10 ms·

> “One day I’m working extra hard and the supervisor just stopped me after I took a quick break and kept saying, ‘Smith, go back to work, go back to work,’” Smi

by warent 5y ago

> “One day I’m working extra hard and the supervisor just stopped me after I took a quick break and kept saying, ‘Smith, go back to work, go back to work,’” Smith said. “I’m thinking, I’m over here, hot, about to faint, working extra hard.” Imagine behaving this way. How do you look in the mirror and feel anything but revulsion? Happy that this guy's shitty behavior and Amazon's toxic culture is being put on blast like this. Hope Daequan gets a massive settlement.

it_does_follow 5y ago
I once lead a team through a massive layoff during the pandemic, fought with leadership to save their jobs (and succeeded), and focused on making sure their work was balanced enough to keep them distracted from what was going on but not a source of stress. My top priority was to ensure that they did not suffer undue stress during the incredibly difficult period of early pandemic coupled with layoffs, focused on making their work as meaningful as possible for them. We still posted some record revenue months. I was fired for this, ultimately because I was not aggressive enough with the team. You get toxic managers like this in toxic companies because it is the only way to not only get promoted but to survive. I recognized early in the pandemic that I could either be the person I wanted to be, the leader I wanted to be, or have a job in 6 months. I chose the former, but don't blame people who are forced to choose the latter. edit: I should clarify that I do mean forced to choose the latter in that last sentence. There is a difference between a 30k/year worker being moved to a 45k/year manager role and needing to keep that job to survive and a 200k/year software engineer choosing to behave this way for a 250k/year job.
- luckydata 5y ago
  I do blame them. Until we have stronger labor movement in this country we'll be at the mercy of this stuff, no matter how "special" or irreplaceable you think you are.
  - pg_1234 5y ago
    This ... and as to blame ... at some point you have to admit the managers are just being evil for the money.
capableweb 5y ago
> Imagine behaving this way. How do you look in the mirror and feel anything but revulsion? Happy that this guy's shitty behavior and Amazon's toxic culture is being put on blast like this. Hope Daequan gets a massive settlement. Because from their perspective, things don't look like that. From their point of view, it probably goes something like this: "The worker is supposed to work extra hard, but now they are resting, AGAIN! Now I'm gonna say something so they finally start working again" without considering any other perspective about situations. It's really hard to read people without speaking to them, and most middle-managers just try to read people even though most people are honestly pretty shit at doing that, so they misread situations all the time. In this particular scenario, notice it says "I'm thinking..." instead of "I said...". Not sure why they didn't tell their supervisor "I'm hot and about to faint", but knowing the average supervisor at Amazon, I do understand why you wouldn't talk about it.
- diputsmonro 5y ago
  I'm not at all surprised that an overworked employee wouldn't talk back to their unreasonable boss. They need their next paycheck to eat and pay rent, and they don't want to risk getting immediately fired for "insubordination", or whatever other bullshit a power hungry sociopath might pull out of their ass in retaliation.
- geofft 5y ago
  But... isn't that the job of a manager? As an SRE it's my job to make sure the computers I'm responsible for are working properly, and to actively pay attention and gather information about whether that's true. If there's too much load on the site for our current set of servers to handle, even if it's not my job to actually order more, it's certainly my job to say something to the people who can. If we're okay now but we won't be in a month, that's also my job. And if a disk fills up on a server and it stops working, "Oh, I wasn't monitoring disk space, and the program never logged anything" is no excuse. Nor is it an excuse that I'm not good at guessing what problems are likely to happen; that, also, is my job and why they look for people with experience doing this job successfully. Isn't there all the more reason that someone whose job is looking after people and not computers should figure out if they're overworked or about to be overworked and if they're in comfortable, humane conditions?
to11mtm 5y ago
I worked for a guy like that once. I was already under so much stress from work that I had part of my intestines bind up for a week, the doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong with me so they decided to give me predinsone... I felt sick so I went home on a Saturday, after 'only' hitting 50 hours for the week. My boss called to yell at me and tell me to come back to work, the next thing I clearly remember was being in a hospital. I still had to work for that POS for 2 years after that happened. For a long time I blamed myself, until a year and half later when my mother was within an inch of life in the hospital and I wanted to leave early and see her, he said "Didn't I already give you a day off for that?" As for what kind of person that is? Narccists. And they can be very damaging to their employees if they aren't rooted out from management quickly.
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  I had a fairly similar physical reaction to overwork, interestingly. Thankfully an ER tech took a bit of extra time to ask me if my stress levels had changed recently. This led to rapid re-evaluation of my life choices, and me quitting shortly afterwards.
- hutzlibu 5y ago
  "And they can be very damaging to their employees if they aren't rooted out from management quickly." But they can be very useful to burn through people to get shit done and raise profits short term. A timemachine would be interesting, to compare different times and see whether narcism is deep rooted in our genetics, or if it is our culture that promotes them .
  - MaxBarraclough 5y ago
    A deliberate strategy of employee burnout and high turnover isn't necessarily only viable in the short term, especially if the work is menial such that there's little time invested in onboarding.
  - biohax2015 5y ago
    Narcissists make excellent executives but terrible managers.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
MilnerRoute 5y ago
Here's a URL for the quote. (It's from an article headlined "A Homeless Amazon Worker Tried to Organize a Union. Then Amazon Fired Him.") https://www.nysfocus.com/2021/11/23/a-homeless-amazon-worker-tried-to-organize-a-union-then-amazon-fired-him/ https://www.nysfocus.com/2021/11/23/a-homeless-amazon-worker...
trhway 5y ago
I have always told such managers to eat sh1t right there. Never had any repercussions, they need us more. We can do the work, they can't.
- AussieWog93 5y ago
  I'm guessing you have some specialised skill and are difficult to replace? For someone unskilled, that's a one way ticket to never getting a shift again.
  - trhway 5y ago
    No, i just do my work, whatever it is, starting from summer work in collective farm fields after 6th grade back in the 1985, construction in 1987, Navy yards in 1988, construction during University summers 90-92, and various programming gigs starting 90. At any place, including very good paying job in Western company in 1999 in Russia with the crisis around, any attempts by the management to arbitrarily tighten the screws - i'd visibly and prominently challenge and object to it, and few times it would be i'd really be ready to leave. The management would always back down. We are all pretty much aware what things are reasonable and what aren't, and taking unreasonable position is what makes you already half-lose whatever side you're on.
    - AussieWog93 5y ago
      That sounds awesome man. You don't happen to live in Melbourne and be looking for a job, are you?
      - trhway 5y ago
        Thanks, i'm in Bay Area :) Australia is great, and it has been popular with Russian/Ukranian/etc immigrants too. I read some are trying to start a space port there.
steelstraw 5y ago
What are the odds that's a non-bias, accurate retelling of the event? "Here I was, just working super duper extra hard..."
sorry_outta_gas 5y ago
I'm thankful for his sacfarice which I benifitted from though my RSUs, I've been able to retire early, afford a sugarbaby and buy a nice house
refurb 5y ago
What’s Amazon’s side? I currently work with someone in a professional job who does an amazing job of dodging work. “Did you get that document signed off last week?” - “Oh, I had to take my cat to the vet as it wasn’t drinking water” - “ok, but this week?” - “definitely”. Rinse and repeated for a couple months. Every week is a new excuse. If you asked her she’s say “I’m working extra hard hard” and “management should understand”. But no, she’s just great at dodging work and coming up with excuses. She can play the system well. I’m not saying this person wasn’t illegally fired and Amazon is wrong, but it would be odd to not hear Amazon’s side.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > What’s Amazon’s side? The thing that was found to be unsupported by the evidence.
  - refurb 5y ago
    No, the article says “a complaint will be filed”. When the government charges someone with a crime and someone asks “whats the other side”, do you say the same thing? This would go to trial if not settled. Only then would the labor boards decision be based on an actual weighing of all evidence.
    - morelisp 5y ago
      Is criminal court the only meaningful evidentiary standard? Even then there's appeals, so something cannot be known until the Supreme Court rules on it? But even then, they can change their minds later... Arbitration and mediation is a far more common way to deal with disagreements in civil society, and that's what the board has done here.
      - refurb 5y ago
        No actual fault has been found yet, at least not any more than a prosecutor’s office saying “we found even evidence to press charges”. Hardly a finding of guilt.

by warent 5y ago

it_does_follow 5y ago

I once lead a team through a massive layoff during the pandemic, fought with leadership to save their jobs (and succeeded), and focused on making sure their work was balanced enough to keep them distracted from what was going on but not a source of stress. My top priority was to ensure that they did not suffer undue stress during the incredibly difficult period of early pandemic coupled with layoffs, focused on making their work as meaningful as possible for them. We still posted some record revenue months. I was fired for this, ultimately because I was not aggressive enough with the team. You get toxic managers like this in toxic companies because it is the only way to not only get promoted but to survive. I recognized early in the pandemic that I could either be the person I wanted to be, the leader I wanted to be, or have a job in 6 months. I chose the former, but don't blame people who are forced to choose the latter. edit: I should clarify that I do mean forced to choose the latter in that last sentence. There is a difference between a 30k/year worker being moved to a 45k/year manager role and needing to keep that job to survive and a 200k/year software engineer choosing to behave this way for a 250k/year job.

luckydata 5y ago
I do blame them. Until we have stronger labor movement in this country we'll be at the mercy of this stuff, no matter how "special" or irreplaceable you think you are.
- pg_1234 5y ago
  This ... and as to blame ... at some point you have to admit the managers are just being evil for the money.

capableweb 5y ago

> Imagine behaving this way. How do you look in the mirror and feel anything but revulsion? Happy that this guy's shitty behavior and Amazon's toxic culture is being put on blast like this. Hope Daequan gets a massive settlement. Because from their perspective, things don't look like that. From their point of view, it probably goes something like this: "The worker is supposed to work extra hard, but now they are resting, AGAIN! Now I'm gonna say something so they finally start working again" without considering any other perspective about situations. It's really hard to read people without speaking to them, and most middle-managers just try to read people even though most people are honestly pretty shit at doing that, so they misread situations all the time. In this particular scenario, notice it says "I'm thinking..." instead of "I said...". Not sure why they didn't tell their supervisor "I'm hot and about to faint", but knowing the average supervisor at Amazon, I do understand why you wouldn't talk about it.

diputsmonro 5y ago
I'm not at all surprised that an overworked employee wouldn't talk back to their unreasonable boss. They need their next paycheck to eat and pay rent, and they don't want to risk getting immediately fired for "insubordination", or whatever other bullshit a power hungry sociopath might pull out of their ass in retaliation.
geofft 5y ago
But... isn't that the job of a manager? As an SRE it's my job to make sure the computers I'm responsible for are working properly, and to actively pay attention and gather information about whether that's true. If there's too much load on the site for our current set of servers to handle, even if it's not my job to actually order more, it's certainly my job to say something to the people who can. If we're okay now but we won't be in a month, that's also my job. And if a disk fills up on a server and it stops working, "Oh, I wasn't monitoring disk space, and the program never logged anything" is no excuse. Nor is it an excuse that I'm not good at guessing what problems are likely to happen; that, also, is my job and why they look for people with experience doing this job successfully. Isn't there all the more reason that someone whose job is looking after people and not computers should figure out if they're overworked or about to be overworked and if they're in comfortable, humane conditions?

to11mtm 5y ago

I worked for a guy like that once. I was already under so much stress from work that I had part of my intestines bind up for a week, the doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong with me so they decided to give me predinsone... I felt sick so I went home on a Saturday, after 'only' hitting 50 hours for the week. My boss called to yell at me and tell me to come back to work, the next thing I clearly remember was being in a hospital. I still had to work for that POS for 2 years after that happened. For a long time I blamed myself, until a year and half later when my mother was within an inch of life in the hospital and I wanted to leave early and see her, he said "Didn't I already give you a day off for that?" As for what kind of person that is? Narccists. And they can be very damaging to their employees if they aren't rooted out from management quickly.

ashtonkem 5y ago
I had a fairly similar physical reaction to overwork, interestingly. Thankfully an ER tech took a bit of extra time to ask me if my stress levels had changed recently. This led to rapid re-evaluation of my life choices, and me quitting shortly afterwards.
hutzlibu 5y ago
"And they can be very damaging to their employees if they aren't rooted out from management quickly." But they can be very useful to burn through people to get shit done and raise profits short term. A timemachine would be interesting, to compare different times and see whether narcism is deep rooted in our genetics, or if it is our culture that promotes them .
- MaxBarraclough 5y ago
  A deliberate strategy of employee burnout and high turnover isn't necessarily only viable in the short term, especially if the work is menial such that there's little time invested in onboarding.
- biohax2015 5y ago
  Narcissists make excellent executives but terrible managers.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

MilnerRoute 5y ago

Here's a URL for the quote. (It's from an article headlined "A Homeless Amazon Worker Tried to Organize a Union. Then Amazon Fired Him.") https://www.nysfocus.com/2021/11/23/a-homeless-amazon-worker-tried-to-organize-a-union-then-amazon-fired-him/ https://www.nysfocus.com/2021/11/23/a-homeless-amazon-worker...

trhway 5y ago

I have always told such managers to eat sh1t right there. Never had any repercussions, they need us more. We can do the work, they can't.

AussieWog93 5y ago
I'm guessing you have some specialised skill and are difficult to replace? For someone unskilled, that's a one way ticket to never getting a shift again.
- trhway 5y ago
  No, i just do my work, whatever it is, starting from summer work in collective farm fields after 6th grade back in the 1985, construction in 1987, Navy yards in 1988, construction during University summers 90-92, and various programming gigs starting 90. At any place, including very good paying job in Western company in 1999 in Russia with the crisis around, any attempts by the management to arbitrarily tighten the screws - i'd visibly and prominently challenge and object to it, and few times it would be i'd really be ready to leave. The management would always back down. We are all pretty much aware what things are reasonable and what aren't, and taking unreasonable position is what makes you already half-lose whatever side you're on.
  - AussieWog93 5y ago
    That sounds awesome man. You don't happen to live in Melbourne and be looking for a job, are you?
    - trhway 5y ago
      Thanks, i'm in Bay Area :) Australia is great, and it has been popular with Russian/Ukranian/etc immigrants too. I read some are trying to start a space port there.

steelstraw 5y ago

What are the odds that's a non-bias, accurate retelling of the event? "Here I was, just working super duper extra hard..."

sorry_outta_gas 5y ago

I'm thankful for his sacfarice which I benifitted from though my RSUs, I've been able to retire early, afford a sugarbaby and buy a nice house

refurb 5y ago

What’s Amazon’s side? I currently work with someone in a professional job who does an amazing job of dodging work. “Did you get that document signed off last week?” - “Oh, I had to take my cat to the vet as it wasn’t drinking water” - “ok, but this week?” - “definitely”. Rinse and repeated for a couple months. Every week is a new excuse. If you asked her she’s say “I’m working extra hard hard” and “management should understand”. But no, she’s just great at dodging work and coming up with excuses. She can play the system well. I’m not saying this person wasn’t illegally fired and Amazon is wrong, but it would be odd to not hear Amazon’s side.

dragonwriter 5y ago
> What’s Amazon’s side? The thing that was found to be unsupported by the evidence.
- refurb 5y ago
  No, the article says “a complaint will be filed”. When the government charges someone with a crime and someone asks “whats the other side”, do you say the same thing? This would go to trial if not settled. Only then would the labor boards decision be based on an actual weighing of all evidence.
  - morelisp 5y ago
    Is criminal court the only meaningful evidentiary standard? Even then there's appeals, so something cannot be known until the Supreme Court rules on it? But even then, they can change their minds later... Arbitration and mediation is a far more common way to deal with disagreements in civil society, and that's what the board has done here.
    - refurb 5y ago
      No actual fault has been found yet, at least not any more than a prosecutor’s office saying “we found even evidence to press charges”. Hardly a finding of guilt.