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Ouch. I deny that my comment has anything to do with strength of character. I was treated well, and everyone who I had contact with over my 18 months was simil

Ouch. I deny that my comment has anything to do with strength of character. I was treated well, and everyone who I had contact with over my 18 months was similarly treated well (with the exception of forcing client developers to go "on call" for server issues that our team knew NOTHING about...that was cruel and unusual, but even that didn't require 80 hour weeks, just the occasional 2am pager beep). Our branch of the org chart was happier (according to internal surveys) than Amazon at large, but those internal surveys absolutely didn't paint a picture of tons of unhappy people. That said, I'm sure there are bad managers at Amazon, just as I had an awesome manager. There are just too many people there for them all to be perfect. But the picture from where I stood was honestly as positive as I described. So don't throw around aspersions of my character when you don't know my situation, or what I observed. ASIDE from the fact that I DID leave Amazon and sold all of my stock, so it's more like "the hand that fed me for a while."

codexjourneys 11y ago
Hypothesis: People will lie on internal surveys more often if they feel either nothing will be done or an honest response could be used against them. I wouldn't put too much stock in the results of those surveys. Anecdotal support for hypothesis: Have been told firsthand by several people that they lie on these types of surveys and don't think results are truly anonymous. I'd love to see a broad study of this across companies, conducted by a third-party organization with no affiliation to any company studied. In general, I'd estimate anything below 4 (on a 1-to-5 scale) on those surveys could indicate a problem. What if "3/neutral" really means, "This actually sucks but I'm not willing to tell you that because I don't trust you"? I doubt there are many internal surveys showing "tons of unhappy people" unless employees a.) have no fear of company reprisal, for whatever reason; or b.) have entirely given up on the company and are in open rebellion.

codexjourneys 11y ago

Hypothesis: People will lie on internal surveys more often if they feel either nothing will be done or an honest response could be used against them. I wouldn't put too much stock in the results of those surveys. Anecdotal support for hypothesis: Have been told firsthand by several people that they lie on these types of surveys and don't think results are truly anonymous. I'd love to see a broad study of this across companies, conducted by a third-party organization with no affiliation to any company studied. In general, I'd estimate anything below 4 (on a 1-to-5 scale) on those surveys could indicate a problem. What if "3/neutral" really means, "This actually sucks but I'm not willing to tell you that because I don't trust you"? I doubt there are many internal surveys showing "tons of unhappy people" unless employees a.) have no fear of company reprisal, for whatever reason; or b.) have entirely given up on the company and are in open rebellion.