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enderland
enderland
12:21 AM
@gnat your avatar looks shockingly similar to Marc's avatar...
 
gnat
gnat
@enderland Gravell's?
 
enderland
enderland
Yes, you both have similar faces and glasses and very similar skin tones/hair
 
gnat
gnat
@enderland am I his bot too?
 
user55340
No, you're his secret sock.
 
enderland
enderland
Things make so much more sense now :o
 
user20683
12:39 AM
I've been migrating the data, all the live long day.... I've been migrating the data just to past the time away...Can't you hear the Team Lead stressing, gotta make this deadline by dawn... Can't you hear the VP shouting ''Dina iterate the scrum''
 
durron597
durron597
1:43 AM
OMG.
Anyone here
@enderland ?
 
enderland
enderland
yes, I just stopped in for a short bit...
 
durron597
durron597
I just did my amazon code interview online
I had three minutes left in the third problem (of three)
 
enderland
enderland
Sunday night?
 
durron597
durron597
It didn't work, I couldn't figure it out online
They outsource it to hackerrank, it's automatic
 
enderland
enderland
Oooh
 
durron597
durron597
1:44 AM
I passed the easy test cases but not all the hard ones
I was like "WTF"
My girlfriend knocked on the door to the office
I yelled "GO AWAY"!!!
then I realized the problem... integer overflow
 
enderland
enderland
HA
 
durron597
durron597
RAPIDLY CHANGE int to long
in a bunch of places
run cases... success!
 
enderland
enderland
sometimes a context switch is really helpful ;)
 
durron597
durron597
passed all test cases with 30 seconds to spare
 
enderland
enderland
lol
 
durron597
durron597
1:45 AM
my heart is about to explode, lol
 
enderland
enderland
:D
 
durron597
durron597
> 5. Do not worry if you cannot get all of the test cases or all of the questions. We do not expect all candidates to finish or get all of the test questions.
 
enderland
enderland
I wonder how many people actually get that far
Apparently not that many
 
durron597
durron597
I wasted so much time on the second question trying to do some weird array thing in place
after wasting 20 minutes on it, I said "screw this" and made a temp array, got it in 5 minutes
then i spent another minute typing out a long explanation in the comments, lol!
i quoted knuth, that was fun.
 
enderland
enderland
I suspect your experience with Google has given you a much lower self-evaluation than you probably should have
 
durron597
durron597
1:47 AM
> this is still O(n), i wanted to finish instead of getting this stupid thing in place
(i didn't say stupid)
thanks for listening, i needed to tell that story to a programmer instead of my girlfriend who won't get it.
though i'll probably try to tell her now anyway ;)
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
Integer overflow is a common problem in hackerrank challenges. I always use long.
 
enderland
enderland
Hah
 
durron597
durron597
@RobertHarvey I didn't think about it, as it says that the inputs are bounded by 100,000
my change to use long was a desperation move
 
enderland
enderland
so you finished the entire problem set then?
 
durron597
durron597
Yeah. With 30 seconds to spare
They said I would have an hour but the test gave me 75 minutes.
 
enderland
enderland
1:51 AM
Hah
 
durron597
durron597
If I didn't blow 15 minutes trying to do question 2 in place, I would have made it in 60.
 
enderland
enderland
I wonder how often companies like that change the problems they use
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
I suppose I'm in for such a test. I told Amazon that I'm not a computer scientist, and that I thought I'd need to memorize all the problems on GeeksforGeeks to pass their test. They demurred, and gave me an interview/screening. But I'm still probably going to have to take one of those 75 minute tests anyway.
 
durron597
durron597
Okay, going to eat something now
thanks for listening guys
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
Congrats.
 
 
2 hours later…
Duga
Duga
4:10 AM
@DanGetz Okay, just the scope then. My bad on pointing op to SuperUser, programmers.stackexchange.com seems to be the goto place for conceptual design questions... (glad I know that now) — Kickaha 56 secs ago
 
Zizouz212
Zizouz212
4:47 AM
Hi peeps!
 
 
4 hours later…
Duga
Duga
9:06 AM
@Mayur Please understand that SO is about directly programming related questions. The fact that you're a programmer and that other programmers also use a Mac Book does not make your question a good fit for this site. — Nikolai Ruhe 5 secs ago
 
Christoph
Christoph
9:58 AM
good morning
 
 
2 hours later…
Duga
Duga
11:35 AM
This might be better suited for programmers.stackexchange.com (you should do a search there first, though, to make sure what you're about to ask hasn't already been explained in one or more existing answers). — Michael just now
 
Telastyn
Telastyn
@durron597 - relevant news: nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/…
 
Duga
Duga
12:00 PM
"Stack Overflow is a question and answer site for professional and enthusiast programmers. It's built and run by you as part of the Stack Exchange network of Q&A sites. With your help, we're working together to build a library of detailed answers to every question about programming." - This may not be the best place to ask this question, sorry! — Jack hardcastle 18 secs ago
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
12:15 PM
Happy Coffee Day
@RobertHarvey Amazon's making another drive eh?
Seems they do that in spurts; every year or two there's a period where suddenly like 3 or 4 people I know will be contacted by Amazon, couple times I have been as well. Not moving though, so meh
 
Thomas Owens
Thomas Owens
@JimmyHoffa Amazon pings me, too. It's always about Seattle, even though I live in Boston.
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@ThomasOwens people move from all over to work there, it's pretty smart and frankly something I like about Amazon that they try and make the opportunity available outside of their little area
 
Thomas Owens
Thomas Owens
@JimmyHoffa They have two or three facilities in Boston - Amazon Robotics (formerly Kiva) is here, as is something else that I'm not remembering.
Yet they are always pushing their Seattle jobs when they contact me. Nothing about local Boston-area jobs.
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
12:49 PM
@ThomasOwens The Seattle office has a much higher demand / supply ratio, any local Boston offices are likely far smaller and contacts far fewer people when recruiting
 
enderland
enderland
1:08 PM
@JimmyHoffa Just got coffee, nice perk of work is free coffee
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@enderland only a perk when it's any good (Costco drip crap here, yuck)
 
Thomas Owens
Thomas Owens
I need more coffee, but I'm waiting to chart performance data.
@JimmyHoffa We have New Englands Coffee. It's more than acceptable.
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@ThomasOwens the coffee will make for much better performance data
 
enderland
enderland
@JimmyHoffa way to ruin it for me. :( hahah
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@enderland don't tell me you're trying to appreciate it as free when it's terrible... bad coffee is an assault on decency and good taste, don't prop up it's regime of terror hidden under platitudes like "free". Coffee abuse is a cardinal sin, distributed by the demonic lords of Maxwell and Folgers
 
enderland
enderland
1:17 PM
it's free caffeine? with a dark liquid that is coffeelike?
@Telastyn that was an interesting article
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@enderland you want free caffeine, steal some nodoz, but free bad coffee is everything that is wrong with this world. It's the modern day version of smallpox blankets only it's being committed upon the working class by our corporate overseers. They wish to assure themselves you are no threat by disempowering you with that awful brown swill. I say nay! Make coffee of your own, and show them that you have the Power!!
 
Telastyn
Telastyn
yeah, there's apparently a bunch of Amazon people claiming outright lies
 
enderland
enderland
@Telastyn I found it interesting what percentage of the people they talked with were women, considering the article also discusses gender balances there
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@Telastyn didn't read that article yet; basically saying what Yegge said about the culture being a work-till-you-drop one?
 
Telastyn
Telastyn
the ones I know are just "it wasn't like that when I worked there, but could've been in other groups"
kinda, lots of other nasty bits too
backstabbing, getting managers canned so you could steal their people, firing people for pregnancy/illness
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
1:24 PM
Yegge's writing on the place made me leery of it for sure, and he left years ago
 
enderland
enderland
@Telastyn Sounds fun!
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
recent years have not seen improvement in the quality of office politics anywhere else, so I wouldn't suspect any better from them
Especially when what Yegge said made it sound like a cut throat culture to begin with
Focus your business on I-don't-care-how-just-get-it-done results orientation, and surprise surprise, people start acting like sociopaths..
 
Duga
Duga
This question should be on programmers.stackexchange.com . If and when you decide to do this and face issues in implementation, you can ask a well researched question here about 'how' to do it... But a discussion on whether you are allowed, belongs to programmers forum. — lukya 45 secs ago
 
enderland
enderland
I think duga could just post a "this is not on topic on programmers.stackexchange.com" comment in response to 95% of comments it flags
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@enderland ...you know.... a more, eh, guiding version of that might actually be possible and great... does SE have rules against bot posts? Probably...
 
Duga
Duga
1:32 PM
@enderland programmers on-topic specifically mentions software licensing. So i think a 'terms of use' question can be asked there.. — lukya 16 secs ago
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
Really though, if it posted "Take a look at this and this before posting on P.SE please to ensure your question is not closed, as many things are not on topic there." it would work even for the 5% where it fits
 
user55340
Have it check tags and keywords for additional info and refinement.
 
Duga
Duga
@enderland .. Then again the its not about section mentions legal advice or aid .. so i concede.. you are right... — lukya 26 secs ago
 
durron597
durron597
@MichaelT Looks like you're hanging on with the top spots on my MSE question.
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@MichaelT could respond to the poster specifically too with @blablablablablbalbablablablablablablab
unless that wasn't their name
 
user55340
1:35 PM
@durron597 there is much dissatisfaction with the current process and lack of feedback.
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@MichaelT the real problem would be that - surely SE has a policy against bot-posting?
Hell, at the pace duga would post, it would probably start triggering captcha checks for exactly that reason
 
user55340
@JimmyHoffa that's why there is a rest service.
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@MichaelT they don't have a policy against bot postings?
 
durron597
durron597
@JimmyHoffa now look, you've gone and ping him unnecessarily
 
user55340
 
Thomas Owens
Thomas Owens
1:37 PM
@JimmyHoffa You can obtain write acces through the API...
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@durron597 it's always necessary to ping @blablablablablbalbablablablablablablab, it's his favorite thing
 
Thomas Owens
Thomas Owens
I don't think you can post questions or answers through the REST API, though, can you?
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@ThomasOwens I can't imagine that being a good thing. Comments though? who knows
 
user55340
@ThomasOwens of course you can. That's how the mobile apps work.
 
Thomas Owens
Thomas Owens
@MichaelT I didn't see that in the documentation. Can you linky to it?
 
user55340
1:39 PM
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
SE should make a bot-certification program that allows them to verify a bots account and allow write access for it so that people could use bots to help the SE system.
 
Thomas Owens
Thomas Owens
OMG.
 
user55340
 
Thomas Owens
Thomas Owens
All I need now is this:
11
Q: Additional RSS feeds

Thomas OwensThis is based on a few other posts here, such as 1, 2, 3, and 4. User Answers: A particular user's newly posted answers to questions. Every answer posted by the user gets published. Edits to answers would be published as well. Ideally, it would be nice to differentiate somehow between new answe...

feature-request rss feed data-analysis
 
durron597
durron597
can you cast close votes via the api?
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
1:40 PM
@MichaelT I bet from the mobile if you try to post too much you get a captcha check though, and it's probably API enforced that you send a captcha token to show you passed it
 
user55340
(Full api docs: api.stackexchange.com/docs )
 
Thomas Owens
Thomas Owens
Because I don't want to query the REST API. I want to be pushed things. Doesn't even need to be in real-time.
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@MichaelT cut it out, I have shit to get done today, flashing an SE REST APIs docs around here is not helping.
 
user55340
@JimmyHoffa there is rate limits. There is no catchpa.
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@MichaelT of course there's no catchpa, you made that up. I'm on to you!
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
2:03 PM
@durron597 yeesh, did you read that article about Amazon? Eff that. You're young and single, it would be great for your career and your mind, but hell to that. I'll gladly ignore all amazon recruiters henceforth..
 
durron597
durron597
@JimmyHoffa Yeah, I did. I'm not going to stop the process but I am going to mention it to the recruiter. I want to hear their side.
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
yeah; like I said, for you, it may be worth the pain and heartache. An environment like they describe definitely can turn out amazing workers when they leave, being used to putting in 120 hour weeks will make every job afterwards a cake walk.
sounds like they cultivate a bit of stockholm syndrome, great for business, but those poor people..
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
2:17 PM
> Amazon retains new workers in part by requiring them to repay a part of their signing bonus if they leave within a year,
ouch, don't ask for a signing bonus
maybe that's why they recruit outside of Seattle so much, they get to slave people on a "Stay or pay" for the money they were given to move there
 
Thomas Owens
Thomas Owens
@JimmyHoffa Turning people over every 13-18 months doesn't seem like a smart business decision.
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
> Nimrod Hoofien, a director of engineering at Facebook
what an unfortunate name for an engineering director...
that can't be real
@ThomasOwens when decisions are made purely based on algorithmic signal analysis, long term results being hard to predict mathematically tend to end up not being accounted for.
 
Telastyn
Telastyn
it also might be that locals have heard from other locals to stay away
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@Telastyn or that they're already churned through every local; median tenure is one year- ONE year?? For a company of that size, that is an insane amount of turnover
 
Telastyn
Telastyn
yeh
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
2:23 PM
150k employees according to google, that means 75k of their workforce was hired within the last year.
and that a year from now 75k of their work force won't be there if the median stays "one year"
...they'll fire/lose 75k people in a year? That doesn't computer, no, something's wrong with my analysis or the way I read their statistic..
 
Telastyn
Telastyn
the article's turnover rate is likely not company wide.
or skewed by their warehouse people
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
ah ok that makes sense
they do employ a lot of seasonal warehouse workers; christmas shipping et al
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
Wait, what?
 
Telastyn
Telastyn
which probably do get cycled out regularly.
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
First of all, how is keeping people for a year a good business decision?
On any statistical chart?
 
durron597
durron597
2:27 PM
@RobertHarvey If you include minimum wage seasonal workers, that skews the median really far towards the short end.
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
Oh, shippers.
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@RobertHarvey if they're cheap (because you make them pay back 10-15% of their salary for leaving early) and you make them put in 90 hour weeks, you may well come out ahead. Plus they treat it like a test: The people left over are going to commit seppuku for company profits
> Those departures are not a failure of the system, many current and former employees say, but rather the logical conclusion: mass intake of new workers, who help the Amazon machine spin and then wear out, leaving the most committed Amazonians to survive.
good luck @durron597
 
durron597
durron597
@JimmyHoffa I haven't even interviewed on site yet
I may not, now, lol
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
But does this same dynamic apply to their knowledge workers?
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@RobertHarvey from what I've heard yes, though I never heard of it to the extent that article describes, makes sense though. It's a company run by an ideological culture, there's probably no exclusions
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
2:34 PM
That is not a flattering article.
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
to say the least
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
If it's even half-true, it doesn't sound like a place where I'd want to work. It would have to be $150K and generous stock options for me to put up with that kind of environment.
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@RobertHarvey that sounds about like what they do for people who make it through the initial grinder
(from my understanding)
 
user55340
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
I wouldn't do it for that though, screw that. Not worth it. Maybe at $300k...but... no. I like my family and my life, I wouldn't sell either for a *illion.
 
user55340
2:46 PM
 
durron597
durron597
3 hours ago, by Telastyn
@durron597 - relevant news: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-wrestling-big-ideas-i‌​n-a-bruising-workplace.html
But thanks though
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
Glassdoor puts them at about $105K for someone like me.
The higher salaries are reserved for the program managers.
 
user55340
@durron597 I blame my very limited scroll back.
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
$105K wouldn't be enough to put up with that kind of abuse.
 
durron597
durron597
@RobertHarvey I asked for a lot more than that in my intake form.
 
user55340
2:48 PM
@RobertHarvey but if you were single and just out of college... And wanted to work someplace with hipsters hip?
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
Meh, I won't make it through their screenings anyway. They want computer scientists, or at least kids out of school who know the answers to the problems on geeksforgeeks.
 
enderland
enderland
Quite a few companies capitalize on kids who are really young and don't realize that not all companies work 60+ hours a week
 
durron597
durron597
I sent the article to my gf, who has been pushing me to leave my current job pretty hard
and she's like "ummm no"
> this is actually making me feel really annoyed and sort of stressed out
 
enderland
enderland
how many hours do you work at your current job?
 
durron597
durron597
I set my own hours.
35 to 60 depending on what I want to do that week
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
2:54 PM
@enderland which is scary: What will the employment landscape look like in 30 years when those people are the managers throughout industry? :o
 
durron597
durron597
@JimmyHoffa Will they be? If you were a CEO, would you hire someone raised in that culture?
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
Were fresh-out-of-school kids being worked those kinds of hours 30 years ago I wonder? (no, genuinely, I'm curious, anbody here remember? @RobertHarvey ?)
 
enderland
enderland
@JimmyHoffa I don't know that many of them can sustain that lifestyle long enough to become a manager at that point
 
user55340
@JimmyHoffa they will either burn out, understand work life balance, or be managers at the next Amazon.
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@durron597 those people will be the CEOs, and to be fair they'll likely rise through ranks well due to their productivity (granted it may not be their efficiency...)
 
durron597
durron597
2:56 PM
@JimmyHoffa if you were a board chairman would you hire one of these people to be your CEO?
 
enderland
enderland
I'm curious if there is enough intertia from younger people who loathe the "butts in seat" metric to change company culture
 
user55340
CEOs are cloned, not promoted from within.
 
enderland
enderland
@durron597 sure, they work a ton, don't care about their life, and give everything for the company, sounds great!
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@durron597 ? yes? Like I said, they'll be very productive. Since when does the market not want to hire someone who will work all day every day?
were you trying to make a point that those people wouldn't be hired? What's your reasoning, it's not clear to me, though I am curious
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
@JimmyHoffa I've never worked those kinds of hours, but maybe that's why I never progressed beyond being a software developer.
 
durron597
durron597
2:58 PM
@JimmyHoffa I would only hire someone from Amazon to run my company if I wanted my company to be run that way
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@RobertHarvey but did it seem like a common-ish thing at the time?
 
durron597
durron597
My point is that they will only spread through the industry if other companies actually desire this sort of thing
@JimmyHoffa Also, I wasn't asking whether the market will hire them, I asked whether you personally would.
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@durron597 I doubt that... people aren't hired for the culture they carry, they're hired for the competence and productivity they appear capable of effecting.
 
user55340
There are more people who want to work at Amazon, Apple, Google and the like than they are hiring for. They can pick the brightest who will work for 60-80/week
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@durron597 most everyone would, they'd make people lots of money
 
durron597
durron597
3:01 PM
Anyway @enderland aren't you the one who says that people get used to the environment they're in and don't need more than what they have after a while?
@JimmyHoffa Including you?
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
@JimmyHoffa Only when you could still get rich doing it.
 
durron597
durron597
Why are you dodging the question?
 
enderland
enderland
@durron597 for money, yes
Also I think that the skills required to be a good executive/CEO type are not necessarily the same as being a good independent contributor
 
user114359
It is NAA either way because it lacks information, hence the flag I raised. Arguing about why it is a bad answer does not change the fact that it is a bad answer. — Snowman 20 secs ago
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@durron597 I don't honestly know. Yeah, but I think I'd feel horrible about letting them manage anyone so I'd probably not let them do that. Just let them do their 80 hours a week for me so I can makes the moneys and keep them from messing other people up like that.
But if you're asking the Haskeller as if he's a representative sample, you mistake anecdotal evidence for having value :P
 
durron597
durron597
3:03 PM
Well, if they're CEO they're the ones who decide how the company works day to day. You don't pick a CEO and then not let them run the company their way
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@durron597 they would be CEO because they started the company, not hired for it
they work all day every day on something - they make a business - and they expect everyone else to be as devoted to them and their project as they are
 
durron597
durron597
well that's "president and ceo"
It's really, really difficult to found a company out of the gate that way.
Because you don't have enough money to pay people what they would want to be treated that way.
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
either way; I'm just curious if it will have an effect, no effect, or what on the industry 30 years from now that such hours are becoming (even if only temporarily) extremely common for the first time (since the industrial revolution maybe?)
 
durron597
durron597
But they're not becoming extremely common
 
enderland
enderland
@durron597 people expect it a bit more in startups than "established" companies, though
 
durron597
durron597
3:05 PM
Google runs its business very different than apple and amazon.
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@durron597 ?? you haven't looked around many jobs then...
 
durron597
durron597
@JimmyHoffa How many hours do you work?
or you, @enderland? Or you @Snowman? or you @RobertHarvey ?
I don't think anyone in this room works 80. Heck, I don't think anyone in this room works 60.
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@durron597 you're talking about a small subset of the industry; I've interviewed at numerous companies where I found at during interview that 60+ is totally common. More than one have told me "Oh we have lax hours here, we only work around 50-55 hours a week"
 
enderland
enderland
I work about 40 a week, sometimes a little more (my previous teams at this company all worked either 40 a week or were paid for overtime). Managers here tend to work more than individual contributors, but not always
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@durron597 this room is no representative sample. People who work those hours have no time for SE
Maybe not the majority of companies have common 60+ hour work weeks, but it is rather common these days.
 
user114359
3:09 PM
@durron597 40 hours. I am also hourly, so I get OT.
 
durron597
durron597
If it's not the majority of companies, but only some, then there's choice
Choice is good.
 
Thomas Owens
Thomas Owens
@durron597 I cap out at 50. I usually work 45-47, though.
 
durron597
durron597
@ThomasOwens A couple weeks ago you had a huge delivery deadline. How many hours did you work that week?
 
Thomas Owens
Thomas Owens
@durron597 Same. About 46.
I try to pace myself. The biggest thing for our delivery deadline is getting the paperwork out timely.
 
durron597
durron597
The bottom line is this: there are people who thrive in that sort of environment, and they will work for Amazon and Apple. There are other people who it would make miserable
They'll work somewhere else.
If no one wanted to work for amazon, no one would.
 
Thomas Owens
Thomas Owens
3:14 PM
@durron597 That's not true. There's always people desperate enough for work that they would work somewhere, regardless of how bad it really was. Just look at The Workplace.
 
enderland
enderland
Most people don't know what they are missing too or realize that companies do exist which legit support work/life
 
user55340
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@durron597 you mistake to think I'm making a point. I was just posing a question: Are these hours being common a new thing? If so, will it effect the working landscape of our industry 30 years from now and how? Or not? I didn't pose an answer as you seem intent on
 
Telastyn
Telastyn
I do not even work 40.
 
enderland
enderland
@JimmyHoffa I think in my company the older generation (55+ types) have far more acceptance of working as many hours as the company requires, but the younger people? pfffft
 
Telastyn
Telastyn
3:17 PM
partly because I'm lazy. Partly because I consider my commute at least somewhat company time.
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@enderland aye, I just did some googling to try and figure out if the 60+ hour work weeks were commonly expected of fresh grads for white collar industry 10-20-30 years ago, looks like it may well have been, so perhaps it's the same now as then and nothing's new.
> Death March: The Complete Software Developer's Guide to Surviving 'Mission Impossible' Projects by EdwardYourdon, Prentice Hall, 1997
 
Thomas Owens
Thomas Owens
@JimmyHoffa Just because it's commonly accepted doesn't mean that it's right or that people won't force a change. If a company can continue to exist with high turnover because they burn out their employees or don't offer an expected work/life balance that makes people leave after a few years of experience, that's fine. But they'll need to deal with other companies competing to take away their knowledge workers.
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
that's nearly 20 years old. I can only presume it was a commonly seen occurrence back then. Hell Office Space came out in what, '01? It references this too
 
user55340
Burning fresh and enthusiastic college grads and moving to the next ones have been around since the dawn of computing.
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@ThomasOwens I should hope so, but have you heard of this having happened? Most companies known for this type of thing have been doing it for a long time yet... It may have occurred in smaller shops; likely so. Dunno.
 
user55340
3:23 PM
Read Hackers by Levi. We in part have done it to ourselves by the culture of computing in the 50s
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@MichaelT probably true, probably since before then...
@MichaelT link? I'm sure googling that will come up with a lot of unrelated content..
 
user55340
gah. Giant one box.
 
user55340
Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution
Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution (ISBN 0-385-19195-2) is a book by Steven Levy about hacker culture. It was published in 1984 in Garden City, New York by Nerraw Manijaime/Doubleday. Levy describes the people, the machines, and the events that defined the Hacker Culture and the Hacker Ethic, from the early mainframe hackers at MIT, to the self-made hardware hackers and game hackers. Immediately following is a brief overview of the issues and ideas that are brought forward by Steven Levy's book, as well as a more detailed interpretation of each chapter of the book, mentioning some of the...
 
Thomas Owens
Thomas Owens
@JimmyHoffa No, but it will take longer for it to impact something as massive as an Apple or an Amazon. Plus, it may depend on their business structure, too. They could have things built up around the high turnover to help protect the business.
 
user55340
 
Thomas Owens
Thomas Owens
3:27 PM
I wouldn't be surprised if the prestige helps them, especially when getting interns and recent grads. Get an intern, insulate them from the worst aspects of the company, and then make them commit to a year or two through contracts.
 
user55340
Stock option golden handcuffs.
 
enderland
enderland
I'm always curious about companies that hire a million people, it would seem that would destroy you (hiring 50% more every year) due to turnover/training things
@MichaelT +1
@ThomasOwens yeah, internships also insulate people from other companies
where grass might actually be greener
 
Thomas Owens
Thomas Owens
Couple that with the student loan debt the way it is...your recent grad is going to take the money and suffer for a couple of years.
 
user55340
Insulate them from the mundane - Microsoft has (had) a department for taking care of the bills of their employees.
 
Thomas Owens
Thomas Owens
@enderland Yep. That's why I tell people they should do at least two co-ops or internships and go to two different companies.
Bonus points if they are in different industries.
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
3:29 PM
@enderland see this is the elephant in the room everyone tends to ignore: Corporate revenues are so big, efficiency is irrelevant often times. The sheer mass of horrible, awful, terribly productivity damaging, money wasting things I have seen in corporations during my career is baffling... and I've never seen a company go under. Usually I've not even seen these things paid any mind to or slowed/stopped, because it didn't matter. Revenues take care of it.
 
user55340
In days before ebills. Send your utility to MS department and they do a payroll deduction on it. Never have to worry about missing one.
 
user55340
On site chef that cooks good food for free. Breakfast to late night snack.
 
Thomas Owens
Thomas Owens
@MichaelT Those things are traps.
People need to learn to see right through those. Why do companies offer those? To make you come into the office early and stay late.
Especially if you're salaried. If they are getting a few extra hours of work, a few more bug fixes, a few more pages of documents, whatever, it adds up over time.
 
user55340
They let the focused creative person not worry about the mundane. Helps balance work / life when the mundane doesn't hit the life part.
 
user55340
Paying bills is not fun. Shopping for fresh and healthy food when you get it for free takes time from the life part.
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
3:32 PM
@ThomasOwens this is one trap I am totally fine with. I had this at Employer^^^, and Employer^^^^^^^, they gave me excuse to get in early (no need to stop for food or make it at home), and leave early (didn't stop working for lunch). The trap is for people who don't value themselves and their own time enough to use it like that.. Even still I probably got more done because of it. Plus it saved me money, and the food was good... really it's a win for me and the company I think.
 
enderland
enderland
@JimmyHoffa yeah this is astounding to me, honestly. What I somewhat would describe as a dream job is basically being a consultant applying UX principles to internal business processes
 
Thomas Owens
Thomas Owens
@JimmyHoffa Really, it depends on the company.
 
user55340
Yes, they are traps. They are also things making the quality work / quality life balance better by reducing the poor quality life time consumers.
 
Thomas Owens
Thomas Owens
I'm some companies are doing it for good reasons - to help with work life balance, to give their employees a good perk. Others are using it as a trap.
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@ThomasOwens nah, the company will make you work extra hours if that's their way with or without a chef, the chef part is just a perk whether they company commits to overworking people or not.
The chef/cafeteria thing is orthogonal to the working extra hours thing. It's a benefit for companies to have, whether they work their employees to death or not.
 
Thomas Owens
Thomas Owens
3:34 PM
@JimmyHoffa It's easier to work extra hours if I don't need to wake up early and make breakfast or go shopping and then cook dinner at night. I guess it depends on the motivation behind it. Are you trying to milk me for extra hours or are you trying to make my life easier?
 
whatsisname
whatsisname
agreed with @JimmyHoffa, having a chef on site isn't really all that different than having a food-court on premise
except they are cooking stuff creatively instead of heating up stuff from Sysco
whether a company will try to wreck work/life balance will happen with a chef or without
 
user55340
@enderland there are probably a dozen hot workplace questions in this discussion to be appropriated.
 
Thomas Owens
Thomas Owens
@whatsisname That is true. It's easier to hide with some perks, though.
brb rebooting computer for IT patches and grabbing lunch.
 
user55340
"My office has a chef... Is it a trap?"
 
user55340
 
enderland
enderland
3:39 PM
in The Water Cooler, 2 mins ago, by enderland
@AaronHall I'm always curious how to use workplace effectively in a career, "I have a ton of rep on a Q/A site about how to navigate the workplace" doesn't exactly sound great :P
 
user55340
... I wonder if they serve Mon Calamari?
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@ThomasOwens company's doing this to their people aren't hiding. Pressure cooking your work force is typically pretty overt because it makes it easier not to get complaints and non-compliance if you make it public so people are implicitly accepting such as a TOS just by their showing up every day.
 
enderland
enderland
@JimmyHoffa dont forget pressure cookers sometimes explode ;)
 
durron597
durron597
> now that such hours are becoming (even if only temporarily) extremely common for the first time
That sounded like a point to me shrug
@JimmyHoffa JCPenney?
Lehman Bros?
heck, half the banks in 2008?
 
enderland
enderland
@durron597 how many of them actually went bankrupt though?
 
durron597
durron597
3:48 PM
@enderland Being saved by government bailout does not mean the company "did a good job"
 
whatsisname
whatsisname
was lehman bros collapsing due to pressure cooking their employees?
or due to other more insidious shenanigans?
im thinking the latter
 
enderland
enderland
@durron597 no but they didn't suffer for their mistakes (other than PR)
 
durron597
durron597
@whatsisname I was referring to gross incompetence and waste.
 
durron597
durron597
4:29 PM
> Yes, I did read it. It really set my hair on fire because it's just patently false. Knowing what I know about Amazon, it was hard to read because it's just slanderous, irresponsible journalism at it's best.

If you're having concerns about Amazon due to the NYT article, I want you to take a look at this piece by a current Amazon engineer:
That's from the recruiter who's trying to match me with Amazon.
 
whatsisname
whatsisname
lolz
 
Telastyn
Telastyn
that rebuttal is not great (except as an example of why you should let company PR do their job)
lotsa koolaid drinking sounding bits. Very defensive.
 
whatsisname
whatsisname
yes
the author even acknowledges what he's trying to defend, in his quote of "Amazon used to burn a lot of people into the ground."
mitch hedberg used to do a lot of drugs too
plus amazons dealing with people at their distribution centers is quite dubious and there is plenty of public record information indicating so
 
Telastyn
Telastyn
from another chat: 
Re Amazon, all my Amazon friends are saying the article is *not* accurate, and all my non-Amazon friends are saying they asked *their* Amazon friends, and those friends reported it to be accurate.

(roughly)

reinforcing the idea that there are good and bad parts of Amazon to work in, I happened to work in a good part, the people I know from that time also considered it to be good
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@Telastyn the biggest hole in that rebuttal is that it's some director far from having any idea what doing the real work of producing is; and he sits in a cubicle to be "near his guys" rather than an office because he's so down to earth that he's one of these idiots who doesn't realize management should be in offices for dealing with important private matters regarding people.
 
whatsisname
whatsisname
4:41 PM
the articles varying font sizes and styles also reminds me too much of time cube
 
Thomas Owens
Thomas Owens
@Telastyn Isn't the idea that there are good and bad parts of any sufficiently large company?
 
Telastyn
Telastyn
I don't know anything about the guy, so...
 
durron597
durron597
@ThomasOwens It could easily be a "depends on the team" thing.
 
whatsisname
whatsisname
@ThomasOwens: yes, but that doesn't mean the bad part can include downright evil behaviors
 
Telastyn
Telastyn
sure, but there seems to be larger bits of Amazon, which seem to be more horrifically/purposefully bad than at other companies (which are merely/incompetently bad)
anyways, afk, lunch
 
Thomas Owens
Thomas Owens
4:45 PM
@durron597 As soon as you have more than one team or more than one site, you're going to have variation.
 
enderland
enderland
It's also important to note that a team you join is not static, if you work for a company that is 95% bad managers, your current manager when leaving will be 95% replaced by a bad manager...
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@ThomasOwens then competition, then war, followed by... departmentocide! Legal vs Clerical, who will win in this battle royale!?! Two departments enter, one department leaves, Amazondome!
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
4:59 PM
Bezos internal e-mail response to the NYT article: thenextweb.com/insider/2015/08/17/…
 
whatsisname
whatsisname
frankly it doesn't really matter what Bezos has to say concerning this issue
 
durron597
durron597
My recruiter emailed again
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
Another personal responder who works at amazon: tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2015/08/16/Working-at-Amazon
 
durron597
durron597
> To be honest, I giggled to myself when I read the part of your email that said "...work 85 hour weeks with no vacation." That kind of thing just doesn't happen there. And to be honest, if it were true, I wouldn't be in this job. I won't take a job recruiting people into a meat-grinder. I'm not a sociopath because I care about others. And so does Amazon.
 
Thomas Owens
Thomas Owens
@whatsisname Why not? Doesn't his response speak to how others (especially perspective employees) view the company?
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
5:10 PM
> Super-extended hours. I ar­rive be­tween eight and nine and leave be­tween five and six. The ju­nior geeks tend to drift in bleary-eyed at ten or lat­er and of­ten work till cor­re­spond­ing­ly lat­er. Some­times I get on­line in the evening, some­times not. There’ve been week­ends when I haven’t opened my work com­put­er.
That shouldn't even be a statement, and it's definitely the opposite of a selling point..
 
Thomas Owens
Thomas Owens
@JimmyHoffa Is that from a recruiter?
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@ThomasOwens haven't finished reading it, just googling around
 
Thomas Owens
Thomas Owens
@JimmyHoffa That quote about weekends and using a work computer.
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@ThomasOwens the article I just linked, look at it and you'll see, that's the list of thing's he hasn't seen, but the way he caps off "not working a lot" with "sometimes I don't even work on weekends!" sells me on how skewed his perspective of working a lot is
 
Thomas Owens
Thomas Owens
Ah.
Still, there are some people who do work on weekends.
 
durron597
durron597
5:12 PM
He's also a high level manager
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
that's the weird thing, like I said I've interviewed places where the people gladly tell of "We have a relax culture, usually only 50-55 hour weeks!" and I just smile and nod and wonder where they got such an odd perception of working hours
 
Thomas Owens
Thomas Owens
I've noticed (even where I am now) that upper management, HR and recruiters, and IT / system operations people work on weekends.
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@ThomasOwens HR? what?
What the hell is your HR team doing ?
 
Thomas Owens
Thomas Owens
@JimmyHoffa Job postings. Getting them ready for the job boards on Monday morning.
Also, if there is a candidate coming in on Monday or Tuesday, they'll be putting the package of information that we would need to interview them - notes from previous phone screens, resumes, etc.
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@ThomasOwens weird, I've never worked anywhere that HR did job postings, we had a recruiter at Employer^^^ in HR but he just handled post-hire intake, not searching
 
Thomas Owens
Thomas Owens
5:19 PM
@JimmyHoffa I think they have flexible hours, though. Like if they are working on a Sunday afternoon, they'll take Friday afternoon off.
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@ThomasOwens aye, you just have an interesting more old-school HR dept it sounds like which is pretty neat. I'm used to HR depts that just handle benefits and company liability (ensuring they have signed documents saying they trained people not to do X, so if people do X the company isn't held liable for the employees actions)
interesting comment from somebody claiming to be in the trenches at amazon tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2015/08/16/…
 
Thomas Owens
Thomas Owens
@JimmyHoffa They may be two separate reporting structures. I don't actually know how they are organized anymore.
They just sit togetherish on the same side of the building.
 
Duga
Duga
@gnat Originally I thought this would me more suited to "software architecture and design" so Programmers.SE.. but I see your point about broad scope being universally unwelcome, cheers. — Kickaha 50 secs ago
 
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