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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 i

by 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.
justinv 11y ago
I'm a former intern from AWS (6 month non-tech internship). Now I work in a completely different part of the company full time. My experience is exactly like what 'onaplane' wrote. Internship was great & very rewarding from a career/working on cool stuff perspective. What I saw was that people who worked long did it because they wanted to (I work(ed) long sometimes because I wanted to!). 40-50 was the norm for AWS & it's roughly the same on the retail side. Are there bad teams at Amazon? Absolutely. Are there awesome ones? Yep! "A lot of what you say is right out of the amazon weltanshaung-- its cult has seeped in to some extent." You're doing the exact same thing in reverse.
- wpietri 11y ago
  > You're doing the exact same thing in reverse. Could you explain what you mean by that? It sounds like you're suggesting that he's part of an anti-Amazon cult, which I'm having trouble making sense of.
  - justinv 11y ago
    In the sense that the poster is perpetuating that there is no good at Amazon at all. That everything is awful and that no one could possible like/want to work there.
    - wpietri 11y ago
      I disagree entirely. His point wasn't that onaplane was saying good things when only bad things ever happen. His point was that onaplane was caught up in a cult dynamic. If you're only reading him as saying "Amazon is 100% bad", you're missing the point. Cults that are 100% bad don't work; they quickly fall apart. The cult dynamic is only stable when it provides a fair dose of good to go along with the abuse and control.
- aaronbrethorst 11y ago
  Which neighborhood do you live in? Why did you choose it?
mcintyre1994 11y ago
Just a small counterpoint - I interned at a large investment bank and while absolutely they treat you special and everything's very slick and polished, they made no effort to hide or shelter us from long working hours. People doing the research stuff (the ones who take limos from canary wharf at 11pm) were expected to work them hours (they even exempted them from some events) and everyone was open about their hours. What I'm trying to say is I find it hard to believe the Amazon make-interns-feel-good show (which almost certainly does exist) can hide the massive difference in working hours discussed.

by MCRed 11y ago

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.

justinv 11y ago

I'm a former intern from AWS (6 month non-tech internship). Now I work in a completely different part of the company full time. My experience is exactly like what 'onaplane' wrote. Internship was great & very rewarding from a career/working on cool stuff perspective. What I saw was that people who worked long did it because they wanted to (I work(ed) long sometimes because I wanted to!). 40-50 was the norm for AWS & it's roughly the same on the retail side. Are there bad teams at Amazon? Absolutely. Are there awesome ones? Yep! "A lot of what you say is right out of the amazon weltanshaung-- its cult has seeped in to some extent." You're doing the exact same thing in reverse.

wpietri 11y ago
> You're doing the exact same thing in reverse. Could you explain what you mean by that? It sounds like you're suggesting that he's part of an anti-Amazon cult, which I'm having trouble making sense of.
- justinv 11y ago
  In the sense that the poster is perpetuating that there is no good at Amazon at all. That everything is awful and that no one could possible like/want to work there.
  - wpietri 11y ago
    I disagree entirely. His point wasn't that onaplane was saying good things when only bad things ever happen. His point was that onaplane was caught up in a cult dynamic. If you're only reading him as saying "Amazon is 100% bad", you're missing the point. Cults that are 100% bad don't work; they quickly fall apart. The cult dynamic is only stable when it provides a fair dose of good to go along with the abuse and control.
aaronbrethorst 11y ago
Which neighborhood do you live in? Why did you choose it?

mcintyre1994 11y ago

Just a small counterpoint - I interned at a large investment bank and while absolutely they treat you special and everything's very slick and polished, they made no effort to hide or shelter us from long working hours. People doing the research stuff (the ones who take limos from canary wharf at 11pm) were expected to work them hours (they even exempted them from some events) and everyone was open about their hours. What I'm trying to say is I find it hard to believe the Amazon make-interns-feel-good show (which almost certainly does exist) can hide the massive difference in working hours discussed.