- Patrick McGah, a mechanical engineering PHD living in Seattle, initially ignored the stories he heard about Amazon’s cut-throat corporate culture where managers sought to create “purposeful Darwinism” among its ranks.
- After his managers put him on a “performance improvement plan” which lacked an actual plan, McGah asked, “You can’t give me any information? There’s a lot of gaslighting going on
- “Getting screwed by Amazon really radicalized me in a way,” McGah explained. “Amazon was not acting in good faith… treating its employees like garbage, and skirting labor law.”
Josh Marcus from The Independent writes:
“Patrick McGah, a mechanical engineering PHD who lives in Seattle, had heard the stories about Amazon’s cut throat corporate culture, but wasn’t that worried when he took a job in their drone division in October of 2019.
Sure, he’d seen that widely New York Times article a few years before, where former employees described workers regularly weeping at their desks, where managers said they sought to create “purposeful Darwinism” among the ranks. But Mr McGah had already worked with Amazon’s drone team when he was with a software company that business with them, so he thought he knew what he was in for. Plus, they were offering to double his salary, and with a family, two kids, and a mortgage in one of the most expensive housing markets in the country, it was a tough offer to turn down.
“It was one the back of my mind for sure that it could be a hellish work environment,” he said. “I was sort of like, there’s a spectrum of experiences, good and bad, positive and negative. These stories, I don’t doubt that they’re true. These may just be at one end of the spectrum.”
He’d soon find out, and the experience would be so dispiriting that it would inspire him to try and change Washington state law itself. In February 2021, his managers put him on a performance improvement plan, but offered little the way of specific things he could change or do. Mr McGah, who already had a doctorate in the field and had been published regularly in top journals, thought he was already operating at a high standard, so he pushed with his managers and Amazon HR to understand what discussions or evaluations had put his job in jeopardy…”
See full story here.
Economic Left 
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