This part is crazy… What’s really nuts is everyone was saying this was what RTO was all about, was actually forcing their most expensive employees (who are probably also their most valuable???) to quit. They don’t want workers who know their value. It’s wild how the rich are so transparent and barely even try to mask it anymore.
Amazon won’t fire me
On September 1st, 2023 I was told by my skip level manager and VP that my team and an adjacent team were being eliminated. They claimed we all did such good work that they wanted us to remain at Amazon. “We still have a job, just not a role.”
I was skeptical of how it was communicated–or rather not communicated–by management and I asked if severance was an option. I was repeatedly told it would be once we’d exhausted other options.
They told us our number one priority was to find another job. Every role we found had significant downsides. Lower pay, lower title, RTO, or various other things.
It was clear they wanted us to take a different role we could quit later. My management wanted to retain the headcount, but couldn’t do layoffs.
October 16th I asked my VP for the severance I was told would be available. He let me know HR wasn’t aware of what he was doing and he would have to get approval. It would take some time.
Every week for the next 2 1/2 months I asked for an update on my employment and severance package. I was either ghosted or given a variety of excuses. It’s now December 30th and I’m currently still employed by Amazon.
It hasn’t only been happening to my team. This has been happening in multiple areas as Amazon silently sacks people without being required to give them severance or announce layoffs. I’ve heard similar tactics being used at other companies–mostly large companies–and it’ll only continue in 2024 as they make decisions that drive short term profits over all else.
I saw it happen once when I was young team lead. I had a number of people that worked on my team.
One day I was asked how many people we would need if we stopped doing one task. I was to naive to put two and two together.
A short time later I heard the ops manager talking to someone about offering the people they planned to get rid of other work with the express intent of avoiding paying out unemployment.
I couldn’t really do anything at that point other than warn my people, which I did. I found something else a short while later. I made sure to tell management why I was quitting, which was a long list of issues including them fucking over good people.
They all thought they would be so valuable that they would become the kind of rich that is capable of firing them.
They believed hook line and sinker all of the Amazon cultural bullshit and cannot understand that they too are just employees in a capitalist system that hates employees at the end of the day.
This part is crazy… What’s really nuts is everyone was saying this was what RTO was all about, was actually forcing their most expensive employees (who are probably also their most valuable???) to quit. They don’t want workers who know their value. It’s wild how the rich are so transparent and barely even try to mask it anymore.
I saw it happen once when I was young team lead. I had a number of people that worked on my team.
One day I was asked how many people we would need if we stopped doing one task. I was to naive to put two and two together.
A short time later I heard the ops manager talking to someone about offering the people they planned to get rid of other work with the express intent of avoiding paying out unemployment.
I couldn’t really do anything at that point other than warn my people, which I did. I found something else a short while later. I made sure to tell management why I was quitting, which was a long list of issues including them fucking over good people.
If they aren’t going to fire you and you aren’t going to voluntarily take a worse job, what happens?
They all thought they would be so valuable that they would become the kind of rich that is capable of firing them.
They believed hook line and sinker all of the Amazon cultural bullshit and cannot understand that they too are just employees in a capitalist system that hates employees at the end of the day.