Let's Talk Amazon

JonJacob wrote: I've heard rumblings about their shitty treatment of employees for years now and try to avoid that. But really - when I'm buying plastic mini's that probably came from kids in China - well, it's hard to get to serious about this stuff. But I don't want to give up entirely which I think is too tempting when so much shit is wrong. So I try to hang on.

Yeah, that's always hanging in the background.

I usually don't care about this kind of issue. I worked for minimum wage at McDonald's during college for three summers, and didn't mind the hard work because I liked my co-workers, I liked the free meals, and I appreciated learning how an efficient company works. I figure that if a company is too greedy and ruthless, people will quit working there and it will force them to improve to retain people. However, Wal-Mart has an outrageous track record of abusing and taking advantage of employees, so I don't shop there at all.

My main concern about Amazon is that I don't want to see my favorite local game or book stores forced out of business due to competition with Amazon. So I try to buy locally. But if the item that I want isn't available within reasonable driving distance, I am quite willing to buy it on Amazon.

Gary Sax wrote:

JonJacob wrote: I've heard rumblings about their shitty treatment of employees for years now and try to avoid that. But really - when I'm buying plastic mini's that probably came from kids in China - well, it's hard to get to serious about this stuff. But I don't want to give up entirely which I think is too tempting when so much shit is wrong. So I try to hang on.

Yeah, that's always hanging in the background.

It is. I'm no sjw, and folks can spend how they want, but since about 2008 I've been pretty conscious about where my entertainment dollars go. Some things, I can't help...they may be made in under less than ideal conditions, but there's nothing I can do and selfishly put my family's needs first and buy the product. Other items, like games, I don't _need_, and have decided that I don't need to be entertained at any cost.

This isn't a 'holier than though' post, but airing things publicly and reading responses can help me better frame my thoughts or internalize new ideas. I bring this Amazon article up because I needed a venue to discuss this in so I could decided how I may act going forward. Like I said, I've been conscious since the recession about 7 years ago, and probably should have been sooner. I think I have 8 games made in China. 6 of those little FFG Silverline card games, Manoeuver, and Knizia's FFG Hobbit. Two were bought post 2008. Death Angel and The Hobbit...and then...after a lot of consideration.

I got out of Wings of Glory, partially because I didn't want to be on a made in china/painted in china treadmill. Rune Age being made in China gives me some pause. Neuroshima Hex! (another game on my radar, that I still haven't picked up) appears to be made in Poland. I have no idea if conditions there are better or worse, but I don't think I've heard of any whistleblowers on that side.

Again, this isn't boasting or some smug, 'better than thou' post and I hold no ill will towards others who shop differently. This is just what works for me.

Bringing this back around to Amazon again...it's not long or on-call hours that are an issue. I work in a Data Warehouse and in some shops where we dealt with transactional data, we'd have to be on call...debugging and re-running jobs at 2 or 3 am. Still, we were treated fairly and with respect. I didn't mind the work. It's Amazon's apparent combination of lack of respect of employees and cutthroat culture that I'm not into. Again, there's nothing I need to buy from Amazon. It's simply entertainment garbage, so no need to feed that machine.

Really though, it shouldn't be a surprise. How could I expect goods to be this cheap and delivered this fast without a cost?

EDIT After Shellhead's post. I don't shop at Walmart either for the same reasons. I also agree with his comments on pushing out the local shops. I do fear that as we automate more and more, folks will be willing (or have to) work in sub par conditions in order remain employed. I don't see this issue getting any easier. Not in my list of places I won't buy from, but I forsee more hard-times (preach, Dusty!) for a lot of folks in the future. Who knows though? Maybe I'm over-reacting and it's all good (I don't think so). Worse case scenario...I guess I'm saving a few dollars with my self imposed purchasing limitations...

Poland has workers' laws and they are a very patriotic country. I really like the place. Still trying to go visit as I do some business there.

I would have no problem with the new temp work/gig economy if we had more social protection in the US. But since we run the ludicrous system of getting things like health insurance from our employers (thanks random non-monetary benefit offered during WWII!), it's really problematic.

But now we're getting into politics territory, I know.

I read the article, and it seemed fairly anecdotal to me. As a white collar guy in tech, it could have been written about any place I have worked. There are always meetings where somebody got shredded, and justifiably so. There are always crunch times in projects where you are expected to pick-up that 11pm call, and maybe haul your sorry ass into work, but it's only a few weeks a year. And there are always workers who are struggling, but mostly because they just don't have the analytical skills to get their work done in a timely fashion.

But here's the thing, if you have an industry leader like Amazon on your resume, you can get a similar job anywhere else in the industry. So either the article is a hatchet job, or they pay their people lots of money to compensate for the misery. There are lots of reasons to not shop at Amazon, but this article is not one of them.

There are dozens of articles about amazon saying roughly the same thing. From the Guardian to the Globe to even crap rags like Gawker. Just google amazon employee treatment - It's not like this is some isolated incident. Amazon is a crappy place to work... about the same as Wall Mart or MacDonalds both places I don't use. I get that some people are ok with this kind of treatment and that's fine... but to pretend like the article is a hatchet job seems a little disingenuous to me. Rags from all across the political spectrum have said pretty much the same thing.

I buy shit from wherever is cheapest for me. Budgetarily I prefer to swim with the current.

The article was about white collar workers. Presumably these people have transferable skills, and a prestigious job on their resume. So if Amazon is such a god awful place for skilled people to work, why do talented people hire on, or continue to work for them? It would seem they have other, very viable choices. All I got is that they are payed very well to do so, or the perception that Amazon is a crap place to work (and hence the article) is bullshit. I'm open to other interpretations.

i'll give a couple of other interpretations.

a) Got kids? Got a house? Feel like selling it all and moving? Maybe you'll keep that job...

b) There's a significant section in there about people who are trapped by their relocation/signing bonuses. Amazon sets their typical contract to make the relocation repayable (at a scaled rate) over two years. So if you get there, and realize the job sucks, you can be on the hook for a decent amount of money, all of which you spent to move there. Some of the Reddit threads mentioned that Amazon often wants the pre-tax value back. That's a lot of dosh. (this is not unique to Amazon, but two years is on the high side). There's also an unusual stacking of stock options, rather than a more standard 25-25-25-25.

c) Most of these folks are "white-collar", but even that doesn't presume everyone is equal in the land of Bezos. Reading that articlce and all the "it's not sooo bad" follow-ups, and reading them carefully says one thing. The people who are crying at their desks work in areas like book merchandising, not in tech. The folks who love their job almost exclusively work in tech. The job portability and "Amazon" as a resume asset? Tech again. The book slingers and toy buyers? Not so much. Top engineers are still a protected class there.


Now, I work in tech, and I have for a long time now. Over all the years that I've been connected, Amazon (solely for my tech circles) has been a very hit-or-miss place. I've repeatedly heard "it depends on your group". That's for the best case scenario. I have no doubt that the people describing it as a hellish landscape of fear and misery and the people who say "best job I've ever had" can both be right. There are 150,000 employees, after all.

I have a complicated relationship there. I don't really like the stuff that got turned up in the article (most of it is not a surprise), but I use the shit out my Prime account for all sorts of things. Maybe I should consider voting with my feet. However, all that I'm able to do pales in comparison to the 5-digit monthly bill from Amazon Web Services my employer pays to keep the services running.

The people who are crying at their desks work in areas like book merchandising, not in tech. The folks who love their job almost exclusively work in tech. The job portability and "Amazon" as a resume asset? Tech again. The book slingers and toy buyers? Not so much. Top engineers are still a protected class there.

That makes a lot of sense. Because of the web portal and cloud services, I've always thought of Amazon as a tech company. Clearly it it not just that, or maybe not even mostly that. Sucks that I'll have to re-evaluate my status as a responsible shopper. It is easy to avoid wal-mart and McDonalds, they just don't sell anything that I want. Not so much with Amazon. I guess I can console myself with the rationalization that the workers at Amazon have essentially first world problems compared to the places where much of the shit they sell comes from.

Poland has 3 big Amazon distribution centers. Earlier this year workers threatened them with strike, and there will be pay raise - to a little more than 3$ per hour.

Amazon is just a product of American culture for the past 35 years, which has sought to devalue labor as a commodity. It's not just Amazon, it's everywhere. Workers are somehow supposed to be uber-productive and dedicated (because that shows a good work ethic and moral character) while management does everything it possibly can to screw them over and squeals like a stuck pig if they have to make any concessions at all. Wages have been stagnant for decades while productivity has been pushed higher and higher, and the high unemployment rates are not a problem for corporations, they're a solution, as they turn labor into a buyer's market. Labor has also been turned into some kind of zero-sum game, pitting worker A against worker B because that keeps them both from hanging manager C from a street lamp. but don't listen to me, I'm just an SJW.

I had to look up SJW just now. I was wondering if it meant slack-jawed whitey or something.

A former coworker was pursued hard by Amazon. She was a bit reluctant, but the length of the relocation period ( 2 years ) was daunting, as well as the numerous stories about the pressure cooker environment. So she declined. Its almost like the 2 year window is acknowledging that many use it as a stepping stone to a decent gig somewhere else after padding their resume.

18 months afterwards, they contacted her again for the very same job.

I don't use them a lot, but I have no qualms. I'd love to support my FLGS, but after several solid years, they overextended, and are now in very obvious stages of a death spiral.