I totally understand and sympathize with her viewpoint, even though it differs from my own, because much of this reads like someone who was kicked out of Scient

I totally understand and sympathize with her viewpoint, even though it differs from my own, because much of this reads like someone who was kicked out of Scientology but still thinks the Church of Scientology is full of brilliant people making the world a better place-- that adoration for how great a company Amazon is, that comes thru in this piece, is the exact same flavor that the company cult works to reinforce, much the way the scientology cult does. Yes, as someone who has dated a member of the church of scientology, and had a good friend get married there, then divorced when they discovered her husbands great grandfather worked for the IRS, and then re-married in a scientology arranged wedding, and seen the consequent personality changes and manipulations, .... and as someone who worked for Amazon for three years... I feel quite comfortable comparing Amazon to the Church of Scientology. The funny thing is, this article reminds me of something I didn't notice. Things really were different in the way women were treated. There's definitely a bit of male chauvinism going on, and also women were treated better at amazon, probably because they were seen as more helpless and delicate. They certainly got less abuse in my group than the men did. This is the lesson to take away-- the really dangerous thing is not just that Amazon is often a hostile and abusive workplace-- you can find that anywhere, and you can find pockets of decency in Amazon as well. The lesson to learn is-- and this is leaking out about Amazon over and over-- that Amazon is a cult. Her comment about the PIP being obviously a way to move out out-- shows that the actions (the PIP) have the opposite intended purpose to what they are supposed to. If an employee messes up (eg: goes thru a divorce and their work suffers) then they should be helped to improve. That PIP is obvious code for "we're giving this person the ax and we're only keeping them around to cover our asses legally" shows that the company is manipulative and deceitful. -- If a firing was legitimate, they wouldn't need to lie with the PIP. If PIPs were used for their intended purpose, people wouldn't know that it was time to resign. This kind of mantra heavy, "culture" heavy, ideological heavy, deceitful attitudes from a company are, in my experience, clear signs the company is very much like a cult. I saw it in Scientology, at Amazon and at another company I worked for (also terrible)... but none of this existed at the other 20+ companies I've worked for in my career.