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Except it's just a fact that your company punishes its employees for getting sick or pregnant. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2291301-aclu-ad.html htt

Except it's just a fact that your company punishes its employees for getting sick or pregnant. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2291301-aclu-ad.html https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2291301-aclu-ad.html Other workplace abuses - especially at warehouses - are very well-documented at this point. Please, please, please spare us the PR.

paxunix 9y ago
You must work for one of those other companies with 340,000 employees that always makes the right decisions, always puts people before policy, always maximizes shareholder value, always engages positively with the community, and always makes sure every single employee and customer and client and partner is 100% happy with everything that happens at all times. You should write a book about how easy that must be. It would be a bestseller. You could even sell it on Amazon, I bet.
- biocomputation 9y ago
  > You must work for one of those other companies with 340,000 employees that always makes the right decisions, always puts people before policy, always maximizes shareholder value, always engages positively with the community, and always makes sure every single employee and customer and client and partner is 100% happy with everything that happens at all times. You should write a book about how easy that must be. It would be a bestseller. You could even sell it on Amazon, I bet. Honestly, I've written some pretty controversial things on HN, but your response is frightening. Bad behavior, behavior that some people would say is more than little evil, isn't excused because other corporations behave just as badly. The fact is that the behavior we're discussing is quite easy to get right: just stop forcing people out of their jobs when they're sick or pregnant. Your response is like saying "human rights violations are such a big problem that we shouldn't do anything about it". It's a good thing that there are people that say we should stand up against hyper-wealthy corporations who are actively trying to exploit and harm their employees, instead of making excuses and looking the other way.
  - paxunix 9y ago
    > Your response is like saying "human rights violations are such a big problem that we shouldn't do anything about it". No, it's not like saying that at all. I'm saying that companies are large, impersonal things nonetheless filled entirely with people with very personal goals and problems all uniquely their own, and all those people have to work together. At the base of it, these are people's decisions affecting other people. Are there bad things that happen to decent people at Amazon? Of course there are, just like at any other company. Acknowledging it doesn't mean condoning it, just as you pointing it out in an inflammatory way shouldn't imply Amazon neither knows nor cares about it. Amazon is not the sum total of the bad people decisions aired out in the online press. Recognizing there are problems but not doing anything about them? _That_ is an issue worthy of scorn. If anyone's company does nothing when people problems are brought to the fore, _that_ is a problem that needs fixing. Amazon's problems are under the magnifying glass in forums like this because Amazon is doing things that make the company exceedingly visible: the good and the bad shows up under that same lens. How often do you read on Hacker News about bad people decisions that IBM or HP are making? It's naive to think that because we don't hear about them that they have never had, don't have, and never will have any of the problems for which you are excoriating Amazon.
dang 9y ago
Regardless of how right you are on those details, taking it out on a fellow community member is mean and unduly personal. We ask people over and over to assume good faith and not insinuate that someone is astroturfing or PR-ing just because you dislike what they say (or who they happen to work for). This sort of argument tactic is poison to community, and the strain of it you came up with here strikes me as virulent. Large organizations are mixtures of good and bad—not equally, but not uniformly either. To lash out at someone because you're frustrated with what he probably had nothing to do with is uncivil and contradicts your moral posture. You can defend vulnerable people without abusing others personally. If you want to keep commenting here, please give fellow community members the benefit of the doubt. Who knows?—maybe he feels exactly the way you do and you just kicked him for it.
- biocomputation 9y ago
  Are you referring to the line in which I asked to be spared the PR? Note that I didn't mean to insinuate that the author of the comment to which I replied was a paid PR professional or shill of some sort. Thanks for your remarks.
  - dang 9y ago
    That and the fact that you turned your outrage about Amazon onto a specific individual. That is a sort of personal attack and we don't allow those here. Every one of us is part of and/or tied to institutions that do bad things, so we all need to be charitable about this. Thanks for responding even-handedly to my rather hot comment.
- andrewguenther 9y ago
  Really appreciate the comment Dan. HN can be a pretty difficult place to be if you work for the "wrong" employer.

paxunix 9y ago

You must work for one of those other companies with 340,000 employees that always makes the right decisions, always puts people before policy, always maximizes shareholder value, always engages positively with the community, and always makes sure every single employee and customer and client and partner is 100% happy with everything that happens at all times. You should write a book about how easy that must be. It would be a bestseller. You could even sell it on Amazon, I bet.

biocomputation 9y ago
> You must work for one of those other companies with 340,000 employees that always makes the right decisions, always puts people before policy, always maximizes shareholder value, always engages positively with the community, and always makes sure every single employee and customer and client and partner is 100% happy with everything that happens at all times. You should write a book about how easy that must be. It would be a bestseller. You could even sell it on Amazon, I bet. Honestly, I've written some pretty controversial things on HN, but your response is frightening. Bad behavior, behavior that some people would say is more than little evil, isn't excused because other corporations behave just as badly. The fact is that the behavior we're discussing is quite easy to get right: just stop forcing people out of their jobs when they're sick or pregnant. Your response is like saying "human rights violations are such a big problem that we shouldn't do anything about it". It's a good thing that there are people that say we should stand up against hyper-wealthy corporations who are actively trying to exploit and harm their employees, instead of making excuses and looking the other way.
- paxunix 9y ago
  > Your response is like saying "human rights violations are such a big problem that we shouldn't do anything about it". No, it's not like saying that at all. I'm saying that companies are large, impersonal things nonetheless filled entirely with people with very personal goals and problems all uniquely their own, and all those people have to work together. At the base of it, these are people's decisions affecting other people. Are there bad things that happen to decent people at Amazon? Of course there are, just like at any other company. Acknowledging it doesn't mean condoning it, just as you pointing it out in an inflammatory way shouldn't imply Amazon neither knows nor cares about it. Amazon is not the sum total of the bad people decisions aired out in the online press. Recognizing there are problems but not doing anything about them? _That_ is an issue worthy of scorn. If anyone's company does nothing when people problems are brought to the fore, _that_ is a problem that needs fixing. Amazon's problems are under the magnifying glass in forums like this because Amazon is doing things that make the company exceedingly visible: the good and the bad shows up under that same lens. How often do you read on Hacker News about bad people decisions that IBM or HP are making? It's naive to think that because we don't hear about them that they have never had, don't have, and never will have any of the problems for which you are excoriating Amazon.

dang 9y ago

Regardless of how right you are on those details, taking it out on a fellow community member is mean and unduly personal. We ask people over and over to assume good faith and not insinuate that someone is astroturfing or PR-ing just because you dislike what they say (or who they happen to work for). This sort of argument tactic is poison to community, and the strain of it you came up with here strikes me as virulent. Large organizations are mixtures of good and bad—not equally, but not uniformly either. To lash out at someone because you're frustrated with what he probably had nothing to do with is uncivil and contradicts your moral posture. You can defend vulnerable people without abusing others personally. If you want to keep commenting here, please give fellow community members the benefit of the doubt. Who knows?—maybe he feels exactly the way you do and you just kicked him for it.

biocomputation 9y ago
Are you referring to the line in which I asked to be spared the PR? Note that I didn't mean to insinuate that the author of the comment to which I replied was a paid PR professional or shill of some sort. Thanks for your remarks.
- dang 9y ago
  That and the fact that you turned your outrage about Amazon onto a specific individual. That is a sort of personal attack and we don't allow those here. Every one of us is part of and/or tied to institutions that do bad things, so we all need to be charitable about this. Thanks for responding even-handedly to my rather hot comment.
andrewguenther 9y ago
Really appreciate the comment Dan. HN can be a pretty difficult place to be if you work for the "wrong" employer.