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Comment by solutionyogi | Hacker News Reader

I am curious. If work environment was so toxic, why did you stick around 5 long years? What was your thought process? I have had similar happened to my friends who somehow get stuck at one place for one reason or other and don't realize what they are missing out. Right now, I am trying to help another friend who is stuck in similar situation (not at Amazon).

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That's a very good question! I should have left after 3 years. I did not know any better. Specially when it came to compensation, I only knew about my promised stocks' grown value, and not what other companies would have offered me.

Year 1: learning, excitement, keen to prove myself, also economy had just crashed

Year 2: under pressure, but feeling ownership and hopeful that we would "fix our problems"

Year 3: jaded, but waiting for the growing stock to vest (Amazon's RSUs start vesting in the 3rd year)

Year 4: over-stressed, extremely unhappy

Year 5: detached, not really working, interviews, exit.

RSUs vesting at year 3 gives a good indication of what they expect the tenure of a drone to be.

Exactly.

Amazon discussed an offer with very backloaded RSUs. They must think engineers are idiots: if you offer 5/15/40/40 vesting (those may not be the exact numbers but they're not far off), it's a giant flashing sign with a klaxon on top that you expect the majority of your eng to churn inside of 2 years.

I replied anything but 25/25/25/25 wasn't even worth discussing and that was that.

People stick around in toxic environments mostly because of social reasons. Adversity breeds camaraderie. When you commiserate with people on a regular basis about the shitty work environment and terrible company policies, you build mutual trust tend to become really good friends with them. Leaving those people behind can be tough for a lot of people, especially if it is their first job out of college (and they don't know what they are missing out on).

This is a great point. I worked at such a company in a satellite office. A favorite activity was to get drunk and bitch about corporate, etc. Everyone loved each other, but _hated_ the company.

There's a right way and a wrong way to do this. The military make boot camp/basic training tough in part to build camaraderie amongst new recruits, the experience binds them to everyone who has been through the same ordeal. But that is in service of some higher ideal than "shareholder value".

It doesn't end after boot camp, though. We frequently referred to the Green Weenie, which was the omnipresent malevolent force that made everyone miserable. It's the main reason why I got the hell out.

I've found that a lot of other companies seem to have Green Weenies, and I do my damndest to avoid them. Five years of getting fucked was enough for me. At least buy me dinner first.

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