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“The people. I missed the people,” and I know what they mean; I missed some of them even if we hadn’t worked together in ages, missed their camaraderie, their under-eye circles, their gallows jokes, the way they kept showing up for me and I kept showing up for them because no one of us could make it alone, though it’s arguable whether we could make it together, either.
But you will figure it out! Somehow. We know you will, because it is required.
6:00 a.m.: I wake up afraid of the day, just because it’s there and I can’t stop it from happening.
I try not to think about the fact that even the hires I’m proudest of are statistically unlikely to stay at Amazon more than a year or two.
“It’s probably harder to harass women when you’re in meetings nine hours every day,” speculated another.
“Looks like we’re ready to discuss!” I say, and he nods. “Any comments on the overall document?” “Yes. It’s stupid,” he says.
Oh jeez
he wouldn’t have talked to you like that if he didn’t think you could take it. He treated you like the leader you are.”
I hate how much we normalize verbal abuse as a society.
Because Mitch gets to throw toddler fits while I’m not allowed to show emotion at all, I am angry but I think it’s shame.
expecting humane behavior isn’t exactly the Amazon way.
Yes, I’ve taken a terrible situation and made it better. The software is no longer actively hostile.
Two years pass and nothing changes.
Amazon has never shut me inside an oven, but I’m familiar with its refusal to adjust productivity requirements in the face of human limitations.
I get off the shuttle and get sucked back into my own productivity and anxiety vortex
2014: Speaking at a conference for women in tech, the CEO of Microsoft tells women that rather than ask for pay raises, they should simply trust the system. It’s good karma, he says.
conventional wisdom was not to hire anyone we couldn’t imagine in at least three different Amazon roles.
“I just want to reiterate that the vlookup thing threw me,” he says. “That’s basic, basic stuff.”
Which is also incredibly easy to teach 🤦♀️
“So, the thing about Amazon is that there are no wheels,” I say. “They were never there. What you’re experiencing is just how it is here. Absolute chaos.”
And what is a job anyway, if not a chance to ruin your life?
True, most of us grew up as hyper-achievers. Amazon didn’t create our yearning for recognition, but it exploits it for maximum return by holding the rat pellet just out of reach and then frowning on any rat who looks hungry.
I’ve been doing weird, random shit at this weird, random company for years. My career narrative looks insane.”
I heard Starbucks has an official deprogramming process for us because we arrive so fucked up.”
Amazon could be depositing a million dollars a month into my checking account and I would think, Yes, this seems about right, given the fear and the chaos and the ugly surroundings and the endlessly escalating demands and the way no one ever says thanks.
“I’m declaring the house on fire,” Ron says, because his only two urgency settings are “all good” and “cataclysm.”
it would be easier to stay sober in a job that did not flood her with anxiety and despair.
“a carnival of chaos, missed signals, and male entitlement,”
“Amazon is really smart about some things. But I don’t miss the constant grind at all.”
I know his company runs on fear and superhuman expectations.
What I am is tired. I’m too young to feel this tired.
Also, the hard truth is that saying yes to every outlandish request is Amazonian. It may be ruinous and unsustainable, but Amazon as we know it wouldn’t exist without a thousand tiny acts of self-destruction every day.
And the thing is, I’m not going to try to be nearly superhuman. Not anymore.
by Amazon standards I will always be failing just a little bit.
She knows how innovation works, and it doesn’t mean just making twice the stuff with inadequate resources and expecting people who are supposed to be your partners to suck it up at all costs.
If I don’t get my footing on the tightrope between spineless and spiny, I’ll plummet to earth.
You might be tolerated, even beloved and respected, but you will never be a citizen, and the problem isn’t how you look or talk or act. The problem is that there is no right way to be a woman. In their eyes you will always be a bit too female or not quite female enough, and trying to walk the tightrope will kill you.
I know Josh was pushing Megan and the others to learn to stand on their own feet as L7 Amazon leaders. But he was still their boss. If they were drowning—and in turn, drowning the people on their teams—why didn’t he do something about it? Why didn’t he push back on some of the top-down demands they wouldn’t say no to?
nobody is willing to say when enough is enough.
