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Comment by tsunamifury | Hacker News Reader

It seems obvious that this person is aware they don't work well with others, and actively refuses to try to do better -- while writing a self-aggrandizing story about how he is both the smartest person in the room and most everyone around him was an idiot. He seems to believe there was no one else smart at Amazon either, and all projects that 'got in his way' were created my simple minded peons. This type of retrospective naiveté smacks of narcissism.

I'm not saying Amazon is a great place to work -- but its clear this person isn't a great person to work with.

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I wasn't planning on responding to anything, but your comment has enough truth that the criticism is worth responding to.

I am aware that I don't work as well as I could with others, especially those who hold lots of power but little technical aptitude. Its not out of a smug sense of superiority...I recognize these people are very much my superior in other ways. It is probably limitations of my vocabulary and inexperience at conveying complex ideas with common language. I have no problem claiming to possess numeric and analytical intelligence, but social intelligence is a daily struggle. I even recognize that I was probably hard to manage from a higher-than-direct level, especially when I let my frustrations get the best of me.

Regardless, I find that to be beside the point I am trying to make.

I was sold on a meritocratic position under a boss who believed in a meritocratic ideal, and I thought I could do that job well. As the job was described to me, and as I was told of my criteria for promotion, I actually did do that job well. However, I was judged by a standard that was opaque, never communicated clearly (in fact, some internal rules prohibit a more clear explanation), and I languished for several years in absolute naivety and ignorance while believing every line they fed to me hook, line, and sinker. It took someone who actually cared about me as a person to open up and explain how it all really worked before I got it.

My story absolutely is one of being hard to work with, having naive expectations, and going about things all wrong. But it is also one about being lied to repeatedly about how to do my job right, destroying my quality of life in the pursuit of the game as it was communicated to me, being cast aside for people who played the deliberately obscured game better, and getting burnt out by it. And given the recent statements by senior level executives about how Amazon is so meritocratic, it is a story of how even those who rise to the high performance meritocratic expectations that they talk about can get obliterated by aspects of the company culture that those same executives claim do not exist.

I'm not perfect, but I knew well before I started that political intelligence was a weak spot for me...and if I had any indication of how insanely political the promotion process was, I probably would have never accepted the offer. I wanted the meritocratic Amazon that was sold to me.

I've been in an identical position, at a more tradition place. I worked on the Wells Fargo/Wachovia merger and I couldn't figure out if everyone around me was an idiot or if I was.

The best thing that ever happened to me was that I was fired. I did a few critical things during that transition for their IT, but in the end I didn't really matter, even though I could claim hundreds of billions of dollars in new transactions.

Wells wasn't wrong and I wasn't either -- we were just wrong for each other.

> I was sold on a meritocratic position under a boss who believed in a meritocratic ideal

I've found in the places I've worked there's a ceiling on a meritocracy in the workplace. Being the smartest, fastest, best worker doesn't get you through to those high level promotions.

You need to play the game. If you refuse, then be happy you are getting as much pay and good work as you are getting. Or, work for yourself.

For what it's worth, I completely believe your story. Probably because I went through pretty much the exact thing. The only diff would be: I learnt "managing up" when I missed my first raise and so decided to play the game for fun and profit.

Anyway, sucks that middle management sucks and lives to only forward their existence.

Have a good one and thanks for the read. Hope it was cathartic for you.

At large companies like this there will always be politics you need to play to get ahead. It sucks but that's the way it is. The meritocratic ideal will remain an ideal unless you're in there on the ground floor.

There's a lot of books out there on corporate and office politics. Might be a good idea to read at least one.

I stopped reading a few paragraphs in when all the author had managed to convey was how great they are. I also find it strange that someone so competent who wants to remain anonymous would reveal so much information about their situation in the company. What little I read seems like it would be enough to pinpoint them within the organization.

Hopefully enough has been altered that they can't be identified too easily. That said, it looks like they can, maybe should find better elsewhere.

You should read the whole thing. The author may come across as a narcissist at the beginning but that wanes rather quickly - he is also quite honest and forthcoming about his own shortcomings.

Everything he writes will resonate with anyone who has worked in large bureaucracies.

Touché!

That's a pretty bold psychological assessment based on an anonymous post.

They seem to be writing about the gap between the reality for promotion Amazon and how they thought they thought they had fit the expectations - the latter of which involves talking about themselves and establishing why they think they qualified for promotion.

Surely I'm not the only one who can see that section for what it was? That is: letting us know that pure competence wasn't the issue? FOllowing from that: if pure competence isn't what works in a meritocracy, then what does? Maybe your answer is: "team work", whatever that is?

Since we are saying "this person isn't a great person to work with", let me say the same about you. If you can't read someone else's accomplishments without the need to put it down/skim, then you probably have self-esteem issues. Consequently, you are probably not that great to work with. Additionally, you seem to support propping up "team work" at the expense of actual work (so you tend to favor status quo when it collides with competence), so that's a double no :)

Ah downvotes. I guess I am the only one.

What if merit isn't defined by "technical competence" but the "ability to deliver results in a defined context" and by "results" we are talking about "what the company(e.g. managers) defines as results".

So often engineers and quants take it on themselves to define "results" but is that fair? As an engineer these are lessons hard won over my career. I am a component in larger system. What if the alternator in my car took it on itself to improve engine efficiency, fuel economy, or safety at the expense of the job I expect it to do?

One of the most important things an engineer can learn on the job is humility. Understanding that the don't have all the information and accepting the tasks they are given. The author admits this is not what they did and they deserve poor marks as a result. No promotion? ... color me surprised.

Why are you treating this as a binary answer?

Why are you ignoring everything else that has come up about amazon's culture?

Why are you advocating being a sheep? The dude did what he thought was his job description and what he was told was what would help the company at the macro not the micro level I guess his job description should have been: "do what your manager says" ?

Are you maybe going to say that's everyone's job description? Well maybe that would be ok if you are hired for a job that doesn't require initiative etcs. But. Since we are hired to use our brans, we do use our brains :(

How exactly have I treated this as a binary answer?

>Why are you ignoring everything else that has come up about amazon's culture?

I've read the articles, but its important to remember that if you've had a bad experience you are 10 times more likely to be vocal about it(that shit is some straight science - http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/24/your-money/why-people-reme...).

> guess his job description should have been: "do what your manager says" ?

I'm not a scientist but I am pretty sure that is the definition of a job.

Having been both an engineer and a manager and an engineer again I can honestly say my smoothest projects were composed of folks that were great followers. They understood when they needed to take initiative and when they needed to follow instructions to the letter. When intentionally adding a leak to the abstraction was necessary to get something out the door and when their code needed to be bullet proof.

Alpha programmers are different animals. If they are truly an Alpha programmer then I use them like a flamethrower loosely directing them at tough, solo/small team problems. But I've encountered my share of C/D players that labored under the delusion they were an Alpha programmer. These folks lashed out, constantly questioned my judgement, and eroded the team's cohesion. Somehow they managed to do this while also not being capable or qualified to tackle my big picture problems. I afforded them every opportunity to be successful, but in several cases they were just too smart for me I guess so I had to set them free. This article sounds like a my many meetings with the latter.

As for advocating being a sheep. Some things are bigger than one person. Is the defensive end on a football team a sheep for following the play the QB/Offensive coordinator has chosen? He may not be put in the best place to make a tackle or a sack(very prestigious stats) because his role might be more subtle than that (containing the quarterback). This is what you do when you are part of a team. Why are you advocating going rogue?

The impression I got was, he tried to be manager before being promoted. This gave his managers a convenient scapegoat when he axed his coworkers projects and they needed someone to be angry at. This reminds me a little of The Gervais Principle. This person is a de facto clueless manager (by The Gervais Principle's terminology) who takes the fall for upper management's decisions, and his managers didn't even need to promote him.

What I read was someone who was frustrated with their position in Amazon. Someone who made a bad bargain, not someone who necessarily would not be a great person to work with.

What I found most curious was the need to anonymize. I imagine for upper management at Amazon, finding employees

It's surprising that someone who is so smart would be so complacent with accepting slotted into a low rank and accepting of it after two years of that situation not changing.

Not sure why it is surprising. Analytical intelligence (the type that can build systems that save the company hundreds of millions a year) is different from social intelligence.

The author clearly states that their smartness did not extend into the social realm. He cites the friend he referred to Amazon, who got hired and quickly started rising in the ranks by kissing ass, sucking up and going so far as to show fake data in meetings to make his superiors look good.

Smart and intelligent are different things. If a person has succeed up until a given point by just being intelligent/workign hard, and relying on higher ups to notice to get promoted, I don't see why s/he wouldn't continue that previously winning strategy a little while longer. It's easy to fall into the trap of "I just need to work harder" when working harder has worked before.

So, either his feedback loop was lengthened because it was input that didn't match his past experience.

Or, maybe he wasn't/isnt that great on picking up social cues (something he eludes to).

Your post is a prime example of what is wrong with Amazon - I'm not sure if you were aware of the irony when you wrote it.

If the author is capable of developing systems that save the company hundreds of millions of dollars per year, why the fuck does it matter if they are a "great person to work with"?

> If the author is capable of developing systems that save the company hundreds of millions of dollars per year, why the fuck does it matter if they are a "great person to work with"?

If the author is a narcissist, they would be mistaken about saving the company hundreds of millions of dollars per year.

Remember, this is from the author's point of view. Allegedly, he was working with PH.Ds and others who disagreed with his metrics. A man who within his own rant claimed to be smarter than everyone else in his team.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

Dunning Kruger effect is real. A man who says nothing good about his own team (that he admits has PH.Ds that were disagreeing with him) is hard to believe. The author is probably honest about _believing_ that he was saving millions of dollars per year. But perhaps he was an idiot and his metrics were wrong.

And based on my experience, when a rant begins with: > I love to solve real world problems, and in many ways am the perfect type of person for Amazon's culture

You can almost certainly believe the guy is on the "Illusory superiority" side of the Dunning Kruger effect.

Sure.

But, maybe you can try to recall all the other people saying pretty much the same thing about working for amazon? Does that help you judge this post a little more favourably/give it more credence?

Nope.

Anyone who has worked in this industry knows that middle management can make or break a team. All that the news has told me is that some middle management at Amazon sucks.

Which is true for all companies. Some middle managers are absolutely awful at their job. The engineers then blame the company in its entirety, not realizing that it was their direct supervisors who were messing up.

I'm sure Amazon has their fair share of awful managers. But all companies do.

Honestly, a professional would write up specifics beyond "My analysis says that I saved millions of dollars but no one else on my team believed my numbers".

Which is the crux of his entire argument unfortunately. I don't see anything here about awful bosses micromanaging him. I don't see him mentioning the turnover of his team (My sister had an awful boss. Her entire team left within 6 months. She was the last one to get out about a year later. The entire team took a paycut to leave for another company)

I know what awful bosses sound like. Failing to give a promotion to one dude who self-thought he was doing good is not necessarily indicative of a mistake.

Tell me the numbers. How many team members (or what percent) has left the team in the past 6 months? How have _other smart_ team members been ignored?

When a team is awful, it effects more than just you personally. The people who complain with true vigor are the ones who see it in their coworkers.

If its 100% personal anecdote of a self taught self-described polymath... sorry, I'm chocking it up to the Dunning-Kruger effect.

There is absolutely no evidence here that they have dunning krugers.

In fact, their continued employment at a company that routinely cuts the lower performers is probably evidence against them having dunning krugers.

The guy's entire 2794 word anonymous rant is 100% about himself.

If he wasn't a narcissist, he'd have managed to fit at least a few words about how a coworker was mistreated.

The 2794 word post is 100% about his experience at Amazon.

Not writing stories about your co-workers qualifies you for NPD now? Why are you splitting hairs?

He's talking about his management and how it affected himself.

The fact that he has failed to account for how his management effects his team is very telling about the guy's personality.

I'm not asking for much, just a paragraph or two that proves that this "throwaway" account isn't 100% narcissistic.

But again, nearly 3000 words and nothing about teammates or coworkers in there. That's pretty telling honestly.

It's not a disorder, like something that someone "has". It's a logical fallacy that affects most (all?) human brains to varying degrees.

Good read.

This is an important note. _Everyone_ has the Dunning Kruger effect. It is a glitch that occurs in virtually all human brains, including myself and yourself.

That's why its very important to keep coworkers in mind. You can be a lot more objective about other people than you can be about yourself.

Its like the eternal joke goes. If you ask a team "who is the best programmer", everyone will probably say "me" or "myself".

However, if you want to _really_ know the best programmer, ask the team who the 2nd best programmer is.

>> why the fuck does it matter if they are a "great person to work with"

Cause no one wants to work with an asshole, no matter how smart they are. There's plenty of other engineers out there that can build systems and save money, maybe not to the specific degree that OP claims to be able to, but unlike OP they'll work with their team.

Cause no one wants to work with an asshole, no matter how smart they are.

I guess thats why HR should work more to find people with different mindset, ability and should create working environment for them, where is the equality then? Not everyone succeeds in social terms, not everyone is good at amusing their peers, there are some people who do better in academic/virtual stuff, but not so good in other terms, so what? should they die? should they always live in dirt?

My small brain suggests me that's the problem of HR

>> I guess thats why HR should work more to find people with different mindset, ability and should create working environment for them

What? Who suggested that.

>> Not everyone succeeds in social terms, not everyone is good at amusing their peers, there are some people who do better in academic/virtual stuff, but not so good in other terms.

No one claimed that everyone/anyone needs to better in social situations. However, there's a clear and obvious difference between lack of social skills and being an asshole.

>> so what? should they die? should they always live in dirt?

Or they could stop being an asshole? They could try to resist their urges to consistently alienate and discredit the work of their team mates. Maybe give that a shot.

What? Who suggested that.

Everyone has their own opinion on that topic, but if we rely on Wikipedia [1]

Human resource management (HRM, or simply HR) is a function in organizations designed to -->maximize employee performance<--

another topic tells

Organizations will engage in a broad range of human resource management practices to capitalize on those assets.[2]

If your HR cannot capitalize assets, if your HR cannot maximize performance, if your HR hired asshole, who is the responsible? HR

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_resource_management

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_resources

ok so i misunderstood your previous comment, i took "should create working environment for them" as segregating employees based on things like social skills.

I definitely agree that HR should use other measures of accepting an applicant other than possible performance. But that doesn't mean that someone being an asshole is HR's fault. You're basically saying that there is consistent negative correlation between performance and social skills - which is not true.

You're basically saying that there is consistent negative correlation between performance and social skills - which is not true

I am not claiming any correlation between performance and social skills, I want to say, if performance is good but employee sucks social skills, then HR should help them in some way, maybe guy has a vision for future, but because he lacks social skill, he shouldn't be suppressed.

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