4 ms·

Over generalized and inane comment. He/She clearly states that their progress was objective and benefitted the company. Every knows that in any workplace, corp

Over generalized and inane comment. He/She clearly states that their progress was objective and benefitted the company. Every knows that in any workplace, corporate politics is expected, but not to an extent where someone gets sick, or frustrated after contributing so much. There is a reason meritocracy is needed, and amazon is an extreme case where meritocracy is not present, and will lead to its own collapse if not checked, which is exactly what he states.

therobot24 11y ago
>> "I accomplished my goals, but I didn't gain peer support...partly because in order to accomplish my yearly goals I had to alienate my peers. I had to tear down their pet projects that were inhibiting progress, I had to inform them of misinterpretations of data that they held dear, and I had to make specific types of failures as obvious and clear as possible, whether that was with a bug report or a published analysis. This does not bode well for a promotion process that ultimately relies on having people like me. In order to do my job, I had to destroy my own political capital." The author clearly acknowledges that they're not only ignoring politics, but actively "alienating" themselves from their peers to achieve the best performance they can. >> "So why was I not promoted? There are fair criticisms of my personality that I'm willing to accept as legitimate, but my performance was real and measurable." Despite these characteristics the author still expects and insists that they deserve a promotion because of the 'merit'. Hence the TLDR.
- ubercore 11y ago
  While reductive, I do agree with your TLDR here. The sub-text for me reading that, and I admit this may say more about me than OP, is that she sounds like she helped to make a culture that would have made _me_ develop kidney stones. I find OP's view of what the workplace "should" be a pretty insular an inflexible one.
- wisty 11y ago
  Without specifics, it's hard to tell. It could be "I was working with dangerously incompetent buffoons, and they got upset when I demonstrated that their projects where bug-ridden / physically impossible". Or the OP is nuts. Or it's somewhere in between, the OP had reasonable points but the managers struggled to understand them (or the OP had trouble getting them across). In this case, there's a fair bit of management / communications incompetence on both sides.
  - therobot24 11y ago
    >> Without specifics, it's hard to tell. I'd agree in most situations, however, given that it's not uncommon for many at Amazon to move to Google, Microsoft, et al. we can make a general assumption that the average engineer isn't a "dangerously incompetent buffoon" (outliers can occur, but a whole team of such is very unlikely). Also, OP is probably not nuts, more likely a narcissist as other have commented. Of course there's many posts out there stating that management is not functioning as it should - OP paints the same picture, however, the statement provided by the author also tells of continuously combative attitude.
x0x0 11y ago
author also wrote I always prioritized my work based on a cost/benefit estimate. Amazon culture always places higher priority on work that direct-line superiors consider higher priority. If I had a billion dollar project in the backlog, I could still have my time redirected towards a Senior Manager's pet project or a Director's pet peeve. [...] I had to directly refuse to work on a VP escalation So basically, (s)he was difficult to manage and assumed, at a relatively low level of visibility, to know better how to allocate his or her time than the relevant management chain. And stunningly, was not well rewarded for this behavior.
- richardwhiuk 11y ago
  Yeah, that was the bit that struck out for me. Fundamentally, an organization is impossible to manage if everyone thinks that they know best. If you argue to your line that you think that the company should do X (or more precisely, the company should pay you to do X), and lose, then you have three options: a) Do it anyway. The company will judge you as incapable of being managed correctly and will leave you with no responsibility because you haven't displayed it. b) Don't do it. Everyone will be happy. You may be right, but people won't care. If you want it done in the future, bring more evidence and suggest it again. Work out what people's objections are. Bring it up without implying everyone was stupid for not doing it in the first place. c) Leave. If you really do know best, why aren't you running your own business?
  - adekok 11y ago
    > c) Leave. If you really do know best, why aren't you running your own business? That's not a good answer. A person staffing an assembly line making widgets may know how to double through-put. They do not know how to sell widgets. It's unreasonable to expect them to "start their own business" because they're competent at their job, which is probably one out of 100 jobs in the company. As for (a) and (b), I also find those outcomes unsatisfactory. There are people who manage to get promoted in corporate hierarchies precisely because they can solve problems. By your choices (a) and (b) above, doing anything is bad, and will result in bad outcomes.
dragontamer 11y ago
> Over generalized and inane comment. He/She clearly states that their progress was objective and benefitted the company. Which is utter bullshit. All progress is subjective. You can make up all the charts and numbers you like, but its not necessarily his / her job to decide on the priorities. Honestly, there's no real point developing metrics if you can't convince upper management that the metrics you've developed are in fact superior. Selling metrics is part of your job. It sounds to me like the anonymous github post assumed that everyone would agree with his/her math, and was pissed off that they didn't. Even if we _assume_ this "self-made" learner who couldn't work with PH.Ds or whatever did his/her math correctly... part of the job is indeed making sure everyone is on the same page and understands exactly what you're doing. Lets look at the github post. >> I am an autodidact (my formal education only tangentially describes what I can do), and a polymath (capable of holding my own amongst PhD-level Operations Researchers, Statisticians, Econometricians, Data Scientists, Computer Scientists, as well as Software Engineers). That is factually false. If he/she was truly holding his own against the other researchers, then upper management would trust his/her numbers and metrics. There's almost no point to "winning" hypothetical chatter debates by the water cooler. The important battle is convincing everyone else (such as upper management)
- gotrecruit 11y ago
  yeah about that last line you quoted, something rubbed me in the wrong way. OP was articulate and does come across as intelligent but people who say shit like they are autodidacts, polymaths who can hold their own amongst PhDs, etc... the people in real life whom i've heard say similar hot air stuff often ends up not as good as they claim, when challenged by someone who is truly an expert.
DannyBee 11y ago
"He/She clearly states that their progress was objective and benefitted the company." Objective? By what standard? "benefitted the company" By whose measure? By their own?

therobot24 11y ago

>> "I accomplished my goals, but I didn't gain peer support...partly because in order to accomplish my yearly goals I had to alienate my peers. I had to tear down their pet projects that were inhibiting progress, I had to inform them of misinterpretations of data that they held dear, and I had to make specific types of failures as obvious and clear as possible, whether that was with a bug report or a published analysis. This does not bode well for a promotion process that ultimately relies on having people like me. In order to do my job, I had to destroy my own political capital." The author clearly acknowledges that they're not only ignoring politics, but actively "alienating" themselves from their peers to achieve the best performance they can. >> "So why was I not promoted? There are fair criticisms of my personality that I'm willing to accept as legitimate, but my performance was real and measurable." Despite these characteristics the author still expects and insists that they deserve a promotion because of the 'merit'. Hence the TLDR.

ubercore 11y ago
While reductive, I do agree with your TLDR here. The sub-text for me reading that, and I admit this may say more about me than OP, is that she sounds like she helped to make a culture that would have made _me_ develop kidney stones. I find OP's view of what the workplace "should" be a pretty insular an inflexible one.
wisty 11y ago
Without specifics, it's hard to tell. It could be "I was working with dangerously incompetent buffoons, and they got upset when I demonstrated that their projects where bug-ridden / physically impossible". Or the OP is nuts. Or it's somewhere in between, the OP had reasonable points but the managers struggled to understand them (or the OP had trouble getting them across). In this case, there's a fair bit of management / communications incompetence on both sides.
- therobot24 11y ago
  >> Without specifics, it's hard to tell. I'd agree in most situations, however, given that it's not uncommon for many at Amazon to move to Google, Microsoft, et al. we can make a general assumption that the average engineer isn't a "dangerously incompetent buffoon" (outliers can occur, but a whole team of such is very unlikely). Also, OP is probably not nuts, more likely a narcissist as other have commented. Of course there's many posts out there stating that management is not functioning as it should - OP paints the same picture, however, the statement provided by the author also tells of continuously combative attitude.

x0x0 11y ago

author also wrote I always prioritized my work based on a cost/benefit estimate. Amazon culture always places higher priority on work that direct-line superiors consider higher priority. If I had a billion dollar project in the backlog, I could still have my time redirected towards a Senior Manager's pet project or a Director's pet peeve. [...] I had to directly refuse to work on a VP escalation So basically, (s)he was difficult to manage and assumed, at a relatively low level of visibility, to know better how to allocate his or her time than the relevant management chain. And stunningly, was not well rewarded for this behavior.

richardwhiuk 11y ago
Yeah, that was the bit that struck out for me. Fundamentally, an organization is impossible to manage if everyone thinks that they know best. If you argue to your line that you think that the company should do X (or more precisely, the company should pay you to do X), and lose, then you have three options: a) Do it anyway. The company will judge you as incapable of being managed correctly and will leave you with no responsibility because you haven't displayed it. b) Don't do it. Everyone will be happy. You may be right, but people won't care. If you want it done in the future, bring more evidence and suggest it again. Work out what people's objections are. Bring it up without implying everyone was stupid for not doing it in the first place. c) Leave. If you really do know best, why aren't you running your own business?
- adekok 11y ago
  > c) Leave. If you really do know best, why aren't you running your own business? That's not a good answer. A person staffing an assembly line making widgets may know how to double through-put. They do not know how to sell widgets. It's unreasonable to expect them to "start their own business" because they're competent at their job, which is probably one out of 100 jobs in the company. As for (a) and (b), I also find those outcomes unsatisfactory. There are people who manage to get promoted in corporate hierarchies precisely because they can solve problems. By your choices (a) and (b) above, doing anything is bad, and will result in bad outcomes.

dragontamer 11y ago

> Over generalized and inane comment. He/She clearly states that their progress was objective and benefitted the company. Which is utter bullshit. All progress is subjective. You can make up all the charts and numbers you like, but its not necessarily his / her job to decide on the priorities. Honestly, there's no real point developing metrics if you can't convince upper management that the metrics you've developed are in fact superior. Selling metrics is part of your job. It sounds to me like the anonymous github post assumed that everyone would agree with his/her math, and was pissed off that they didn't. Even if we _assume_ this "self-made" learner who couldn't work with PH.Ds or whatever did his/her math correctly... part of the job is indeed making sure everyone is on the same page and understands exactly what you're doing. Lets look at the github post. >> I am an autodidact (my formal education only tangentially describes what I can do), and a polymath (capable of holding my own amongst PhD-level Operations Researchers, Statisticians, Econometricians, Data Scientists, Computer Scientists, as well as Software Engineers). That is factually false. If he/she was truly holding his own against the other researchers, then upper management would trust his/her numbers and metrics. There's almost no point to "winning" hypothetical chatter debates by the water cooler. The important battle is convincing everyone else (such as upper management)

gotrecruit 11y ago
yeah about that last line you quoted, something rubbed me in the wrong way. OP was articulate and does come across as intelligent but people who say shit like they are autodidacts, polymaths who can hold their own amongst PhDs, etc... the people in real life whom i've heard say similar hot air stuff often ends up not as good as they claim, when challenged by someone who is truly an expert.

DannyBee 11y ago

"He/She clearly states that their progress was objective and benefitted the company." Objective? By what standard? "benefitted the company" By whose measure? By their own?