employers
are any good?
Hate them as much as you want, Amazon has the best entry level jobs to ever exist, with amazing benefits if you’re permanent and decent benefits if you’re not.
That mandatory overtime tho 😬😬😬😬 (it’s worth it)
No micromanaging. My boss said: “I don’t care how long you take for lunch, just put in your 40 hours and get your projects done on time.”
Coming from previous jobs that I had to clock in/out of with strict lunch times, that was mind-blowing. Been working there 3 years now.
In order.
Employees owned. Community coop. Non-profit Opensource Community or national service related Trade, manufacturing, backend IT related
Those are all attributes that push me to feeling better about the work personally. The exact opposite of for profit retail experience
Probably add a red flag too. If career progression means management. Management is just a skill set, if getting promoted to that position is the only way “up” then you can expect a bunch of people who rose to the level of their incompetence in charge looking for people like them to promote under them.
actually there’s one weird one that I’ll put at the top because it might actually apply to the rest of you: everybody has nice pens. not like, fancy fountain pens, just the fancier rollerballs that feel smoother on the paper and the permanent markers with higher quality inks. like papermate inkjoys and real brand name sharpies. its a weirdly good indicator that they aren’t cutting corners elsewhere. a pizza party is a one-time expense, like a lovebombing abusive partner who buys you flowers the day after kicking your teeth in. pens are an everyday operating expense, and those costs add up. pens are one of the first things that are gonna get hit when the bean counters start getting their claws into the daily operational costs. good pens means they’re investing in the actual everyday working environment.
here were my first thoughts:
- good nurse to patient ratio (changes by specialty & facility acuity level)
- no mandatory overtime
- on-site security who are authorized to remove violent visitors
- good health insurance (they all suck but for the most part United bad, anthem good)
- no news articles about human rights violations
- low staff turnover / multiple nurses who have been there longer than 2 years
- when you do a shadow shift nobody is asking why they’re staffed so well today
…probably some other stuff I’m not thinking about.
Ideologically, I thought the “least bad” for me would be academic research. One year at an institution with a really toxic research culture later, and I’m thinking of either a local small-business or employee co-op or running a small business based on my special interest so… yeah.
Companies where there are long tenured employees outside of management is my ultimate green flag. If you can figure out who is in management by drawing names out of a hat by senority and stop when you run through 80% of managers without hitting a single IC then you should be aware that ICs have very little say in how the company is run so half the managers are there out of frustration because they needed to become a manager to enact change.
Screw “say in how the company is run”, I’ll settle for the money. Pay me and I will work. Pay me more and I will keep working. My current employers understood the assignment, I still have a long career progression without going into management.
My last interview, current company, the average tenure of all the people I asked was ~7 years. I would also ask why they’ve been there so long.
What’s IC mean in this context?
Individual contributor - a term for everyone who isn’t a manager.
Sounds like corporate jargon. Why not just say worker, a term everyone understands?
One thing I’ve learnt to look for is a kind of company that is not open or active 24/7, something that runs on daytime office hours only. Helps to cut down the possibilities for after hours work bullshit happening.
Their offering of junk food in the break room as a “benefit”.
