[belval]

I like working there, but Amazon definitely has the worst in-office accomodations. No snacks, no free coffee, for-profit (like 4-5$ for a chocolate bar) vending machines on every second floor, no cafeterias in most building and when they have one it's a hole-in-the-wall that microwaves stuff (except Seattle).

In the original RTO email they even pointed the importance of employee spending money in the surrounding restaurants to support the downtime economy as if I should feel personally invested in spending 30$/meal on an overpriced burger for lunch.

[devinplatt]

When I worked at Amazon, I also was tired of paying for expensive lunches available nearby. But I didn't always have time to make pack lunches.

So I ordered canned soup, on Amazon, to be shipped to the office mailroom. Then picked up the soups and kept them in the drawer by my desk.

[user3939382]

Super tangential please accept my apology. Do you have any insight on why one of the biggest companies in the world can’t create a dark mode on their app after 10 years?

[belval]

Haha no I do not, I work on an AWS AI service. If I could get some pull on other teams it would probably be the kindle one to fix the scribe syncing feature or the fire tv one to remove the god-awful ads.

[barbazoo]

> no free coffee

Do they have coin/card operated machines then or just no coffee at all?

[belval]

They have these big dinner-style machines that you can use to brew a large batch of coffee and then put it in large thermos, but honestly the taste is pretty bad (but it is free!) and it requires you to babysit the process.

We also have free tea and hot cocoa.

In most places employees will also bring a Nespresso machine so you can bring your own pods which is somewhat better.

Writing all that I feel like it will come off as extremely entitled. I just want to stress that I personally don't mind much, but having worked for other tech companies, it's definitely at the bottom in terms of "free stuff".

[lsllc]

You can get yourself a nice pour-over setup on Amazon for the office and every two weeks or so buy a bag of small batch coffee at Whole Foods ...

[barbazoo]

Or set up an Amazon subscription for the beans, so convenient

[pshan]

I was an intern at Amazon in Seattle in 2018 and full-time from 2019-2021. Coffee was definitely free back then although someone had to brew it for the office.

I did it pretty often as it was a nice thing to do and a good way of meeting people who were waiting for the coffee.

[spacemadness]

It is incredibly insulting they want to use guilt of not spending like a good consumer as another tool in their sociopathic toolbox.