<story><title>Amazon Worker Jumps Off Company Building After E-Mail to Staff</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-28/amazon-worker-jumps-off-company-building-after-e-mail-to-staff</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Futurebot</author><text>Tyler Cowen has written a lot about this:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Individuals don’t in fact enjoy being evaluated all the time, especially when the results are not always stellar: for most people, one piece of negative feedback outweighs five pieces of positive feedback. To the extent that measurement raises income inequality, perhaps it makes relations among the workers tenser and less friendly. Life under a meritocracy can be a little tough, unfriendly, and discouraging, especially for those whose morale is easily damaged. Privacy in this world will be harder to come by, and perhaps “second chances” will be more difficult to find, given the permanence of electronic data. We may end up favoring “goody two-shoes” personality types who were on the straight and narrow from their earliest years and disfavor those who rebelled at young ages, even if those people might end up being more creative later on.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;marginalrevolution.com&amp;#x2F;marginalrevolution&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;09&amp;#x2F;the-measured-working-man.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;marginalrevolution.com&amp;#x2F;marginalrevolution&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;09&amp;#x2F;the...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pervasive employee monitoring and feedback isn&amp;#x27;t costless. Some people will improve, others will get fired&amp;#x2F;quit find a new job, but there will be some who cannot take it at all. If losing a job wasn&amp;#x27;t so punishing economically and status-wise, it would take a lot of, but certainly not all, of the sting away.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>77pt77</author><text>&amp;gt; We may end up favoring “goody two-shoes” personality types who were on the straight and narrow from their earliest years and disfavor those who rebelled at young ages, even if those people might end up being more creative later on.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;We&amp;#x27;ll keep on doing what we&amp;#x27;ve been doing since the dawn of time: reward Machiavellian behavior.&lt;p&gt;The guy that creates a controlled fire and puts it out will be praised.&lt;p&gt;The guy that cleans the dead foliage to prevent future fires will be punished for being unproductive and a dead weight.&lt;p&gt;Nothing will change.&lt;p&gt;Edit: punctuation</text></comment>
<story><title>Amazon Worker Jumps Off Company Building After E-Mail to Staff</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-28/amazon-worker-jumps-off-company-building-after-e-mail-to-staff</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Futurebot</author><text>Tyler Cowen has written a lot about this:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Individuals don’t in fact enjoy being evaluated all the time, especially when the results are not always stellar: for most people, one piece of negative feedback outweighs five pieces of positive feedback. To the extent that measurement raises income inequality, perhaps it makes relations among the workers tenser and less friendly. Life under a meritocracy can be a little tough, unfriendly, and discouraging, especially for those whose morale is easily damaged. Privacy in this world will be harder to come by, and perhaps “second chances” will be more difficult to find, given the permanence of electronic data. We may end up favoring “goody two-shoes” personality types who were on the straight and narrow from their earliest years and disfavor those who rebelled at young ages, even if those people might end up being more creative later on.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;marginalrevolution.com&amp;#x2F;marginalrevolution&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;09&amp;#x2F;the-measured-working-man.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;marginalrevolution.com&amp;#x2F;marginalrevolution&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;09&amp;#x2F;the...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pervasive employee monitoring and feedback isn&amp;#x27;t costless. Some people will improve, others will get fired&amp;#x2F;quit find a new job, but there will be some who cannot take it at all. If losing a job wasn&amp;#x27;t so punishing economically and status-wise, it would take a lot of, but certainly not all, of the sting away.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ex_amazon_sde</author><text>A &amp;quot;little tough&amp;quot; for &amp;quot;those whose morale is easily damaged&amp;quot; sounds like an attempt to blame employees.&lt;p&gt;Amazon is not as meritocratic as people imagine. People are often praised for building a shiny thing or stopping a fire. Rarely for preventing a fire, or a security issue, or doing the hard work it takes to keep an old system running. &lt;i&gt;A lot&lt;/i&gt; can depend on being in the right team at the right time.&lt;p&gt;On top of that, expectations can be arbitrarily high and are increased based on previous successful reviews. 
Essentially you end up competing against your previous self and your colleagues, but this is not discussed openly by management.</text></comment>