| My manager called me in to his office. I had to sign an NDA before he would even tell me what it was about. I was getting assigned to a secret, hush hush, project. Something exciting and new. I was to work on... The Fire Phone. Later, when my manager joined the program too I got to demo the Fire Phone for him. I could see disappointment in his face as he asked me - "Will you use this phone when it comes out?" I told him no. And he said "Maybe if they give it to you for free?" I turned the question back to him and he thought for a moment and said "No." I agreed. There was a meeting where the business people told us how good we were doing, what the schedule was, how our partners at the carrier loved the phone and how the users they surveyed loved it too. Someone asked "What build were they using?" And a lot of people laughed like it was a joke. But I detected the hint of earnestness in the asker. He, like me, was just kind of confused at what he was hearing and trying to figure it out. Every project I worked at Amazon was like this and I worked on quite a few. Crushing, depressing failures that everyone I worked with saw coming. But also, it didn't effect our careers negatively at all. There's a disconnect between your output and your career. You can deliver features on some program that never sees the light of day or is simply an embarrassing failure for your entire career. And, it doesn't matter because somewhere in the company is an effectively infinite money generator which will keep you and your colleagues well compensated even though, realistically, there would be no difference between you working hard and you doing nothing at all. By the time I quit Amazon I was so deadened by the feeling of contributing nothing and meaning nothing despite working quite hard I just started to let things go. I refused to read my email as a general principle. I'd sometimes respond on Chime. I'd go out on day trips and just check my phone once or twice all day. My productivity dropped off to zero as I just didn't care any more. Internally, I felt this conflict between being a brazen parasite - intentionally not working but still getting paid, and feeling like I had always been a parasite - working on stupid projects and getting paid because of the lucrative ones I had no part in. After a couple months it got to be too much and I just told my boss I was quitting. He actually persuaded me to stay on a couple more months to help with the transition and to wrap up some of my tasks. Well, I was more persuaded by the chance to let a little more stock vest, but still... It's not all bad. I found the experience quite lucrative and I don't need to work for the foreseeable future. I did find it kind of soul deadening though. |
I'd love to work at a competant and impactful organization on something meaningful. The problem is, I genuinely believe that the probability of such an organization existing, and of them hiring, and of my having the right skill set, and of my learning about, applying to, and passing the interview, is essentially 0. Now, I struggle daily to avoid the cynicism you described so well.