Amazon reviews

1) The Top Grading policy of getting rid of the bottom 10% is ridiculous. Amazon already has most of the best people. There are a lot of empty chairs. We have gotten rid of a lot of good people because they no longer met the bar. Well the bar is now too high and there are not enough candidates to fill them. We are interviewing people that we passed on years ago because we have let people go that were better then them. Those people will be let go in less than 2 years and it will cost the company a lot of time and money. Some of the great people that were let go should be hired back over the candidates that are available now. 2) People are miserable because of #1. They feel like it is only a matter of time before they are let go no matter how hard they work and how good they are. Truly a toxic environment where people are being paralyzed by feer. This is not what Jeff intended. 3) Management that is excelling and moving up are the ones that operate best in this environment and play the political game. Move to a new area. Lop off a bunch of heads (of good people) and say that you have raised the bar when in fact all you have done is create chaos and fear and actually slowed down the company from becoming the greatest retailer in the world. Shame on you it will catch up to you in the long term. 4) Some really great people no longer want to work here because of this enviroment and if you want to leave and go work for a company that does not treat people this way as a manager you may get type cast when in fact you do not believe in this at all.

Company motivates employees with fear and pressure. Senior management pressures associates and managers to just get the job done without offering any help or guidence. This is because the system is broken and they don't have the answers either. But instead of realizing this, they will throw you under the bus any chance they get because they fear for their reputation. Because the business model of Amazon includes very tight margins on their products, the company tries to save money everywhere; as a result, the facilities are run like sweat shops and associates are treated like slaves. In addition, equipment is very rickety and often creates safety hazards for workers. While the pay is decent, as a manager you will end up working so much overtime that your salary will be comparable to an hourly associate's (again, part of the business plan to cut costs). The retention rate for Area Managers is ridiculous--something like 2-3 months. And the reason they like to hire military is because they know veterans are likely to put up with more crap than their civilian coutnerparts. My guess is if they didn't hire military, the retention rate would be right at about 1 week. Don't be fooled by the name Amazon and the appeal that it seems to carry because it is an "innovative" dot com company. Instead, think "Online Walmart" who is actually one of their biggest (if not biggest) competitors.