fully protected. You could still have a union
without that, but it's not going to be one that has the same recognition.)

~~~
cperciva
I would argue that a fair appeal process is much better than a process
involving a union which always sides with the employee. In Canada we recently
had a case where a union negotiated a glowing letter of reference and the
sealing of a personnel file... for a serial killer:
[https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/long-term-care-
inquiry...](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/long-term-care-inquiry-
elizabeth-wettlaufer-1.4717729)

~~~
elicash
Obviously the union shouldn't have filed a grievance without investigating.
Most unions wouldn't. But this adversarial system appropriately shamed the
union for not investigating first and resulted in an outcome of the person
being convicted.

Seems quite silly to use this as an example for why those of us who are not
serial killers shouldn't have unions. But I guess serial killers ruin
EVERYTHING.

------
vinceguidry
Systems of justice are _incredibly_ annoying, and invariably involve a lot of
careful fine-tuning that goes completely out the window with every new
addition.

It reminds me a little about how every time a new package manager comes out,
the peanut gallery all chimes in with "well why don't we just use OS
packaging?"

Package managers and justice systems hard-enforce legibility in a way that
completely breaks the second the landscape does. You _have_ to do the hard
work of making a new one. Getting by with what you have only increases the
workload on the already-busy humans. There are Debian packages for various
extremely well-used Ruby gems. But somebody got motivated enough to do that
work.

Similarly, if you introduce the wrong system of justice into a human social
regime, it creates all kinds of perverse incentives. The task of preventing
bad outcomes from perverse incentives then gets compounded onto the few
extremely busy people that have to juggle being cops along with their existing
jobs.

------
783629gasd
It seems extraordinarily generous to offer a choice of severance or a hearing
in front of an impartial "jury", as alternatives to a PIP. Anyone who's been
working for a while knows that when you get to a PIP, you basically have one
foot out the door. Relatively few people go from PIP back to a valued,
productive employee.

~~~
CobrastanJorji
I knew exactly one person who got put on a PIP by his manager and didn't end
up fired. It ended up being because his manager got fired first, and his new
manager saw that the PIP was completely ridiculous and the employee was in
fact great. Nonetheless, it took that guy's career years to recover. He was
basically his team's technical lead, but he was but was still ranked and paid
as an entry-level engineer.

~~~
pavel_lishin
I'm surprised the employee in question didn't spend the rest of his tenure at
the company applying to other jobs and printing out resumes. Why would you
stick around with such a yoke around your neck?

~~~
amyjess
An abusive employer, just like an abusive SO, can demoralize you to the point
where you think you deserve the abuse and that nobody else will take you.

Getting out of that pit is genuinely hard. One of the companies I worked for
back in the day was abusive, and it took me a very long time to get out. I
eventually mustered up enough confidence to leave, but I stayed for ages even
after I realized the company was toxic.

------
tonetheman
Maybe they are trying because they are widely known as being a horrible place
to work. But man that sounds like Survivor and getting voted off the island...
or Lord of the flies...

Just sounds weird and broken.

------
matchagaucho
PIPs and firing are the path of least resistance for lazy managers.

From a Covey or Drucker style of leadership...

If the Manager interviewed and hired the Employee, then the default assumption
is that the Manager failed to "lead" and train the Employee.

If the Manager inherited the Employee (via re-org) and is cleaning house, then
that's a different circumstance. But still not an excuse for lazy leadership.

------
hughlang
The "jury of their co-workers" is a scary farce that begins with the
continuous 360 feedback that is built into their current employee performance
model. I have read that this is integrated into the WorkDay HR software
platform, which is used for timesheets and everything else.

You might have a disagreement with a co-worker, and next thing you know, you
are getting live feedback, behind your back. And then after that... you are
begging to not get fired. Someday, the jury and appeal process might get
automated through WorkDay as well. Sounds fun!

Bezos is an investor in WorkDay and Amazon uses this 360 feature. Other
companies use it too. See also: [https://blog.impraise.com/360-feedback/the-
amazon-controvers...](https://blog.impraise.com/360-feedback/the-amazon-
controversy-what-is-missing-in-its-performance-management-360-feedback)

------
c3534l
I remember reading about this system in some business class. They're generally
well-received by staff, prevent arbitrary termination, and give feedback to
manager who may not know what the realities of the job are. Is Amazon's
version of it any good? I don't know, but I do know there's literature on it.
I can appreciate the cynicism of Amazon trying to manipulate things in their
favor, but you're forgetting that this is a check on the authority of managers
to empower workers. Without such a system the person would have just been
fired and they would have had no recourse. It's like giving a homeless man a
dollar and he goes "what, you can't spare 5?"

------
Rotdhizon
This is a really cool and refreshing idea on paper, but in reality it fails
miserably. If one chooses the three nonmanager workers to be on the jury, they
can lean towards the "support the working man" idealogy and strongly favor
retaining worker jobs. On the other hand, managers might tend to favor
corporate interests, and be more likely to reject appeals. The article
mentioned that these employees who appeal can look at lists of potential jury
people for them so they can select who would best sympathize with them.
Employees literally get to select which bias' they want in their jury lineup.

Not to mention the vast resource cost of these programs. Amazon has hundreds
of thousands of employees, what if every single employee that was set to be
fired made an appeal? How many thousands of man hours would that chew up?

Lastly, and probably the most important is that lasting tension with boss
figures. If an employee challenges a boss and they win, that boss is going to
forever have a grudge against them. I'd think that could be fixed by if you
win an appeal, you are automatically transferred under a new boss that isn't
allowed to view your previous work history at the company.

Again this is good in theory, but changes would need to be made for this to be
an effective system. Bravo on Amazon for installing this type of plan though.
As much hate as Amazon gets for running what are basically sweat shops in
their warehouses(I know, I've been in them, it's soul crushing), at least they
are in some small part giving employees a voice. Then again, this could be a
rigged system for all we know and it's just to save face.

~~~
Alex3917
> How many thousands of man hours would that chew up?

Given that replacing a developer could easily cost 50k or more, even if only
10% of the appeals were successful you'd still be looking at saving a huge
amount of money.

------
shevek_
* doesn't apply to warehouse workers

------
downrightmike
This is a good way to keep people aware of the status quo and be controlled by
seeing and participating in these things. To paraphase Agents of Shield "How
do you keep such control over all of your slaves?" "He has them kill each
other, that's what I'd do."

------
codeonfire
Seriously fuck this stupid shit. When I was there this fucker in India bribed
my manager for a ticket to the US on L1 Visa as our new manager. Once there
his only goal was to sell as many US-based jobs to Indians in India as
possible. He kept telling me I had to set up meetings with India, set up one
on ones with his buddy in India. Fuck that guy. Now there is no way in hell I
would subject myself to a "jury" that had assholes like that on it. Sometimes
you just have to realize your manager, your team, or your company are just
unfixable shit and leave.

------
gwbas1c
Seems like the process just adds politics where they aren't needed. It makes
it harder to fire bad employees, and incentives bad employees to play politics
on the way out.

If I worked for Amazon, I'd want no part in the process. Bad situations end
best when everyone cuts their losses quickly.

In my experience, the best way to get rid of someone is to offer a generous
severance period. In theory, the person can take a long vacation or get two
paychecks for a few months.

------
nanoscopic
I worked at Amazon developing various portions of the core software that
drives their website. Code I wrote runs billions of times per day...

While there, I was told to do many things that I think are not a valuable use
of my time. I pushed back on many, and attempted to keep productive. It was
very frustrating and stressful.

Eventually the stress came to a head and I vehemently told my boss that I
thought the task I was being told to do was idiotic. I requested to go home
for the day sick for mental health reasons, as I was unable to cope with the
stress that moment.

My boss refused to let me leave for the day and continued arguing with me. The
discussion then obviously went too far and I said "I would like to kill
[someone who is my friend at Amazon]." I meant it only as an expression of the
intensity of how much I was upset. The friend I mention knows this also and
would confirm this if asked. I was just freaked out and stressed beyond my
capacity to deal.

My boss forced me to go back to work after this exchange. After 4 hours he
then came and got me and took me to a meeting with HR and security. They
accused me of threatening to kill my coworker ( which is a horrible
misunderstanding ) I explained clearly that I meant no such thing, and pointed
out that I asked to and needed to leave for mental health, and they didn't
care.

They said I have to go home at that point and would be forbidden from
returning to work for 2 weeks. This upset me further. I assumed I would never
be returning and was being fired. I pleaded with them to just give me the day
off as requested and they refused. They forced me to stay home for a week.

I went home and told my wife what happened. She had just passed the first
trimester of her pregnancy. She saw the doctor about the pregnancy 2 days
previous and the baby was perfectly healthy and there were no problems.

After learning what happened to me at work, she was so stressed over it that
she started bleeding later that day. If I was fired at that moment I would
lose my house and be homeless in Seattle; I didn't have the funds to endure
that.

She had a miscarriage 2 days later as a result of the stress and worrying. She
nearly bled to death. My child died because of Amazon's reckless disregard for
mental health.

Amazon did allow me to return to work after a week. I went back to my job and
had to continue working for the same manager responsible for my child dying
for another 4 months.

During that time I told anyone who would listen at Amazon what happened.

Eventually HR approached me and told me I could not keep telling people and
they would fire me if I do.

They gave me the following four choices: 1\. Quit of my own accord and tell
whomever I want ( no severance ) 2\. Continue talking about it at work and get
fired 3\. Stop talking about it and retain my job ( my performance was high
and I had recent great reviews; they had no other issue with me ) 4\. Accept a
severance of $30,000 and leave the company peaceably ( layoff )

I chose option 4 and started my own startup ( carbonstate.com ) I only had
enough funds to run my startup for a year, and have not made any money on my
product. I have since had to rejoin the industry to pay bills.

~~~
alistairSH
Wow. That sucks. That manager sounds like a dill-hole.

We've had a tasks over the years that were lame/boring/whatever. My response
to my developers is always the same, "Somebody has to do it. That somebody
could be 'Jenkins'. I give you every Friday afternoon for L&D. Hint hint."

Also, actively refusing to do work that needs done isn't the best approach.
Voice your opinion, then do the work. Repeat until your manager gets the hint.
If he doesn't, find another job (because the manager isn't doing his job, and
nobody should spend their career working for somebody not doing their job).

~~~
bena
What about that manager "sounds like a dill-hole"?

Realize that we have one very biased viewpoint with some very broad claims
that cannot be verified.

He "was told to do many things that [he thinks] was not a valuable use of
[his] time". Not his call. He doesn't get to allocate his time to parts of the
project he feels "deserves" his attention. In some regards, it feels a little
arrogant.

And he pushes back on them. He _creates_ the very stress he is decrying here.
His capacity to deal seems to be quite low.

And then he asked for a day, blew up, then got two weeks. He apparently was
told he was going to be on leave for two weeks, but assumed he was being
fired. And since, in his mind, he's always right, that's the mindset he went
home with.

He blames his wife's miscarriage on his manager. Because "she was so stressed"
over it. Let's ignore how this guy seems to turn everything into a life or
death struggle. Stressing himself out so much at work that he gets a 2 week
furlough, the stresses out so much during the furlough, that the shorten it to
a week.

And despite claiming earlier that being fired at that moment would leave him
homeless in the street, a mere 4 months later, he acquired enough capital that
a $30k severance was enough of an addition so he could work his startup for a
year. 4 months. From homeless to having a year's worth of backup.

And apparently was able to find a job. Which he probably could have done 16
months ago as well.

When someone's life is crisis after crisis and nothing ever seems to be their
fault, you really have to wonder just how biased their views are.

I mean, he's down to essentially blaming not wanting to follow Amazon's style
guidelines on causing his wife to miscarry. How about this? Don't want your
code held up on styling complaints? Follow the fucking guidelines. Regardless
if you like them or not. Those guidelines are for company-wide consistency,
not anyone's personal preference. And if those guidelines are what he was
complaining about, it's no wonder he's had 8 jobs in 17 years. He's so goddamn
convinced that only he knows the one true color of the bike shed, that anyone
who disagrees must be wrong.

And it doesn't matter just how good that person is at other things. If the
minute you ask something of them that they disagree with, they shut down, you
just can't work like that. Discussion is fine. Disagreement, to a degree, is
fine. But when a decision is made, it needs to be executed.

~~~
pbourke
> What about that manager "sounds like a dill-hole"?

If one of your team members is under obvious stress - _and is asking to leave
for the day_ \- fucking let them leave for the day.

If you don't do that - if you continue to poke at someone who's obviously
having a hard time - then yes, you're a dill-hole.

~~~
bena
Having a hard time doing what? Not following the OTB style?

I think there should be some concern for a person's mental health. And
sometimes I think people should be allowed to take a day off just because they
can't mentally cope at work.

I don't think that every claim of such is valid. If someone comes up to me and
says the government radio signals are causing his brain to fill up with
wrongthink, he may be under "obvious stress", but it's a problem solely on his
end. He doesn't need a mental health day, he needs a psychologist.

And that's an extreme example.

I mean, look at the guy, he took a two week furlough and found a way to make
that stress him out. Everything stresses him out. You can't not stress him
out.

------
deltateam
Silo'd specialized software engineers often don't have the benefit of these
relationships with other employees

Whether it is for nomination for employee of the month

or being acquitted in a workplace tribunal

the most introverted people have to go out of their way to let people know how
productive and beneficial they've been, and that is a losing proposition

------
saudioger
I've been on an actual jury for a murder trial and it was one of the worst
experiences of my life. I'd rather just get fired and move on.

~~~
CGamesPlay
If you're asked to be on the jury for a random other employee at the company
you'd rather just get fired?

~~~
saudioger
Hah no, I meant I'd rather be fired than to be on the other side of a jury. I
don't like how the sausage is made.

------
dogruck
I hope I’m never in a spot where I have to grovel for my job, via some peer
review judgement, instead of leaving for a better job.

------
RRRA
And how anonymous is that process?

It'd be a "great" way to rat out those who support people deemed unfit...

------
groupthinking
Sounds like a violation of labor law under Electromation.

------
qbaqbaqba
Almost as you had some labour legislation...

------
lamontcg
This sounds surreal.

------
EliRivers
I was just reading about how horrible and exploitative Amazon is. How they
deliberately hire the weak, the afraid, the vulnerable. I can understand the
mindset that designs an employment and recruitment system with the purpose of
being able to thoroughly abuse and exploit employees. Doesn't make it any less
horrible. I no longer buy anything from Amazon. They're scum. I see well-paid
employees expressing their conscience and saying they won't work on
surveillance, or won't work on military projects. Where are the well-paid
Amazon employees taking a stand against their own company's mistreatment of
other employees? I wouldn't be surprised if we had some reading this very
thread. Maybe they can tell us. I expect they just don't think about it. Take
the money, try not to think about it.

From elsewhere:

 _Bezos defended Amazon in a fireside chat with Axel Springer CEO Mathias
Döpfner on Tuesday evening, saying he was “very proud of our working
conditions and I am very proud of our wages that we pay.”_

He's proud of it. He's proud of the return to the workhouse. He's proud of
rolling back workplace protections. He's proud of paying a pittance. He's
proud of it all. Or is he oblivious?

~~~
s73v3r_
Of course he's going to say he's proud of it; he's kinda obligated to. I'm
willing to bet he neither knows what the day to day working conditions are,
nor does he care.

It does remind me of an anecdote: Early in my career, I worked for Western
Digital. They had a headquarters campus in a smaller city in Orange County.
When I was there, they started growing. We didn't have the parking space, and
people ended up having to park pretty far away up a hill. People were
grumbling quite a bit about it, and it had a negative effect on morale to not
be able to find a spot in the morning or coming back from lunch. At one of the
quarterly "employees ask questions of the CEO" things, someone asked what was
being done about the parking problem. The response, from the person who has a
reserved parking space, came, "I wasn't aware there was a parking problem."

~~~
EliRivers
When Bezos goes to Europe, people travel from other countries to join public
protests against him. Hard to miss that. He knows.

[https://youtu.be/eD25AWW1fwE](https://youtu.be/eD25AWW1fwE)

The protests outside his shareholder meetings might also clue him in.

[https://youtu.be/KQdsyO5mu1Y](https://youtu.be/KQdsyO5mu1Y)

