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One thing that consistently bothers me about a "down economy" is the ability for some companies to feed off the desperation of good people seeking honest work.

One thing that consistently bothers me about a "down economy" is the ability for some companies to feed off the desperation of good people seeking honest work. This applies both in technology-skilled positions, and also manual-labor positions in the case of Amazon. In different economic conditions, and with the ability of sites like Glassdoor or Medium to spread stories and reviews, I'd like to think Amazon would be forced to hire the least-employable members of society, like Ex-Cons, because nobody else would want to work there. I'm not laying waste to Amazon as a hopeless pit of despair, but do I give credence to the stories about life in their warehouses? How people are treated? What toll it takes on the human body? Yes, I do. That doesn't start from the concrete floor and go up to the Executive Suite in my experience... Long ago I remember reading stories on BestBuySucks.org. At one point in my life, I needed a job and got hired on at Best Buy. It did, indeed, suck...but it definitely motivated me to attain my first professional gig.

rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
Culture rot takes a long time. It's slowed by the employees who just want to vest their options and get out of there. It's promulgated by the jerks and sociopaths who see no problem with the culture of stepping on others to rise up the ladder. It's calcified by those same jerks who become managers and justify their actions, because everyone else at their pay grade is doing it. By the time it becomes a real problem, upper management is such an insular echo chamber that they can hardly recognize or acknowledge the problem. Enter the harbinger of American corporate stagnation: the outside management/PR consultant, whose job it is to identify the problem, be thoroughly ignored by management, and be quietly paid and asked to leave while the rest of the executive team plays hot potato with the blame until they find the right people to fire for Wall Street to stop bellyaching. Then once the stock is back up enough, fly out with a golden parachute. The people at the bottom of the ladder? Fuck 'em. If they don't recognize what's going on, it's their fault they get taken advantage of, right?
demian 11y ago
This is capitalism critique 101. Marx was a tech writer in a way, he wrote about the emerging power asymmetries between the people that owned the machines and the people that operated them. I know you guys are not big for socialists authors in the states, but you should at least read the classics. PS: I'm not a communist.
- mentat 11y ago
  Thank you for this insight. I think it is spot on.

rm_-rf_slash 11y ago

Culture rot takes a long time. It's slowed by the employees who just want to vest their options and get out of there. It's promulgated by the jerks and sociopaths who see no problem with the culture of stepping on others to rise up the ladder. It's calcified by those same jerks who become managers and justify their actions, because everyone else at their pay grade is doing it. By the time it becomes a real problem, upper management is such an insular echo chamber that they can hardly recognize or acknowledge the problem. Enter the harbinger of American corporate stagnation: the outside management/PR consultant, whose job it is to identify the problem, be thoroughly ignored by management, and be quietly paid and asked to leave while the rest of the executive team plays hot potato with the blame until they find the right people to fire for Wall Street to stop bellyaching. Then once the stock is back up enough, fly out with a golden parachute. The people at the bottom of the ladder? Fuck 'em. If they don't recognize what's going on, it's their fault they get taken advantage of, right?

demian 11y ago

This is capitalism critique 101. Marx was a tech writer in a way, he wrote about the emerging power asymmetries between the people that owned the machines and the people that operated them. I know you guys are not big for socialists authors in the states, but you should at least read the classics. PS: I'm not a communist.

mentat 11y ago
Thank you for this insight. I think it is spot on.