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Comment by dekhn | Hacker News Reader

There are several shockingly inappropriate things in this article. In particular, the PR person at Amazon is saying that they would have shared employee's personal records (including evaluations) as well as other employee's termination conditions (which I consider unrelated to their quotes).

Amazon: what Carney just posted was very inappropriate. I am completely amazed you did this (assuming it was done with approval at the company level). You should be aware that you will start having serious problems hiring and retaining quality employees if you post things like this about your employees.

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Regarding sharing employee evaluations, two things; if you go on the record with press discussing your evaluation and says it says one thing, but it actually says another, I think the company is entitled to respond. Anyway, it's not clear to me if the employee isn't on Amazon's side here (angry at being misquoted) so how do we know this wouldn't have been after getting permission from the employees in question? Obviously there's a long quote from Dina Vaccari contradicting the reporting.

As to sharing the reason an employee resigned from the the company, I don't think an employee's conduct while at a company is confidential, and if they are a strongly biased source, then the NYT needs to know that, and then adjust their reporting accordingly.

It may have been inappropriate to "share" some of the evaluations, even though they were so very vague and non-descript. But, it's also possible that the employee voided any contract between themselves and Amazon by speaking to a third party (NYT) about the inner workings of Amazon.

Yes, I think it was inappropriate of Amazon, but I absolutely believe they consulted their lawyers before making this post.

It's the signal they're sending to future employees that matters here.

Amazon just did real harm to Mr Olsen's employability. To be so casual about this is typical Amazon. Also this is classic ad hominem attack. If the message is true attack the messenger.

Jay wouldn't need to attack Mr. Olson personally if the message was wrong.

Why does Jay lead with an attack on Mr. Olson? Could it be that that is the best he can do?

I wouldn't quite call it an ad-hominem. In my opinion, when having to rely on second-hand information, you should take into consideration that individual's motives, and possible biases that may manifest as a result. Of course, the same applies to Amazon.

Short of the actual, detailed facts from an impartial source (apparently not the NYT it seems) we're forced to make assumptions based on individual's personal experiences / comments. Maybe Amazon indeed was a horrible place to work at...for those individuals that complained. But if we're at that level, surely we should consider motives/personal circumstances?

fwiw, the NYT response points out that the quote from Dina does not contradict the reporting.

* NYT response: https://medium.com/@NYTimesComm/dean-baquet-responds-to-jay-...

The impression that I got from the Times article was that excessive workload led her to go for four days without sleep and to hire someone overseas to do part of her job for her. The fuller story from her LinkedIn post was that she was working, getting an MBA part time, and getting over a breakup, and that her coping mechanism for the breakup was to work long hours. Also, she hired the person overseas to scout leads because she wanted to try out an idea from The Four Hour Work Week. So the LinkedIn article certainly gave me a very different impression of her experience than the Times article, even if what the Times article said was factually accurate. The Times left out the parts that didn't fit into their narrative.

They're going to have a hard time retaining and hiring quality employees if there's an unanswered NY Times article out there about how awful it is to work there. It's sort of a damned if they do, damned if they don't situation. But I think if you're fired for fraud I don't think you have a reasonable expectation that your employment details will remain private if you publicly slag the company that fired you for theft.

The genie is already out of the bottle. No matter what Amazon says (or what PR person they hire to whitewash the situation), I would still never work from them after what was revealed (not only from the NYT article, but from other anecdotes I've seen online).

I disagree. Carney took the low road with this response and by posting confidential employee information, Amazon is stooping to the level of the accusers. I find it very troubling that a public company would willingly wage a smear campaign against ex-employees on a blog. I don't doubt that many of these employees had an axe to grind--and frankly, I could smell that when I read the NYT article--but any damage to Amazon was just compounded with Carney's post.

And they won't have a hard time retaining and hiring quality employees if all employees know that if you ever speak about your time at Amazon, some SVP for XXX might start selectively leaking portions of your personnel records?

>But I think if you're fired for fraud

Sure, but this is only a claim that Amazon/Carney have made. They have presented zero evidence for the claim.

Also, Amazon/Carney released information about other employees that they have not claimed committed fraud (nor have they claimed any wrongdoing by those individuals).

> Sure, but this is only a claim that Amazon/Carney have made. They have presented zero evidence for the claim.

Well, they've made a bigger problem for themselves if they're publicly libeling someone in addition to releasing private information.

If you're a quality employee that is not interested in disparaging former employers, as most people are not, I don't see why it would affect your decision. It's an appropriate response to what the employee did. If Amazon had an employee arrested for embezzlement, I would not take that as a sign that I shouldn't work there or else I might get arrested.

> It's an appropriate response to what the employee did.

Sorry, but you have no idea what the employee did. The employee claims such allegations had never been made to him and that they do not pertain to him.

We know the employee went to the media with claims about the circumstances under which he departed that don't match the official record.

No. We don't. What official record are you referring to? Have a link?

Devil's Advocate here:

The people named in the article and refuted by Amazon put their personal story a public story.

If someone "slanders" a business it can't reply with evidence? Must the company say it is a personal matter that we can't disclose, which reads they are guilty and don't want the truth to come out?

End of Devil's Advocate

Seems like they were making a statement of if you talk will will fully disclose our information to refute what you said. I think this was hurting Amazon so much that they are willing to payout the "out of court settlement" and "set the record straight."

The details provided in the response are probably being disclosed legally (doubt Amazon PR would screw up that badly), but it shows really poor taste that they would even respond to the NYT piece which was pretty clearly hyperbolic, emotional, and somewhat cherrypicked; even more so that they would adopt the same tactics of naming and shaming ex-employees.

The fact that it was also published on medium by the head of PR baffles me - why are they aiming this refutation at the tech crowd that would probably see through this cover-piece pretty easily, instead of getting it into a high-readership, Amazon consumer oriented publication? Poorly planned and executed all around, regardless of legality.

The tech crowd (at least on HN) didn't see through the cover-piece...the comments here were overwhelmingly along the lines of "I knew it! Horrible environment". A lot of confirmation of existing anti-Amazon bias.

I'm assuming they published it on medium as a blog post targeting the tech community because they were trying to persuade potential future employees that Amazon is a good place to work.

Yet Carney smeared the NYT and ex employees rather than highlighting the positives (I'm sure there are many, but I don't know what they are because he didn't mention them) of working at Amazon.

Better yet, Amazon could have just carried on being a good place to work. If your company is doing good, important things its going to take a lot more than a biased NYT piece to really deflate employee sentiment and drive down the quality of your applicants. "Show not tell" is usually a good principle to operate on.

Even before the times article amazon had a rep as a place that ground through people in a year or two.

That was my impression and after talking to several friends over there it hasn't exactly gone away. Even people who still work there 5-6 years later give it at best mixed reviews. I don't know how to interpret the mudslinging but I don't think that Amazon is all fun and games.

Show not tell doesn't work. Otherwise there would be no such thing as marketing.

  I'm assuming they published it on medium as a blog post targeting the tech community because they were trying to persuade potential future employees that Amazon is a good place to work.

What it actually shows to me is that Amazon really is a horrible place to work. Splattering internals from employee files onto a public forum in order to smear them (because none of those smears actually refute what those employees said) is the same underhanded tactic Scientology uses to smear critics, who happen to be ex-members.

I for one would never, ever work for an employer willing to use such despicable tactics.

>it shows really poor taste that they would even respond

I'm not sure how to respond to this, except that the idea makes me deeply upset.

> If someone "slanders" a business it can't reply with evidence? Must the company say it is a personal matter that we can't disclose, which reads they are guilty and don't want the truth to come out?

I'd say the real problem is, honestly, they didn't reply with evidence. If they claimed someone engaged in fraud, and believed they had a case, they'd take them to court and set an example.

If they have a software feedback tool with largely positive feedback, they'd show data showing it was an anomaly.

Etc.

They aren't showing evidence so much as providing anecdotes of their own and if that is the strongest defense they have by a top-level journalist wrangler...

Well, honestly, it makes it pretty clear Amazon's position is:

A) We can't prove this is bullshit. We know it but we hope you don't.

B) If you fuck with us, we'll fuck you right back.

That isn't likely to be an effective strategy but they chose it nevertheless.

The same thing happened with an ex-Reddit employee here on HN a few months back. The CEO (?) who responded came off looking far more evil than the guy that was fired. Best to take the high road in situations like these and show to the world how you really are a great company to work for.

If I'm thinking about the same event, I disagree. The CEO didn't come across as evil at all, in my eyes.

And I'm not comfortable with a meme that if you're attacked, you shouldn't defend yourself, because defending yourself will make you look bad. That just makes you easier to attack.

I believe you're referring to this:

https://np.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2iea97/i_am_a_former_r...

I dunno, I think if you go out and try to call out your former employer on a public forum (that they own), they have the right to lay out their side of the story at least. It would have been more evil for them to remove the comment entirely - which is exactly what many companies would have in this situation.

>If someone "slanders" a business it can't reply with evidence?

What evidence did the business present here? All that has been made are claims. I have not seen any internal investigation or performance report.

>Seems like they were making a statement of if you talk [we?] will fully disclose our information to refute what you said.

They don't seem to be making that statement.

The information Amazon has was not fully disclosed, but selectively sampled and leaked. If Amazon was serious about full disclosure, they would release all the records they are using as evidence.

What evidence?

Amazon, like most employer, can fire at-will. And Amazon has the money and lawyers to fight long and hard ( unlike most ex-employees ).

This is a pure ad hominem attack that has nothing to do with the question at hand:

how good or bad is amazon as a place to work?

What would the response be if Jay had casually outted someone as transgender or gay?

"Back when Mr. O. was a woman before the sex change operation, ...."

"When Mr. O. came out as gay, ..."

Neither statement has anything to do with the issue of how Amazon is as a work place.

But Jay's decision to reveal unsubstantiated accusations in a public forum designed to sabotage an ex-employee's future earning potential says a lot.

Also inexcusable that Carney's bio is not the first sentence in the post.

Would it not work for Amazon to come out with more of a "Look, it's a difficult business and our folks work incredibly hard. Sometimes it might get a little out of hand. We want to make sure all of our employees are healthy and treated with respect while fulfilling Amazon's mission of delighting customers around the world. We are constantly looking at our practices and the work environment at Amazon and will continue making improvements as we see fit. We don't think the environment portrayed by the Times article is accurate but it has prompted us to work even harder to make Amazon the best place to work."

It's badly composed, not inexcusable.

If this were an oversight, you'd be right. But given Jay Carney's experience, you can bet this was absolutely intentional.

I'm not sure he'd begin every White House briefing with "Hi, in case you don't know who I work for...".

Had to chuckle when I read this sentence -

Even with breaking news, journalistic standards would encourage working hard to uncover any bias in a key source.

- then scrolled down to see Jay Carney's bio: "Senior Vice President for Global Corporate Affairs at Amazon. Previously, he served as White House Press Secretary and spent 20 years as a reporter for TIME."

What a weird career trajectory. Smells like revolving door corruption to give Amazon privileged access to government.

I wouldn't say its inexcusable. However, it does reflect poorly on Amazon that such an oversight occurred.

I'd say your version would have gone over better and/or providing actual evidence rather than more anecdotes.

Also inexcusable that Carney's bio is not the first sentence in the post.

It's also standard in newspaper opinion pieces to put the bio at the end.

I actually prefer it -- as a game -- to guess who writes the author's paychecks as I'm reading.

That sounds like an inane corporatese non-statement that everyone would immediately dismiss.

The last inappropriate bit reads like ad hominem inception:

> The next time you see a sensationalistic quote in the Times like “nearly every person I worked with, I saw cry at their desk”, you might wonder whether there’s a crucial piece of context or backstory missing — like admission of fraud — and whether the Times somehow decided it just wasn’t important to check.

Mr Carney is basically saying when you read an interesting article in the NYT, you should assume that they are withholding information. Ironically, this is exactly what the press accused him of doing not so long ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKcDUi1-lbA

You know what Jay? I'll do my own trust and fear evaluations, thank you very much. I don't need some mega corporation telling me what to think.

Following your reasoning, if an employee's story is used to prop up a hit piece in the national paper of record (the irony!), providing important context serves the readers, the public, and current & prospective employees.

But I get it, you don't like them. But it blinds you to the obvious, and makes your argument weak.

So you are saying that if an employee tells the public something about an employer that is false, the employer still can't respond to the public with something about the employee that is true?

> There are several shockingly inappropriate things in this article. In particular, the PR person at Amazon is saying that they would have shared employee's personal records (including evaluations) as well as other employee's termination conditions (which I consider unrelated to their quotes).

Yep. Additionally, its pretty clear Carney was hired as a political PR wrangler for the sole purpose of cleaning up messes like this and this is the best he can do.

If it was someone inexperienced, I'd assume this was just an error in judgement. However, with Carney's experience, is pretty clear this is the best spin that could be put to paper ... and that really says something. Their only option is to attack the character of the people involved in the articles about Amazon. They have no data, no evidence of any kind beyond "These are bad people".

For a data driven company, it shows they either failed to collect related data and/or that data shows the article was accurate despite the poor choice of sources.

> (By the way, the tool that the Times suggests is institutional encouragement to anonymously stab people in the back is rarely used and, when it is, most feedback is positive. Also, it’s not anonymous. The reporters knew that and dropped some qualifying language deep in the story after painting a picture that was far more entertaining than accurate.)

Yeah, I'll believe if you if you were able to quantify it. The fact you didn't even try to provide data for this claim causes me call bullshit.

> We decided to participate by sharing much of what Ms. Kantor asked for, yet the article she specifically said they were not writing became the article that we all read. And, despite our months-long participation, we were given no opportunity to see, respond to, or help fact-check the “stack of negative anecdotes” that they ultimately used.

Then provide data, rather than anecdotes of your own that show you in an even more negative light among the privacy minded?

> For a data driven company, it shows they either failed to collect related data and/or that data shows the article was accurate despite the poor choice of sources.

They do an annual survey of SDEs, and they do release that data internally (aggregated/anonymously). SO they do have data. The problem is if they release data taht says "Oh well X% of our engineers are happy with the company" Then when happens when someone says why not (X+Y)?

It's data without comparisons to give better context.

> They do an annual survey of SDEs, and they do release that data internally (aggregated/anonymously). SO they do have data. The problem is if they release data taht says "Oh well X% of our engineers are happy with the company" Then when happens when someone says why not (X+Y)?

If they can show a clear majority are happy with their jobs, that is the strongest argument they have. It also shows the articles claiming otherwise are in error.

There is always going to be someone who complains but data is more valuable than "well, all these people are malcontents or misquoted".

It's not an election. "Clear majority" is an extremely low bar for "job satisfaction", especially when you consider that over the years, the happy portion vote every year, while many of the unhappy people depart.

Then what bar would you set?

I'd be happy with a low bar. My guess is it isn't even hitting that low bar.

If they can show that a clear majority are happy with their jobs, all that demonstrates is survivorship bias. Given their churn rate, this is not a good thing.

It's also weird that this is on Medium and not Amazon's own website. If this is an official company response to the article in question, shouldn't appear more that way?

> In particular, the PR person at Amazon is saying that they would have shared employee's personal records (including evaluations) as well as other employee's termination conditions (which I consider unrelated to their quotes).

I assume from the article this meant including the consent of the employee in question, given that they were part of the article. It does seem a little odd though.

Employee reviews or reasons behind a termination for cause are not legally protected information. They are work product, owned by Amazon, subject to the contract with Amazon.

The comment you're replying to called it inappropriate, not illegal.

I don't think anybody is saying that Amazon didn't check with their lawyers before doing this and determined that it was OK.

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