> just move on and get a different job if you dislike it
Because they tie you in with money - your signing bonus and relocation expenses have to be partially repaid if you leave within the first two years.
An interesting question on the "what if there was a war and no-one came?" is what would happen if Amazon could no longer hire the monstrous number of high calibre new entrants it needs every year. Stories like this are effectively huge advertising campaigns for every other tech company.
I see people use this excuse all the time when I challenge them to quit a job they hate and get one they love.
If you are good at what you do, another company will buy you out of any financial strings a current employer has on you.
Let's assume the worst though and that by leaving you just eat the money. So what? You can always make more money, but you can't get years of your life back.
I find people in this industry are so often socalized into protecting a commodity they can easily replace (money) by giving up one they can't (enjoyed time)
Especially as many of these individuals are recent graduates so likely have student loans, won't have had any time to save, are on the other side of the country from any previous support networks etc.
There's also the potential, or at least perceived, resume / CV impact of quitting your first job after a short period.
The right answer might be "just leave", and clearly many people do just that. But for many they won't or think they can't - so companies cannot assume that just because people stick around that things are good.
So? You dont have to pay them back immediatly. I have walked away with neither credit or savings before. Thrown away stock and titles. There is never a good reason to let someone abuse you and hold you hostage from living a life you enjoy.
I swear this is like listening to people in abusive relationships with tunnel vision. "If we break up I will be poor!"
The world didn't end any of the times I have walked away. Little contract work and a few interviews can solve a wealth of financial problems in short order.
Well, good for you. People have mortgages, they have children, and so on. Life is not as neat and clean as HN likes to make it. People are not robots, and do not always make perfectly rational decisions. Sometimes the 'easier' decision to stay at a company where you have reasonable assurance of continued employment and stability. I put easier in quotes because I recognize the truth of what you say, but in general this ability to just flippantly change jobs is a rare thing. No one was doing that in 2001, and people remember. You can jump to a start up, the bankers or somebody makes a bad risk decision, the economy is in turmoil, and in 8 months you are in foreclosure and trying to figure out how to cloth and feed your kids. Meanwhile your mother is ailing and needs your help, and your wife's father is wandering into traffic due to the Alzheimers. Silly, weak humans, right? We HN readers are above all that. Nothing bad will ever happen to us, so just throw caution to the wind.
Quitting before having a new source of income is not something everyone can do. I do acknowledge this.
Most of the people I talk to in these situations however are not shopping around. Acting like they are trapped or a helpless victim. If someone is not happy at a job they owe it to themselves, in spite of any drama going on in their lives, to make time for interviews until they get the sucky job problem solved.
By no means blow off family in need etc, but making time to get into a happy work environment could mean less stress, enough or more money, and a much easier time dealing with the difficult parts of life one can't change.
The world didn't end any of the times I have walked away
Not for you, but it certainly does happen. If you look at it from the other way round, quite often when you find a middleclass person who's ended up homeless or an alcoholic or suicidal it started with losing their job.
Yes, it's an abusive employer/employee relationship. But there's never a bright line crossed between "ordinarily bad" and "abusive".
Most people choose to wildly overconsume, and as a result don't have any savings. This is a choice.
It's also a choice to enter into highly leveraged options purchases on illiquid assets which require major lifestyle changes to walk away from (mortgage). Complaining that the mortgage inhibits lifestyle changes is no different than complaining "I dropped $800k short selling AMZN, now I need to make margin call".
Most people choose to wildly overconsume, and as a result don't have any savings. This is a choice.
To follow a remark like that with one about people regretting losing $800k makes me wonder how many low paid people you know. There are a lot of people who can't afford to save, and it's not because they're overconsuming.
Although, admittedly, I doubt many of them are Amazon employees.
I was referring to the software developers working at Amazon (much like the article). I was comparing making mortgage payments on an $800k house to making margin calls on an $800k short sale.
To be fair, most of the low paid people I know could also save. This is pretty obvious to me by comparing the lifestyle of my Indian friends and my American friends. Somehow the Indians earn far less but manage to save massively (hint: they consume less).
The main exception might be Americans in the $0-20k/year of consumption category, since big chunks of their "income" are non-market income. But that kind of makes the question of whether to quit moot...
An interesting question on the "what if there was a war and no-one came?" is what would happen if Amazon could no longer hire the monstrous number of high calibre new entrants it needs every year.
It's the wrong question to ask, I think. Those joining Amazon or any other top company do so through internship track or personal network. Anyone who complains about burnout and getting worked to death really has no reason to complain. They did get to see the insides of Amazon while working there as an intern, and if they didn't see it their friends did.
The question is really: why do people keep thinking they can outrun the bear even though everyone else they can see cannot?
An interesting question on the "what if there was a war and no-one came?" is what would happen if Amazon could no longer hire the monstrous number of high calibre new entrants it needs every year. Stories like this are effectively huge advertising campaigns for every other tech company.