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(from my peers) the MO for those who want to leave seems to be slacking until PIP/Focus/Pivot (for the payout) while looking for outside opportunities. There ar

(from my peers) the MO for those who want to leave seems to be slacking until PIP/Focus/Pivot (for the payout) while looking for outside opportunities. There are a ton of companies out there that meet your criteria, but you’ll have to do some digging. YMMV

aws_throwaway 2y ago
It's tempting but not really compatible with my personal sense of integrity. I don't judge others though since Amazon has zero integrity.
- 93po 2y ago
  employment is just a business transaction, i don't believe people should tie their sense of integrity to how they interact with an organization that would fire you with zero notice and not even tell you why
  - hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
    Integrity doesn't vary based on the actions of other people. A better move would be to use the networking opportunity to find other high-performance people who don't like the BS, and form a productish-consultingish worker-owned co-op to replace the soulless, erratic corporation with a more stable, humane environment.
    - whamlastxmas 2y ago
      Amazon is not people. It has no feelings
- ryandrake 2y ago
  Personal integrity should not ever be in play when you’re talking about amoral objects like Amazon. When I command my computer to remove a file, I don’t think about the morality of destroying things. I issue the command and it does it. And I know my computer doesn’t care about personal integrity as it churns through its instructions. Amazon works the same way. These companies are all lawn mowers, just like Oracle. A lawn mower just cuts grass and does not deserve or respond to things like integrity and personal honor.
  - nullc 2y ago
    Integrity is as much about the kind of person you want to be as it is about the beneficiary of your treatment. Don't sell yourself short.
    - threatofrain 2y ago
      Integrity is about moral vision. Either your moral vision will become moral reality or it will become moral wishfulness. Reality is how you hold your morality accountable as something more than a story you tell yourself. So on the moral realities of Amazon...
    - tivert 2y ago
      There's not much integrity in being a sucker.
      - SavageBeast 2y ago
        When theres money on the table you don't have any friends.
        tivert 2y ago
        > When theres money on the table you don't have any friends. That's taking it way too far. I think the important factor is the kind of relationship involved, specifically how does a modern corporation like Amazon view its relationship with you. I'd argue that it's fundamentally sociopathic and exploitative, so it doesn't deserve anything better than what it gives. Individuals and different kinds of organizations can be deserving of your integrity.
      - denkmoon 2y ago
        However it's not a boolean choice, since OP has a third option: change workplace. Which is exactly what they are seeking to do and demonstrates their integrity.
    - immibis 2y ago
      Be a person who treats others a little better than they treat you. Be a person who isn't fooled into thinking corporations are people.
- PKop 2y ago
  Then don't slack. Keep doing your work at a high level, but from home. Do you not see how this is the optimal strategy?
  - oblio 2y ago
    He'll be fired.
    - PKop 2y ago
      Maybe. Later than if he quits, and maybe not if they reverse their position like they've done a few times already. If he quits right away he's guaranteeing he doesn't have that job.
- d1sxeyes 2y ago
  FWIW, there are lots of comments here calling you a sucker (or saying words to that effect without the name calling), and I'm here to say the opposite. I think it's good that you have an independent sense of what's 'right' and 'wrong' for you to do, and you follow your internal moral compass on big decisions in your life. Your personal integrity should not depend on the integrity of who/whatever it is you're dealing with.
  - 1dom 2y ago
    I'm really torn here. It feels like a good thing for society if everyone has that attitude of "do the right thing". But I also feel that it's important not to be naive: the sad/harsh reality is that there are people and bodies and organisations out there who will exploit others, and will use their gains to further carry on exploiting. Now obviously, "exploiting" here is paying huge salaries, shiny offices etc. but I think HN is generally in agreement that Amazon is one of those organisations that regularly oversteps the mark with employee rights/respect. If we accept that, then I have a really hard time shaking the idea that responding to them making employees lives hard by continuing to perform above average is no different to appeasing an alligator. What if employers exploit employees because they know there will always be employees who respond to it like this? It kind of makes sense. If we accept that, then all of a sudden "I'm doing the right thing of working hard for my own moral compass" becomes "I'm helping the bad guys because, because it makes me feel better". Again, I'm aware that thinking about this in terms of "exploitation" and "suckers" is a little extreme, but thinking about it in terms of incentives: isn't this person letting their moral compass incentivise a behaviour they object so much to that they're looking to leave? edit: for clarity, I do hugely respect working hard for personal motivation of "doing the right thing", and I have taken this approach before. But when I got older, and reflected, I concluded I let my own ego enable things which make the world a worse place, which is a bigger no-no for me personally. It does need to be balanced off against falling into an almost paranoia of "is this person/group just trying to exploit me".
    - beacon294 2y ago
      Agreed. The game "tit for tat" requires you actually tit if you get a tat. The tit and tat can last a "long time" for the human mind which is not relevant to the game structure. The mind may also "feel bad" about the tit.
- nborwankar 2y ago
  Seems ironic to be working for a company without integrity, drawing a salary ie your livelihood from such an organization while believing somehow your personal integrity is not already impacted by doing so. The two seem incompatible to an outside observer.
- Panzer04 2y ago
  For what its worth, I largely agree with you. The world shouldn't be about milking everything you can while giving nothing.
dvdbloc 2y ago
I’ve heard if you are on focus when you quit you may have a lifetime ban on ever coming back anywhere in Amazon. Is this correct?
- unsnap_biceps 2y ago
  Yes
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- neofrommatrix 2y ago
  Amazon always needs bodies. So whatever ban there is, they will “make an exception”..
  - lazide 2y ago
    Not necessarily for you. To make an example. There are new people entering the industry all the time, they don’t necessarily need any one given individual again ever.
    - darkstar_16 2y ago
      "Amazon" may not, but the manager, VP, SVP etc may. Careers aren't made by having the right skillset. They're made by having the right set of contacts. YMMV
      - lazide 2y ago
        Sure, but someone leaving on bad terms (especially if they’re relatively junior) isn’t super likely to be one of those people eh? They call it ‘burning bridges’ for a reason.
- spike021 2y ago
  This may also be the case for URA (unregrettable attribution?). Someone I know left just short of two years for personal reasons, was never put in PIP/Focus, and then they tried joining a new team after and was told when they left their manager put them as URA, which prevents them from coming back. I've heard it can just be a year, though.
hn72774 2y ago
I know someone at IC level there who hasn't done actual work in many months. There is literally no work because their old team was cut and they haven't found a new one yet. They are just collecting paychecks until an eventual (hopeful) layoff and severance package. Some VP's still need to show headcount to justify their own jobs?
- jedberg 2y ago
  I believe this could happen, but find it hard to believe it would last a few months. The systems would auto-assign them a manager. That manager would be getting reports on their productivity, and would have them in their list of people they have to give ratings to. At this point they would have gone through a mid-cycle stack ranking. Unless their current manager is colluding with them, they would have been ranked into a pip by now.
giantg2 2y ago
"There are a ton of companies out there that meet your criteria" But are any of them hiring, and what are the odds of being hired? The market is trash right now. If it wasn't, Amazon wouldn't have pulled this shit.

aws_throwaway 2y ago

It's tempting but not really compatible with my personal sense of integrity. I don't judge others though since Amazon has zero integrity.

93po 2y ago
employment is just a business transaction, i don't believe people should tie their sense of integrity to how they interact with an organization that would fire you with zero notice and not even tell you why
- hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
  Integrity doesn't vary based on the actions of other people. A better move would be to use the networking opportunity to find other high-performance people who don't like the BS, and form a productish-consultingish worker-owned co-op to replace the soulless, erratic corporation with a more stable, humane environment.
  - whamlastxmas 2y ago
    Amazon is not people. It has no feelings
ryandrake 2y ago
Personal integrity should not ever be in play when you’re talking about amoral objects like Amazon. When I command my computer to remove a file, I don’t think about the morality of destroying things. I issue the command and it does it. And I know my computer doesn’t care about personal integrity as it churns through its instructions. Amazon works the same way. These companies are all lawn mowers, just like Oracle. A lawn mower just cuts grass and does not deserve or respond to things like integrity and personal honor.
- nullc 2y ago
  Integrity is as much about the kind of person you want to be as it is about the beneficiary of your treatment. Don't sell yourself short.
  - threatofrain 2y ago
    Integrity is about moral vision. Either your moral vision will become moral reality or it will become moral wishfulness. Reality is how you hold your morality accountable as something more than a story you tell yourself. So on the moral realities of Amazon...
  - tivert 2y ago
    There's not much integrity in being a sucker.
    - SavageBeast 2y ago
      When theres money on the table you don't have any friends.
      - tivert 2y ago
        > When theres money on the table you don't have any friends. That's taking it way too far. I think the important factor is the kind of relationship involved, specifically how does a modern corporation like Amazon view its relationship with you. I'd argue that it's fundamentally sociopathic and exploitative, so it doesn't deserve anything better than what it gives. Individuals and different kinds of organizations can be deserving of your integrity.
    - denkmoon 2y ago
      However it's not a boolean choice, since OP has a third option: change workplace. Which is exactly what they are seeking to do and demonstrates their integrity.
  - immibis 2y ago
    Be a person who treats others a little better than they treat you. Be a person who isn't fooled into thinking corporations are people.
PKop 2y ago
Then don't slack. Keep doing your work at a high level, but from home. Do you not see how this is the optimal strategy?
- oblio 2y ago
  He'll be fired.
  - PKop 2y ago
    Maybe. Later than if he quits, and maybe not if they reverse their position like they've done a few times already. If he quits right away he's guaranteeing he doesn't have that job.
d1sxeyes 2y ago
FWIW, there are lots of comments here calling you a sucker (or saying words to that effect without the name calling), and I'm here to say the opposite. I think it's good that you have an independent sense of what's 'right' and 'wrong' for you to do, and you follow your internal moral compass on big decisions in your life. Your personal integrity should not depend on the integrity of who/whatever it is you're dealing with.
- 1dom 2y ago
  I'm really torn here. It feels like a good thing for society if everyone has that attitude of "do the right thing". But I also feel that it's important not to be naive: the sad/harsh reality is that there are people and bodies and organisations out there who will exploit others, and will use their gains to further carry on exploiting. Now obviously, "exploiting" here is paying huge salaries, shiny offices etc. but I think HN is generally in agreement that Amazon is one of those organisations that regularly oversteps the mark with employee rights/respect. If we accept that, then I have a really hard time shaking the idea that responding to them making employees lives hard by continuing to perform above average is no different to appeasing an alligator. What if employers exploit employees because they know there will always be employees who respond to it like this? It kind of makes sense. If we accept that, then all of a sudden "I'm doing the right thing of working hard for my own moral compass" becomes "I'm helping the bad guys because, because it makes me feel better". Again, I'm aware that thinking about this in terms of "exploitation" and "suckers" is a little extreme, but thinking about it in terms of incentives: isn't this person letting their moral compass incentivise a behaviour they object so much to that they're looking to leave? edit: for clarity, I do hugely respect working hard for personal motivation of "doing the right thing", and I have taken this approach before. But when I got older, and reflected, I concluded I let my own ego enable things which make the world a worse place, which is a bigger no-no for me personally. It does need to be balanced off against falling into an almost paranoia of "is this person/group just trying to exploit me".
  - beacon294 2y ago
    Agreed. The game "tit for tat" requires you actually tit if you get a tat. The tit and tat can last a "long time" for the human mind which is not relevant to the game structure. The mind may also "feel bad" about the tit.
nborwankar 2y ago
Seems ironic to be working for a company without integrity, drawing a salary ie your livelihood from such an organization while believing somehow your personal integrity is not already impacted by doing so. The two seem incompatible to an outside observer.
Panzer04 2y ago
For what its worth, I largely agree with you. The world shouldn't be about milking everything you can while giving nothing.

dvdbloc 2y ago

I’ve heard if you are on focus when you quit you may have a lifetime ban on ever coming back anywhere in Amazon. Is this correct?

unsnap_biceps 2y ago
Yes
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
neofrommatrix 2y ago
Amazon always needs bodies. So whatever ban there is, they will “make an exception”..
- lazide 2y ago
  Not necessarily for you. To make an example. There are new people entering the industry all the time, they don’t necessarily need any one given individual again ever.
  - darkstar_16 2y ago
    "Amazon" may not, but the manager, VP, SVP etc may. Careers aren't made by having the right skillset. They're made by having the right set of contacts. YMMV
    - lazide 2y ago
      Sure, but someone leaving on bad terms (especially if they’re relatively junior) isn’t super likely to be one of those people eh? They call it ‘burning bridges’ for a reason.
spike021 2y ago
This may also be the case for URA (unregrettable attribution?). Someone I know left just short of two years for personal reasons, was never put in PIP/Focus, and then they tried joining a new team after and was told when they left their manager put them as URA, which prevents them from coming back. I've heard it can just be a year, though.

hn72774 2y ago

I know someone at IC level there who hasn't done actual work in many months. There is literally no work because their old team was cut and they haven't found a new one yet. They are just collecting paychecks until an eventual (hopeful) layoff and severance package. Some VP's still need to show headcount to justify their own jobs?

jedberg 2y ago
I believe this could happen, but find it hard to believe it would last a few months. The systems would auto-assign them a manager. That manager would be getting reports on their productivity, and would have them in their list of people they have to give ratings to. At this point they would have gone through a mid-cycle stack ranking. Unless their current manager is colluding with them, they would have been ranked into a pip by now.

giantg2 2y ago

"There are a ton of companies out there that meet your criteria" But are any of them hiring, and what are the odds of being hired? The market is trash right now. If it wasn't, Amazon wouldn't have pulled this shit.