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    dkmannHamilton Nolan
    5/06/14 3:16pm

    We get it - you liked the publishing world how it was pre-Amazon where only people like you HamNo had a chance at getting a book deal. Fuck Amazon for slaying the gate keeper and opening up the gates - I get it.

    However, you don't make your point with these whiney "work is hard" bitch fests. Everybody has a shitty job. Some of us have had several. If anything, you're making those in the fence about Amazon's impact on the publishing world think you (the messenger) is lazy and unattached to American work place realities.

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      lifetimeguaranteedkmann
      5/06/14 3:21pm

      How does Amazon abusing its employees have anything to do with their vanity publishing apparatus? There's no reason they couldn't have a non-hellish work environment and publish terrible kindle books.

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      dkmannlifetimeguarantee
      5/06/14 3:34pm

      They are not abusing their employees. That's what you don't seem to get. I go to glassdoor.com and see what my colleagues write - it's fucking laughable. Every job has at least 35 percent of the workforce who feel they've been wronged beyond repair. I should know, my staff comes and goes over simple things like not being allowed to get drunk at lunch or having to come into the office by 9:30 ("but my hair needs time to dry!").

      HamNo is a part of a group of professional writers who are trying to take Amazon down so they can go back to the days where being a New York insider was the only way to get a book deal. The New Yorker has done this article along with a bunch of others. Hell, in DC every professional writer in the city is begging every congressman they see to "do something about fucking Amazon!"

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    ClioHamilton Nolan
    5/06/14 3:24pm

    Yes, I know it was disgruntled hyperbole, but lest anyone take the first story as being completely true I know dozens of Amazon blue badges that love their job. There are so many divisions in the company that employee could not know about; that person is clearly priming themselves to justify their departure, which is completely fine and something we all do. That being said, it's silly to say no one is happy. Living in Seattle, you can't avoid having Amazon friends. All mine love their job. I'm not sure if the first story was a fulfillment center or corporate but either way, it was definitely exaggerated.

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      cromartieHamilton Nolan
      5/06/14 3:35pm

      I had the chance to see and work in that environment pre internet bust. I always wondered what happened when all of those people who were in it for the stock options got out, and how the company would adapt.

      Now I know.

      That said, everything everyone complains about is endemic to large organizations everywhere to some degree, and this is something people need to understand.

      Fundamentally, dysfunction is not a product of union vs. non-union or public vs. private enterprise. Dysfunction in a workplace is first and foremost a product of company size. The faster you grow, the slower you move, the more dysfunctional, petty and greedy you become.

      If you're looking for a career workplace that you'll love with a work/life balance, get in on the ground or first floor of a start up, work a job with a serious, quantifiable bonus plan or learn to tune your job out early. Passion and dedication in a large corporation at anything below upper management is wasted in an environment that chews you up and spits you out.

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        kittieboopcromartie
        5/06/14 7:21pm

        I've known very few people who have been happy with their tech jobs anywhere, and that includes Adobe, Citrix, Microsoft, Lynda, Real, and scores of smaller companies. This is the subject of Douglas Coupland's Microserfs and jPod, and at least a subtext of The Social Network, Silicon Valley, and Betas. I'm citing tech companies because I've worked in tech for 23 years, but I doubt the situation is different for employees of banks, retailers, or any other businesses operated as corporations. There are a few people who find a job where they (a) get to do what they like and (b) have the perfect boss. Unless you're one of the lucky ones, the best you can do is find a job that doesn't destroy your soul and then focus your remaining energy on your family, your art, or helping others.

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        cromartiekittieboop
        5/07/14 9:56am

        I work for a tech company, and love my job. But that's endemic to the type of work I do, not necessarily the advancement I'm no longer after.

        That said, I had to leave it for awhile and do other things (including working for a startup that failed due to incompetent management) before realizing what precisely my problem was.

        Most often, it's the balance of 'not destroying your soul' that's the problem. Most often, we get out of college, get a job, pour our souls into it and realize that, unlike what we've been promised, it doesn't get us where we think it will get us or if it does we don't like what we get when we get there, that's the problem. And that is a particularly rude awakening in large corporations like Amazon.

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      teninchnailsHamilton Nolan
      5/06/14 4:08pm

      could you start including the ages of these people, because i am starting to feel like these are a lot of baby boomers/gen xer's who don't realize jobs are very hard/competitive these days, and their college educations don't necessarily buy them cushy lives anymore. as a 20-something who is grateful to not be adding to the 20%+ unemployment rate in my demographic, these grievances seem a little petty.

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        talktotalktoteninchnails
        5/06/14 7:32pm

        Just because jobs are competitive doesn't mean you should be working 14 hour days and be completely miserable. I'd rather just be homeless in that case

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        FlamingTelepathteninchnails
        5/07/14 2:58am

        Gen-Xer here, and I feel the same way you do about Boomers, who can't fathom what it's like now for us, much less you Millenials, because of how comparatively easier and cheaper things were for them in a general sense (like buying a house, for example).

        As for you guys, you got fucked harder than we did. My hope is that if you're as "entitled" as people who criticize you say you are, then you'll be the ones to finally throw a massive hissy fit about how fucked things are and actually demand some improvements.

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      pootmatootreturnsHamilton Nolan
      5/06/14 3:18pm

      There's a theme recurring in all of these posts: Amazon is a very demanding employer. No shit.

      How can this be a shock or surprise to people who have applied to work there? They're the Big Gorilla, globally, in dozens of markets. Applying to work for Amazon's corporate machine is like applying to work at a global No.1 law firm: obviously the hours, the workload, and the stress are going to be immense. They can hire the cream of the global cream, and their interview process (as outlined here before) apparently tries to ensure that.

      Who the hell are these people choosing apply to Cambridge then being shocked they have to write 2 essays a week, and having to defend them in one-to-ones? Did they do no bloody research before hand?

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        lifetimeguaranteepootmatootreturns
        5/06/14 3:28pm

        Forcing people to routinely work 100 hour weeks goes beyond "demanding." It's bad management. People who work that much are not productive. (And this is universal. It's not something that special "smart" people are immune to because of their high SAT scores.) It's bad management, plain and simple. Big law is just as guilty of it, but that doesn't make it okay.

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        Paul-Whirtpootmatootreturns
        5/06/14 3:29pm

        That's not fair. Plenty of corporations are demanding in terms of hours, but the good ones give you the tools to succeed. Overloading people with so much work that they can't succeed and quit within a year or two is a sign that A. You suck at recruiting or B. You're too demanding.

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      Defender90CAHamilton Nolan
      5/06/14 5:20pm

      It is only a matter of time until the tech world runs out of smart people who believe it will be "different for me."

      The optimistic view in some individuals' hard-wiring that allows them to believe s/he can be the one to disprove the norm (which, it can be argued, is a part of the American character) is not limited to the tech world or Amazon - or even to giant corporations. Unfortunately, those in positions of authority are frequently aware of this sanguine belief on the part of many of those seeking work.

      On two separate occasions I tried to talk friends out of working for an infamous producer, knowing he would run roughshod over them and potentially fuck them up psychologically for years to come. They said that exact same thing: "Yes, I know the stories but I think I know how to handle that better than all the other [dried husks of] people who previously worked for him." That proved to be wrong in both cases.

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        seeyaHamilton Nolan
        5/06/14 3:46pm

        That second letter writer sounds super privileged! "I QUIT YOU AND GO TO EUROPE!" Fuck, I want his life.

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          raincoasterHamilton Nolan
          5/06/14 8:05pm

          These letters encapsulate all of the promise and all of the heartbreak of the dotcom economy. If they had stayed true to their (sorry, but apt) disruptive ideals, they would have disrupted the corporatist structure enough that their people could change the world AND have lives. It's time to review Love is the Killer App, Bezos.

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            Búho se PierdeHamilton Nolan
            5/06/14 8:09pm

            I have a friend who recently left his job of ten years to go work at Amazon. He's happy as a clam. He's also as dumb as a fence post.

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              lobstrHamilton Nolan
              5/10/14 7:03pm

              My favorite part of this whole article is that the Corporate Communications person has a very fitting name... Director Cheeseman reporting!

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