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Comment by adtac | Hacker News Reader

I interned there last year. They really want to get this point across. Like, I had to sit through an entire day of orientation repeatedly telling me this in different ways. We even had "fun" games to re-inforce the principles lol. I was going to be there for a maximum of 2 months, but nope.

But hey, the tech was really cool. My team was amazing, we went on multiple team outings during my short stay. Office hours were very relaxed - I came in whenever I wanted and left the office when I liked. My manager gave me full ownership of my task. I had all the resources in the company if I quickly wanted to test something.

Just tone down on the principle force-feeding.

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> We even had "fun" games to re-inforce the principles

As an ex-consultant forced to go through corporate training at more clients than I can count, I hope there's a special place in hell for anyone in HR who creates/buys a game-based training product.

Why no, I do not want to "drive a racecar down HIPAA Highway" to remind me what an unauthorized disclosure is.

Somewhere in the bowels of Amazon's intranet I came across some HR training games and tried to find out who made them, and with what. It seems like an odd genre. I wound up on a mailing list but still haven't found anything out.

> My manager gave me full ownership of my task.

So the million dollar question, given what they tried to teach you did you change anything about your task or did you just did what you would have done anyway?

It wasn't really on my mind. I did occassionally think about it (and maybe even acted accordingly), but I don't think it really affected my work flow.

Ditto! Same experience :D Realized you used "Ownership" in that comment? ;p

Not sure if you know, but "ownership" isn't a word or concept that Amazon invented. I'd like to add that Amazon isn't the first company to have leadership principles. From my experience, the only people that actually believe this crap are people that haven't been exposed to this sort of corporate propaganda in the past. Taking responsibility for a project, seeing it to completion, and following a standard is the right thing to do; not just an Amazonian thing to do.

From an ex-gf who worked in corporate culture, I did learn to see the other side of this. The benefits (when it's being done for honestly good purposes) are in standardization.

Both of language and in approach.

There's innumerable ways to get from A to B. If everyone knows that if someone says "Widgetification" then they mean X & that the standard way of accomplishing the task is Corporate Approach Y, then everyone can get back to work having saved time in communication.

So I think there's definitely an efficiency case to be made.

PS: I'm aware it's used for evil (anti-organized labor, preventing valid workplace lawsuits, covering management's ass, etc) at a lot of shops too.

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