16 ms·

Amazon has been pretty careful about their appearances in town. A good example that I saw when I went to Seattle is the subtle shame you experience as an employ

Amazon has been pretty careful about their appearances in town. A good example that I saw when I went to Seattle is the subtle shame you experience as an employee if you drive yourself to work. Supposed to carpool / do whatever else you can do so at least Amazon doesn't have to shoulder the blame for rising Seattle traffic. Probably a nice thing in the end. Also their well-known frugality principle, while not really meaning a lot when you consider salaries, helps to stem the "entitled" image that say a company like Google gets more of.

rconti 9y ago
Can you expand on the "well-known frugality principle?"
- broknbottle 9y ago
  https://www.amazon.jobs/principles https://www.amazon.jobs/principles
  - malnourish 9y ago
    Anecdote, but I had a friend who recently finished working at Amazon in a analysis position and he took quarterly trips with colleagues from Seattle to meet in NYC for a few hours, stayed for almost a week, at out at fine restaurants, all on the company dime.
    - notyourwork 9y ago
      One person taking advantage of travel doesn't imply the entire companies frugality principle is a facade.
      - nsxwolf 9y ago
        Their recruiting technique of flying thousands of random LinkedIn users to Seattle every week for fruitless interviews doesn't seem very frugal.
        millstone 9y ago
        It's not! Instead it's part of principle #6, "hire the best." Hire the best, frugally. Their leadership principles are deliberately contradictory. This is ostensibly a strength: you are tasked with satisfying all of them at once. But I fear in practice it's license to justify any management behavior. Source: oh god I interviewed there.
        notyourwork 9y ago
        Sounds like bitterness because you weren't offered a position.
hobls 9y ago
I'm not sure how carefully Amazon has or has not been managing their appearances in Seattle, but I'd bet that Seattlites in general have a WORSE opinion of Amazon than the general average opinion across the USA. I've lived in Seattle for 10 years, and I see Amazon get blamed for all kinds of stuff, certainly including traffic.
- csallen 9y ago
  Right, because Seattleites are the ones who have to actually deal with Amazon. The efforts that the OP is talking about are meant to make Amazon appear better to the Seattleites of this universe than it would appear to the Seattleites of some alternate universe in which Amazon wasn't making the same efforts. That's a wholly different goal than making Amazon appear better to Seattleites than it does to residents of other cities.
  - hobls 9y ago
    I'm not sure what efforts OP is referring to. I'm not aware of any. Either way, OP makes it sound like Amazon doesn't get blamed for all kinds of things (it does) and like people in Seattle don't think Amazon has entitled employees. I hear both complaints constantly. I'm contending that Amazon has approximately the same reputation in Seattle that Google has in the Bay Area.
  - devmunchies 9y ago
    With same-day delivery and the place where they experiment with most of their new ideas, we see Amazon as a utility here
- banku_brougham 9y ago
  Its a reasonable guess, but my onservation is you are wrong. Seattleites are generally enjoying these boom times, where jobs are plentiful and even waiting tables pays $15/hr. People seem to quietly appreciate the Amazon effect, it isn't remarked upon often compared to other issues of the day.
  - 9y ago
jupiter90000 9y ago
To be fair, I've witnessed people in the Seattle area seem to subtly shame or otherwise discourage those who don't cycle or take public/shared transit in to the office, at companies and social situations outside of Amazon. A number of people in the area seem to think those who don't cycle to work, go hiking/mountaineering/skiing/kayaking/etc in free time aren't really "doing Seattle right" or something. Of course this is my generalization based on my perceptions of what I hear around this area.
- primeblue 9y ago
  It will be ironic when these millennials grow up and have children, then try cycling to do the weekly groceries with three kids in tow.
  - uiri 9y ago
    Yeah, it is so difficult to manage that with a trailer or biporteur/cargo bike (e.g. https://www.hollandbikes.com/5321/velo-biporteur-babboe-city-nx7.jpg https://www.hollandbikes.com/5321/velo-biporteur-babboe-city... ) These seem to be quite common in Europe (especially the Netherlands but elsewhere like Germany too). With better cycling infrastructure, there is no reason that they could not catch on in North America.
    - adamredwoods 9y ago
      I've seen more of these pop up here in Seattle, but I think biking downtown and biking kids around at night is dangerous. Seattle is still a car culture.
    - oh_sigh 9y ago
      Bicycle infrastructure is not something that just appears one day. Even bike Meccas like parts of the Netherlands took decades to build out that infrastructure.
  - aikinai 9y ago
    As uiri pointed out, transporting a family by bike is very common in other countries so it's not unrealistic at all. Though with how heavily the US is built around cars, the first wave of people trying it will have to make sure to live in the right places in the right cities. Also, people who don't live the suburban car life typically don't buy "weekly" groceries.
kevin_thibedeau 9y ago
> Also their well-known frugality principle Like subcontracting all their warehouse staff so they can keep them off the books and not have to deal with their benefits.
- Shivetya 9y ago
  warehousing and many other jobs at that pay level are notoriously high turnover and not having to manage the people directly can be a good choice for many organizations. the idea it is merely to escape benefits is not really valid. now the ACA was modified so that self insured and group insured companies must offer benefits after ninety days. the turnover prior to that can be very high so escaping that rule isn't the primary reason to contract out, its to reduce the HR costs associated with hiring.
hinkley 9y ago
Someone taught me a phrase a couple years ago, 'Amholes'. I gave him a blank look because I didn't know what he was talking about. Apparently in the SLU neighborhood, Amazon employees have gotten a reputation for taking up the whole damned sidewalk when they go to lunch. And I don't mean fifteen people taking up the sidewalk, not much you can do about that. I mean three or four. After, I couldn't help but notice.
- piffey 9y ago
  Yeah they move in packs. We call them badgers (all have their Amazon badges out, let's you use that badger, badger, badger song from the 2000s flash video craze) amongst my group of friends. Don't blame them though, it's their small team and they work so closely and do everything together from what I understand. A lot are transplants and it's their first batch of work friends in town fresh out of college. Doesn't bother me, but then again I rarely go to SLU for lunch. I'd rather ride up to LQA, Fremont, eat at the market, or stay in Belltown. So many crowd free lunch options.
  - hinkley 9y ago
    I worked a mercifully short contract there, and the group I worked with was so shell shocked by how painful the Dev environment was that it's a wonder none of us got hit by a car crossing the street. We were distracted and tense all the time. When I see them I wonder if they're having a day like mine were. And I stop my friends from working anywhere but AWS.
notyourwork 9y ago
There isn't shame in driving yourself to work. Where do you get this from?
mulmen 9y ago
I think you misinterpret frugal to mean "cheap". Also I love the idea of the urban campus both from a convenience and a social consciousness perspective.
- ZanyProgrammer 9y ago
  It beats hard to reach office parks in Santa Clara County.
  - mulmen 9y ago
    I ride a bus across the city that goes almost door to door from my apartment to my office. It's fantastic. I used to do the commute across the area by car and it was awful, a couple hours a day sitting in my car wasting time.
_pmf_ 9y ago
> Probably a nice thing in the end. I guess working remotely for 3 days per week does not sit well with Bezo's autocratic management style that mandates extreme micromanagement.
0xbear 9y ago
Supposed to also not have kids then I guess. It's impossible to live without a car in Seattle area if you have kids. And frugality just drives their best employees to Google, which has a significant presence in the area.
- gefh 9y ago
  And Google is about to jump to number two on the downtown sq ft list when it moves into it's new 600000 sqft south lake union offices in a couple of years.

rconti 9y ago

Can you expand on the "well-known frugality principle?"

broknbottle 9y ago
https://www.amazon.jobs/principles https://www.amazon.jobs/principles
- malnourish 9y ago
  Anecdote, but I had a friend who recently finished working at Amazon in a analysis position and he took quarterly trips with colleagues from Seattle to meet in NYC for a few hours, stayed for almost a week, at out at fine restaurants, all on the company dime.
  - notyourwork 9y ago
    One person taking advantage of travel doesn't imply the entire companies frugality principle is a facade.
    - nsxwolf 9y ago
      Their recruiting technique of flying thousands of random LinkedIn users to Seattle every week for fruitless interviews doesn't seem very frugal.
      - millstone 9y ago
        It's not! Instead it's part of principle #6, "hire the best." Hire the best, frugally. Their leadership principles are deliberately contradictory. This is ostensibly a strength: you are tasked with satisfying all of them at once. But I fear in practice it's license to justify any management behavior. Source: oh god I interviewed there.
        notyourwork 9y ago
        Sounds like bitterness because you weren't offered a position.

hobls 9y ago

I'm not sure how carefully Amazon has or has not been managing their appearances in Seattle, but I'd bet that Seattlites in general have a WORSE opinion of Amazon than the general average opinion across the USA. I've lived in Seattle for 10 years, and I see Amazon get blamed for all kinds of stuff, certainly including traffic.

csallen 9y ago
Right, because Seattleites are the ones who have to actually deal with Amazon. The efforts that the OP is talking about are meant to make Amazon appear better to the Seattleites of this universe than it would appear to the Seattleites of some alternate universe in which Amazon wasn't making the same efforts. That's a wholly different goal than making Amazon appear better to Seattleites than it does to residents of other cities.
- hobls 9y ago
  I'm not sure what efforts OP is referring to. I'm not aware of any. Either way, OP makes it sound like Amazon doesn't get blamed for all kinds of things (it does) and like people in Seattle don't think Amazon has entitled employees. I hear both complaints constantly. I'm contending that Amazon has approximately the same reputation in Seattle that Google has in the Bay Area.
- devmunchies 9y ago
  With same-day delivery and the place where they experiment with most of their new ideas, we see Amazon as a utility here
banku_brougham 9y ago
Its a reasonable guess, but my onservation is you are wrong. Seattleites are generally enjoying these boom times, where jobs are plentiful and even waiting tables pays $15/hr. People seem to quietly appreciate the Amazon effect, it isn't remarked upon often compared to other issues of the day.
- 9y ago

jupiter90000 9y ago

To be fair, I've witnessed people in the Seattle area seem to subtly shame or otherwise discourage those who don't cycle or take public/shared transit in to the office, at companies and social situations outside of Amazon. A number of people in the area seem to think those who don't cycle to work, go hiking/mountaineering/skiing/kayaking/etc in free time aren't really "doing Seattle right" or something. Of course this is my generalization based on my perceptions of what I hear around this area.

primeblue 9y ago
It will be ironic when these millennials grow up and have children, then try cycling to do the weekly groceries with three kids in tow.
- uiri 9y ago
  Yeah, it is so difficult to manage that with a trailer or biporteur/cargo bike (e.g. https://www.hollandbikes.com/5321/velo-biporteur-babboe-city-nx7.jpg https://www.hollandbikes.com/5321/velo-biporteur-babboe-city... ) These seem to be quite common in Europe (especially the Netherlands but elsewhere like Germany too). With better cycling infrastructure, there is no reason that they could not catch on in North America.
  - adamredwoods 9y ago
    I've seen more of these pop up here in Seattle, but I think biking downtown and biking kids around at night is dangerous. Seattle is still a car culture.
  - oh_sigh 9y ago
    Bicycle infrastructure is not something that just appears one day. Even bike Meccas like parts of the Netherlands took decades to build out that infrastructure.
- aikinai 9y ago
  As uiri pointed out, transporting a family by bike is very common in other countries so it's not unrealistic at all. Though with how heavily the US is built around cars, the first wave of people trying it will have to make sure to live in the right places in the right cities. Also, people who don't live the suburban car life typically don't buy "weekly" groceries.

kevin_thibedeau 9y ago

> Also their well-known frugality principle Like subcontracting all their warehouse staff so they can keep them off the books and not have to deal with their benefits.

Shivetya 9y ago
warehousing and many other jobs at that pay level are notoriously high turnover and not having to manage the people directly can be a good choice for many organizations. the idea it is merely to escape benefits is not really valid. now the ACA was modified so that self insured and group insured companies must offer benefits after ninety days. the turnover prior to that can be very high so escaping that rule isn't the primary reason to contract out, its to reduce the HR costs associated with hiring.

hinkley 9y ago

Someone taught me a phrase a couple years ago, 'Amholes'. I gave him a blank look because I didn't know what he was talking about. Apparently in the SLU neighborhood, Amazon employees have gotten a reputation for taking up the whole damned sidewalk when they go to lunch. And I don't mean fifteen people taking up the sidewalk, not much you can do about that. I mean three or four. After, I couldn't help but notice.

piffey 9y ago
Yeah they move in packs. We call them badgers (all have their Amazon badges out, let's you use that badger, badger, badger song from the 2000s flash video craze) amongst my group of friends. Don't blame them though, it's their small team and they work so closely and do everything together from what I understand. A lot are transplants and it's their first batch of work friends in town fresh out of college. Doesn't bother me, but then again I rarely go to SLU for lunch. I'd rather ride up to LQA, Fremont, eat at the market, or stay in Belltown. So many crowd free lunch options.
- hinkley 9y ago
  I worked a mercifully short contract there, and the group I worked with was so shell shocked by how painful the Dev environment was that it's a wonder none of us got hit by a car crossing the street. We were distracted and tense all the time. When I see them I wonder if they're having a day like mine were. And I stop my friends from working anywhere but AWS.

notyourwork 9y ago

There isn't shame in driving yourself to work. Where do you get this from?

mulmen 9y ago

I think you misinterpret frugal to mean "cheap". Also I love the idea of the urban campus both from a convenience and a social consciousness perspective.

ZanyProgrammer 9y ago
It beats hard to reach office parks in Santa Clara County.
- mulmen 9y ago
  I ride a bus across the city that goes almost door to door from my apartment to my office. It's fantastic. I used to do the commute across the area by car and it was awful, a couple hours a day sitting in my car wasting time.

_pmf_ 9y ago

> Probably a nice thing in the end. I guess working remotely for 3 days per week does not sit well with Bezo's autocratic management style that mandates extreme micromanagement.

0xbear 9y ago

Supposed to also not have kids then I guess. It's impossible to live without a car in Seattle area if you have kids. And frugality just drives their best employees to Google, which has a significant presence in the area.

gefh 9y ago
And Google is about to jump to number two on the downtown sq ft list when it moves into it's new 600000 sqft south lake union offices in a couple of years.