Amazon Worker Jumps Off Company Building After Email Note (bloomberg.com) 392
An anonymous reader writes: An Amazon employee was injured when he leaped off a building at the company's Seattle headquarters in what police characterized as a suicide attempt. The man, who wasn't identified by authorities, sent an e-mail visible to hundreds of co-workers, including Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos, before the incident occurred, according to a report on Bloomberg. The man survived the fall from Amazon's 12-story Apollo building at about 8:45 a.m. local time Monday and was taken to a Seattle hospital, police said. The man had recently put in a request to transfer to a different department, but was placed on an employee improvement plan, a step that can lead to termination if performance isn't improved, said the person, who asked not to be identified discussing company personnel matters. More than 20,000 people work in multiple buildings at Amazon's headquarters.
employee improvement plan (Score:5, Informative)
employee improvement plan, a step that can lead to termination if performance isn't improved
Whoever invented "employee improvement plan" needs to die.
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Whoever invented "employee improvement plan" needs to die.
It will have been someone in Human Remains
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I thought that was accounting? HR typically handles employee benefits and is involved in the hiring and firing process as that affects who is receiving the benefits.
Re:employee improvement plan (Score:4)
Your recent post on the Internet has flagged you for the employee improvement plan...
Re:employee improvement plan (Score:4, Informative)
I believe it is one of the first steps in the universally-recognized process of "managing someone out". This can be required if an employee shows signs of initiative, curiosity, creativity, or resentment at horrible working conditions and excessive demands on her time.
Re:employee improvement plan (Score:4, Insightful)
employee improvement plan, a step that can lead to termination if performance isn't improved
Whoever invented "employee improvement plan" needs to die.
Sure, wouldn't want to actually let the employee know why they're getting bad performance reviews, just fire them.
That was sarcasm, by the way. I know nothing about Amazon's employee improvement plan, but the general idea of giving extra assistance to employees who aren't performing as well as their peers is absolutely a good idea.
It's utterly naive to think that everyone can be in the top X% or that all employees will perform so equally that better or worse can't be distinguished. As long as some employees perform worse you only have three choices:
1) Do nothing. Just keep paying them for doing worse than their peers
2) Fire them. Hire somebody else that you hope will perform better.
3) Help them to identify why they perform worse than their peers and try to help them improve
I can't see any reason why option 3 is worse than option 1 or 2.
Unless you dispute my assumption that there exist some employees who perform worse than others, it absolutely makes sense for companies to have a goal and plan for improving their lowest performing employees rather than firing them or ignoring them.
Obviously if someone is utterly hopeless then you have to just get rid of them to prevent them from contributing negative value (i.e. creating problems for their peers to fix to the net loss of the company's productivity) but if they're just "ok but not great" then actively working to improve them benefits everyone. Maybe Amazon's plan is broken, I wouldn't know, but the general concept is a good one.
Re: employee improvement plan (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is that there are many cases where companies use the employee improvement plan process to fire people who aren't actually bad at their jobs but the companies want them to leave for other reasons and don't want to lay them off with the associated unemployment costs.
They put the target on said plan in hopes they take the hint and just leave. If not, the employee will be judged to have not sufficiently improved, no matter how they actually perform, and at the end of the EIP deadline they are let go for cause.
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If not, the employee will be judged to have not sufficiently improved, no matter how they actually perform, and at the end of the EIP deadline they are let go for cause.
One of the companies I worked for tried that with me here in Virginia when a new manager came in and replaced people. The unemployment application form had the following question: "Were you performing your duties to the best of your abilities?" I checked "Yes" (which was true). Got my unemployment benefits.
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Re: employee improvement plan (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll see your anecdote and raise you one. I know someone who was put on an improvement plan (likely due to personality conflict with their manager, quite possibly the manager's fault) and continued on with the company until eventual retirement age and left at well over 70 years of age with full pension and retirement benefits.
Do we have enough anecdotes to call it data yet? I'm guessing no.
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Sure, I didn't say ALL instances of EIP action were nefarious, just a not-insignificant percentage.
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Technically true, however if they don't think there is any way you can't do the job, they still do the PIP for a reason. They want to avoid lawsuits. The former employee can sue for wrongful termination, even in Washington state.
terminations in violation of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing. Wrongful termination also includes terminations in violation of federal, state, or local anti-discrimination laws.
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It's utterly naive to think that everyone can be in the top X% or that all employees will perform so equally that better or worse can't be distinguished
Isn't that how 6-Sigma at GE supposedly worked? They routinely expected to sack anyone whose metrics were below some arbitrary number? Keep jacking the number they have to hit up and when they stop making it, you jettison them like an empty rocket stage.
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If worked with a few people that could be fairly called: 'defects in process'.
What do you call a 'programmer' that comes to you with a piece of dynamic SQL that fails, utterly lost. The string contains concatenation operators from the language building the SQL? He has, again, forgotten that there is such a thing as a SQL console, good for seeing meaningful errors and query plans. (Of course, Brahmin. Yes I am a Casteist, never hire Brahmin.)
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Isn't that how 6-Sigma at GE supposedly worked? They routinely expected to sack anyone whose metrics were below some arbitrary number? Keep jacking the number they have to hit up and when they stop making it, you jettison them like an empty rocket stage.
You're thinking of "Stack Ranking", used by Microsoft to foster hatred and backstabbing between their employees. And boy did it work.
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You're thinking of "Stack Ranking", used by Microsoft to foster hatred and backstabbing between their employees. And boy did it work.
Indeed. This kind of shit is also used by incompetent and utterly useless managers to keep themselves in jobs and get promoted. The good people are otherwise to pre-occupied. It's all fire and motion, as ironically Joel Spolsky once said.
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That was sarcasm, by the way. I know nothing about Amazon's employee improvement plan, but the general idea of giving extra assistance to employees who aren't performing as well as their peers is absolutely a good idea.
That depends one what "improve" actually means in Amazon compared to other workplaces. Amazon is well known for micromanaging its workers and treating certain employees (e.g. those in warehouses) extremely badly. It's not hard to see how they could abuse employees - making them work beyond what is reasonable, or pushing them out the door - under the guise of an "improvement plan".
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It's worse than that.
Basic group psych, Most people will lower their work standard/output to match the lowest performing co-worker that 'gets away with it'.
Internally motivated individuals are uncommon, even they mostly 'get over it' after some period of watching co-workers continue to 'get away with it', especially if the co-workers getting by are actually ranked/rewarded better.
There is nothing that can wreck a team faster than some mouth breathing ass kisser getting a big promotion, raise and bonu
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Sure, wouldn't want to actually let the employee know why they're getting bad performance reviews, just fire them.
That was sarcasm, by the way. I know nothing about Amazon's employee improvement plan, but the general idea of giving extra assistance to employees who aren't performing as well as their peers is absolutely a good idea.
It's utterly naive to think that everyone can be in the top X% or that all employees will perform so equally that better or worse can't be distinguished.
Errrrr, that's their line manager's call, or at least it should be.
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If they are just stupid and are busting ass to produce 'good enough', then fine.
But you can't let people work 'just hard enough not to get fired' and be a place where anybody in their right mind would want to work.
The hard fact is that bigger core teams lose efficiency. You can only tolerate slack jaws in peripheral roles or the team size balloons and you fall into the communications overhead trap.
Just a euphemism, or do they actually try? (Score:3)
Is an "employee improvement plan" literally just a euphemism for the fast track to termination everywhere, or are there places where it's taken seriously and efforts are made to actually improve an employee's performance?
It sure seems like EIPs only really exist as a way to get rid of an employee -- set unreachable goals, make them pariahs who other employees would keep at arm's length, flag them for increased scrutiny of metrics generally ignored for other employees, basically create the cover for terminat
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Simple: The person about to be fired has already demonstrated that they failed to perform their duties. If you hire a new person, you get the change of hiring someone who can do things right the first time. If not, you're not worse off than before.
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Because bringing on someone new and training them has no cost associated with it.
Maybe the issue is something going on in the employee's life, and working with them and getting consoling resolves the performance problems.
Or maybe the issue is something else internal that working through the improvement plan reveals.
Bottom line, finding, hiring, and on-boarding someone is a long and expensive process. Retaining the talent you have is normally better for the bottom line and moral.
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employee improvement plan, a step that can lead to termination if performance isn't improved
Whoever invented "employee improvement plan" needs to die.
Nonsense. Improvement plans are a good thing. I'm sure it's unpleasant to be put on one, but much better than getting fired straight off.
I've never been put on a plan, but I know many who have, and I have been fired. I'd much rather be put on a plan. Getting fired is really stressful. It leaves you job hunting on a tight, financially-driven timeline and with some serious disadvantages. In contrast, if you're on a 3-6 month improvement plan, that means worst case you have 3-6 months to look for a job, and
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If someone gets put on a plan, their best advice is to do three things
1. financially/family prepare as if you're going to lose your job. Cut spending, pump up savings, etc.
2. job hunt like a mofo, in case the PiP doesn't work
3. (and this is important) - throw yourself into the PiP and do everything you can to lean in and improve. Even if you think it's worthless, unfair, even if you are sure you'll have another job in a week. Lean in and do your damndest to improve. this gives you the chance that you'll
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If the place is hell to you and you're just not a fit, don't 'lean in', waste of time. Their definition of 'improve' is likely questionable at best.
The thing you do want to do is respect your coworkers right to the end, fuck the PHB. Former coworkers are the network that makes your life. They also have realistic understanding of who actually gets things done. They aren't PHBs with useless, easy to game metrics.
The last reason to respect your coworkers, is so you can subsequently run an employee raid on
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As frequently said... the beatings will continue until morale improves.
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Well, that would probably be people who didn't like being fired capriciously. Personally, I'd rather my company tell me exactly why they weren't happy with me and what I could do to rectify it.
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You're not disagreeing with GP.
Why would you stay around?
Look at FACE of Amazon (Score:4, Informative)
This seems to be very common at Amazon. Going by the FACE [google.com] site, it shows a clear pattern of abuse, and I'm not surprised that this hasn't happened before.
Granted the FACE site is posted to those who are usually pissed at Amazon, but with so many postings and so often it shows that there is a clear pattern of employee abuse.
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This seems to be very common at Amazon. Going by the FACE [google.com] site, it shows a clear pattern of abuse, and I'm not surprised that this hasn't happened before.
Granted the FACE site is posted to those who are usually pissed at Amazon, but with so many postings and so often it shows that there is a clear pattern of employee abuse.
Hey look at this post [google.com] from a friend of an Amazon employee! Maybe this person can start a support group? Doesn't sound like Amazon is going to start one.
Now you're terminated (Score:3)
was placed on an employee improvement plan, a step that can lead to termination if performance isn't improved,
Stepping off a 12 story building seems like kind of a harsh "improvement plan".
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The alternative is to "trust" that the coworker standing behind you will catch when you fall backwards. At some places I worked at, stepping off a 12-story building is easier.
The problem is, if you're falling backwards off a 12 story building, the guy behind you is 12 stories down! I'm as trusting as the next guy, but that's taking it a little too far.
you submission is bad, you should feel bad (Score:3)
REPLY ALL nearly KILLS man
?!!!
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Employee suicides are on the rise, so?.. (Score:2)
Workplace suicides are on the rise [aphapublications.org] — why is one at Amazon considered particularly newsworthy? Are not Bloomberg and Slashdot encouraging some poor slob to do it, by promising them a bit of post-mortem glory, however fleeting?
It's a shit place to work. (Score:5, Interesting)
One of my former co-workers from the porno business got a job at Amazon. She quit within a week and told me "I'd rather go back to the porno shop, at least there they bother to give you lube for when you get fucked."
That alone tells me all I need to know about Amazon, and I'll never shop there. If one of my co-workers from a very tough industry couldn't hack something supposedly so simple and benign as Amazon warehouse work when she had no problems sorting and packing and selling boxes of DVDs and lube and sex toys, there's something seriously fucking wrong with Amazon's management and policies and procedures.
Confirmation bias (Score:3)
To get a balanced view of what working at the company is really like, you need to sample (hear testimonials from) both people who quit working there, and people who are still working there. Maybe Amazon is evil incarnate. Or maybe the things they did are perfectly normal, it just tickled one of her pet peeves that
suicide attempt (Score:3)
... but was placed on an employee improvement plan, a step that can lead to termination if performance isn't improved, ...
Won't look good on his performance report. "Employee fails to complete tasks in a timely fashion."
From the 4th floor (Score:5, Informative)
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Ok, I'm sorry for being insensitive, and maybe Amazon is a horrible place to work, but maybe this guy wasn't entirely a stellar performer who was unfairly underrated.
If you attempt suicide by jumping from the fourth floor of a twelve story building and you don't even double check that you've got a full four floors to fall, what conclusions might we draw about your ability to plan and complete your assigned tasks?
Ending your own life is a pretty important decision and not something you should just handle in
Re: From the 4th floor (Score:5, Funny)
20' is 2D6 falling damage. He's badass.
Large groups = People with issues (Score:4, Informative)
If you get 20,000 people together for ANY reason, you are going to get at least a few who are not mentally well. The US has 12.1 suicides per 100,000 people annually. That means that in a random group of 20,000 people in the USA you would expect 2-3 of them to try to (successfully) commit suicide in a given year and presumable some number more to attempt it. One guy in a company that large does not justify drawing any deeper conclusions than he was one of those 2-3 people.
Look at the *rate* of suicide (attempts) at Amazon (Score:2)
You don't want make judgments bases on single cases without comparing rates at Amazon against rates at other companies.
Of course, in the not-too-distant future, we will All be working at Amazon, so comparisons of that type may be hard to make.
So? (Score:2)
Every day 117 people commit suicide. (avg)
Where did the other 116 people work?
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Remember kids, land head first if jumping, or cut along the wrist, not across....
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At my last place of work they used to play this over the speakers when we had layoffs https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
I think I preferred their honesty to all that euphemism and bullshit
Re:What does he think this is, Apple?!?!?!?!? (Score:4, Insightful)
Apparently the guy survived a 12 story drop... what makes you think that suicide nets aren't already implemented?
Re:What does he think this is, Apple?!?!?!?!? (Score:5, Funny)
It appears he fell in one of the Complaints Department letter storage silos, so he actually only fell like 10 feet.
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Sounds like they are. Usually 10 or more stories is enough to do it. Well once he gets out of the hospital he can try again from something higher. I would recommend a swan dive into a nice parking lot.
Re:What does he think this is, Apple?!?!?!?!? (Score:4, Informative)
He fell only 20 feet.
http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Amazon-worker-leaps-from-building-at-Seattle-10640986.php
h/t Wooky Monster https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=9934505&cid=53385601
Re:What does he think this is, Apple?!?!?!?!? (Score:5, Funny)
The rooftop was about four stories up -- the pedestal section of the 12-story high-rise -- but the man fell only about 20 feet to a balcony below, Lt. Harold Webb, with Seattle Fire, said.
And that's a perfect example of the lack of motivation which management was concerned about with this employee. This isn't going to look good on his next performance review.
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Apparently the guy survived a 12 story drop... what makes you think that suicide nets aren't already implemented?
No mention of suicide nets. Plus, can you imagine the negative publicity Amazon would get from putting up suicide nets in the USA? It's a completely different story to do that in China as Apple did, but their factory had really weird rules for the employees and was not in any way a typical Chinese workplace. I don't know what the odds are for surviving a 12 story drop, but it's not impossible. The odds aren't good, but one unofficial source I found put a 15 story fall at a 1 in 100 chance of survival. T
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There was a documented case where a flight attendant survived a fall of about 20,000 without a parachute from an airplane, although I don't know the details of that.
I hadn't heard of that one but I do know of am 18,000 feet fall survived [wikipedia.org] over Germany during WWII. Turns out there are links to other similar instances on the wiki page.
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Usually you find that the survivor hit deep snow. Although IIRC, in one case a skydiver whose chute failed survived (with a lot of broken bones) by falling into a sewage pond.
Even water isn't soft when you hit it at terminal velocity.
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There was a documented case where a flight attendant survived a fall of about 20,000 without a parachute from an airplane, although I don't know the details of that.
Her name was Vesna Vulovic. [wikipedia.org] It happened in 1972, and it was 33,333 feet (10,160 m) not 20,000 feet.
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It was 20,000 feet after the first 13,333 feet.
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There was a documented case where a flight attendant survived a fall of about 20,000 without a parachute from an airplane, although I don't know the details of that.
Her name was Vesna Vulovic. [wikipedia.org] It happened in 1972, and it was 33,333 feet (10,160 m) not 20,000 feet.
At least her velocity was not terminal.
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I don't know what the odds are for surviving a 12 story drop, but it's not impossible.
Doesn't matter in this case, because he didn't drop 12 stories. He jumped off a 4 story portion of a 12 story building, landing on an awning about 2 stories from the roof. He fell about 20 feet.
Re:What does he think this is, Apple?!?!?!?!? (Score:5, Funny)
swarm of piranhas
What kind? Sales or Legal?
Re:What does he think this is, Apple?!?!?!?!? (Score:5, Informative)
If you compared the statistics of suicide for FoxConn vs China as a whole you actually had a reduced chance working for FoxConn.
That doesn't help sell a narrative, but that's how statistics work.
Re:What does he think this is, Apple?!?!?!?!? (Score:5, Interesting)
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I think you mean Foxconn.
Re:I wouldn't work there. (Score:5, Insightful)
Working for any big organization if you get in the wrong unit, with the wrong set of managers you job is hell. If you get in the right spot, your job may be great, until that manager moves to a different unit.
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Yeah, it's really not that different from working in a small company really. If you get a good manager and company, a small company can be great. If you get a bad manager and/or company, it can be hell. A big company is basically like a bunch of small companies all stuck together and sharing an HR department and facilities.
The main advantages I've seen with bigger companies are
1) they tend to be much better about avoiding certain problems that could cost them big in legal fees, namely harassment. You do
Lots of companies don't fit (Score:2)
From the various anecdotes I've heard about Amazon, I sure as hell wouldn't want to work there.
You could say that about any number of companies. Cultural fit is an important consideration at any job. Google is a great place to work for some but it would be a terrible place for me personally. We have people at my company who do jobs that I'm perfectly capable of doing but would absolutely loathe doing. Sometimes one part of a business can be a good fit and another branch of the same company can be a terrible fit.
Is Amazon a great or terrible place to work? I think that depends on your personal pe
Re:I wouldn't work there. (Score:5, Interesting)
I've known a couple people who (briefly) went to work for Amazon because they were offered a really good salary... then learned that the reason the salary was so high was a corporate expectation of 70-80 hour work weeks plus basically 24/7 on call availability.
So if you ever hear Bezos talking about needing more H1-Bs because of a "lack of skilled workers", be sure to note he's got a different definition of "skilled" than you or I do. I don't personally think a willingness to give up one's entire existence should be considered a skill - but maybe that's just me.
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I don't personally think a willingness to give up one's entire existence should be considered a skill - but maybe that's just me.
This, THIS, so much this!
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70-80 hour weeks are less productive than 40-50 hour weeks. In anything but the very short run.
In pure rote roles it might work for a little longer, but in a couple of months the 80/week worker is a net negative producer.
Willingness to work 80 hour weeks is a sign of someone who doesn't care about doing good work. Companies full of 80 hour/week people are waiting to implode.
Lawyers don't actually work 80 hours/week, they might bill 160 but work 50. Also note: (many/most/all) law firms have a business
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if you ever hear Bezos talking about needing more H1-Bs because of a "lack of skilled workers",
I'd go a step further than you suggest. When you hear an executive of a large company saying that there are a "lack of skilled workers" in the USA, it always, inevitably, without exception has an asterisk that they don't want to utter out loud: There is a lack of skilled workers willing to work at the offered level of pay.
It's not up to me to dictate what a company should pay their workers. But I absolutely think that H1-Bs should be incredibly expensive to obtain. If a company absolutely cannot obtain
Re:I wouldn't work there. (Score:5, Funny)
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Remember, only YOU can refuse a job offer from Amazon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Have you ever been out of work? Sometimes you take what you can get.
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I have, and I still turned down positions that weren't what I was looking for because I knew the importance of choosing a place that I actually wanted to work at.
I could afford to do this because I have a large savings that exists for these sorts of times.
I had a large savings because previously I lived within my means or more accurately I lived below my means so that I could quickly grow a large savings exactly for these sorts of purposes in the future.
It's all just a part of careful planning in my experie
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And then one day, you find your large savings has become a small savings. And it's dwindling fast.
There's this thing that many people do when their large savings has truly become large enough to live on indefinitely. It's called "retire".
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So you think it's useless or futile to work hard and focus on putting oneself in a position to minimize the likelihood that they would have to take a job that they don't like because they need money now, especially if they find that working in a job they don't like makes them very unhappy.
I was under the impression that most people don't do enough to put themselves in a good position like that and that they could have done more to prevent it and now they are complaining about being in that position when the
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I have, and I still turned down positions that weren't what I was looking for because I knew the importance of choosing a place that I actually wanted to work at.
When I was on unemployment insurance (shortly after the 9/11 attacks), I had to answer a questionnaire every week before getting my check. One of the questions was if I refused a job offer. Refusing a job offer would disqualify me for unemployment for two weeks. I would preemptively say something at the end of the interview about it not looking like a good fit before an offer could be extended.
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If the email said what I think it said, you would have to pry it from Bezos' cold dead hands. After fighting your way through his security force and past his massed army of lawyers.
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Let me guess: you work for the government now in a cushy IT contracting job because that is all you could get?
After three years as a video game tester and three years a lead video game tester, I went back to school learn computer programming on a $3,000 tax credit that George W. signed into law after 9/11. I spent the past decade working as an IT support contractor at Cisco, eBay, Fujitsu, Intuit, Google, Sony and many other Fortune 500 companies. I'm in my 22nd year of my technical career doing computer security in government IT, making 50% less money than my Silicon Valley peers because I serve the taxpayers.
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Let me guess: you work for the government now in a cushy IT contracting job because that is all you could get?
... I'm in my 22nd year of my technical career doing computer security in government IT, making 50% less money than my Silicon Valley peers because I serve the taxpayers.
I'm impressed by your CV, but I'm sorry you felt you had to justify yourself to the fuckwit troll you were replying to. I already knew you were a better man than he based on your previous posts in this thread.
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I guess working for the government leaves plenty of time to slack off here on Slashdot.
Much of my job is watching paint dry while waiting for a task to get done. Slashdot exist to keep me amuse while I wait. Of course, I could multitask, work on multiple systems at the same time and risk the possibility of making a mistake. In my particular line of work, people could die if I make a mistake.
It's only at the taxpayers expense and who cares about them?
Could be worse. I've seen corporate dysfunction that wasted millions of shareholder dollars. Unless you're a retiree dependent on stock dividends, no one cares about shareholders.
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Yeah it is pretty impressive. Wow! Government IT? Who woulda thunk it? He is such a bright guy.
So are the people I work with. Most are ex-military with zero tolerance for slackers. People who get hired with the idea that a government job means not working are shocked by how much hard work is needed and even more shocked when they're back on the unemployment line for refusing to work.
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So "yes"?
Of course. But the question was asked by a troll who already knew the answer. I took the opportunity to present my side of the story by flashing my resume.
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Aren't you the contractor that did the desktop rollout one machine at a time over the course of nine months instead of using a multicast deployment in an afternoon?
Nope. Unboxed 750 workstations and 1,500 monitors. Reimaged 150 workstations per hour over the network. Data transfer between the old and workstations took forever. The project was scheduled for 12 months and I got it completed in nine months. I also cleaned out a storage closet that no one have seen the floor in eight years that I did in between tickets over a six week period.
You do talk up a big game but when the subject of conversation comes to technical knowledge or skills, there is always disappointment in the quality of discussion when the handle 'creimer' is on a post. Skipping them tends to be more informative.
More sour grapes from the peanut gallery.
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Cold-hearted and brainless? (Score:4, Informative)
I don't know what you imagine you get out of being callous - other than making yourself look slightly less than human. Workplace bullying really ought to be something that everybody worried about; nobody is immune to the very serious, mental health problems that this can cause, and trying to appear "tough" only makes you all the more vulnerable.
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Lucky? I can't speak to the West Coast, but here in the Midwest it's a job seekers market. Companies are lucky to get people for interviews.
Amazon does tend to hire young with slight under market salaries and a big carrot of stock back loaded. Getting put on a PIP means the dude threw away however many years at Amazon and was going to lose his stock. He could have made more and worked less somewhere else.
On the other hand there are parts of Amazon that hire older PhDs and have a slower R&D pace. But tha
Re:Umm what?! (Score:4, Informative)
EIP or IIP (Individual Improvement Plans) are a staple of the U.S.'s highly litigious society. If you are a bad performer and I want to fire you I can't just do it. I have to be able to prove you are a bad employee. That means I have to document why you are bad and give you a chance to prove to me that you can be a better employee.
So say you are habitually late. I have to prove that you're late (No time clocks, don't you know, but RFID ID badges can usually be used to document a worker's habitual tardiness.) Then I have to have a meeting with you, with a witness from HR, where I clearly tell you that being habitually tardy is against company policy and can result in your termination. You typically sign a form saying that I've told you that being tardy is against company policy and that it can lead to your termination. You also promise to be on time in writing. That is your 'improvement.' Typically there is some duration of time the IIP is in effect, so that if you're late once three years after our talk I can't fire you. Usually its a period like three or six months. If you complete the IIP period successfully the IIP may be destroyed, retain for some specific period or go in your permanent work record, depending upon company policy.
In many states if you are fired for cause (that is because you are habitually late, like in our example) then the employer is not required to pay for you under their unemployment insurance program, just like they don't have to pay if you quit. As a matter of fact in most states all firings are for cause. Terminating you because of other reasons is call being "laid off" and almost always makes you eligible for unemployment payments.
Re:Umm what?! (Score:5, Insightful)
wow it's almost like depression or other types of mental illness can make people do things that aren't rational.
fucking dipshit.
Mental health issues are not the easiest thing to wrap your head around (especially if you're of a generation that was taught to rub dirt on it/walk it off in response to any injury, physical, mental, or emotional). If you haven't lived through it, or had a family member/close friend live through it, it's likely you just can't comprehend what some stranger is going through.
Just because someone is ignorant doesn't make them a dipshit (unless they're willfully so). Indeed, the AC was expressing empathy in general for the guy who tried to kill himself, rather than the disdain that you appear to be trying to respond to.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This.
As someone who's never suffered from depression I have a hard time wrapping my head around stories like this, hell at that point robbing a bank starts to sound like a better idea.. but I can at least appreciate that it's (usually) not something that can be fixed purely with logic. Saying "he should just get a better job" is like telling someone suffering from severe depression to just cheer up or someone with anxiety to relax.. just doesn't work that way.