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I don't like this article because it seems like a purely emotional appeal. To be sure, there's a lot of people who have said that Amazon is a shitty place to w

I don't like this article because it seems like a purely emotional appeal. To be sure, there's a lot of people who have said that Amazon is a shitty place to work: not just in entry level jobs, but even as a well-educated 6 figure software engineer. I would not choose to work for Amazon unless I was desperate, period. It seems too corporate and too micromanaged a place to work and the few good things about working there that I've heard like small teams don't outweigh all of the negatives. That being said, Amazon isn't a government entity that is responsible for your housing and they have no right to tell you where to sleep at night. Look at this section of the article in particular. > One worker, who did not wish to be named, was reluctant to speak to The Courier but did describe the firm as a “poor employer” and criticised working practices at the Fife site. He added that he had opted to stay in a tent as it was easier and cheaper than commuting from his home in Perth, although his camping equipment had disappeared by Friday afternoon. This is a guy took the best job that was available to him (even though it's far away from his house) who is doing this by choice for a period of time as he believes that this decision benefits him the most. I don't see anything wrong with this. I feel bad for him if his stuff got stolen because of the extra media attention there: the reporter was probably intending to do something nice for them and it might end up backfiring. But really, what can Amazon do about this? For that one example, that's a guy that already has a home but chooses not use it out of convenience. If they offered seasonal workers some extra resources and facilities (say use of the parking lot to sleep in safer at night) to make their lives easier, they'd instantly be accused of exploiting workers and there would be images of tent cities on the news every night trying to make them look bad.

s_kilk 10y ago
> But really, what can Amazon do about this? They could pay their workers a living wage and not treat them like dogs.
- briandear 10y ago
  Supply and demand.
  - bhaumik 10y ago
    This kind of sentiment is exactly what's wrong with "disruptive" culture
  - gaur 10y ago
    The Silicon Valley empathy vacuum strikes again.
    - AWildDHHAppears 10y ago
      It strikes across a continent and an ocean? And Amazon's US office isn't even in Silicon Valley.
  - s_kilk 10y ago
    Ok, so it's all supply and demand right? And it's every man for himself, bootstraps and such. A dog-eat-dog world, if you will? Here's the deal: How about you and me go into a big pit, with knives. And if I win, I get all your stuff. Oh, I see, suddenly you'd rather get the State involved.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - noonespecial 10y ago
    I don't think you should be downvoted. Its amazing to me that people will spout high minded "living wage" nonsense and then spend an hour on their computer searching for the cheapest retailer on the whole internet. If Amazon took the advice and paid higher, the products would cost more and the web-potificators would congratulate them profusely for their magnanimity while putting them straight out of business with their buying habits. Amazon is huge so it distorts the picture and seems to muddle the thinking a bit but even the largest of ships are beached by a receding tide. I'm not saying that this is the desired order of things, just things work at the moment.
  - ctdonath 10y ago
    I don't see how you could be down voted for this on a forum that specializes in exactly that: supply and demand. Amazon needs the work done, people are willing to do that work for that wage under such conditions - supply and demand. At least people have that option; impose restrictions, and many go from having that option to not having it (while the employer finds cheaper options).
- merb 10y ago
  > it was easier and cheaper than commuting from his home in Perth so it would be fair if somebody who did a poor job in his school days (probably, I never heard that anybody work at Amazon with higher education and even than in germany amazon pays way more than other employers Zalando for example) and already have a home to get as much money to have two homes because one of the fact that his job is too far away from his regular house? Btw. I'm dropped out of "College" (in germany it's called different) but I tried hard to get a decent job and search a place to live (which is extremly hard here in Freiburg) but I got a cheap one that I can afford, besides the fact that it's not big, but it's fine. And I never complained since It was my own fault that I don't live like the rich boys now and "only" drive a "small" car, but some people are just ridicoulus. I know there are a lot of problems in the world but actually Europe and USA are actually still not the one's with "really really" big problems, actually we discuss about problems that some people did not get enough money blabla, while in other countries they barly get any money, food and water, it's just ridicoulus that we live in the cockaigne and call out some big companies because they don't pay their workers more. What all people forgot, they have a job, without one they would get way way less.
- intopieces 10y ago
  Can you provide evidence to support how your solution addresses the issue? Would the wage you propose all workers make allow this individual to live closer to his work site? Does the wage he makes now specifically disallow him from living close to his work site? Would his employer treating him better mean he doesn't sleep in a tent? This article doesn't give us enough information to know.
- amzn-throw 10y ago
  They pay them what the market dictates. Unfortunately these jobs are less than a decade away from being completely automated away. This is sad but is not Amazons fault. The people of the western world need to demand Universal Basic Income. Maybe if the government provided such a safety net, Amazon would have to pay people more to get them to work.
  - krapp 10y ago
    > The people of the western world need to demand Universal Basic Income. Maybe if the government provided such a safety net, Amazon would have to pay people more to get them to work. In the US, at least, we seem to have elected a President with a mandate of dismantling what little regulatory and progressive protections already exist, adding more would be culturally and politically unthinkable. We'll see the repeal of the minimum wage and the establishment of China-style "free trade zones" long before we see UBI.
- matz1 10y ago
  They could but they won't unless powerful entities such as government force them to do it. Then might as well government provide the cheap or free housing themselves.
revelation 10y ago
If Amazon isn't paying workers enough for them to get reasonable accommodation and participate in society, that employment is a net negative overall. We are all paying Amazon to mistreat its workers, be it in direct payment, health care or crime. There is your intellectual appeal.
- rjsw 10y ago
  If the Universal Credit computer system ever works then it could provide a way to track down which companies are over using zero-hour contracts.
amzn-throw 10y ago
Amazon SDE. I know this was not the primary point of your post but I need to respond to "It seems too corporate and too micromanaged a place to work". There are many legitimate criticisms of Amazon work culture. It is aggressive. A lot is expected from you. The perks are nowhere near a Google's or many SV shops. But corporate and micromanaged are the furthest thing from the truth. There are VERY few "top-down" directives. (we call them S-team goals for the SVP team). And each and every team is given a TON of autonomy, independence and ownership. This of course has its own problems, and why sometimes some teams breed awful internal cultures that lead to NY times articles. It's why the AWS console is built with 23 different web technologies and each one is slightly inconsistent from the other. It's why most of the company's internal services are still not on native AWS (though we are essentially 100‰ on EC2). But this ownership and independence is 90% Fabulous and genuinely freeing. You are given a tremendous amount of autonomy over your technical decisions. You get a chance to decide on the working culture and attitude towards software development that makes sense for the people on your team, depending on your strengths, preferences, projects, and customers. Amazon is not for everybody. But it is far closer to a group of a few thousand startups than a corporate behemoth. Also, the SDEs here put a stop to all that Proctor-driven interviewing, though sadly Amazon PR doesn't want to make a public declaration as such. Oh well.
- ta_wh 10y ago
  I want to see if I can clarify your last point, because it'd be huge if this is true. You're saying that internal pressure has caused HR to drop ProctorU across the SDE/intern pipeline? What's the replacement, traditional phone screens + onsites?
  - amzn-throw 10y ago
    Yes to all that, internal pressure from the SDE community. Except the onsites for interns - Interns in the US sometimes get only multiple phone screens - it's been like that for a while. I think they had some issues with cheating which is what led to the Proctor overreaction.
- dismantlethesun 10y ago

s_kilk 10y ago

> But really, what can Amazon do about this? They could pay their workers a living wage and not treat them like dogs.

briandear 10y ago
Supply and demand.
- bhaumik 10y ago
  This kind of sentiment is exactly what's wrong with "disruptive" culture
- gaur 10y ago
  The Silicon Valley empathy vacuum strikes again.
  - AWildDHHAppears 10y ago
    It strikes across a continent and an ocean? And Amazon's US office isn't even in Silicon Valley.
- s_kilk 10y ago
  Ok, so it's all supply and demand right? And it's every man for himself, bootstraps and such. A dog-eat-dog world, if you will? Here's the deal: How about you and me go into a big pit, with knives. And if I win, I get all your stuff. Oh, I see, suddenly you'd rather get the State involved.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- noonespecial 10y ago
  I don't think you should be downvoted. Its amazing to me that people will spout high minded "living wage" nonsense and then spend an hour on their computer searching for the cheapest retailer on the whole internet. If Amazon took the advice and paid higher, the products would cost more and the web-potificators would congratulate them profusely for their magnanimity while putting them straight out of business with their buying habits. Amazon is huge so it distorts the picture and seems to muddle the thinking a bit but even the largest of ships are beached by a receding tide. I'm not saying that this is the desired order of things, just things work at the moment.
- ctdonath 10y ago
  I don't see how you could be down voted for this on a forum that specializes in exactly that: supply and demand. Amazon needs the work done, people are willing to do that work for that wage under such conditions - supply and demand. At least people have that option; impose restrictions, and many go from having that option to not having it (while the employer finds cheaper options).
merb 10y ago
> it was easier and cheaper than commuting from his home in Perth so it would be fair if somebody who did a poor job in his school days (probably, I never heard that anybody work at Amazon with higher education and even than in germany amazon pays way more than other employers Zalando for example) and already have a home to get as much money to have two homes because one of the fact that his job is too far away from his regular house? Btw. I'm dropped out of "College" (in germany it's called different) but I tried hard to get a decent job and search a place to live (which is extremly hard here in Freiburg) but I got a cheap one that I can afford, besides the fact that it's not big, but it's fine. And I never complained since It was my own fault that I don't live like the rich boys now and "only" drive a "small" car, but some people are just ridicoulus. I know there are a lot of problems in the world but actually Europe and USA are actually still not the one's with "really really" big problems, actually we discuss about problems that some people did not get enough money blabla, while in other countries they barly get any money, food and water, it's just ridicoulus that we live in the cockaigne and call out some big companies because they don't pay their workers more. What all people forgot, they have a job, without one they would get way way less.
intopieces 10y ago
Can you provide evidence to support how your solution addresses the issue? Would the wage you propose all workers make allow this individual to live closer to his work site? Does the wage he makes now specifically disallow him from living close to his work site? Would his employer treating him better mean he doesn't sleep in a tent? This article doesn't give us enough information to know.
amzn-throw 10y ago
They pay them what the market dictates. Unfortunately these jobs are less than a decade away from being completely automated away. This is sad but is not Amazons fault. The people of the western world need to demand Universal Basic Income. Maybe if the government provided such a safety net, Amazon would have to pay people more to get them to work.
- krapp 10y ago
  > The people of the western world need to demand Universal Basic Income. Maybe if the government provided such a safety net, Amazon would have to pay people more to get them to work. In the US, at least, we seem to have elected a President with a mandate of dismantling what little regulatory and progressive protections already exist, adding more would be culturally and politically unthinkable. We'll see the repeal of the minimum wage and the establishment of China-style "free trade zones" long before we see UBI.
matz1 10y ago
They could but they won't unless powerful entities such as government force them to do it. Then might as well government provide the cheap or free housing themselves.

revelation 10y ago

If Amazon isn't paying workers enough for them to get reasonable accommodation and participate in society, that employment is a net negative overall. We are all paying Amazon to mistreat its workers, be it in direct payment, health care or crime. There is your intellectual appeal.

rjsw 10y ago
If the Universal Credit computer system ever works then it could provide a way to track down which companies are over using zero-hour contracts.

amzn-throw 10y ago

Amazon SDE. I know this was not the primary point of your post but I need to respond to "It seems too corporate and too micromanaged a place to work". There are many legitimate criticisms of Amazon work culture. It is aggressive. A lot is expected from you. The perks are nowhere near a Google's or many SV shops. But corporate and micromanaged are the furthest thing from the truth. There are VERY few "top-down" directives. (we call them S-team goals for the SVP team). And each and every team is given a TON of autonomy, independence and ownership. This of course has its own problems, and why sometimes some teams breed awful internal cultures that lead to NY times articles. It's why the AWS console is built with 23 different web technologies and each one is slightly inconsistent from the other. It's why most of the company's internal services are still not on native AWS (though we are essentially 100‰ on EC2). But this ownership and independence is 90% Fabulous and genuinely freeing. You are given a tremendous amount of autonomy over your technical decisions. You get a chance to decide on the working culture and attitude towards software development that makes sense for the people on your team, depending on your strengths, preferences, projects, and customers. Amazon is not for everybody. But it is far closer to a group of a few thousand startups than a corporate behemoth. Also, the SDEs here put a stop to all that Proctor-driven interviewing, though sadly Amazon PR doesn't want to make a public declaration as such. Oh well.

ta_wh 10y ago
I want to see if I can clarify your last point, because it'd be huge if this is true. You're saying that internal pressure has caused HR to drop ProctorU across the SDE/intern pipeline? What's the replacement, traditional phone screens + onsites?
- amzn-throw 10y ago
  Yes to all that, internal pressure from the SDE community. Except the onsites for interns - Interns in the US sometimes get only multiple phone screens - it's been like that for a while. I think they had some issues with cheating which is what led to the Proctor overreaction.
dismantlethesun 10y ago