
Response to Tim Bray's Departure - forrestbrazeal
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/response-tim-brays-departure-brad-porter/
======
fsociety
Interestingly Brad just proved Tim Bray's point by stroking his own ego and
only talking about processes that Amazon is introducing in response to
COVID-19 - instead of talking about the worker being fired for raising
concerns about their workplace conditions.

Even better is scrolling down to the comments section and seeing all the
managers comment about how great they are. It's like an Amazon version of VC's
congratulating themselves.

This one paragraph bugged me quite a bit.

"You can allow time off and leaves of absence. You can commit to taking care
of employees if they do get sick, regardless of where they caught the virus.
These are all things Amazon did almost immediately. But you can’t entirely
eliminate the fear and concerns that we all share. ".

You could try not firing people when they raise real concerns about dieing for
the cause of raising Amazon's market cap. That'd be a good start. Next Amazon
should recognize the power dynamic they've created with this firing and work
to destroy it.

It's too bad we can't see the memos Tim talked about with the disgusting
comments about the workers. That would put the nail in the coffin as the
'distinguished engineers' of Amazon duke it out.

Lastly, props to Tim for not stroking his ego when he wrote his post. Boo to
Brad for stroking his ego when talking about respecting low-skilled workers as
humans.

~~~
tw202005061625
The manager replies all praising seems more like what a bunch of underlings to
a dictator would do to praise the dictator. Or cult-like if they really
believe that - but I have to think many of them are doing it for "points" in
the political game - and really understand that the warehouse people are
treated like complete crap.

------
TheRealDunkirk
> Ultimately though, Tim Bray is simply wrong when he says “It’s that Amazon
> treats the humans in the warehouses as fungible units of pick-and-pack
> potential.” I find that deeply offensive to the core. For those of us who
> work in World-Wide Operations, nothing could be farther from the truth.

As if the depth of your offense should matter. We've all read the stories, and
I won't belabor them here. If this is true, then pay them well, and respect
them. That's how you prove that what Tim said about how you treat workers
couldn't be further from the truth, not by grandstanding about your personal
offense.

Companies expect to buy our loyalty with platitudes. I don't understand how
the best and brightest, sitting at the top of some of the largest
organizations in the world, don't see how that rankles a lot of people, when
they could easily SPEND THE MONEY to make a difference, instead of just paying
lip service to "caring."

~~~
yborg
>I don't understand how the best and brightest, sitting at the top of some of
the largest organizations in the world, don't see how that rankles a lot of
people

Because they don't actually care if it rankles anybody. It doesn't affect
their compensation. It doesn't even affect their organization because they
know people will continue to flock to work there because they have little
choice. The platitudes are pro forma precisely because they are boring and
thus won't attract coverage, either news or legal. I actually appreciate the
rare Master Of The Universe that slips up and just tells people that they'll
get nothing and like it, but it's rare because this is considered gauche and
you have a harder time getting invited to Davos.

------
mapleoin
Clear BS, textbook example of cherrypicking. Tim Bray's post makes it clear
that he was concerned with how the management reacted to employee strikes on
numerous ocassions, not how fast Amazon is changing their response to the
pandemic.

------
raiyu
Completely misses the point that the main reason for Tim Bray leaving is
because Amazon retaliated against an employee that was highlighting concerns.

~~~
ashtonkem
Almost certainly missed that point on purpose.

~~~
rumanator
It's as if his goal was to shift the focus away from the problem.

------
jeffrallen
I worked with Brad and I know he's got good judgement and ethics. But he
missed the point: Tim quit because he could not make Amazon understand that
taking the chickenshit way out by firing union organisers is bad business and
bad for society.

~~~
ashtonkem
There’s a good chance he knows what Bray was saying, but couldn’t respond
effectively to that.

------
zentiggr
Upvoted for awareness of just how tone deaf and self-congratulatory this
sounds.

Never a word about unfair firings, poor warehouse conditions, or all the other
ongoing stories.

Somebody drank too much kool-aid, and can't see the reality at the lowest paid
levels anymore.

------
Edmond
When your first instinct is to defend those with all the power and privilege,
you've already lost the debate. Especially at a moment like this.

------
suthakamal
Gross.

The lack of empathy or recognition of the terrible conditions warehouse
workers have complained of (and have been well documented by journalists) is
pretty striking.

------
glimmung
His "faux offended" stance in a matter of (other people's) life and death is
not a good look.

He says "If we want people to choose to work for Amazon helping deliver
packages to customers, job number one is to convince those valuable employees
that you are doing everything you can every day to keep them safe. ", which
sounds right - but is it appropriate to fire people for Amazon's failure in
this regard?

------
Tomte
Fascinating how a senior Amazonian actually works hard to taint his
reputation.

I mean, sure, you're "deeply offended" by the allegations. But you have no
real response.

What about all those reports about work conditions? You just ignore them. What
about the despicable libel or slander (I can never remember which is which)
Amazon heaped upon the recently fired employee?

But sure, you wrote AI software to protect workers. That makes everything
right.

------
lmilcin
Companies that have good principles and act on them do not need to fire people
for speaking up.

If they speak up and are right, you thank them and correct the problem.

If they speak up and are not right, you provide proofs or ignore it altogether
if it is going to be obvious.

The only reason to fire is if you know they are right but you have no
intention to correct it.

Scaring your employees into silence is going to be difficult to defend.

------
haunter
Those comments tho from the other Amazon employees, it's like a cult

------
eyeareque
This read like it was written or highly edited by PR.

------
justin66
Very unimpressive.

------
throwawayfortb
Commenters here are putting too much trust in Tim Bray's one sided take, and
are criticizing Brad Porter unnecessarily for setting the record straight on
just how much Amazon has done to protect warehouse workers. Not to mention
they increased their baseline and overtime wages before the online outrage
machine spun up, and were paying industry leading wages for such a position to
begin with. Resharing a different perspective:

Amazon did not fire these people without cause. They fired them because they
violated company policies. These employees were using company time and
resources to push personal political agendas that have no place at work. They
were rightfully fired, and a huge number of Amazon employees are thankful they
are gone. There is a big silent majority, probably at all major tech
companies, that is left voiceless because the activist left is vocal and
aggressively shouts down anyone who is even slightly to the right of their own
views. At Amazon, most of us seek a professional workplace where employees are
working towards the common goal of helping customers. These employees that Tim
is standing up for were the opposite of that, distracting everyone with loud
activism and probably not focusing on their own jobs either.

To provide a counter to Tim's account: Chris Smalls was told to quarantine
himself and not come to the work site because he was in close contact with
someone who tested positive for COVID-19
([https://thehill.com/regulation/labor/490805-fired-amazon-
str...](https://thehill.com/regulation/labor/490805-fired-amazon-striker-
demands-bezos-protect-workers-in-open-letter)). He came to the site anyways to
protest. Why wouldn't he get fired for putting others at risk? People who
think this firing was malicious are speculating. If this was a topic that
Hacker News readers had a different group perspective on, they would call it a
conspiracy theory. Someone would surely be quoting Hanlon's Razor by now.

Maren Costa and Emily Cunningham were the most visible ringleaders of
activists pretending to be employees. They clearly were not doing their job as
well as they could, because they had time enough to engage in lengthy
political discussions on mailing lists during the workday. They were also
repeatedly disrupting everyone else's work. They, and others from their group,
would spam hundreds of company mailing lists repeatedly. They would send long
political rants, links to activist events, and even solicit employee
information. It was very over the top, and pleas from list moderators to stop
spamming were ignored or met with baseless accusations of racism (or another
-ism). That reaction, to shout down opposing views with absurd justifications,
is the mental gymnastics of intersectionality at work. It's the unfortunate
culture of intolerance that this aggressive flavor of progressive activism has
taken on in workplaces like Google, Facebook, and Amazon.

I'm also dismayed at the public reaction to these events. For some reason, the
general public simply craves stories attacking winners, and the same is true
for Amazon. If you want to balance out the info you've been exposed to, check
out Amazon's official blog on the large number of changes they've made in
response to COVID-19, at [https://blog.aboutamazon.com/company-news/amazons-
actions-to...](https://blog.aboutamazon.com/company-news/amazons-actions-to-
help-employees-communities-and-customers-affected-by-covid-19). Were you aware
that Amazon set up a nonprofit COVID-19 supply store for healthcare and
government organizations ([https://business.amazon.com/en/work-with-
us/healthcare/covid...](https://business.amazon.com/en/work-with-
us/healthcare/covid-19-supplies))? What about Jeff Bezos's statement on the
expenses relating to COVID-19 ([https://www.marketwatch.com/story/amazons-ceo-
tells-investor...](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/amazons-ceo-tells-
investors-if-youre-shareowner-you-may-want-to-take-a-seat-as-he-explains-why-
the-company-will-spend-entirety-of-4-billion-profit-2020-04-30))?

Tim Bray quitting is his personal choice. I respect that he has the right to
make this choice. But he's not a hero, and the HN crowd would do well not to
immediately put him on a pedestal or to take all his opinions and claims at
face value. When it comes to those fired employees he is standing up for, Tim
is willfully overlooking their clear abuse of Amazon's employee rules, company
resources, and other employees. I don't think it's an accident that he's
leaving all those details out. He may be calling Amazon a 'chickenshit', but I
actually think he's the coward in this instance.

~~~
jeffrallen
When the only thing management can imagine to do about labor organising is to
fire the organisers, that's a failure of imagination, of leadership and a
failure of fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders. When management
cannot make peace with labor, investors end up paying the price from strikes,
customer boycotts, government over regulation, and poor workplace morale. It
is worthwhile to live in harmony with labor, ask German and Swiss managers
why.

