"one of the best recruiting tools Amazon has is if people come interview on a nice day, and people are sitting outside having lunch from a food truck."
Have they been to Seattle during the months of November to June?
Have they been to Seattle during the months of November to June?
Regardless, I can't see this as a selling point to anyone but college grads. Anyone with experience will probably know that the novelty of eating off a food truck on a sunny day will pale in comparison to other considerations (starting with Amazon's reputation as a workplace).
Edit: to the response below, this was back in 98 or 99, something like that. I've looked up the historical weather, and it must have been that it felt like 70's to me, coming from Chicago (so it was probably more like 50's). I just remember not needing a jacket for most of the time I was there, and it "feeling good" when the sun came out.
Source: 20 year Seattle resident who loves it anyway.
http://weather-warehouse.com/WeatherHistory/PastWeatherData_...
I lived in Bellevue for about 21 years, so I've got a bit more perspective.
It's not really that rainy, but it's grey 9 months out of the year for sure.
It never gets above 26C here. There are plenty of other cities like this (London just had a record heatwave .. of 29C; seriously that's too hot for them. People were passing out in the toobs. Wellington, another coastal city, has people bitching when it gets up to 27C as too hot), but the difference is they do get warm .. for an extended period of time. From May through August (opposite in Wellington cause hemispheres), you know you can put your jacket away. You don't need it. At worst it's gonna be a little refrigerator like if you stay out too late.
In Seattle, it could be mid-June and you might need that jacket...at noon, and then the next day you'll be burning up.
I miss seasons.
"On average London will see 31 days above 25 °C each year, and 4.2 days above 30.0 °C every year."
(I've lived in Seattle over 10 years.)
I have to disagree: it depends on how you define "great". If you think Seattle in the winter is bad, try spending a winter in North Dakota or Minnesota. Or even the northeast, such as upstate NY.
I'll take dreary over -40 any day.
People live in Detroit, Job is scarce. Moving to Seattle to get a job especially if it pays well might be the best move instead of being unemployed.
People live in East Louis and South Chicago, Moving to Seattle to escape the violence because you want to raise your kids in a better place is not bad.
I'm not from Seattle, but I just want to say there are many valid reasons to move to Seattle. I say this because every time Seattle comes up, this discussion of the weather comes up, I don't see that when folks talk about London tho.
Really‽ I'm from London, and pretty much everyone I meet makes some comment on the weather there.
I've had people insist to me that London is rainy and foggy for months on end. I think this comes from the usual depiction in cinema, which is pretty much opposite to the weather in TV series set in the countryside surrounding London. The reality is closer to the sunny weather, fog is very rare.
There's a ceiling made of what seems to be solid clouds 10 months a year, including light rain as the default weather status throughout. This June has been atrocious (we just had the heating on for a while this evening) and last year we didn't have summer bar a week at the end of June.
But yeah, fog is very rare. It's just clouds, always. Grey grey grey and wet wet wet. OTOH you don't have to constantly suffer 30°C with 80% humidity for +4 months a year, which is nice if you're not on holiday.
Because no one else has that ever? That seems pretty normal, pretty silly to consider a perk and personally pretty useless.
Edit: Ok, fine, 2:30pm.
Nevermind, I found it myself: http://www.duckdodge.org/index.php
Although this year it sure looked like we started early.
I don't know what the food trucks are like in Seattle, but in SF they are as expensive (or more so) than regular restaurants. So if I'm going to go out for food, I'd rather go someplace where I can sit down and eat.
It's Amazon, you're expected to both pay for your lunch and stay at work to "enjoy it". Or stay late to make up for having to eat.
Way worse where I am now, 25 minute lunch break. ugh.
Also, the only places around the country where it isn't dreary, damp, and grey from late fall through spring is California or the South. Compared to the Northeast or the midwest, Seattle's winters are incredibly mild.
I do miss Charlotte, NC, though (though recently passed laws make me pine less for NC than I used to). My first winter there, I remember asking a coworker, "does the sun EVER stop shining here?"