Hacker News Reader

Comment by amazon_employee | Hacker News Reader

Sorry to hear that. I work for AWS, and I like to think we're pretty organized. I'm not sure what part of your experience was "unorganized". You probably caught the team on a busy day or something.

LPs are just guidelines for what the company "wants" out of its employees. They're used heavily in hiring to weed out small thinkers and bad culture fits, and a bit in performance reviews. Outside of that, nobody really cares about them. You get upper management worship anywhere. It's the same thing as obsessing over celebrities.

Judging corporate based on fulfillment center working conditions isn't fair. One is a $15k job, and the other is a $115k job.

View on HN

> I'm not sure what part of your experience was "unorganized".

Ok let's see, we'll need a bullet point list for it:

* Agreed on a time for the phone interview. They didn't call. Sat around waiting for an hour like an idiot without anyone even sending an email / text / or calling to apologize. Ok, that's fine stuff happens, understand. No bid deal...

* Scheduled on-site interview. Show up. Manager, the main person who was supposed to interview me, wasn't there. I thought ok, this is getting ridiculous. But fine, big company, yadda yadda.

* People who interviewed me didn't seem at all interested in my previous projects or my experience. I suspect they never actually read my resume before the interview. Asking ridiculous questions like "tell me about your biggest failure..."

* Lunchtime comes. I thought, well at least I'll get to meet some of the team members maybe others are a bit more friendly. So I sit there and wait,... and... nothing. They apparently forgot. After about 30 minutes I started wondering around the hallways hoping someone would stop me and wonder if I was lost. Maybe I would have asked them how they liked working there and such. Nobody even apologized for it either.

* Recruiter before the interview swore they'd get back to me in 3 days, as I already had a few offers on hand. It took them 3 weeks! I decided not to remind them just to see how long they'll take.

I don't know if I'd call that just a "busy day". Seems like a systemic problem to me...

> Judging corporate based on fulfillment center working conditions isn't fair. One is a $15k job, and the other is a $115k job

Yes it is. How a company treats all of its employees tells something about the company. How it treats manager, and top brass, CEOs, developers, down to janitors. All of that says a lot about a company.

When I was in high school my father made me work as a janitor in our family's office building. At that point I had been an independent IT consultant a few years, so the position frankly felt like an embarrassment and a waste of time. There was also a condition; I couldn't tell anyone my last name, or that I was related to the building owner.

At first I thought it was to teach me a lesson about hard work, which seemed foolish, as hard work was already my life, or humility, of which I probably did need a dose.

A few years later, he told me his true reason. He said,

"If you want to know who a person truly is, don't watch how he treats his friends or his boss.

Watch how he treats his janitors, his handymen, his surveyors, his receptionists, or his waitresses.

The measure of a man is not how he treats his supposed equals. It is how he treats the least fortunate among us."

Morality is not contingent upon income.

So your dad wanted you to report anyone at his building that treated you poorly?

Hey, that's very insulting!

I charge at least $20 an hour for snitching.

I worked at a gas station for a year after college, and it was awful, but I am definitely more thoughtful about how I treat service workers since then.

> Judging corporate based on fulfillment center working conditions isn't fair. One is a $15k job, and the other is a $115k job.

This tells you much you need to know about the Amazon mentality

> Judging corporate based on fulfillment center working conditions isn't fair. One is a $15k job, and the other is a $115k job.

That's completely backwards. Even asshole managers will treat their high-value employees relatively well, unless they're stupid--you don't want to kill the golden goose. It's how they treat the low-skill, low-wage guys at the bottom that tells you what kind of people they really are.

> Judging corporate based on fulfillment center working conditions isn't fair. One is a $15k job, and the other is a $115k job.

Yes, yes, because you earn more, you'd better work as a slave... wait, do slaves get salary at all? Ah, no, okay, so everyone who earns money must work harder than a slave!!!

> bad culture fit

I have never been able to figure out exactly what this is supposed to mean. Best I can tell, it means "You're fully qualified for this position, but I don't like you for reasons I can't or won't articulate."

I think you've figured it out. I can't understand why no one's been sued for racism over it yet.

> Outside of that, nobody really cares about them

There is a not so small cohort who parrot them.

$115k is embarrassingly non-competitive for the talent and work Amazon expects.

It's not bad for Seattle, and they have been doing amazing on stock price the last couple years which helps. Especially when they backload the initial stock vesting.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com