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Okay, these articles are getting really ridiculous. I just finished a Summer internship at Amazon. While it's true that there's more pressure on employees than

Okay, these articles are getting really ridiculous. I just finished a Summer internship at Amazon. While it's true that there's more pressure on employees than other places I've worked, it's really not that bad. It definitely doesn't feel cutthroat, and an 80-85 hour work week is definitely not normal! The vast majority (I'd say >70%, and I think that's conservative) of people work 35-45, depending on what needs to get done that particular week - which is completely normal! There are some teams where it's normal to work longer hours - mostly in AWS. Usually it's the case that a few people on the team have very high expectations for themselves, and that sort of forces everyone else to meet those same standards. I think that's actually not a bad thing - some people just love to work, and they end up producing a lot of really high quality software. But if you don't feel the same way, you can just transfer to a different team! I haven't heard of a manager asking someone to put in extra hours except when there are extenuating circumstances. Now, don't get me wrong, as an employee you definitely get the impression that Amazon doesn't care that much about you. It's not really a fun place to work or anything like that. But some of these articles make it sound like everyone who works for Amazon is begin taken advantage of, and that simply isn't true.

MCRed 11y ago
Sorry, your internship is not representative. They are trying got trick you into working there. You were treated special in a number of ways. Further, AWS is isolated to some extend from the abusive nature of the company by being a separate division. A lot of what you say is right out of the amazon weltanshaung-- its cult has seeped in to some extent. You're giving us rationalizations for the abusive nature of the work environment. "high expectations of themselves" == code for piling drudgery on people because you won't allow them to create a more efficient process. He downvoters: I know HN teaches you that silencing people you disagree with is good, but try making a counter argument. For the record, I had some contact with the internship program and it was treated VERY differently than regular recruiting. It literally is designed to trick the interns into coming aboard... because Amazon knows kids irhgt out of college are going to be easier to manipulate than people who have been treated right elsewhere. But then, scientologists try to silence critics too... no surprise that the amazon cult would as well.
- aaronbrethorst 11y ago
  It'd be more appropriate to respond to this comment's assertions than downvoting it.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - MichaelGG 11y ago
    Without backing up his claims, it isn't a very useful comment. Insisting that this person's being tricked into a cult, without any details - that's the kind of stuff we don't need on HN. In another comment, he says he had worked for Amazon. Adding such a line and explaining why the intern was being tricked into a cult would be useful and wouldn't have been downvoted. Also, complaining about downvotes is silly. I downvote and flag a fair amount. No one is owed an explanation. I know that we might _want_ one (I feel like that when I get -x points on a comment), but it only increases noise. Comparing HN to Scientology is stupid. I sorta feel that HN maintains whatever quality it has by being ruthless on downvoting. From personal experience, I should definitely be downvoted more, as it makes me rethink commetns and not write as much shit. Not that I have much to say, but I have found that being downvoted makes me more cautious, and I'll edit or delete or simply not post on HN, whereas on other sites, I don't care. It's better for borderline comments to get shot down and have false positives than allowing more junk on the site.
- Crito 11y ago
  From my experience, AWS is one of the more egregious offenders when it comes to overworking workers. The joke, when I was there, was that if you work in Kindle you don't have oncall, but you'll put in 80 hours a week anyway. If you work in AWS, you'll be able to do 9 to 5, but you'll be putting in 80 hours with oncall anyway. From my experience as well, Amazon treats their interns as they treat their regular employees. You don't do oncall, but interns definitely get wrapped up in working way more than 40 hours, depending on the team. When I quit, my team had an intern that was pulling the same hours that I was. What you have to understand is these interns are straight out of college, where they do 80 hour weeks (and PAY for the experience!), and many are a bit 'starstruck' to be working for a brand-name tech company. They put up with shit that they shouldn't. > He downvoters: I know HN teaches you that silencing people you disagree with is good, but try making a counter argument. The above quotation is the reason I downvoted you. Stop worrying about karma, stop complaining about it, and just let conversations flow naturally. If other people think your post is neglected, they'll vote it back up or say so. Your post hasn't even been up for an hour, so relax.
aaronbrethorst 11y ago
Great comment. You sound a lot like I did when I interned at another big Seattle-area company in 2002. Print this off and look at it again every year for the next 13 years. Reflect on it, and annotate the parts you agree and disagree with each year. You'll be amazed how much your perspective changes over the next decade.
zzalpha 11y ago
So to be clear you feel your one anecdote as an intern invalidates the numerous accounts of career Amazon employees? And it's the articles that are ridiculous?
- danielweber 11y ago
  Lots of people are providing tales of their personal Amazon experiences. Many of them are bad. This one happens to be good. The way groupthink happens is when the minority is afraid to express their thoughts.
  - zzalpha 11y ago
    And the way bad reasoning happens is by assuming an anecdotal outlier disproves a trend. Amazon as sweatshop isn't even news (I've been ignoring their recruiters for years for this very reason). Why anyone would even attempt to deny that, I really don't know. The only difference, now, is folks in the mainstream are talking about it.
  - wpietri 11y ago
    That's a straw man. He's not criticizing the intern for saying that he had a nice summer. His objection is to the intern assuming that three months in a cushy program at the beginning of his career qualifies him to judge other people's stories and the work of professional journalists.

MCRed 11y ago

Sorry, your internship is not representative. They are trying got trick you into working there. You were treated special in a number of ways. Further, AWS is isolated to some extend from the abusive nature of the company by being a separate division. A lot of what you say is right out of the amazon weltanshaung-- its cult has seeped in to some extent. You're giving us rationalizations for the abusive nature of the work environment. "high expectations of themselves" == code for piling drudgery on people because you won't allow them to create a more efficient process. He downvoters: I know HN teaches you that silencing people you disagree with is good, but try making a counter argument. For the record, I had some contact with the internship program and it was treated VERY differently than regular recruiting. It literally is designed to trick the interns into coming aboard... because Amazon knows kids irhgt out of college are going to be easier to manipulate than people who have been treated right elsewhere. But then, scientologists try to silence critics too... no surprise that the amazon cult would as well.

aaronbrethorst 11y ago
It'd be more appropriate to respond to this comment's assertions than downvoting it.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- MichaelGG 11y ago
  Without backing up his claims, it isn't a very useful comment. Insisting that this person's being tricked into a cult, without any details - that's the kind of stuff we don't need on HN. In another comment, he says he had worked for Amazon. Adding such a line and explaining why the intern was being tricked into a cult would be useful and wouldn't have been downvoted. Also, complaining about downvotes is silly. I downvote and flag a fair amount. No one is owed an explanation. I know that we might _want_ one (I feel like that when I get -x points on a comment), but it only increases noise. Comparing HN to Scientology is stupid. I sorta feel that HN maintains whatever quality it has by being ruthless on downvoting. From personal experience, I should definitely be downvoted more, as it makes me rethink commetns and not write as much shit. Not that I have much to say, but I have found that being downvoted makes me more cautious, and I'll edit or delete or simply not post on HN, whereas on other sites, I don't care. It's better for borderline comments to get shot down and have false positives than allowing more junk on the site.
Crito 11y ago
From my experience, AWS is one of the more egregious offenders when it comes to overworking workers. The joke, when I was there, was that if you work in Kindle you don't have oncall, but you'll put in 80 hours a week anyway. If you work in AWS, you'll be able to do 9 to 5, but you'll be putting in 80 hours with oncall anyway. From my experience as well, Amazon treats their interns as they treat their regular employees. You don't do oncall, but interns definitely get wrapped up in working way more than 40 hours, depending on the team. When I quit, my team had an intern that was pulling the same hours that I was. What you have to understand is these interns are straight out of college, where they do 80 hour weeks (and PAY for the experience!), and many are a bit 'starstruck' to be working for a brand-name tech company. They put up with shit that they shouldn't. > He downvoters: I know HN teaches you that silencing people you disagree with is good, but try making a counter argument. The above quotation is the reason I downvoted you. Stop worrying about karma, stop complaining about it, and just let conversations flow naturally. If other people think your post is neglected, they'll vote it back up or say so. Your post hasn't even been up for an hour, so relax.

aaronbrethorst 11y ago

Great comment. You sound a lot like I did when I interned at another big Seattle-area company in 2002. Print this off and look at it again every year for the next 13 years. Reflect on it, and annotate the parts you agree and disagree with each year. You'll be amazed how much your perspective changes over the next decade.

zzalpha 11y ago

So to be clear you feel your one anecdote as an intern invalidates the numerous accounts of career Amazon employees? And it's the articles that are ridiculous?

danielweber 11y ago
Lots of people are providing tales of their personal Amazon experiences. Many of them are bad. This one happens to be good. The way groupthink happens is when the minority is afraid to express their thoughts.
- zzalpha 11y ago
  And the way bad reasoning happens is by assuming an anecdotal outlier disproves a trend. Amazon as sweatshop isn't even news (I've been ignoring their recruiters for years for this very reason). Why anyone would even attempt to deny that, I really don't know. The only difference, now, is folks in the mainstream are talking about it.
- wpietri 11y ago
  That's a straw man. He's not criticizing the intern for saying that he had a nice summer. His objection is to the intern assuming that three months in a cushy program at the beginning of his career qualifies him to judge other people's stories and the work of professional journalists.