What's the company culture at Amazon.com?

Every business has it's own style. What is the office environment and culture like at Amazon.com?

Are people dressed in business casual, jeans and t-shirts, or full-on suits? Do folks get together for Friday happy hours and friendly get-togethers?

What is a typical day in the life of an employee at Amazon.com?

I'm interested in a tech writer position in Amazon's Web Services group. Do you know what that group is like?

Thanks.

Amazon.com fulfillment center has the most inhumane working conditions I have ever experienced in my life. Long hours, low wages. We walk 4 minutes to be able to sit down for 7 minutes to turn around and walk 4 minutes back to our work location. That means we work 5 and a half hours with a 7 minute break. There is no air circulating in what was described as "air-conditioned" when we took the job. The managers don't care about anything but bodies performing manual labor. Period! Oh, and bodies that don't get hurt because they don't want law suits. Not because they care about human beings, they just don't want law suits. The people I work with want jobs but they don't want to be treated like animals. Amazon.com treats people like animals.

Pam Bruce in Phoenix, Arizona said: Amazon.com fulfillment center has the most inhumane working conditions I have ever experienced in my life. Long hours, low wages. We walk 4 minutes to be able to sit down for 7 minutes to turn around and walk 4 minutes back to our work location. That means we work 5 and a half hours with a 7 minute break. There is no air circulating in what was described as "air-conditioned" when we took the job. The managers don't care about anything but bodies performing manual labor. Period! Oh, and bodies that don't get hurt because they don't want law suits. Not because they care about human beings, they just don't want law suits. The people I work with want jobs but they don't want to be treated like animals. Amazon.com treats people like animals.

I can only speak to Fulfillment Center because that's where I worked for 2 years. The culture is MORE of "dog eating dog" (backstabing each other in the attempt to outdo each other) and LESS of team-oriented. Having said that, I don't want to discourage anybody from applying to work there. Some people might strive in such a competitive atmosphere, relishing the fact they might be fired any day for no reason whatsover. We have had two managers get fired in the past several months due to "bad performance." The culture is very data-driven and CONSTANT change is a daily mantra there.

Host said: Every business has it's own style. What is the office environment and culture like at Amazon.com?

Are people dressed in business casual, jeans and t-shirts, or full-on suits? Do folks get together for Friday happy hours and friendly get-togethers?

What is a typical day in the life of an employee at Amazon.com?

I can only speak to Fulfillment Center because that's where I worked. I know that Corporate office culture in Seattle is quite different where they bring in dogs to work, etc. Dress code at the FC is very casual, consisting of jeans and t-shirt. Typical day for FC managers starts about 30 to 60 minutes prior to work, where they get their pre-shift work done (meaning, allocate associates based on the work available in the system). They do stand-up with their associates, talking about daily expectations and afterwards review associates' work throughout the day. After the shift is over, managers stay about 30-60 minutes to complete the post-shift report. In short, manager's typical day shift is from 6:30am - 7pm. There are no fun activities for managers or associates to mention of. Just a daily grind.

[QUOTE]Amazon.com treats people like animals.

Indeed. As a stower, I know what you mean. People have been written up for making a mistake while doing a NEW job they were JUST trained for, while the training was only 30 minutes. Some got NO training. All that's cared about is rate rate rate rate rate. Not quality. They say quality, but it's unrealistic at the rate they want from us. It's hard, as a stower, to get that rate when there is either no bin space, or having to take EVERY kart to a problem solver, or you need to walk all the way to smalls/mediums to stow a mixed tote. Forget trying to mention those problems, or mentioning that you were doing a special task or doing a problem solve kart, because management doesn't take it into real account. One manager says you can/have to do one thing. Another says otherwise, and no matter which one you listen to, you'll get in trouble by the other one. There's no real communication.

And as far as I know, there are no sick days. You have to use personal time, but in order to get a whole day off of personal time, you need to schedule it a day ahead. Who can schedule when they will be sick a day in advance? All you can do then is go to work and try to make it till lunch, so you can get 1/2 day personal, but sickness kills your rate, and they don't care. Still gotta make rate.

I got written up for having an 85% rate. That is GOOD. They TOLD me that a while ago. I got written up because, despite being 85%, I was in the bottom 10% of the shift. So what? The others did better, but I still hit my mark. I could do better, but I was told 85% was good. If I got a 200%, and the rest all got 201% or more, I'd get written up for being in the bottom 10%. When I inquired about why the others' rates being better made mine worthy of a write up, I was told "It's a dog eat dog world here", when they like to keep telling us about "teamwork". What teamwork is there in that? BS!

/necessary rant before I blow it at work