
On responses to “Bye, Amazon” - chmaynard
https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2020/05/06/Answers
======
ken
> Yeah, the story is about firing whistleblowers, not about a random Canadian
> Distinguished Engineer’s reaction to it. So news organizations should follow
> the primary sources, not me.

Yes and no. I appreciate where he's coming from, but "mega-corporation
exploits and mistreats blue-collar workers" isn't new. That happens every day,
and has since corporations have existed.

"White-collar worker quits over own company's treatment of blue-collar
workers" _is_ news. It points to a shift: even the people profiting off this
are starting to think it's getting ridiculous.

I'm having trouble thinking of any other cases where this has occurred. The
only thing that comes to mind is Gates and Buffet saying they should pay
higher taxes, but that has much less personal impact on them.

~~~
rockarage
Yes.

This incident shows AWS engineers have significantly more leverage than their
coworkers in warehouses. If you are an engineer who works for Amazon and you
want to see real changes here's a suggestion:

In an ideal world, you will not have to look for another job, to encourage
change, but considering the circumstances, the most impactful way to encourage
change is to follow Tim Bray's footsteps.

If a significant amount of critical engineers leave AWS and they make it clear
that it was because of the poor treatment of Fulfillment Center teammates,
Amazon will change. AWS who want to have a major impact, and are _willing &
able_, should find a new employer. Secure new positions, resign then write to
all the journalists covering Tim Bray's story, about why this group decided to
leave. Warehouse workers as a group have significantly less leverage because
they are easier to replace, especially now when there are so many people who
are unemployed that can quickly take their position. AWS engineers as a group
have far more leverage because they are harder to replace, even now, during
the pandemic.

As for me, this will be the last year I shop for products on Amazon for the
foreseeable future, and I may never come back, and I will be encouraging
others to do the same. I'm one of those people who love shopping on Amazon,
well not anymore.

~~~
IgorPartola
I know it’s not much, but every time Amazon’s recruiters send me an invitation
to apply for a position with them, I respond saying that I won’t consider
working for them until they treat their warehouse workers better. Of course it
helps that I am happily employed and not looking for a new job.

~~~
JadeNB
Big change is made up of a bunch of small deeds that are each individually not
much. Good for you!

~~~
clairity
yes, our brains are evolutionarily wired to magnify adverse phenomena from
very little data.

if a given recruiter hears that message just 3 or 4 times, they're likely to
start believing it's prevalent across the labor pool.

------
Pfhreak
Super glad to see Tim pointing media organizations to the actual impacted
folks. Emily Cunningham, for instance, is a good speaker with an important
story to tell and a passion for change.

It's nice to see someone with Tim's position handing the megaphone off.

~~~
apocalyptic0n3
That may be true, but she doesn't have the presence that Bray does. It's
understandable that he doesn't want to be the face of it, but I feel he's
doing the movement a disservice by quitting in protest and then _not_ working
it. Whether he likes it or not, he's had a significant, long-term impact on
the world and has been in the public eye for decades. Being able to put a
graphic on the screen that says "Tim Bray: Internet pioneer quit in protest of
Amazon workplace environment and worker treatment" is far more likely to gain
traction with the average person, who is who they need to attract, than you
can do with Cunningham. Even if Bray isn't as well spoken as she is.

It's unfortunate, but that's the way it works. One comes across as a person
who saw something wrong and wanted to be part of the change, even at their own
expense. The other comes across as a disgruntled fired employee (whether
that's true or not is irrelevant when you have seconds to convince someone
just to pay attention to your cause).

I don't think he's wrong to want to stay out of it and let others directly
involved lead it, but I feel he hurt things a bit by shining the spotlight on
himself (which was unintentional, to be sure) and then turning his back on it.

~~~
ihm
Is it really this way? "The average person" has never heard of either of these
people.

~~~
apocalyptic0n3
You don't need to have heard of everyone in an interview. An interviewer being
able to introduce you as someone of authority (which Bray surely is) who
wasn't fired, but quit in protest should (keyword, of course) give the layman
enough information about you to at least listen to what you're saying. And
given that the spotlight was put very squarely on him in the last week
already, there's a chance that people have already seen news reports about his
resignation, which would help with that a little more.

That's all hypothetical, though. I'm curious if there is any studies/hard data
on the effectiveness of the two situations in reaching the public. Maybe I'll
try to do some digging this weekend.

------
tybit
Brad Porters response is really disappointing.

It’s possible that he and his team are doing everything in their power but
that Amazon completely fails it’s warehouse workers nonetheless.

~~~
hn_throwaway_99
Completely agree. I saw this on LinkedIn where some of my ex-colleagues gave
it a bunch of "Well said!" platitudes (side note: comments on LinkedIn posts
must be the largest collection on useless banal drivel that humanity has ever
produced, and in a world of ubiquitous social media, that's saying a lot).

It was so disappointing not because it was wrong - all of the points Brad made
about Amazon going to great lengths to protect workers and rejigger processes
rang true. But it missed the point and completely did not address at all
Amazon's culture WRT responding to whistleblowers. Furthermore, all the other
"yeah, that's right!" comments from other very highly paid white collar
Amazonians (with barely a peep from Amazon's factory workers, though not
unexpected given the medium) came across as extremely tone deaf and the
equivalent of the aristocracy congratulating each other over how well they
treat the servants.

~~~
A4ET8a8uTh0
I think the problem with LinkedIn is that it is exhibitionist by its very
nature. Your audience is not just your co-workers, but potential employers, so
most people say the things that are accepted within that group ( though it
could be argued many groups are like that -- even HN to an extent ) and/or
please prospective recruiters.

I agree about one thing though. LinkedIn was the only place when I was
straight up 'attacked' by random people, who did not agree with my opinion.
All of a sudden, all my posts started talking about coke I do and whatnot. It
was a weird experience for me, but I immediately stopped all actual
conversations on LinkedIn based on that.

The risks are not worth it.

------
akerro
The "bye, amazon" post made me think about my consumer habits. I'm building a
gaming rig now, I decided to avoid amazon and ebay as much as I ca to let
shops avoid paying selling and advertising fees.

~~~
throwaway0a5e
I'm curious what the reason for avoiding eBay is?

They don't seem to be engaging in any of the more egregious behaviors that
earn Amazon flak simply by virtue of not having their own product lines and
warehouse/distribution system.

~~~
akerro
> I'm curious what the reason for avoiding eBay is?

Super low quality customer support, eBay is on sellers side as they bring
profits, sellers purposely adversative products to sell more then refuse
refunds, when I made complaint to eBay eBay got on their side. I have
humidifier that not suitable for my needs and has super-low quality filter
that's not HEPA as it was described. When I want to buy something cheap of
questionable/unidentified quality, I go to aliexpress.

I have motorcycle cover that was supposed be XL and fit my motorbike, but got
S that covers only top half... seller sent be back 20% of cost, but I still
have cover I can't use.

GPS tracker that for some reason doesn't work with Orange (and others) SIM
cards in the UK, but works in Poland (with Orange SIM).

Arduino WiFi that came in original(?) packaging, but was rusted. I can keep
going like this...

It's been like this since I ever use eBay (~2010), I always lie to myself
"this time it won't happen" and it keeps happening.

~~~
FireBeyond
> eBay is on sellers side as they bring profits

Amazing how perspective is. I'm 99% a buyer (hundreds of items bought, and
three items sold, and never again).

I sold a Mavic 2 Pro drone with 5 batteries. The whole process was a mess.
Buyer complained that it didn't come with the CrystalSky tablet in one picture
(that was added after they started bidding, to show Flight Logs, was
explicitly disclaimed as being a part of the package, and was not in the
receipts I sent the buyer). After that, three weeks later:

"The batteries don't work."

"Any of them?"

"Nope. I want a refund."

Note that two of the batteries were less than 4 months old, still in warranty.

He then stated he wanted a refund of $800. Bear in mind, 5 brand new batteries
would be $670.

No evidence was shown. I stated I'd like to get the original batteries back,
as I'd be able to get them replaced under warranty or possibly repaired and
recoup some of my money (I was skeptical there was any issue, but still). He
agreed. I asked him to send me an eBay message acknowledging that the partial
refund was contingent on him sending me the batteries back and that he accepts
me disputing the refund if not.

He does so.

Refund is sent (for about $700, to include his return shipping costs).

Less than an hour later I get a message, "USPS says they won't ship damaged
batteries so I will not be returning them".

I then suggest we meet in person to exchange them (I live a few hours away,
not convenient, but still, $700...). He umms and ahhs, "How will I be able to
prove that I gave them to you in person?". I suggest we do it in a police
station (his local PD suggests people do this for CL, etc.). More umm and ahh.
"I need to contact eBay support to see if they recommend this." (eBay has a
FAQ page describing how they recommend doing in person sales, and refunds, and
documenting it). "I never heard back from them so I'm not sure what to do". I
point this out, and he goes silent.

I open a dispute. No evidence provided for damage/faulty goods. Multiple
instances of the buyer trying to show something/anything was problematic with
the listing. Not abiding by agreement, refusing/avoiding any method of
returning damage.

"We have closed your dispute. Based on our review, the buyer is entitled to a
partial refund for damage. He is not required to return the batteries".

So he ended up with a Mavic 2 Pro, with less than 20 hours flight time, 5
batteries, for in the order of $950, all told.

eBay is on the side of least resistance, damage or liability, financial
responsibility to eBay, no-one else.

------
kick
Wow, the linked response to his initial post from Brad Porter is actually the
single slimiest business communication I think I've ever read. Snake.

What is it about corporations that strips your personhood?

EDIT: On further inspection, the other post (by Anton Okmyanskiy) is actually
worse. The undercurrent of "Yes, we're being evil. No, we're not going to
change in meaningful ways. I don't even feel bad about the ways we're
currently being evil. Why? Ideology!" within it is somehow slimier: with
Porter, he's at least lacking self-awareness (or _public-facing_ self-
awareness), but in Okmyanskiy's case, it's definitely there, he just doesn't
care.

~~~
projektfu
It was a surprisingly typical PR piece. The issue is firing whistleblowers,
the whole response is about working real hard and saying the truly offensive
thing was a comment in the other’s article. I guess people internalize this
way of presenting things when they get to this level.

------
dbg31415
Having done a bit of time at Amazon, I'm so perplexed by some of the news
coming out around them now.

* Amazon.jobs || [https://www.amazon.jobs/en/principles](https://www.amazon.jobs/en/principles)

Ownership, Insist on the Highest Standards, Earn Trust, Have Backbone;
Disagree and Commit...

Their response to whistle blowers should have been, "Hey thanks for bringing
this up internally, that's what the internal communication tools were for.
We're trying, but clearly these are unprecedented times and we need to do
better. Thanks for bringing your voice and your data to the table so we can
improve."

I don't love the idea of airing dirty laundry without going through internal
channels first... but assuming these people did that first, they should never
have been shown the door. Amazon is a startup at scale, and if you take away
the ability for people to openly raise concerns, you ruin the culture.

It shouldn't just be about the stock price, y'know? Amazon was a great place
to work, and grew, because people challenged authority and found better ways
of doing things. It's a mistake, and hugely damaging to the brand, to lose
sight of that.

~~~
ex_amazon_sde
Ex Amazon here.

I agree with most of the principles and find them meaningful rather than
"deliver excellence" platitudes.

But some some principles clearly apply only to the workers and not management.
Earn Trust, Have backbone and Frugality especially.

> Amazon is a startup at scale

That's a PR slogan.

> It shouldn't just be about the stock price, y'know?

Amazon is a for-profit company. Workers engage in frugality, stockholders
enjoy the billions.

> because people challenged authority

Amazon is quite data-driven when it comes to engineering but very vertical and
disciplinarian. Try challenging Bezos, or talking about unions, for example.
Remember point 6 of the SOA memo?

\---

5) All service interfaces, without exception, must be designed from the ground
up to be externalizable. That is to say, the team must plan and design to be
able to expose the interface to developers in the outside world. No
exceptions. 6) Anyone who doesn’t do this will be fired. 7) Thank you; have a
nice day!

\---

The company is well know for firing easily, both directly and through stack
ranking.

~~~
dbg31415
Well, yes... but anyone who doesn't use service-oriented architecture should
be fired, right? (=

I mean... we've all seen some of the shit Amazon put out back in the day, the
one-offs, the impossible to maintain or integrate with shit some team in a
silo built... easy to have silos when every team has to be small. I don't
know, I really feel like the SOA memo wasn't so much a threat as just a joke
to bring home the point that not using SOA is dumb and impossible to work
with.

And I honestly felt like Amazon was a startup at scale. Man, I really loved my
time there. Met some of the best people I ever worked with.

~~~
ex_amazon_sde
I largely agree on using SOA (although Amazon sometimes goes too far) but this
thread is not about design.

------
tharne
It's uncomfortable to think about, but the companies that serve us are largely
reflections of what we value as a society. Right now people value low-cost and
convenience. If consumers were willing to pay more for the same goods because
a retailer treated employees well, retailers would follow suit.

Don't blame Amazon, they're just giving us exactly what we want, and I say
that as someone who buys from Amazon, feels bad about it, but keeps buying
because I just can't give up the low cost and convenience.

Instead of asking Amazon to do better, we should be asking ourselves why we
are so unwilling to pay anything but the absolute lowest cost for something in
spite of all the negative consequences for others.

~~~
kick
Willing isn't equivalent to able. For tech workers, sure, they can afford
expensive products. When you've got a _household_ income of _$44,097_
(literally West Virginia's _median_ household income), it stops being
"willing" and becomes "able."

Don't blame consumers when the problem is companies and law itself.

------
Aeolun
I just cannot see any response on LinkedIn as anything other than
exhibitionism.

It’s always the Directors/VPs that I see doing this. Is it just their in-group
doesn’t have time for personal blogs any more?

~~~
toyg
Did they ever...?

Most "personal" blogs from VP-and-over personalities have always read like
carefully-scripted PR.

------
seemslegit
I still don't understand in what way Amazon warehouse workers are being
treated worse than an average American warehouse worker working for someone
other than Amazon.

~~~
PragmaticPulp
I've had friends who worked in Amazon warehouses. They've all been puzzled by
the news stories about bathroom break issues and unreasonable performance
targets, because it doesn't match their experience at all. When a company
reaches Amazon's scale, I have no problem believing that someone, somewhere,
was mismanaging a team. I don't believe it's the norm though.

As for recent events, the complaints seem to be that Amazon didn't implement
enough COVID-19 countermeasures early enough, and that their implementation of
COVID-19 policies hasn't had perfect coverage. From
[https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/10/21216172/amazon-
coronavir...](https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/10/21216172/amazon-coronavirus-
protests-response-safety-jfk8-fired-covid-19)

> Smalls, 31 years old and father of three, had worked at JFK8 since it opened
> in 2018 and Amazon warehouses in New Jersey and Connecticut before that.
> It’s a good job, he says, with good benefits, and he hadn’t had any
> complaints. But in early March, he became concerned about what would happen
> when the virus reached the warehouse with its 5,000 employees.

You can read more anecdotes in the article. I fully believe the managers
involved in those incidents should be fired, but I'm still not convinced that
those negative anecdotes are the norm across all of Amazon.

~~~
katbyte
And then you hear story after story about mass infections at meat processing
pants where the employee conditions sound far worse, but that doesn’t make the
news like this ️

------
mmsimanga
With big companies should we (as in the world) not be singling out the actual
people who make the shitty decisions in these big organisations. From the
previous thread I got the impression that not all Amazon warehouses are equal.
I have been in corporate companies where senior management make really rubbish
decisions and hide behind the PR company releases. In the end it reflects
badly on the whole company but it really is a few bad apples. Disclaimer I
know nothing about how the whole PR world works.

------
stjohnswarts
I choose to stay with Amazon, but I have a lot of respect for people who do
what their heart tells them to do. It's not my fight to fight though.

~~~
fsociety
The thing is, that’s totally alright too! I don’t think we should
realistically expect everyone bothered by it to quit.. our current environment
doesn’t support this ideology.

The disgusting thing is when Brad posted a PR piece that avoided the issue Tim
raised. Brad could be the best person in the world but that action was not
good or fair.

------
supjeff
If I search these comments for the word "union", there are no relevant
results. Why don't we unionize tech workers?

------
randallsquared
> _Two things can be true at once: You work hard to preserve your employees’
> health, and your administrative culture treats them as fungible units._

This is some pretty agile dancing. :)

~~~
lultimouomo
Why? A farmer works hard to preserve his cows' health (every cow that gets
sick is lost money), yet they are fungible units on their way to the meet
grinder.

The two things are perfectly compatible.

~~~
kerkeslager
Sick cows don't always mean lost money, and farmers don't work hard to
preserve the aspects of the cow's health that doesn't cost them money. For
example, it's actually cheaper to keep cows in conditions that would cause any
animal to suffer from depression, than to care for their mental health.

It may seem weird to talk about the mental health of beef cattle, but we're
not talking about beef cattle, we're talking about workers, whose mental
health absolutely does matter.

------
einpoklum
Amazon is a very problematic mega-corporation in many respects, not the least
of which being worker exploitation. It really needs to be either broken up or
socialized.

~~~
scarface74
It amazes me how unself aware some HN users are when it comes to giving
Government more power. I wonder do they know how much bad tech regulation has
been both passed and stopped.

The government would love to have more power over tech to both gather
information on people and to control the narrative.

Did anyone not see how Tim Cook was kissing up to the President and how much
he enjoyed it? Do you really prefer to have a potential abusive government
With the power of the state with more power.

~~~
kerkeslager
I'm definitely not pro-government. I want power to be in the hands of
individuals, not _any_ centralized entity.

The problem is, if you don't have a powerful government, you get something
worse: powerful corporations. At least government (in a democracy) has to
maintain some pretense of serving individuals. The only times corporations
have to pretend to serve individuals is if their customers are individuals,
and even then they can just lie about it: the whole field of advertising is
devoted to that. Governments can (and do) lie about serving people too, but
they have it a bit harder: consider the difference in connotation between the
words "advertising" and "propaganda". And in an ideal government, there's a
great deal of transparency, which makes it harder to lie. In contrast,
corporations have largely unquestioned active protections over their internal
secrets, and corporate transparency is practically oxymoronic.

The role of government is to protect the weak from the strong, and in order to
do that, unfortunately, government has to be strong. In this context, that
means regulating corporations so that they can't trample individuals. Ideally,
government also has checks and balances so that government also protects
individuals from government. Obviously that's hard to do, and no government I
know of has implemented it perfectly, but it's the best idea we have--if you
have a better idea feel free to share it. And so we're clear: having an anemic
government isn't a better idea: that just gives you rule by corporations.

~~~
einpoklum
> The role of government is to protect the weak from the strong

The role of government is to maintain the social order, the basic social
relations w.r.t. ownership of property, particularly capital like land,
production facilities, access to natural resources etc.

This means mostly protecting the interests of the strong few against the weak
many. In some cases of misconduct by powerful individuals or companies -
outside the bounds of the acceptable and resulting in potential jeopardy of
the social order - it may protect the weak against the powerful as well.

~~~
scarface74
How has the government protecting the weak and minorities worked out - during
the entire history of the US?

In the US “it’s not the strong few”. The majority can and does use the
government to impose its will.

~~~
einpoklum
That's like saying the wind imposes its will on a sailing ship. It's not
entirely false, in the sense that the ship only goes in a direction that's not
upwind, but - the ship uses the sail angle to take angled directions to that
of the wind, or just furls up the sails - and eventually goes where the people
sailing it want to.

I hope the simile is clear enough...

Specifically - persecution of minorities is not a "natural" social phenomenon,
it is very much an acquired tendency on the personal level and encouraged and
stoked by social, economical, and political institutions.

~~~
scarface74
It doesn’t matter _why_ it happens. The fact is it _does_ happen by the same
political institutions that people want to give more power to.

~~~
kerkeslager
Do you actually want to go back to the days of companies beating workers when
they collapse partway through a 13 hour day and paying them in store credit?
Or can you agree that giving government the power to make those things illegal
was a good idea?

~~~
scarface74
Assault has always been against the law. But you expect the same government to
“protect workers” when they just made people go back to work in the meat
industry by invoking a law meant to be used in times of war?

~~~
kerkeslager
> Assault has always been against the law. But you expect the same government
> to “protect workers” when they just made people go back to work in the meat
> industry by invoking a law meant to be used in times of war?

Well, obviously I'd prefer the government used their powers for good, i.e.
actually protect workers.

------
OrgNet
I just purchased from Amazon but they gave me $100 to open a new credit card
that I will disable in 1 month. (edit: actually, I think that I will disable
it today so that I can re-apply more quickly)

------
rb808
Someone gets to FIRE built on the backs of the workers then gets praise for
doing so. A more meaningful response would be better to donate the millions of
Amazon stock he had to the workers on the front line.

~~~
joemg
He lost a lot of money (circa 1m according to original story) in salary and
stock vesting taking the decision to quit.

Although you make a good point that he can FIRE due to previous income.
Something nigh impossible on a warehouse picker wage.

~~~
scarface74
After he made a million a year from Amazon for six years. No matter when you
leave Amazon you’re leaving money on the table since they are always giving
employees RSUs that will vest at some later date.

~~~
andrewzah
So what?

I don't understand this attempt to discredit the person because they
previously made some money at amazon.

A million dollars is still a lot of money. They still had to make a decision
to turn down that easy money and speak up about it. They could have just as
easily continued to work at amazon and save up 10+ million, etc.

~~~
scarface74
He didn’t “leave” money on the table anymore than anyone else who works for
big tech, is always getting RSU’s that vest over time.

