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Comment by Bucephalus355 | Hacker News Reader

Amazon has been pretty careful about their appearances in town. A good example that I saw when I went to Seattle is the subtle shame you experience as an employee if you drive yourself to work. Supposed to carpool / do whatever else you can do so at least Amazon doesn't have to shoulder the blame for rising Seattle traffic. Probably a nice thing in the end.

Also their well-known frugality principle, while not really meaning a lot when you consider salaries, helps to stem the "entitled" image that say a company like Google gets more of.

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To be fair, I've witnessed people in the Seattle area seem to subtly shame or otherwise discourage those who don't cycle or take public/shared transit in to the office, at companies and social situations outside of Amazon. A number of people in the area seem to think those who don't cycle to work, go hiking/mountaineering/skiing/kayaking/etc in free time aren't really "doing Seattle right" or something. Of course this is my generalization based on my perceptions of what I hear around this area.

It will be ironic when these millennials grow up and have children, then try cycling to do the weekly groceries with three kids in tow.

Yeah, it is so difficult to manage that with a trailer or biporteur/cargo bike (e.g. https://www.hollandbikes.com/5321/velo-biporteur-babboe-city... )

These seem to be quite common in Europe (especially the Netherlands but elsewhere like Germany too). With better cycling infrastructure, there is no reason that they could not catch on in North America.

I've seen more of these pop up here in Seattle, but I think biking downtown and biking kids around at night is dangerous.

Seattle is still a car culture.

Bicycle infrastructure is not something that just appears one day. Even bike Meccas like parts of the Netherlands took decades to build out that infrastructure.

As uiri pointed out, transporting a family by bike is very common in other countries so it's not unrealistic at all. Though with how heavily the US is built around cars, the first wave of people trying it will have to make sure to live in the right places in the right cities.

Also, people who don't live the suburban car life typically don't buy "weekly" groceries.

...or get their shopping delivered.

Via a car

It's actually usually a refrigerated van (bare in mind you'd have chilled and frozen items and those vans can be out for two hours at a time due to having multiple deliveries loaded).

But the type of vehicle is a moot point as it's not the shopper who has to own nor drive it. So they can still run a household without themselves owning a car (which was the point of the discussion)

not in first world countries - you don't want the death rates of say India on the roads

That's why you build separate bike lanes. It works fine for the Netherlands, but it does require a large investment in bicycle infrastructure.

You mean countries like Germany, Holland or Denmark?

I suggest you google for "fiets met kinderzitjes" (bike with child seats) to get examples of how you can transport 2 small children on one regular bike.

Once the children get older they can get their own bike. If you need to transport more than 2 children, get yourself a second parent or a bike that's designed to take cargo (yes I just called your children cargo).

My mother raised me and my sister on her own, using just a bike.

Seattle is a very hilly city, increasing the challenges for bike commuting for normal people. An electric bike can help but increases the price substantially.

At least in Amsterdam where I biked around a bit, it seemed flat as a pancake.

What are you talking about? The oldest millennials are already 35. And lots of people who predate the millennial generation bike in Seattle.

This is from five years ago in Palo Alto so it's doable in America.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/swoo/8148861498

Some of my other acquaintances use a bike trailer or a trail a bike instead of a cargo bike for their kids. It helps that most of Palo Alto is close to flat.

I kinda see where you're coming from but it's awfully heavy handed and ultimately blames a lack of determination on having children. A good deal of people live by the bicycle, "millennial" or not. There's no virtue signaling happening here. You can either get over it or continue to have a bad attitude- it's not up to me.

You can cycle to work and do weekly groceries by car, you know? Or you can just do groceries more often than once a week. Or you can buy yourself a trailer for your bike, or a backfiets.

Or you could simply order your weekly groceries and have them delivered so you don't have to keep track of all the children in the store.

I hear a certain Seattle-based business provides such a service.

How much more % wise will your grocery bill be if you have it bought/delivered to you? 20%? 25%? 30%?

on a 500$/month grocery family budget you are looking at 100$ - 150$ more for convenience potentially. Its a lot of money for most.

My local grocery store charges $20 for delivery, with purchases of more than $200 having free delivery. It's not as expensive as you think.

Have you calculated how much a car costs compared to a bike?

yes cars are expensive. for my local situation here im looking at 1.5hrs commute by bike one way or 3 hrs round trip...every day. plus bad winters to deal with. car is worth the convinience ... in my case.

Move closer to work you say? Any cost saving from getting rid of one car will be overshadowed by expensive home prices. Real estate is not really affordable for most folks these days....

Someone could easily turn around and say a car is $1000 a month for a "convenience". shrug

Why would delivery be a percent of the total goods cost? NYC has had in-store grocery delivery for a either a flat fee or flat fee per bag for decades.

If your weekly groceries are like $100 and the flat delivery fee is $15, then that's 15%. You can't just buy milk for the next six months in one go to make the percentage smaller.

....therefore it isn't a flat delivery fee?

As someone who grew up in New York, people were getting their groceries delivered long before the days of online shopping, where most grocery stores provided a service at checkout where they'd bring all the groceries to your house after you selected everything, and the fees were pretty reasonable too given someone didn't need to go around the store for you.

But Amazon will deliver your order. :-)

Even if they do so what, they still will have saved a few years worth of traffic congestion, emissions and will have gotten exercise as well.

Alternately, they have a motor vehicle and use it sparingly.

"Saint or GTFO" is a losing debate strategy with an aware counterparty.

I lived in Seattle for a year and I got the same impression.

I have not gotten this impression at all in my 5 years in Seattle. There are certainly people who live the stereotypical active northwest lifestyle but I've never felt pressured to do the same by any of them.

pretty much how I felt growing up there

Sorry, I'm confused, you felt pressured or you felt that people are just doing their thing?

Just people doing their thing. In a lot of these kinds of comments you see people projecting on others an awful lot. Far more often than they're actually being judged. Sorry for not being more clear.

Well, at a time of global warming, I like this mentality to use bikes as much as possible

I would disagree with this assessment. Most folks I knew when I lived in seattle were indifferent to how you moved around with some exceptions (gas guzzlers were always frowned upon but this was also during the highest gas prices). I used to drive then took transit when my car was hit and no one really thought anything of it either way, most being surprised I hadn't gotten another car.

Outdoor stuff was also not really forced or brought up other than offers to join or use equipment, which was very kind.

I lived in Seattle for 10 years and never felt the tiniest hint of this. Most of that time I drove by myself. It's true that a lot of people do those recreational activities.

Interesting how spread the agree/disagree is to this. From what I've seen it's often a little quirk of office culture.

I've worked for 4 different companies in the Seattle area and it's been 50/50 indifference vs quiet disdain.

Don't worry, if you think people inviting you skiing is some kind of vieled attack, you belong here too.

I'm not sure how carefully Amazon has or has not been managing their appearances in Seattle, but I'd bet that Seattlites in general have a WORSE opinion of Amazon than the general average opinion across the USA. I've lived in Seattle for 10 years, and I see Amazon get blamed for all kinds of stuff, certainly including traffic.

Right, because Seattleites are the ones who have to actually deal with Amazon.

The efforts that the OP is talking about are meant to make Amazon appear better to the Seattleites of this universe than it would appear to the Seattleites of some alternate universe in which Amazon wasn't making the same efforts.

That's a wholly different goal than making Amazon appear better to Seattleites than it does to residents of other cities.

I'm not sure what efforts OP is referring to. I'm not aware of any. Either way, OP makes it sound like Amazon doesn't get blamed for all kinds of things (it does) and like people in Seattle don't think Amazon has entitled employees. I hear both complaints constantly.

I'm contending that Amazon has approximately the same reputation in Seattle that Google has in the Bay Area.

With same-day delivery and the place where they experiment with most of their new ideas, we see Amazon as a utility here

Its a reasonable guess, but my onservation is you are wrong. Seattleites are generally enjoying these boom times, where jobs are plentiful and even waiting tables pays $15/hr. People seem to quietly appreciate the Amazon effect, it isn't remarked upon often compared to other issues of the day.

$15 and hour waiting tables is not really good. I was making around $12 an hour waiting tables in Dayton Ohio back in 2001, and I wasn't tipped. If I had gone to a place with tips I would have made much more.

2001 was a long time ago in the US economic sense.

That was mostly before on-call employment for retail employees and the collapse of malls. It was a better time for most folks economically.

Fascinating. That is NOT my experience. I hear people complain about Amazon and Amazon employees all the time.

I live in Seattle and almost never hear a good thing about Amazon's presence here (people like the service though). Multiple times a week people blame Amazon for the very high rents and home prices.

Amazon employees also have a bad reputation (not individually, but collectively) in my experience. To be fair, I think that has a lot to do with over-eager college interns.

> people blame Amazon for the very high rents and home prices

In a way, they are correct. In another way, well, no. Amazon needed employees, lots of them, and hired them. Suddenly, you have increased demand for housing. The city ought to, in response, see that this is happening and do what needs to be done to increase supply of housing. Allow more density, build up, build more and do it quickly.

Instead, it's chosen the typical west-coast attitude of blaming the people bringing the jobs and wealth to the city and preventing serious density increases anywhere they can. And the citizens, the same ones complaining about housing prices, are also against any increase in density.

The end result? Well, Amazon is opening offices left and right in every other city on the planet, and hiring elsewhere. Those jobs might have been in Seattle, bringing in more local taxes, but instead they are in places like Winnipeg, Manitoba. (Seriously, there's an office there, what the heck?).

(Bias: Amazon employee, once lived in Seattle and loved the city)

If you rent, you blame Amazon for high rents and home prices.

If you own, you pat yourself on the back for making a wise financial decision.

Funny how that works :)

Having grown up in the area I remember the days when the finger was pointed at Boeing for the cause of traffic. Someone has to be the scapegoat :)

It's California. It's always California. It was California in the 80s and 90s, it's California today. Always somebody else's fault.

And yes, I'm just bitter because nobody bothered to thank me for moving TO California :)

Someone taught me a phrase a couple years ago, 'Amholes'. I gave him a blank look because I didn't know what he was talking about.

Apparently in the SLU neighborhood, Amazon employees have gotten a reputation for taking up the whole damned sidewalk when they go to lunch. And I don't mean fifteen people taking up the sidewalk, not much you can do about that. I mean three or four.

After, I couldn't help but notice.

Yeah they move in packs. We call them badgers (all have their Amazon badges out, let's you use that badger, badger, badger song from the 2000s flash video craze) amongst my group of friends. Don't blame them though, it's their small team and they work so closely and do everything together from what I understand. A lot are transplants and it's their first batch of work friends in town fresh out of college. Doesn't bother me, but then again I rarely go to SLU for lunch. I'd rather ride up to LQA, Fremont, eat at the market, or stay in Belltown. So many crowd free lunch options.

I worked a mercifully short contract there, and the group I worked with was so shell shocked by how painful the Dev environment was that it's a wonder none of us got hit by a car crossing the street. We were distracted and tense all the time.

When I see them I wonder if they're having a day like mine were. And I stop my friends from working anywhere but AWS.

> Also their well-known frugality principle

Like subcontracting all their warehouse staff so they can keep them off the books and not have to deal with their benefits.

warehousing and many other jobs at that pay level are notoriously high turnover and not having to manage the people directly can be a good choice for many organizations.

the idea it is merely to escape benefits is not really valid. now the ACA was modified so that self insured and group insured companies must offer benefits after ninety days. the turnover prior to that can be very high so escaping that rule isn't the primary reason to contract out, its to reduce the HR costs associated with hiring.

> Probably a nice thing in the end.

I guess working remotely for 3 days per week does not sit well with Bezo's autocratic management style that mandates extreme micromanagement.

There isn't shame in driving yourself to work. Where do you get this from?

Supposed to also not have kids then I guess. It's impossible to live without a car in Seattle area if you have kids.

And frugality just drives their best employees to Google, which has a significant presence in the area.

And Google is about to jump to number two on the downtown sq ft list when it moves into it's new 600000 sqft south lake union offices in a couple of years.

I think you misinterpret frugal to mean "cheap". Also I love the idea of the urban campus both from a convenience and a social consciousness perspective.

It beats hard to reach office parks in Santa Clara County.

I ride a bus across the city that goes almost door to door from my apartment to my office. It's fantastic. I used to do the commute across the area by car and it was awful, a couple hours a day sitting in my car wasting time.

Can you expand on the "well-known frugality principle?"

https://www.amazon.jobs/principles

Anecdote, but I had a friend who recently finished working at Amazon in a analysis position and he took quarterly trips with colleagues from Seattle to meet in NYC for a few hours, stayed for almost a week, at out at fine restaurants, all on the company dime.

One person taking advantage of travel doesn't imply the entire companies frugality principle is a facade.

Their recruiting technique of flying thousands of random LinkedIn users to Seattle every week for fruitless interviews doesn't seem very frugal.

It's not! Instead it's part of principle #6, "hire the best." Hire the best, frugally.

Their leadership principles are deliberately contradictory. This is ostensibly a strength: you are tasked with satisfying all of them at once. But I fear in practice it's license to justify any management behavior.

Source: oh god I interviewed there.

Sounds like bitterness because you weren't offered a position.

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