Public protest against Amazon - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I want to preface this comment with a statement that in no way am I trying to blame the victim here, only to point out what can be learned from this situation.

This is certainly not the first time I've heard of Amazon being a shitty place to work at, and I don't see much reason to doubt the story of a vindictive boss doing everything they can to make an employee miserable after learning that the employee submitted bad feedback against them.

The two lessons I can extract from this post for myself are.

1\. Never submit negative feedback via "anonymous" or "confidential" feedback processes at work, especially against a particular person, _especially_ your boss.

It's been covered on HN before how these things are never really anonymous and confidential, and it should be kind of obvious to figure out if you think about it.

2\. If you are at your job as part of your Visa process, you are essentially a slave with a slave's rights to match, and you are better off not rocking the boat if you want to complete the process.

<comment><USER3> Re #1: I realize this is the safest option for your own self-preservation, if you don't give negative feedback, how do you expect your work environment to change?

The way I see it, if you're in a bad situation at work, you have two options: try to change it, or leave. If you're going to leave anyway, why not at least try to improve your situation first so you give yourself the best chance of success? And that way, the company has the opportunity to remove or remediate a bad manager.

Basically, my reaction to your #1 is that it helps you avoid getting hurt by the worst possible scenario. But personally, I think it's a better strategy to maximize your chance at a good scenario.

<comment><USER4> Pro-tip: never expect your work environment to change. The chances of a report overcoming the whims of a shitty manager are very, very small especially in the context of a company that tolerates the shitty manager in the first place.

Generally speaking, the best thing to do is to smile, appear to do reasonably decent work, and begin looking elsewhere.

<comment><USER5> I second this. You'll almost never convince upper management the smooth- talking buddies they promoted could ever possibly be terrible to their employees.

<comment><USER6> Well, you could. It sometimes works. The problem is when the manager who manages your shitty manager moves away, and you get a new one. Good managers always get promoted or move away, only the terrible ones stay. The shitty manager will start afresh to get onto you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I had a manager that took over from a previous person when I was working remote. There were a few issues, but the one that stands out is they flew me down to London for a week, set me up in a hotel, and had me take taxis back and fourth to the office and expense food etc.

After returning home, he rejected my expenses because of variance of costs of the taxis, despite me pointing out that I was using the stipulated vendor and the difference in cost was between me leaving the office at rush hour and me leaving the office around 9-10pm.

Not only did he reject the taxi expenses, but the hotel, the flights, the food, etc. The guy was obviously a class act in his 50s, rejecting the expenses of a fairly underpaid 25 year old employee living in Scotland.

Super illegal but ultimatly I quit, because life is too short to work for horrible people.

<comment><USER8> I was recently offered a job by a software company, work from home, paid monthly. I presently work in metal fabrication.

Not only was their offer $30,000 below my current income, their deal was I front cash for expenses and submit claims monthly.

Is this standard in the software world?

Because from my perspective there's only one possible answer to paying expenses out of pocket and having to claim them back: No.

<comment><USER9> > Is this standard in the software world?

This is standard in _every_ world. Corporate credit cards are usually reserved for senior executives or people who travel/entertain a lot (e.g. sales reps). Cash advances aren't a thing outside of small companies.

<comment><USER10> Huh? Google made it super easy to get a GCard, you just request it on a web form and it arrived a few days later. It was pretty common for L4 engineers (that's the level below senior) to have them.

<comment><USER11> I am also a former Google employee. I also had a GCard, and it is exactly as easy to get one as described.

Google is the exception here, IMO. _Every_ other employer I have had has generally required the employee to front the cash for expenses, and used something like Expensify to get reimbursed. There are some exceptions, such as hotels or airfare, which I've booked through corporate booking systems; these only let you see "approved" flights/hotels, and once booked, is charged direct to the company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Welcome to life in practically any large US corporation. Most employees will never complain to HR, they may need some routine services that HR provides and that's the extent of their interaction. But there are a few who do complain. If these are peer-related complaints, HR will work with the employees managers to resolve the issue. But let's say someone has a problem with their manager. Maybe no one else has complained about him before, or if so the complaints appear to be isolated incidents. Let's say he has a lot of positive feedback from _his_ peers, manager, and other subordinates.

Now you, the complainant, are the problem. And oh boy you have some special life circumstances - yikes, you are like a loaded bomb dropped in the lap of HR. They are not in any position of power, they can't set the policy for your department (rightfully - they are not in the know), so your boss holds all the cards. HR won't dig to the bottom of anything, and a manager is more important that a developer. At best it's he-said-she-said and ignored, at worst you are shown the door after some minimal make nice by the company to avoid future liability.

I think it takes a strong top-down initiative to avoid cultural issues like this at an organization. At some place as large as Amazon there are bound to be isolated incidents but to all indications this behavior is, if not encouraged (in some cases it appears to be), not actively discouraged and is hence tacitly approved of at Amazon. I've seen what it takes to get a bad manager moved or fired by their subordinates - it requires an outright coup. Rarely does such a thing happen and it's not guaranteed to succeed. Whereas, a conscientious and capable manager can walk in and straighten something like this out in fairly short order, with minimal drama.

<comment><USER13> > Welcome to life in practically any large US corporation

This is a common refrain, especially on HN. But it is a bit misplaced:

Small companies are just as bad and often worse.

All you have to do is look around at the average small company where nepotism is the default (doesn't matter how good you are, the owner's son will be the next CEO) and where many owners see staff as personal servants.

Some of the things I've seen in the past year with friends & acquaintances who work at small companies:

\- An office admin being told to arrange the owner's wedding (without pay).

\- A nail salon worker being told to go pick up the owner's dry cleaning since there weren't any customers in at the moment.

\- The owner of a small hotel telling staff they were all working on Saturday to cater a party at her house. (If you say no, you are fired.)

\- A company owner taking $40,000 out of the company bank account to pay for his family vacation to Croatia and then missing payroll that month. It ended up being two weeks late.

Many small business owners treat their business (and by extension their staff) as their personal fief and property.

Plus, the people who own and run small businesses aren't going to listen to ideas for feedback and improvement any more than big company managers. They always fall back on -- well, I've succeeded so far doing it my way.

<comment><USER14> > They always fall back on -- well, I've succeeded so far doing it my way.

Put more simply: "My way or the highway".

I wonder if there are probing questions you can subtly ask to ferret out these kinds of managers/workplaces so you can avoid during interviews or early on the job?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Amazon employee here, though I do not speak for the company.

At any big company, your management chain is the #1 influence on the quality of your culture. My experience at Amazon has been extremely positive, but then my org head is a great guy, so it's all been in line with my expectations. I've also left critical feedback through the Amazon Connect survey for my immediate manager and not suffered for it. That manager, as far as I can tell, made no effort to deanonymize the feedback, and addressed the issue fairly in a team meeting.

So, YMMV, but I would certainly encourage skilled devs, artists and designers to come help us make great games. :-)

<comment><USER16> That's always been the argument to people who are on the fence about Amazon: "I've heard some bad things, but haven't seen it in my department". Amazon, and the people that work on the "good" teams never seem to be terribly concerned about horrific reports, and I frequently wonder why that is. In companies I've worked for, had I heard about people crying at their desk and being forced to choose between their child's health and their job I'd want to know how the company is putting a stop to it. It seems that everyone believes that the people complaining are doing so for attention, but from the outside it seems like there's been a lot of reports that are credible - and this is the white collar stuff, not even warehouse worker things.

Its hard to know: Is everyone indoctrinated? Are they addicted to the paychecks? Is the sense that there are bad things happening but its being handled properly?

<comment><USER17> That's because Amazon doesn't work like a cohesive monolithic organization. Two teams that seat next to each other may have complete different cultures and ways of working.

By design, Amazon is an aggregator of many small "startups" with different budgets, different issues, different approaches to solving problems.

The connecting tissues are the leadership principles, the infrastructure, the resources, the mobility and the top-down strategic guidance on how and when to tackle different opportunites.

This is also probably the reason why many Amazon acquisitions like Twitch thrive under them. They get integrated into the Amazon ecosystem and get all the efficiencies from the larger machine but they don't get consumed into a strategic vacuum. They're left to figure out all the potential synergies and paths to move forward themselves. They don't need high C-level leadership to help them figure and execute on all the internal collaboration opportunities and increased efficiency. They just do it because the system allows them to do it.

All the data and mechanisms are there. Most impactful innitiatives start with a six-pager that almost anybody can write, and they exist mostly just to unlock budgets. That's basically what Amazon leaderships does: "Someone is saying that we should throw money and resources into this? Should we? Will this make the company stronger? Will this generate more synergies and opportunities?... Yes or no? ...Move on"

So it's not that people don't care. It simply feels too foreign, too abstracted from your own personal reality and day to day. It's almost feels like if those claims were coming from a completey different company that happens to have the same name.

<comment><USER18> Exactly. I work at a very similar place on the East Coast -- very startup like culture unified by leadership principles. I had one so-so experience, followed by an absolutely horrible experience, followed by two terrific experiences. For the bad experience, I worked weeks on end, lots of times throughout the night trying to deliever, in many cases, unreasonable feature requests all while trying to maintain production systems. Sometimes dysfunction happens. You live in an imperfect world with imperfect people. In the end, sticking through and using the horrible experience to learn and grow ended up paying off long term.

Bezos has corporate principles that led to his success. Many people respect that. I personally do no -- I lose respect for any man who cheats on his wife, no matter the reason, but I digress that what he does do in the business world has worked with immeasurable success.

(My final random point -- I find it kind of ironic that a man who stresses so much that his leadership team have skilled writing and memos instead of powerpoints let his security team autogenerate a security bulletin about a serious docker CVE. I mean it's very obvious to me that this was written by a bot [https://aws.amazon.com/security/security- bulletins/AWS-2019-...](https://aws.amazon.com/security/security- bulletins/AWS-2019-002/) \-- I think it's a tad tacky to be using a bot to generate your security bulletins)

<comment><USER19> _I lose respect for any man who cheats on his wife, no matter the reason..._

That's some sanctimonious bullshit.

There is zero public information indicating any cheating. We know that there was a trial separation. We don't know what agreements there were. We do know that the divorce is being presented as being amiable.

My attitude is that if his soon to be ex wife is not upset, then random strangers like yourself have zero business being upset on her behalf. You aren't part of or privy to his relationships or agreements. It is none of your business.

Unless you have non-public information indicating that he violated any agreement with MacKezie, the best information available to you is information in places like [https://www.tmz.com/2019/01/09/jeff-bezos-lauren-sanchez- div...](https://www.tmz.com/2019/01/09/jeff-bezos-lauren-sanchez-divorce- cheating-affair/) \- which indicates that the relationship began after both couples separated, and was known by both ex partners.

Which would indicate that this isn't cheating. No matter how much it offends your sensibilities.

<comment><USER20> I thought Bezos admitted to cheating in his medium post.

<comment><USER21> If you mean the "No thank you, Mr Pecker" one, then it doesn't look to me as if he does any such thing.

(He certainly implicitly admits that he is in a relationship with Ms Sanchez. But, at least in my book, that's only _cheating_ if it happened before his "trial separation" with his wife, and I don't see that he's admitted that it did.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I used to think big tech companies like Amazon and Google would be different, however now I see they are just becoming like any older traditional corporation with a HR department functioning like the stasi and the ability to oppress through mass policies and hiring contracts.

We are lucky as developers to have a fairly easy way of life but I still follow my Grandpa's advice from years working in the shipyards of Glasgow:

* Never be loyal to a company unless its your own

* When things are good, think about leaving

* Keep your mouth shut and don't gossip

<comment><USER23> "* When things are good, think about leaving" => Wait what? So what do you do when things are bad?

<comment><USER24> Likely - leave when things are still good. Meaning look for early signs. Some people stay and hope for the good old days - they almost never arrive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I agree with many of the comments here about how ymmv based on your management chain. My experience at Amazon has been very positive, but I do want to call out some major issues with the Amazon Connections tool reference in this post.

This tool is pitched to employees as an anonymous way to provide feedback about their team via daily questions. The reality is anything but.

* Responses are not anonymous, they are viewable by anyone on the Connections team, and individual responses are shared with managers in many cases. The Connections team will deny this because it is technically against their policy, but I have seen Connections case managers share information with managers many times.

* Feedback results are not viewable by employees, only managers (this is in contrast to the yearly tech survey, which anyone can view). This leads to data being conveniently left out, or entire orgs simply not reviewing the data.

* The questions are incredibly poorly constructed and there have been multiple internal tickets about propaganda and insensitive questions. A few examples off the top of my head are "Did you know that Amazon was voted the best company to work for 5 years in a row by xyz organization? (Yes/No)" and something to the effect of "How do you feel working with foreigners?" (The wording was _significantly_ more sensitive, but this was the undertone and caused a massive uproar internally.)

These issues have been brought up repeatedly internally and in almost two years, nothing has been done. The Connections team has essentially disabled all feedback channels surrounding the tool. If anything comes of this, I hope a serious look is taken at how the Amazon Connections program is implemented.

<comment><USER26> FWIW I have heard that org leaders can manually insert questions, deny some default questions, and generally tailor the Connections to the types of things they want tactical feedback on. I contracted for a different Amazon team and saw plenty of Connection. They were often bland, "How many hours a week do you spend in meetings?" "True/False: when I begin a project goals are outlined clearly" "When was the last time you sought direct customer feedback for a decision?" Etc. nothing like what you mentioned.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> This kind of retribution is pretty normal from the companies I've worked it, it's clumsy that it ended up in writing here and a bit more vicious than usual with a child involved. Normally it's done offline in private conversations or simply as something that's understood between like minded managers with passing comments.

One manager I had was pretty candid about it, he said he couldn't find another job and was looking to retire so he was going to give me a bad performance review despite actually being the top performer so he wouldn't be affected. He was otherwise very apologetic that his hand was forced.

<comment><USER28> > One manager I had was pretty candid about it, he said he couldn't find > another job and was looking to retire so he was going to give me a bad > performance review despite actually being the top performer so he wouldn't > be affected.

How would he be affected by giving you a well-deserved good performance review? I don't understand.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I had an horrible experience with a terrible manager about 10 years ago. We didn't get along at all, and he tried to throw me under the bus for a project that he mismanaged. He basically wrote lies about me on my performance review.

I fought it via HR. The HR rep couldn't care less about it, but I kept persisting, and I had my coworkers vouch for me that what our manager said was false. He ended up rescinding the entire performance review, and I changed teams and left the company shortly afterwards.

But I was lucky. I was well-liked by my peers because they knew I worked hard, and they were willing to go to bat for me against our manager. And my manager was utterly stupid because he wrote lies that could be refuted by my teammates. It was basically the perfect conditions in my favor. Had I not had those favorable conditions, I'm pretty sure HR would have done nothing to help me, and I would have gotten fired. Even if managers write lies about you, it's very very difficult to fight back.

<comment><USER30> Have heard many Amazon stories around review being used by managers as a revenge tool. A true incident - a friend of mine and his coworker (same level) didn't get along. Their manager left and this coworker was made the manager since he had longer tenure. My friend received a PIP in 2 months flat and ended up leaving the company rather than put up a fight.

<comment><USER31> A similar thing happened to me outside of Amazon. When the person I didn't get along with was made my manager I immediately went outside my reporting chain to find a place to transfer (though I considered quitting on the spot)

It didn't really work out though. New team was better but my past followed me and I let the whole experience get me down.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Word of advice, never work for Amazon. Out of the FANGs, it is quite easily the sleaziest place to work. As someone who worked there, I can believe OPs side of the story. At this point, most of the people who tolerate working there are indentured Indian H1-B employees because they're stuck in the Green card queue. Even amongst them, the good ones left for greener pastures a long time ago!

<comment><USER33> Which team? Before I joined I spoke with a few friends who work there (after reading the NYT article and comments like yours) and got positive feedback. I work here for the past 3 years and so far touch wood nothing even near this. Pretty happy all in all. It's like people talk about a different company. I'm at AWS, Sr SDE, any teams the above warning is more applicable to? Asking for myself in case I want to switch a teams to know what to avoid but also since we are hiring, I'd like others to know if it's a specific team / department to avoid... Also, all of us in "good teams" should take ownership and figure out how to systematically fix the issues others obviously experience in other teams. If it's a specific branch or department, I'd like to see all amazon employees protest to eradicate any toxic bosses / culture in these teams. I just have no way in knowing which ones are, it's a huge company

<comment><USER30> Since you mentioned you want to protest, are you going to join Oleg? Seems like a good starting point.

<comment><USER33> I'm not located in Seattle, but if I was there, and got the details, and was convinced Oleg is right I'd try to mobilize some like minded people, make sure there is no clause forbidding me to do so as I like to have a job, maybe give my boss a heads up (maybe he would even join) and I'd be happy to join his protest. But I believe this should start internally, it will look better to leadership if some of us for example write a one pager on this amazon good bad discrepancy and that the fact many teams are happy doesn't cover the fact there are apparently some toxic ones. I love my job and I hate the fact the same company can cause others have the opposite experience, it hurts them but also much to lesser extent, hurts all of us at Amazon. Ego hurt, can intimidate candidates, lost prestige. Small problems but still should make us all concerned and driven for action to fix it.

<comment><USER34> > make sure there is no clause forbidding me to do so as I like to have a job

You realize that any retribution would be a violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act, right? You can't sign away your right to protest, unless you work for the government as a critical employee (read: firefighters, police).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Disclaimer: I currently work at Amazon as an SDM (I do not speak for the company). I've also worked a lot of other places. In my experience, bad managers can happen anywhere.

I'm not going to take sides since all we have is a story told by an ex- employee who has every reason to be spiteful toward his former employer. The other side of this story is one we'll likely never hear.

I do want to comment on the visa aspect of this (sounds like he's on an EB3). I have worked with and managed visa-holding engineers who've been passed over for promotions or otherwise discriminated against because of their visa status (not at Amazon). Certain kinds of promotions can run the risk of a visa holder getting their visa rejected. Many things a company might do to improve the circumstances of a regular employee runs the risk of triggering a visa re- evaluation. More often than not the company will play it safe so the employee doesn't run the risk of getting deported. That can involve denying them promotions or "unofficially" giving it to them (all the responsibility but no title). It's systemic discrimination, and the worst part is it has the "best interests" of the visa holder at heart.

Personally, I tried to counter this kind of discrimination by making the employee aware of the situation and the risk, then asking what they would like me to do. Usually, though, my influence is limited and I get blocked by HR and legal.

If this story didn't happen to a visa holder, it would be a simple story of "just go somewhere else," but I can understand how helpless these people must feel.

<comment><USER36> WTF? Why it can't be simple "just go somewhere else"? Well, just go to some other country.

I'm not saying it's easy, but why bang your head against the wall. Go somewhere else, and, if you really want, come back another time, through a different company or on different terms.

<comment><USER35> Imagine being in their shoes. Are you prepared to move to the other side of the globe on a moment's notice if you're unemployed? Do you have the funds to do that, such as moving your precious items, and breaking your lease? If you have a family, are you prepared for the impact it will have on them (this guy's child has health care concerns)? What would you be prepared to put up with in order to avoid that?

Also, many just think of the US as home despite not being a citizen. Many who worked for me went to college here on a study visa. This is the only home they've known their adult life. They wouldn't know the first thing about how to live if they went back to their native country.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> My recommendation is to NEVER leave negative feedback on an employee survey. The BEST outcome I've seen from them is incredibly painful meetings that only seem to make the matter worse.

My speculation on this is two fold. The first is that putting things in those surveys is a "permanent record" or at least "yearly review" issue for your manager. So you are (justly or not) harming them, and they will tend to respond to being harmed. The other is that, if you think about it... if your manager is not a person who you can talk to about a problem in a non-anonymous way... doing it anonymously is not likely to help, it's probably better to just quietly leave.

<comment><USER38> This guy I know, we can call him Jim, left a large tech company and was honest in his exit interview about why he was leaving, and it was mostly his manager. He was later asked to apply for a job with a different team after his manager left the company years (and promotions) later. HR blocked the hire because he was "disgruntled" in his exit interview. As far as I know, they did nothing to recognize or fix the problem. But they held it against him because his feedback was negative. Unfortunately, a company that views employees as the enemy will find it a self-fulfilling prophecy. They kill the incentive to try help fix problems, and create a situation where you like it or you leave.

<comment><USER39> "I'm leaving because your company is too good."

<comment><USER40> It's the inverse of the ubiquitous "why do you want to work for us?" interview question. "Because you give money to your employees and I require money for food and housing" is somehow never what they're looking for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Abusive managers... after all the years I need to thanked them because they forced me to start my own company.

My "favorite" was a CTO that I worked for in NYC.. horrible human being with few ex wives and an eye for girls that barely turned 18. My favorite line was: "if you have family, don't work here" when I was complaining that he really didn't need me at the office on Sunday 9pm to "monitor" system I could remotely connect in case all the way from home.

He also did the same to me - everyone came at 10, he wanted me at 7. Everyone left 5pm, he wanted me to work on extra project at 7pm. Those projects never came and I was just sitting there bored. Of course I questioned his reasoning few times but he just said "you're the most important person in the company you need to be here earlier and leave the last in case". At the same time I was making the lowest salary in the corp... on time asked him about raise he told me: "remember you are on McDonald sales guy salary here.. you are not an exec".

Fun times looking back at 15 years ago when I was young and naive...

<comment><USER42> >you are the most important person in the company >you are not an exec

I'd have come back with

>yeah but I'm the most important person here so either my time changes or money

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> This really needs the second half of the story before we all get our trusty pitchforks and start making a shish-kebab from this Khan person.

<comment> the-pigeon The problem with this story is that it's more about an abusive boss at Amazon than Amazon.

Any large company is going to have abusive individuals in it. I think the real issue this story illustrates is that when people are brought over on work visas they have no leverage with their employer.

As an American citizen software engineer my boss knows that if I'm unhappy I will just leave. But the boss of someone on a work visa knows they can do pretty much whatever they want to them and the employee is just stuck.

So we need to change the work visa system so those employees aren't in such a vulnerable position. How exactly? I don't know..

<comment><USER44> But isn't that why companies hire employees on visas to begin with? I would venture to guess for every 1 truly pioneering mind that is working in the US on a H1-B visa there are 100 people working on CRUD software at Amazon or Microsoft.

<comment><USER45> Depends on the company. Companies like Tata and Infosys (which, until recent changes, had something like 80% of H1B quota), sure. Companies like Amazon and Microsoft do not do this as a matter of policy (which is why they sponsor most of their H1B employees for green card); but individual managers are still aware of the kind of leverage this gives them, and some of them try to use it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I feel like I should point out the value in surrounding yourself with people like Oleg here who 1. Have a completely different socioeconomic perspective than someone like myself, and 2. Feel (rightfully) entitled to voice their opinion on anything and everything that the judge to be of enough importance to voice such an opinion.

If anyone in the Seattle-area values an engineer who will voice such opinions on ethics and morality above their own career-oriented self-interest, perhaps extend an invitation to an interview. Because surely there is no safeguard in place that will save this man and his family from being fired and then deported.

<comment><USER47> The truth is that nobody hires whistleblowers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Which came first, the post or the lawsuit?

Churyumov v. Amazon Corporate LLC (2:19-cv-00136) District Court, W.D. Washington

[https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/14528071/churyumov-v- am...](https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/14528071/churyumov-v-amazon- corporate-llc/)

<comment><USER47> Yuck,

>Self-Represented Plaintiff Oleg Churyumov.

This won't end well for the guy.

<comment><USER49> He's self representing himself for the case? Does anyone know if there is any reasoning behind this? Even lawyers aren't recommended to represent themselves... going up against Amazon's lawyers with- no offense to the author- imperfect English, sounds like it would be more of a firing squad than a lawsuit.

<comment><USER47> As a fellow Russian, the impression I got from the original post is that the author has no idea how PR, legal system, juries, diplomacy and workplace politics work in the U.S. Kinda sad because those things are orthogonal to your software development skills.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> > _Khan made me single parent._

I've been downvoted here before for "victim blaming", but I'm going to say this anyway because someone has to.

It's your responsibility to be in control of your life. There is no grand order of things that will take care of you. There will always be things working against you. Entropy, competition, environmental hazards, psychopaths, etc, are everpresent.

You need to have the confidence to walk away from situations that aren't in line with what you want, and not just throw up your hands and say - I guess this is my life now.

<comment><USER51> Easier said than done you're on an H1B visa and HR hangs you out to dry.

<comment><USER52> If you are on H1B and you have a family in the country I think you need to be very careful about how you behave at work, and if your work situation sucks you better start looking for a new H1B sponsor. You can always complain later.

<comment><USER53> Wouldn't getting a new sponsor just reset your position in the queue?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Amazon's leadership principles may have a lot to do with this.

These must be memorized for any manager at Amazon and are part of the interview process.

[http://whartonmagazine.com/blogs/learn-from-amazons- leadersh...](http://whartonmagazine.com/blogs/learn-from-amazons-leadership- principles/#sthash.Mnj0iEw1.dpbs)

Choice quotes.

"Leaders are right a lot."

"Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit Leaders are obligated to respectfully challenge decisions when they disagree, even when doing so is uncomfortable or exhausting. Leaders have conviction and are tenacious. They do not compromise for the sake of social cohesion. Once a decision is determined, they commit wholly."

<comment><USER55> Amazon Leadership principles are for _all_ employees at the company not managers.

"Leaders are right a lot" isn't indoctrination to trust your manager implicitly because they are right. It's "Be a leader. Have good judgement. Work to improve it. As a result be right a lot"

Backbone one is also misunderstood: "Don't succumb to do the easy thing. Push back when you know when it's the right thing to do even if it's harder. BUT if you are overruled, and the group decision goes against it, don't try to fight it and undermine the decision, commit to the path."

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> It's funny how you often notice bullies getting promoted - is destruction of a low-level person a rite of passage for a middle manager to get ahead at many US corporations these days? I can imagine if they select for some dark-triad characteristics and going all-in, demonstrating cold/calculating/cruel moves while keeping paperwork clean signalizes the right person?

<comment><USER57> Bullies are often beneficial to the person they work under. That person can delegate unpleasant bullying-work to the bully and the bully will never bully his boss.

<comment><USER58> Agreed. Have seen plenty of 'kiss up, kick down' behavior at larger tech companies. It is at times amusing and a small break from the suffering to see the person transform rapidly during interactions with the kissee or the kickee in short order.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> Besides H1Bs, and fresh graduates (who don't have any choice), I don't understand how Amazon can still higher Software engineers. I understand that Amazon teams are diverse, but as a candidate with any other possible option, how could anyone even consider amazon considering everything that's been written about the company already.

<comment><USER60> How about because Amazon develops some of the most interesting and innovative products out there? AWS, Alexa, Go Store, to name a few?

I've worked on several AWS services, and I'm very proud of being a part of them and of AWS in general. I bet there are very few other places where I would find problems this interesting or of this scale.

If you have some experience, you probably know better than just look for a job at company X - you probably choose specific role in a particular team or product. And Amazon sure does have a lot of great products with very interesting positions.

<comment><USER61> There are plenty of companies that have interesting projects and don't have such a toxic culture. GCP and Azure are the exact same technical challenge as AWS without all the Amazon BS.

<comment><USER60> I was answering why choose Amazon over "any other possible option" \- because Amazon has awesome projects. If cultures at Microsoft or Google are less toxic is an unrelated topic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> > One Amazon employee said when her father was dying, her boss told "you are > the problem" and prevented her from visiting the father. Another Amazon > employee saw his unborn child died during pregnancy when he was under > oppression by his manager. There are a lot of cases like that. Amazon is > built on blood.

Holyshit. This sounds like modern day slavery. Isn't this bordering on crime against humanity?

<comment><USER63> Miscarriages are very common and not much talked about and I am sorry she couldn't see her father that day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> Workers need unions, plain and simple. The addition of an impartial arbitrator at any step along this process could've helped so much.

<comment><USER65> I used to believe that. But I saw very close how an IT union was taken over by old school, corrupt fat union guys. And they just pander to the lowest common denominator. They go against meritocracy.

I'd rather pay attention and vote with my feet.

<comment><USER66> "divided we fall" is a cliche but may have some merit here, especially if this will be filled by another starry eyed immigrant visa holder who can be treated as such. the information asymmetry gap is just too high imo.

there's other opportunities for organizing labor that don't include old-school unions. screen actors' guild is one example that, e.g., mandates various "newer" members get roles on films and seems to be really well regarded. a guild could serve techies as well.

read up on some of michael o church's old blog about his ideas about organized labor in tech, but be careful espousing the same views as it very well might get you into irredeemable trouble.

<comment><USER24> Agreed. But the fight to keep management in check shouldn't devolve into a fight to keep the union leaders in check. What's the guarantee that won't happen?

<comment><USER66> i don't know, my first reaction is introduce democratic elements to the system as opposed to seniority but perhaps that's been done.

"worst system but best we've had" and all that - at least labor would have a fighting chance

<comment><USER67> > i don't know, my first reaction is introduce democratic elements to the > system as opposed to seniority

Unions are almost invariably democratic; where seniority rules are adopted by a union (and this is far from universal), they tend to be adopted democratically,and not to replace democratic control of the union, so these are not opposed concepts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> Its unfortunate but at the same time its the bitter truth. The visa restrictions/dependency create a slavery system within the software industry at-least in US as far as I have seen personally. The person fighting must have received his green card by now I guess which is why he is able to come forward like this. On the other hand if some one is on short leash (PIP) like this with a H1B visa, they would spend their time and energy on finding another job before their status becomes illegal. I have personal experience of a PIP which was personally motivated and I was naive enough to think that I had all the evidences to prove my case. At one point of time I was thinking whether to go to court or focus my energy to find a better job. As some one said earlier the HR is not for the employees, they are for the company. The management chain is more interested to protect one of they own, even if there are evidences.

</comment><comment><USER69> I hear you. I know this has happened to many other people and they've told me everything that has happened to them. I say - focus your energy on getting a better boss next time.

There are laws against workplace harassment and it needs lawyers to enforce them. In this specific company, complaints of such harassment would go only to dead ears and further lead to retaliation.

If there are enough cases (and I bet there are), it would mean a class action against such practices. Get some lawyer friends and have a few beers with them.

Once again, I hear you.

Addendum: If you wish to put your SDE skills to good use, develop a social shaming browser plugin with anecdotal evidence tying to a person's professional profile, say, LinkedIn. That will ensure that bad managers are automatically flagged when people visit their profile.

</comment><comment><USER4> There's been much discussion in this thread about the role of HR and corporate processes in these kinds of situations. I would encourage anyone that works in a BigCo to read the book "Corporate Confidential".

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62085.Corporate_Confiden...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62085.Corporate_Confidential)

</comment><comment><USER70> Sorry to be pedantic as this is often incorrect: King county was NOT named after MLK Jr, but rather changed recently from referring to Rufus King to MLK Jr. I had mistakenly believed this too before I learnt about our history.

But Washington State is indeed named after George Washington.

<comment><USER71> "Recently" like the 1986 Macintosh Plus came out recently.

* Toledo Blade - Google News Archive Search || [https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=hw4VAAAAIBAJ&sjid=2AIE...](https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=hw4VAAAAIBAJ&sjid=2AIEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5259,1151250)

But, just to be clear, Edgar Martinez Drive was named after Edgar Martinez. (=

<comment><USER72> Considering King County has been around since 1852, 1986 should be considered quite "recent" in its history.

As with everything, context matters. Just like how we would consider homo sapiens as a whole "recent" in the scale of the geological time scale.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> I sincerely hope that this public blog entry and protest leads to some labor reform. Good luck bro.

</comment><comment><USER74> I hope this guy gets help with his issues, because they seem to extend far beyond "working at Amazon".

<comment><USER75> And it also seems to not be ' _Amazon_ ', it seems to be his immediate manager that's the larger problem

<comment><USER74> >it seems to be his immediate manager that's the larger problem

Not discounting this, but someone that thinks comparing to Jeff Bezos to Adolf Hitler is either legitimate _or_ merits public attribution is bringing their own issues to the table, and is _likely_ not telling us the whole story.

<comment><USER76> Now I know an ad-hominem is ipso facto against HN's rules, but look at not just the Hitler comparison, but the writing style.

Disconnected sentences. Run ons. This is more than a case of someone who's a bad writer or a non-native English speaker. I've written in non-native languages before -- organization, paragraphs, and spacing transcend language.

To not mince words, this blog post seems 50% in the format of one of those crazy political ranters that show up in your inbox, or Timecube ( [http://timecube.2enp.com/](http://timecube.2enp.com/) ).

Inference-wise, is there a good (>20%) chance this guy's story is legit and he's really just a very, very, jumbled writer. Yes. But is there also a good (>20%) chance this guy is kinda off his rockers? Also yes.

This is not meant as an ad-hom itself. It's merely statistical inference (like inferring someone writing about Python but mispelling it as "Pyton" all the time is probably not that proficient at Python)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> Just wanted to point out that he's currently suing all of these people and the company for discrimination.

<comment><USER78> As intense these allegations are, someone on the Internet once said that it's best to keep these things offline until investigations/lawsuits are done. Is that true?

<comment><USER79> Well, yea, you can only hurt your case, not help it.

<comment><USER16> If your goal is a payout then best to keep quiet, but if your goal is an actual change in policy public shaming seems to be the only thing that works.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER80> The company employs something like 300,000 people. I'd imagine many stories of bad management just at that scale. Since it's Amazon it always gets an unfair level attention.

<comment><USER62> IBM has a ridiculous number of employees. So does Google and Microsoft. They are all behemoths.

I have heard pretty horrible stories from x-amazonians as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER81> Basically making an employee a single-parent, as it feels by wrath/broken promise, is heart-breaking! These managers likely do not have children...

</comment><comment><USER82> Former Amazon employee here (worked at Lab126, on the original Kindle devices).

While I didn't have a bad manager there (my managers were actually nice people), it is Amazon's corporate culture that turns the place into a 'dog eat dog', arse-hole driven, development. Managers have to run around and cover their arse, as in the first or second misstep, they are out. This pressure filters down to employees who are often thrown against very tight deadlines without much corporate support (ie. basic training on new tech, or even clear coding review standards, and more). Code reviews usually turned into: "Who screams the loudest wins".

Amazon tends to be notoriously 'cheap/frugal', to the point of lacking basic things that most work places take for granted. (I am not talking about cheap coffee and lack of perks, but not even throwing a Christmas party, even though the Kindle was a huge success and sold more than then even the more optimistic prediction). The company will not show/give a basic token of appreciation, even though the team is performing well. Hence, employee morale was not high, but people saw it just as a job. If you are 'young' and still learning and want to grow as a person, you will hate an environment like that.

But the worst abuse was done to H-1B folks like me.

1\. Amazon abuses on people that are on H-1B and need their greencard application going to stay in the country. They delay your application at every step, to the point that you realize that something that should take 1 year, it will take 3-4 years at the given pace, or maybe not even done ever. They dragged their feet, and played with your life as a simple leverage tool. (even after talking to the VP of HR, and while getting: 'Yes, it will be done', nothing got done, and things got dragged out anyway).

2\. Amazon abuses on people that need some flexibility (due to family reasons). I remember really as at some point I had to pick up the project of co-worker as she had a mental break-down at work. (crying and all). Reason? She needed some time off due to children/family reason and she couldn't get it as 'we were on a tight deadline'.

My first week at work there, there was a 'goodbye' party at my team, where one of the managers/lead engineers was leaving. The reason: Burnout. (I learned that part later).

3\. Their back dated options, (i.e. you get most of your stock compensation only on your 4th year), are done in purpose, as they know you probably will not put up with it until then, and leave the money on the table by leaving. Most people stay 1-2 years and move on.

So, yeah, I think Amazon is a bad actor/employee to even software engineers (who tend to have options). I can't imagine their warehouse and lower level employees.

When the NYTimes article came out, I thought it pictured a very accurate portrait of the company. Perhaps things have changed, perhaps they are still the same, but I usually do not recommend friends to work there. They fully deserve their bad rap, and I am glad NYC didn't subsidize their abuse.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside- amazon-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon- wrestling-big-ideas-in-a-bruising-workplace.html)

<comment><USER83> Everyone I've ever known in real life to actually work there (it is more than just a couple of people) has told me that its not a place a person should want to work. I've never heard of literally everyone I know who works for a company has nothing good to say about it at all....especially from other engineers. So I always ignore the recruiters when they send me linked in messages and emails.

<comment><USER84> Same. I try to keep in mind that anecdotes do not evidence make. However, when my sample size is in the high thirties and I still do not have one positive opinion, something smells.

There is long standing evidence that Amazon actively manipulates social media to try to paint working in the warehouses as a great job.

HN tends to have an outsized representation of prospective H1B candidates.

Added up, it's really hard to take any of the positive comments from "Amazon Employees" seriously in this post.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER85> This sounds like retaliation. I am not a lawyer, don't know the details, and this is not a pleasant process to go through, but it may be illegal in your state. For example, here are some of the laws in California[1].

[1] [https://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/HowToFileLinkCodeSections.htm](https://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/HowToFileLinkCodeSections.htm)

</comment><comment><USER86> Someone talented enough to work at Amazon has the option of going out on their own. This was the best decision I've made and now I have all the time in the world to spend with my child. There was an excellent post on how to be a consultant and charge good rates. It doesn't matter where you live or your accent if you do it right. Sucks for the poster to be treated the way he was, these companies need to be held accountable for human suffering on all levels but at the same time it's hard to sympathize when the company is that large and the chance that the CEO can control what one asshole supervisor does is tiny. Bezos probably has no clue about this or has few reasons to care. He rightfully stated that he is making others rich, hence all the more reasons not to keep doing it at other places. Russia is a beautiful country where highly paid developers can live comfortably. I'm not saying he shouldn't live where he wants (US) but there are means of doing well outside of working for behemoths like Amazon, google or Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER87> >> Amazon HR protects company from employees

This is true of _any_ company, _especially_ if you happen to be a straight white male (i.e. not a minority in any way).

Go to HR only if you're 200% sure you can make the company suffer if they don't listen to your complaint. I'm talking _documented, corroborated_ sexual harassment, or _very heavily documented_, strictly illegal discrimination of other types. It is best to also take a medical leave if you're being hazed like this, that way you will have what passes for evidence should they try to sweep things under the rug, which they almost certainly will (and truth be told, after the abuse described in the article, I'd probably need to take a leave for real).

And of course do not under any circumstances go to HR if you're an H1B without first rounding up another job in a 100% guaranteed fashion. If you don't, it becomes very easy for them to get rid of the problem by simply firing you. By law, you have to leave the country in 2 weeks. They know this.

</comment><comment><USER88> Not to be snarky but, I think, a lot of commentators and the original poster would benefit from Gramarly subscription. The stories are compelling and make me quite sympathetic to Oleg (to the extent of helping him financially or in some other way) and everyone else, but, my God, it is very hard to read typos and grammatic errors.

</comment><comment><USER89> While Amazon's work culture doesn't surprise me(similar experiences from multiple sources), while I feel sympathetic to the author's struggles, I do feel the author went a bit too far with his invectives against his previous manager. The reason I say that is, we don't know the manager's side of the story and may be it wasn't exactly like how this guy characterizes it.

While people working on visas don't have as much freedom as people who don't need sponsorship, I don't think this problem is present in every company that has lot of immigrants. Part of the problem is Amazon's culture and I think this problem is trickled top down.

It seems like people at the top management of amazon work hard and there is probably better than linear returns for their extra efforts. But it seems like they push that even on the lower rungs where it seems like it is not justified.

</comment><comment><USER90> I had a similar horror story from 2014-2015 Seattle Amazon. But I opted to quit rather than being subjected to further abuse.

I had a really bad manager whose name was Maulik Patel. He had the worst attributes you could ask for in a manager. Unsupportive, jaded, and emotionally draining. He kept threatening to fire me but never would...for something like 4 months until I said fuck it and quit. His main reasons were that I wasn't fast enough despite finishing the tickets in my sprints pretty much all the time. He had a vendetta against me for being hired to do the job he couldn't. He had flat files of libraries like jQuery and KnockoutJS and d3 committed into our repo. He used the synchronous ajax call flag to download language files...freezing every page for a quarter of a second. There was no way to upgrade all our libraries or fork them properly without undoing all of his mess.

I put us on Bower for web packages and rerolled everything. He was pissed about that. Pissed I fixed his mistakes. He would say things like I am level 4 so I need to pull tickets from the next sprint when I am done with the current sprint. Fundamentally he did not understand what role management had in planning and how to do it properly without antagonizing individual contributors.. Maulik attacked team members including me with qualitatives like slow and fast. He would spread his hands like he was showing a quantity and say you are here but need to _here_ [moves hand higher.]

It was his first time as a manager. When I took the job Jeff Grote was actually signed on to be my manager..but Jeff pulled a bait and switch early into my start..sticking Maulik as a middle manager under himself. Coulda all been avoided if Jeff did me proper.

When I left I sent an email to the team explaining my grievances which I felt they deserved but which is for sure unprofessional. I probably shoulda went to HR but I had heard bad things about HR at large companies. Couldnt have been worse than not getting severence or unemployment. Live and learn... Care to share any similar stories? Would probably make me feel better to hear how someone else dealt with a bad manager scenario. If not its fine.

Here's an email I had sent to Jeff (his manager):

Jeff, I'm coming to you about Maulik's behavior. Literally, it's so bad that even when I come home, or I'm off on weekends, I'm thinking about how to deal with the guy. It's totally unsuitable for job satisfaction. My job satisfaction isn't even reflecting the tickets I do anymore, it's literally tarnished, shit on, by the passive-agressive comments Maulik makes on the regular, he usually sticks a smiley face at the end of his insults as if that makes them less offensive.

When I came onboard, the javascript and front-end workflow and ui, and code, were absolute chaos. I am not one to cry over spilled milk. I fixed 90% of it and did not insult Maulik, because I understand that it isnt productive to do so.

However, I don't know why Maulik feels the need to stomp on me for what amounts to the smallest kind of things. If you look at my ticket resolving rate, I'm like a speed demon, Ashley can vouch for this. So I'm getting my job done.

But either Maulik has a personality or managerial deficit, he is somewhat envious that I am doing a category of task right (front-end) that he only was shoddily able to do. Or he has no idea, is oblivious, and thinks his unelegant and critical behavior is conducive to being a good manager. And it isn't, I can tell you, based on my satisfaction and willingness to do good work. He's going against that with his continued vitriol.

For example, this timezone issue. He has 100 other issues to deal with. And he chooses to spend 20 minutes researching and finding a library (Which he may not have found...20 minutes could end up empty handed..) Just so he can trump me.

And it's a habit with Maulik. He ended up saying "This kind of reserach is what is expected from an Amazon engineer."

All too common for me to talk to him, and then he ends up using corporate culture rhetoric to crap on me. "Andrew, most people don't last long here. A lot of people get fired. Amazon culture, you need to learn it" Intimidation tactics, dismissal of my concerns, and basically abusing the idea of Amazon culture to avoid taking personal responsibility.

I really need you to step in here and deal with Maulik. He's a new manager and is showing it. A good manager is supposed to improve the teams efficiency, correct? He's actually making me not want to work, because of the amount of vitriol I get for performing well. It's anti-correlated. It's negative reinforcement.

</comment><comment><USER33> Word of advice to anyone. Don't complain about your boss, in any company, very few cases it will end up in your favor. Second, never complain to HR. As Oleg said, HR is to protect the company, not you.

I'm very saddened it ended up this way. I don't know the full story so I can't judge. But if even half of what he says is true, everyone involved should be fired.

Having that said, I work for AWS and pretty happy but I'm very concerned I keep hearing cases like this in the media. Maybe when the dust is settled I'll try to take apply to his team and this will give me an excuse to see their culture from first hand. So far all employees I personally know didn't have similar issues, but maybe I'm just lucky.

</comment><comment><USER33> Sounds terrible and hope justice prevails. I'm not familiar with the case but in case anyone wondering or caring, I work for AWS and never heard of any similar cases in any of the teams I'm working with. It's a big company and there are some bad bosses apparently. I wouldn't have taken that approach personally even if I was in his shoes but I'm not in his shoes and don't know all the facts. I hope this gets resolved but this is far from my own experience (3 years in AWS as a Sr SDE)

</comment><comment><USER91> Worst protest for them would be when a lot of people left at the same time. Project would be slowed down, they would have problems hiring, people who stay would be overwhelmed and left later.

Protesting against amazon and still working there means nothing, because you're still doing job for them, which means you accept the state of things, despite not tolerating it at the same time.

</comment><comment><USER92> This would be disability lawsuit waiting to happen, if he has the means and didn't sign an arbitration agreement.

</comment><comment><USER93> >To somehow improve its reputation, Amazon manipulates public opinion on the Internet! Amazon pays to its employees for posts in social networks! Don't believe? Google it!

I couldn't be the only one who found some irony in this statement.

</comment><comment><USER94> No matter who was right, no company should allow such kind of escalation to happen.

</comment><comment><USER95> What makes people, especially managers, to act so shittily with people working 'under' them. I can't begin to imagine how crappy a person has to be to abuse power. Humans seriously cannot handle power.

</comment><comment><USER96> amazon managers used the data from internal feedback system against their subordinates. I think this shows exactly how we the customers(some say the products) can trust them with our data. Very vivid example that is.

</comment><comment><USER97> Given the abuses mentioned, even in WA, if there was legitimate documentation of things like "be in by 7am", HR would have worked with the situation - shitty manager or not.

<comment><USER26> I've heard at Amazon, if you are on a PIP, if you manager tells you to juggle bananas on a unicycle and you don't make a damn good attempt you can be fired. Probably hyperbole, but still.

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> My experience with Amazon was extremely positive.

The author of this article seems very junior / immature, and honestly feels like he's got some mental health issues going on. Airing this much dirty laundry is not likely to get you what you want, and is likely going to make it hard for him to get hired by the next company.

Always talk to your boss 1:1, face to face. Never give shitty feedback over an online system. If you can't work out your issues, or you don't get along well with your manager, best to just move on and look for a new job.

<comment><USER98> What is the purpose of an online feedback system then?

</comment></comment><comment><USER99> Hate to tell him, the job of every HR department is to protect the company, not the employees.

</comment><comment><USER100> This seems like a tiff with a particular manager, not all 600,000 people that compose Amazon.

Also, I'm not sure if he ever learned this, but his manager doesn't control whether he can transfer or not. All he needed was a hiring manager to say s/he wanted him on the team and he could've just left.

</comment><comment><USER101> Mgrs block transfers of engs they don't think meet the performance bar. Apart from official channels to 'block' transfers, they block them by asking other mgrs to not hire you (You're marked as needs-improvement and put on a 'dev- plan' at the sole discretion of the mgrs participating in your OLR process, post which you'd need a VP approval for transfers; you can't contest a 'dev- plan'. Oftentimes You're not even told abt it. When you're told the justifications are vague: You're told the mgrs have got written peer feedbacks, but you're never shown any. You're told you didn't do enough because there weren't enough commits or enough issues resolved depending on which ever metric suits them).

Mgrs treat engs like puppets and engs are okay with it cause the pay rise and sometimes even the job is at stake through this dreadful OLR process. Folks who readily sacrifice their work life harmony are the ones that get the plaudits. This is unsustainable long term, but Amazon doesn't care abt your long term, ironically. It isn't uncommon for "top tier" and "least effective" talent to work for their mgrs on weekends, late nights, be involved in important meetings in different timezones. On several occasions, I've seen engs work on vacations because there was an emergent issue, or because they were due a promotion and couldn't say no.

Mgrs have their favourites and shower them with best possible work, best possible compensation, best perks (like overseas travel to attend conferences, attend re:invent, fly for recruitment drives). In one instance, I saw the pay gap was 3x between equally tenured folks at the same job level. You'd usually find these "top tier" engs defending their mgrs, the work culture, the processes, the policies to death.

The HR department is the worst and complicit in all of this. The new peer feedback system is a hog wash and isn't even considered for OLRs. The promotion process is now less bureaucratic but puts too much power in the hands of the mgrs who decide who should get good enough work and just enough responsibilities to get promoted. OLR process and promotion alike is basically 'how to lie with statistics (only when your mgr allows it)' if you get what I mean. Mgrs can lie or argue either way depending whether they like you or not. I've seen mgrs reject negative feedbacks for engs they are looking to promote. The reason usually is a terse 'Inappropraite' with no further explanation. The mgrs are known to seek negative and positive feedback depending on how they want to build a case for or against you from their "yes men" who are usually the "top tier" engs.

God help if you've got personal or health issues. At least on one occasion, one of my friends was told by his mgr to be worried abt their performance since they've got mortgage to pay. And on several occasions, employees asked to leave because they broke some Amazon code of conduct or policy, but the actual reason to put them to sword in the first place could have been anything, ranging from personal prejudice to revengeful mindset to "let me show you who's the boss"

Multiple mgrs doing 'amazon things' can mean only one thing: It isn't because of a few bad apples... The whole basket is rotten.

Despite all of this, it's amazing so many good engs I know work there. But I also know that they'd give up that job at Amazon for Googles of this world in a heartbeat.

</comment><comment><USER102> All that reads like the ramblings of a frustrated (probably mentally broken down), extremely self-entitled, combative individual. He needs help, but not of the legal variety... of the psychological variety. I truly hope he seeks it out and accepts it.

</comment><comment><USER103> It's just too big as a company. It cannot be fair. With all those layers of middle managers, talented people are bound to get ignored and fall through the cracks; suppressed by managers whose only interest is maintaining the status quo.

<comment><USER104> I'd say this isn't about "talented people", this is just basic decency that an employer should have to extend to an employee, regardless of that employees position or talent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER105> We must end the H1B.

</comment><comment><USER106> Very delusional and poor writing by this guy. I have no doubt Amazon is a miserable gulag to work at, but I have no doubt this guy has made his situation much worse through his behavior.

</comment><comment><USER107> Just don't work for a big corporation.

</comment><comment><USER108> Unions aren't just for raising wages.

</comment><comment><USER109> In case people don't realize, the linked site has one blog post per day going back the past ~2 weeks all about this protest. Some choice excerpts:

> I am sure in the future Mr Bezos will be placed in one line with Adolf > Hitler as an example of genocide.

> There are 2 most difficult parts in the rally:

> \- to get courage to start

> \- to make a banner

> Courage is easier. Few YouTube videos about Martin Luther King, AC/DC song > "Thunderstruck" and I am ready to fight.

> To be honest, in the morning fear of public shame almost caused symptoms of > bed wetting.

> But Deadpool told me how to manage this fear. [embedded youtube video from > the deadpool movie here]

> They can argue citing last words: Once a decision is determined, they commit > wholly. Why didn't I commit? I ask: decision taken by whom? If my manager > and his managers all the way till Bezos support oppression, should I respect > their opinion?

> Then the only authority here is God. I say: Once a decision is determined BY > GOD, I commit wholly. But God didn't ask me to stop protesting yet.

> Thus, most of NYT Amazon examples are really cruel and inhuman. Employees > are punished because their parents are dying, their children are disabled > etc. I hear shaking Hitler in his coffin. These are not single examples of > "bad" managers. This is a company culture. Official company policies support > the CULTURE worse than genocide. During the genocide, Jews were not treated > in that way.

> If I don't find printer today, tomorrow nobody will know about horrors of Mr > Bezos.

> How can I do leafleting without printer?

> Where are all these librarians?!!!!!!

> Btw - got to library. The one near of UW was open even during the "storm"... > How can you call this nice Christmas snow a "storm"? I thought the storm is > when Dorothy flies in her house through the sky... In Russia we have such > storm 9 months a year with a temperature of -22 F.

> Anyway I printed almost 300 sheets of dirt about Amazon. Tomorrow 300 > Amazonians will know the True. Jeff, I am coming.

> I was thinking I am afraid of people. But then I realized: in fact people > are afraid of me. Now I feel I am more powerful and more free than anybody > else. Amazon employees are restricted in their freedoms: they are forced to > spend most time of their lives to do the work they hate. They are restricted > to speak.

> I am free to speak and Jeff Bezos with all his billions can't close my mouth > and can't prevent me from walking on the street with my banner.

> I like that. Like a student who lost virginity. I mean, well, you know.

> But today it will be incredible day. I am going to Whole foods store at > Denny way. If Spheres s a heart of Amazon, Whole foods is its stomach. This > store is always full of people and engineers. God bless me.

Before the outrage machine gets going, probably worth reading that and asking how reliable of a narrator this is.

<comment><USER110> It is interesting to see the mindset of the person who wrote this post. He's obviously been triggered by some internal politics and then he's extrapolated that all the way up and down the corporate chain of command. Amazon has 613,000 employees. I can imagine there's going to be a few bad managers in that mix.

</comment></comment><comment><USER111> another brilliant post about the QOL of Amazon.

</comment><comment><USER112> I don't doubt that the author had a negative career experience at Amazon, but his account doesn't present as credible. The associations he makes between action and intent do not compute in many places. There are things that are misunderstood or factually wrong.

\- "Amazon Connect." The program is called Connections. Every employee gets a multiple choice question every day. You never submit specific comments about a manager. It's truly high level stuff. "Does your manager help clear obstacles for you?" "How many teams do you need to work with to get something done?" "Are you achieving your career goals" "Are you accruing tech debt?". Responses are anonymous and the results are not shown once the population gets below 4 or 5 total responses.

Maybe some rogue Connections employee is sharing data--they should be fired if they are. But it's wildly against policy and the idea that a manager would care enough to go find out what an individual employees response is seems off. Who has time and the individual data points don't matter that much.

It's just good macro level data. It's great to have a pulse on what's working in a team and what isn't. It's actually a great way to find where teams aren't happy with their manager. Call it a bad manager locating device. That Connections is the triggering point seems improbable.

\- His manager asked HR how to prevent them from receiving immigration benefits. Seems very off. Individual managers do very little w/ respect to immigration. Employees interact directly with the company's immigration department and lawyers. Managers approve green card sponsorship and work with employees where they have immigration challenges like renewals or home country returns. His manager didn't ask HR how to do this unless he was seeking his own performance problem.

\- Transfers. With few exceptions, Amazon has one of the most liberal transfer programs you can find. Don't like your job on your first day, you can apply to a new one. You cannot link transferring to any conditions involving spouses or other external factors. You can be blocked from transferring if your current manager has flagged you as having an active performance problem, and you can appeal that block itself. You cannot be prevented from transferring for any other reason than performance. If the author was blocked from transferring to another role, it's only due to performance.

\- Working from home. Amazon's a pretty in-person culture, but people work from home. Some teams have different norms. A manager might discourage an employee who was struggling performance-wise from working from home, if, for example, they had done so previously with limited results. It's not a rule, but people use common sense when people are scuffling, particularly if them being around others will help them avoid getting stuck.

\- Pivot is a process where people who have been identified as having performance problems can appeal this determination. If you lose the Pivot appeal, you then go through the usual performance improvement plan dance that most companies use. An employee's case is heard by three peers (people in the same job role) or a manager who manages people in that job role. Which appeal choice is up to the employee. Most people choose peers and more people win their appeal than lose. Three independent peers agreed with his manager that he had performance problems. That's the only way you lose a Pivot appeal.

Bottom line, it seems likely the person in question was not performing at the level needed. They don't see that and don't agree. Most people who aren't performing don't agree. They began having the expected performance management interactions with their manager and it sounds like many wires were crossed along the way. Did they have a demon manager? Maybe. Some level of Dunning- Kruger seems like a more likely cause. It's a big company with lots of great jobs and people who enjoy them, ymmv.

</comment><comment><USER113> " I left a negative feedback about my manager Uwais Khan in the daily "Amazon Connect" survey. Amazon Connect team sent to me the report showing how my manager can calculate my answer. At our 1:1 meeting, Khan prohibited me to leave feedback in the system. Since then oppression started. Khan asked me to work on weekends. Then he asked HR how to prevent me from immigration benefits (not informing me about that)."

"My 3 yo daughter has a development delay and I need to bring her to therapy. For that, I asked Khan for work from home once a week like everybody else in our team. Khan prohibited me to work from home. Moreover, he asked me to come to office at 7 am and sit there alone. All the other team members came to office at 11 am and worked from home without restrictions. And their children were not disabled."

 _Holy crap_ is all I can say, honestly.

<comment><USER114> Manager: I have altered the deal, pray I do not alter it further.

Basically.

<comment><USER110> Say what you will about Darth Vader, but he was a pretty effective manager.

<comment><USER14> Exactly! I sure bet the lifts ran on time in the Death Star...

<comment><USER115> Unfortunately he wasn't trained in mechanical engineering and failed to spot a serious error during design review.

<comment><USER116> Eh, I don't know. Why bother securing exhaust ports when someone can just jump to hyperspace and destroy your whole fleet?

<comment><USER115> Fair point! All that time and money wasted on weapons systems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER117> This is happening in every big org, especially in banks, people are people. Politics, games of thrones. I would never join any big org, tried twice :).

</comment><comment><USER118> Amazon is a great company as consumer very shitty company to work as an employee.

Source: Ex-Amazon employee.

<comment><USER61> > Amazon is a great company as consumer

as long as you love monopolies and anti-competitive behavior.

</comment></comment><comment><USER119> > _I am sure in the future Mr Bezos will be placed in one line with Adolf > Hitler as an example of genocide._

The guy may have a case somewhere in there, but this kind of hyperbole isn't doing it any favors.

Stripping out the fluff, the concrete concerns seem to be:

\- Denied permission to transfer

\- Denied permission to WFH

\- Placed on PIP and eventually fired

The author's hypothesis is "manager is evil and this is all retaliation", but this is not easily distinguished from "author did not perform well", and the only evidence of performance we have is one "nice" performance review.

<comment><USER120> \- Left negative feedback for manager -> Prohibited to leave feedback by manager.

\- Required to work on weekends.

\- Denied some form of immigration benefits behind his back.

\- Told that his wife having a job has anything whatsoever with him being able to transfer.

\- The above being a lie.

\- Required to show up 4 hours before everyone else.

\- Punished for using sick days.

I don't think any of the concrete concerns I listed above are subject to the authors interpretation. Short of the author lying they appear to be valid complaints.

<comment><USER121> I hope he has written email records of all of these claims. If so I'm quite confident he'll have a strong court case.

<comment><USER122> A strong court case for what?

Washington is an "at will" employment state. You can be treated poorly and fired for any reason unless it is for a protected class(race, sex etc). Amazon and his manager could have fired him because they put a bunch of names on a dart board and his was the one hit.

I do think the treatment was incredibly unfair and unjust. Unfortunately, in "at will" employment states in the US, this appears to be perfectly legal behavior. As shameful as that may be.

<comment><USER123> [https://hkm.com/seattle/retaliation/](https://hkm.com/seattle/retaliation/)

Most US states are at will; and people still win lawsuits against their employers quite often for just run of the mill toxic behavior, and not just for things as cut and dry as bigotry (although, being a visa holder, he may have a case for, especially since it was a part of these discussions - national origin and immigration status are protected classes).

<comment><USER122> From the link

 _> Retaliation is defined as any action taken against an employee for daring to file a discrimination or harassment claim_

And then for harassment: [https://hkm.com/seattle/hostile-work- environment/](https://hkm.com/seattle/hostile-work-environment/)

 _> Harassment in the workplace is a form of employment discrimination. Unlawful harassment is a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and as such is illegal. Unfortunately harassment can come in many forms, both verbal and physical and can be based on any of the following forms of discrimination:_

 _> Race, Color, Religion, Sex, Sexual orientation, Age, Disability (mental or physical), Retaliation_

See above about "Retaliation"

Is there something I'm missing in there? Because that again appears to only protect one from a protected class. It does not mean if your boss is being mean or insulting to you for things outside of those protected classes. But again, am I missing something in there that is different? Do you have an example of a civil or criminal case won by a plaintiff for "toxic behavior"?

I'd be very interested in that, as that would mean the advice I've recieved from two diffent legal counsels I've contracted for advice. If you are correct, it appears I may have a civil claim against those attorneys.

<comment><USER120> I mean one one thing your missing (but probably also the person you're replying to) is that in the actual lawsuit he alleges racial discrimination with some credibility.

But also disability discrimination with regards to his kid.

Anyways, here's the brief he filed (unfortunately pro se) [https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wawd.269265...](https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wawd.269265/gov.uscourts.wawd.269265.1.2.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> If my manager asked me to come to office at 7am, I would ask for 6am instead, so that I could be gone at 2pm and have a life, with a bonus of avoiding traffic jams. Choose your punishments carefully, aspiring middle manager!

<comment><USER61> But this is Amazon so you still need to stay until 8pm.

</comment></comment><comment><USER124> You're a software engineer. Quit and move on. So your boss is a dick. Invoking civil rights and Martin Luther King Jr.!? Melodramatic and offensively out-of- touch with reality.

The only thing you should have done was tell your boss to fuck himself and get another job. That's it. No need for a 2000 word blog post. No need for a "protest".

</comment><comment><USER125> This may seem mean, and feel free to argue with me and prove my statement below wrong.

Well, which was it? Was he taking his daughter to therapy or working from home? If his daughter requires additional care, he needs to care for his daughter, but that can't interfere with work. If your kids are not disabled, they may not be interfering with your work, and therefore, when you are working from home - you are, in fact, "working" from home.

Why is this person entitled to being paid to "work at home" when he's not actually "working" while at home, he's actually caring for his daughter?

People are confused. Working from home still means "working". It doesn't mean, be at home and do what I want but get paid, or not work as hard.

Maybe he thinks it should mean: I'll get the work done on my own time. But, if the work needs to be done that day, he still needs to be WORKING from home - and not doing something else.

<comment><USER126> Thank you. I've seen a lot of abuse of the term. One time I worked with a recruiter [1] and said I was feeling really bad that day and took the day off from work and was resting at home. She replied, "ah, gotcha, so you're working from home today". And I was like, "no, I'm resting."

(With that said, it could still be a good-faith usage here -- like, he legitimately does work from home, and the therapy is relevant here because all the back-and-forth pickups would otherwise eat up much of the day.)

[1] Yes, I know -- never again.

<comment><USER127> I have been working from home for almost 5 years now, and one thing that I learned in the first 18 months was that it is important to take sick days. In the beginning I would just sit at my desk and try my best to work even though I was sick, but not be able to concentrate and ultimately not get anything done. Then I would stress about it and work extra time, which would just make things worse. Now I take off any time I think I would have if I were in an office.

<comment><USER128> Unless you don't have sick days or your company cuts PTO in half. In that case, in front of the computer or in bed, that's still working from home. Fuck them for not providing sick days and cutting PTO in half. Fuck them for no raises in half a decade. This is the way one can get more money in the same time from the same company without a raise. The less I work, the more money I make per hour, so my incentive is to work as little as possible while still getting the minimum amount of shit done. It's management that sets the incentives. Welcome to the idiots of corporate America. Sure they could give some raises sometimes or increase vacation or add sick time or really do anything whatsoever to show employees that they are appreciated and that their salaries are not going down each month due to inflation. Instead, they try to force extra work like trying to squeeze water out of stone. In the office, it's no different. People waste time in other ways. I'm just shocked that corporate executives and managers are so fucking oblivious to the incentives they create and the empty praises they try to placate their employees with. Fuck them. This isn't a situation where one should be ethical. The cards are stacked against employees and employees need to use any dirty trick to get the most out of their shitty employers.

<comment><USER129> This sort of attitude does not help. I'm sorry that you've had bad management experiences, but things don't need to be like this, and part of that is the attitudes of both parties.

<comment><USER128> Ball's in the employer's court. It's their turn to make a move. The employee (me) can only react. Therefore as long as the employer continues to be like this, I have no choice in how I respond because I'm a human being with dignity and I deserve to be treated as such. On the other hand, this is the best job/employer I've ever had out of dozens in the industry. This is nothing compared to not getting the health insurance promised, being physically assaulted, having to work weekends/evenings for no reason at all and the other bullshit employers feel entitled to do to their employees. I couldn't disagree with your statement more, however. My attitude is one of responding to things out of my control. If my employer wants to fix this and improve my attitude, they just have to make good on the promises for a raise I was given multiple times or give me back the vacation time they cut in half. It's very simple and extremely easy for them. By saying that I should change my attitude, you're blaming the victim and implying that the employer is right to treat their employees like shit, without a shred of respect, perpetuating this bullshit forever. Nope, I will not accept the blame for their failing to be decent human beings who keep their promises and respect their employees.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Apple MacBook Pro models deemed a fire risk banned from US flights – TechRadar - <AUTHOR> https://www.techradar.com/news/some-macbook-pro-models-are-now-banned-from-us-flights-due-to-fire-risk <comment><USER2> So, has anyone here actually experienced this problem?

How are they enforcing this?

Just banning any Apple laptop with USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 ports?

Do they make you crack open your laptop and go to the "About this Mac" menu to pull out your model number, and then make you go to the Apple website to check your serial number?

</comment><comment><USER3> 4 days ago, over 200 points, over 200 comments:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20691283](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20691283)</comment>