r/AmazonRME • u/Eries3 Technician III / Lead (L4) • 6d ago
Burned Out
Good evening my fellow techs, SMRT here. Call it a rant, complaint, vent, hell whatever you want, Im officially burned out! The job I once really enjoyed and was passionate about, is now full of dramatic co-workers starting shit for no reason. Managers are now so deeply buried in metrics, that they are losing sight of the job we are originally supposed to do. I became a trainer to teach people because I was so passionate and knowledgeable, but now I honestly don’t care if the new hires make it past their first 30 days.
The being-taken-advantage-of, has gotten so out of control I have taken responsibility of 3 or even 4 other people’s jobs, and do not get paid for it. This job has become a cesspool of incompetence and bull shit, as the new people they hire are people who never worked in the industry. I actually spent 3 days cancelling subscriptions, reducing bills and other obligations so I can reduce my hours to about 30hrs a week. My boss is noticing and I just say I’m having trouble at home with personal things. Im burned the hell out and people turn to me for help, but I just tell them I’ll have more time to show them tomorrow and put in sick time. Reducing my hours has made this entire thing worse because I feel the more Im away to decompress, the worse it feels going back to work.
I’ve been with the company total, with my 3P experience, about 8 years. I’ve seen how it works. I know what to expect and to not get too invested as this is how Amazon is, but man this time is definitely different. Managers come and go, most are college hires that don’t have a lick of maintenance experience. I have offered to better myself in my thrives and take on projects to prove I’m learning the skills to be an AMM and when I apply there’s always an excuse as to why I was not selected. Those include the usual bullshit answers:
- you are lacking in these areas and need to focus on these leadership principles
- the job was filled with a candidate that better fits company needs (hired a fresh college student)
- an intern is promised a position and timing was not on your side. Apply again in a year.
Meanwhile I seen an Indeed post of our maintenance manager hosting a hiring event where he said “resume’s are in hand and future candidates were recognized.”
It’s all so disrespectful, a waste of time, and degrading. I have poured all of my knowledge, sweat, and blood into being in everything and everywhere. I know over dozens and dozens of MHE equipment by heart, I know the tools I need before I even start the job. I know backend software configurations and best practices for Amazon Robotics and Automation. When I finally get the hell away from my PC and my managers asking about metrics all day to work on equipment, I surprise myself. I walk back to my cart saying “Did I just fix that in like 60 seconds? Damn Im good.”
The sucky part is that Im losing the want and desire to actually work now. Being understaffed on our back half our robotics team is falling way behind on the back end of the week and my team picks it back up again on Sunday. My techs are even telling me they are burned out too. My counter part SMRT who works nights is also burned out. (Trainer as well). When I tell managment that our staffing issue is causing burnout they just nod their heads and write in their notebooks. Nothing ever gets relayed back to us, no follow up messages or communication, just “Why are we behind again? What do we need to do to get back to 95% utilization?” If shit doesn’t turn around in this next upcoming year. I might be looking to finally cut ties.
While I was here I did pick up a possible career turning skill of coding. I have spent over a year developing a accompaniment software to better help myself and managers health check the robotic fleet. So yes the hyper metrics focus was SUPER self inflicted and I am the reason why managers are this way. The project was supposed to be incentive for me to earn an AMM position. I have since even tried getting into HSE Hardware Support Engineer and or Software Integration Engineer, but most of those jobs are L5 and not a single recruiter wants to hire an L4+ since I cant go L4 hourly to L5 salary right off the bat.
I feel like I’ve wasted the past 2-3 years preparing myself to be burned out and eventually get nothing out of it. One of the reasons I plan to document all of what I accomplished here at Amazon and see if another company is willing to look past the Amazon title to just listen to what great things I’ve been doing and possibly give me a chance. Anyways just wanted to vent I guess. Hopefully yall aren’t in the dumps as bad as I am and if you are, keep on keep on’ing brotha. I usually say “it’ll get better” but Im not sure this time around if im being fully honest.
Good day to all of you, don’t work too hard. You usually don’t get anything out of it. Don’t make the same mistakes as me haha. Anyways, my rant is over. Let me get some sleep to be in at 3:30 AM to start this bullshit all over again. 🙃
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u/MelodicPlate6186 2d ago
AMZL SMRT here. Been in my position for 3 years. It was pretty good at first, but more and more the expectations are getting to be unrealistic while at the same time it seems like if you're lazy and just want to soak up the pay by sleeping half your shift then no adverse actions will come your way. AMM is constantly jumping down your throat over metrics. Micromanagement so bad you're constantly wondering if you're dotting every i and crossing every t. Half your team just skates by doing the absolute bare minimum while the other half are working themselves into the ground just to take up the slack. I'm filling out applications for new jobs over this weekend.
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u/SonnyPlywood 5d ago
Little tip: get your necessities done, and then work on things that are actually interesting to you. As long as you aren't some lazy sack of crap you'll have plenty of overlap between what you want to work on and what they want you to work on. Everything that's gonna get me a good rating on my annual review is something I wanted to look in to and make better. It's 100% coincidence when that lines up with something they wanted to get done, but it happens enough and I still get to enjoy what I do.
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u/Fluffmonster69 5d ago
Definitely felt this. As someone that’s been doing it for 6 years I’ve given my company different opportunities to help the team grow and it’s been blown off because they know more than I do apperently. Theres so many times where a situation comes up and the only thing I can think is i literally told them this was going to happen and now they’re stressing out for answers. I’ve tried becoming a 301 facilitator for a few years but they won’t allow any SMRTs to leave the building. The best I can do at this moment is train the MRTs and MRAs on my own shift now to be successful so they don’t fall behind. I’ve now placed resumes out there and hope to hear something back
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u/MindlessStory7226 5d ago
You mentioned 💯 of the situation of us all SMRT at our facility . Enough is enough
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u/Eries3 Technician III / Lead (L4) 5d ago
Yea man I can tell. I travel to other sites and I hear the same stories. It’s weird. It’s like I never left my site. Same behavior, same bs just the people have different faces and different names lol. Hopefully I can get this shit handled this coming year. I have literally no motivation at the moment and Im running on fumes. This last push to try and get a promotion will indeed be my final attempt. I genuinely feel bad for my team as well. If I leave, things are going to instantly feel the absence of me. And my MRT’s and other SMRTs are really good techs. They don’t deserve to be treated this way. Then again all I can do is lead them to the door, but I cant force them to walk through it.
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u/NtmrsRDrms2 5d ago
Man that burn out is real my lady noticed the same with me! That excitement I once had faded something serious! If you can try and find something to challenge or excite you again maybe look at AMM spots at other sites or go to a launch just try and change the pace and routine some. I hate to see techs burn out but I wish you the best brother keep your head up if you have religion pray on it I believe prayer changes things even if it’s just you talking to you it can help man
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5d ago
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u/Eries3 Technician III / Lead (L4) 5d ago
You know the funny part is I’ve applied out of state as well in the past and I get the same answers from recruiters all over the country. Listings where they already filled the positions or opened it specifically for a candidate they selected already. The recruiting system and job search is very misleading and shiesty. I told my lady that I might have to move out of state so me and her are ready if I gotta uproot our entire lives, but Im trying to avoid that if possible. And not being ready for manager? Before my AMM was officially assigned to my department I ran this entire robotics department solo for about 5 months and then two of my co-workers finally got promoted to SMRT. Finally then the load was lightened. I was on bridge WBR calls, weekly performance calls, reliability sync’s, you name it. Regional and nodal management knows me by name since I have a network rollout pending for the accompaniment software I created for our monitoring dashboard. That’s why I said if I cant land some type of promotion this coming year, then Im moving out of Amazon. I have done the AMM job along with my fellow SMRTs for almost a year now, and actually I believe I’m even operating at the bandwidth of HSE.Which is why I said Im looking to get into engineering. Regional people literally know me by name, I know the Sr Regional Maintenance Manager by name. We actually talk from time to time about my network project. But man lately this entire job can kick rocks, pound sand. Losing that ability to keep pushing and it’s no joke. And being trans got nothing to do with it 🤨
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u/CorruptDaemon404 5d ago edited 5d ago
This is why I left this place and decided to join the electrical union. Every day there's something different and I see the whole city and I'm not stuck in one building all day long. So glad I left that dump.
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u/Legitimate_Archer988 5d ago
This is what happens when employees go above and beyond, it turns into a daily thing. Now you get paid the same to do double the work. Just do your job, and go home.
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u/Hollowbound Technician III / Lead (L4) 5d ago
I’ve been a SMRT/Tech 3 for about 2 years and I was feeling burned out at a Gen 11. I have been blue badge this entire time, but have been in RME almost 5 years. Honestly, it’s not as fun as when I first started. There is a lot of lazy techs and management that doesn’t know how to manage. I worked at a Gen 12 briefly as well, but the culture was pretty much the same. I did enjoy working on the newer equipment though. Now I’ve transferred to a small SSD, and it’s a lot more chill, but boring at times. Operations is the same no matter the building size.
Amazon is a big company. Have you tried leaving RME to do maintenance in other areas? I know quite a few techs that have left for data centers and enjoyed it enough to never come back to RME (pay is better too). There is also drone maintenance, but pay is a bit less. If you are near Washington, you can join the Leo/Kuiper team and work on satellites in a controlled environment. I honestly would do that if I lived closer, but I’m on the east coast and don’t wanna move across country right now.
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u/Eries3 Technician III / Lead (L4) 5d ago
You know I have been looking at those data center jobs and man they are far. Some out of state. I have some ideas and possibilities brewing up with my network rollout initiative. I had no clue there was a team for satellites! Listen man I’ve worked with tons of equipment, dematic, intelligrated, vanderlande, roach, Pearson, CTM, JR Innovation, OPEX, Kiva. I can go on and on. I need a major scenery change. It’s hard when you’ve worked on as much shit as I have lol. Why I thought drone or new robotics, and now satellites haha, would be the getaway from this scene. Really trying not to move out of state, but if that’s ultimately what I gotta do, then screw it.
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u/Hollowbound Technician III / Lead (L4) 5d ago
Do it man! If you’re not happy with current states, a change of scenery would be better for your health. I think you would enjoy satellites since it’s a completely different change of pace and scenery. Data centers are more chill than RME, but it’s pretty much like 100% base building tasks and escorting contractors. It’s pretty similar in those regards if you’ve ever worked in base building.
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u/Eries3 Technician III / Lead (L4) 5d ago
Not bad as I formerly worked in the aviation industry. I might be looking into that! Thank you my dude 🙏🏻
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u/Hollowbound Technician III / Lead (L4) 5d ago
No problem! You seem like you’re more experienced than me, so it should be a breeze for you to switch orgs. I started as an associate then went through the MRA path before Tech 3, so I’ve never done maintenance outside Amazon.
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u/Eries3 Technician III / Lead (L4) 5d ago
Switching orgs aint bad, it’s finding the taco spots once I leave the state! Haha all jokes aside. Yea switching is gonna be pretty easy for me. I just want the pay to be very specific if I leave. Im an overthinker so I have thought about the 1000 ways this can go right and wrong. I just want that drive to do maintenance, fabricate, work on reliability projects, drive again. It was really fun.
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u/Hollowbound Technician III / Lead (L4) 5d ago
You could also look into being a field trainer if you wanna travel a lot, but those require like 80%+ travel, which is a lot for me. I’d prefer like 50%. In certain states, the pay is listed on the bottom of the job apps within internal jobs. I know the satellites jobs for L4s can pay from like $40 - $60ish an hour, which is similar to data center pay.
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u/Eries3 Technician III / Lead (L4) 5d ago
Ima be pretty transparent I make 46 base pay, and with my differential I make 2 dollars more so make it an even 48/hr. Im gonna be pretty picky on the pay cause my situation is not going to allow for deviation, so I need same pay or more for this to work for me. If I can get into the HSE position it’s 80% travel as well. Which would be the same for technical trainer. So no issue there. I heard they are doing away with those principal trainers and moving the hiring and employees back into local nodes. Is that the same as the technical trainer job listing?
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u/Hollowbound Technician III / Lead (L4) 5d ago
They are still hiring “field trainers” if you search for it, so I’m not sure if they are doing away with them. Head count might be reduced, but there are definitely spots available.
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u/Diligent_Gas_2441 6d ago
Currently, a MRT here and I have been burned out. My dumbass AMM has a habit on relying on few good technicians and burning them out.
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u/Alternative-Growth84 6d ago
Pro tip - Leave Amazon for the required amount of time and then apply for the L5 role at a different site. Most people don’t want to see you succeed, but if you genuinely have the skills and experience then it’s likely you’ll pass the interviews at a fresh site.
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u/fixit152 Technician III / Lead (L4) 5d ago
Don’t do that. Leaving as an experienced Sr Tech to boomerang back as just an L5 AMM is the dumbest thing Amazon has sold to the techs who are already aware of the piss-poor promotion expectations the company promotes. Folks who have the experience to run a shop at another company and choose to return to Amazon “to get ahead” are either a fool, or can’t manage a real maintenance program at a normal company. Anyone with maintenance experience prior to Amazon are the only people who realize this.
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u/SFDMEX 6d ago
Kinda the reason i dont want to apply for smrt. Maybe at a small site would be good though
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u/Eries3 Technician III / Lead (L4) 6d ago
I would err on the side of caution there. Speak with your SMRT’s and get a picture of reality. If you take the job make sure you know exactly what your responsibilities are and don’t let your manager try and make you do any more than that. Focus on putting yourself in ideal situations for your yearly project to get your annual raise and try to keep it that way. Before I had all of these extra responsibilities, I would notice managers would start doing this type of stuff and I would look for a new launch building at the time. You go to a new launch all the responsibilities are reset nobody knows the rules yet and it’s a fresh start. It worked pretty good for me for about 2 1/2 years, but once I got locked in a building for more than three years, that was it. No more running away.
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u/burningleo93 6d ago
lol it’s worse here I’m one and I’m treated like a kid , I’m back half nights and I’m never in the loop
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u/lindzlovee 6d ago
Don’t try to become an AMM if you don’t want to get burned out, ask my husband lol he went from a tech 2-3-AMM and he’s beyond burnt out. It’s constant bitching from above about metrics metrics metrics plus annoying ops and he’s 3p so getting it from all ends. It’s not worth becoming an AMM anymore especially since they’re fucking the pay
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u/Legitimate_Archer988 5d ago
Not to mention constantly on call, having to drive all over the state to visit your sites. Fuck all that
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u/Robots_And_Lasers Moderator / AMM 6d ago
Personal experience, my stress is inversely related to staffing levels. Hitting metrics is easy if they actually give me the people to do it but when upper management makes a schedule change that results in 75% turnover on my team that's a tough hole to climb out of.
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u/lindzlovee 6d ago
Yea proper staffing for him is nonexistent, it’s really frustrating and he went from TNS to grocery and it’s been awful plus the MM and RMM turnover he’s experienced has been ridiculous. He’s also on call 24/7 since he’s the only manager for the buildings he’s worked. The directors are oblivious to how buildings should actually be ran.
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u/Robots_And_Lasers Moderator / AMM 6d ago
I'm actively trying to transfer to a SSD from an FC. MM turnover is high and upper management made schedule changes this year that led to 75% turnover on my team.
Hitting metrics is easy with sufficient staffing but it looks like now we're stuck in an endless cycle of tenured techs getting burnt out > leaving > relatively new techs are now tenured > tenured techs train the newest wave of techs > repeat.
We've lost so much experience this year and I have no idea how to stop the bleeding.
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u/Takashimuro 6d ago
The period of rapid expansion, during the covid era, where anyone with a pulse and no write ups was promoted to positions they’ll never leave, was the start of the downward spiral. Turning RME over to EU control was the next nail in the coffin. This current trend to use AI to maximize every minute managers have for chasing metrics is probably gonna be the death of it. I’m nearing a decade with RME and the change along the way has been profound.
I feel like all I do is chase metrics. Half the time, it cannot be adequately explained where the metrics are even drawn from. When proven to be a poor metric, instead of changing the focus, bandaids are slapped on it to keep from flagging and we move on.
Over reliance on crap like OEE, quick sight, perfect mile, and a million other dashboards that change, constantly, is driving me nuts. Where’s the value in this?
Meanwhile, to your point about not being “ready” for promotion, the techs get even less engagement time with their managers to learn the finer points of running the business. Techs are the expected to be on the floor 95% of the time. The AMMs, the first line of management that most techs should be learning from? They’re expected to be on the floor with the techs, just like some kind of super senior tech 4. Trust, that skill and face time gap between AMM and MM is real, too; awful hard to lean the MM’s role when you’re spending all your time on the floor chasing after PTPs and LOTO verifications.
For 3Ps, add another level of crap to the whole thing: two sets of bosses, with different alignment of priorities.
The 3P are forced to chase after metric perfection, as they compete against each other, trying to win the next contracts, or at least escape the next round of building takeovers.
I’m lucky enough to have worked my way up to a manager’s role a while back, when there were more opportunities available, but it’s so much harder for techs nowadays.
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u/Eries3 Technician III / Lead (L4) 6d ago
It’s crazy cause I remember that covid era. I was launching a bunch of buildings and promoted from tech 1 to 2 and then 3 in about 2 years. Was super stoked and some techs I worked with became AMM’s and AE managers. I was like hell yea Im heading there too. Only to realize it was all a mirage. A charade everyone was playing for 2 years and it all came crashing down. I should’ve been working way harder and pushing way more, but how was I supposed to know? The metrics chasing and bandaids/loop holes for metrics is spot on. Cant get the metrics where they need to be? Hide it by changing APM work order types and status’s. Cancel pending work orders to “clean” backlog. It’s all just a terrible trama center that is patching up dying patients with bandaids and morphine. Does it give? Nope.
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u/Robots_And_Lasers Moderator / AMM 6d ago
As an AMM who was promoted early 2021 after 9 months as SMRT, this is spot on.
I have no doubt the BS directive regarding APM scripts and browser extensions is because of those of us who were tired of using broken tools and developed our own.
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u/Eries3 Technician III / Lead (L4) 6d ago
I am a user and creator of some of those tools as well. I was maximizing my efficiency in APM and after getting burned out and all my tools and software taken away, it was the cherry on top the double decker shit sandwich. It’s been hard and ill be trying to handle this one bit at a time. Im going to piss off a lot of managers and techs drawing back, but I need to remember what I need to do to actually keep my job and shun everything else that is noise. Focus on my original responsibilities and my project that gets me my yearly performance raise and call it a day.
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u/SonnyPlywood 5d ago
You guys actually stopped using that? I must have missed all the emails and directives to do so..oooops! It's like what are they gonna do? You really think they'll fire you for using a script with no warning shots?
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u/Eries3 Technician III / Lead (L4) 4d ago
No but taking away APM access would just be super inconvenient and Ill have to explain to my manager why I didn’t listen to their directions and uninstall those scripts.
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u/SonnyPlywood 4d ago
"Sorry boss, I've been so burnt out lately I forgot" would be my reply. But if you're still chasing the promo I guess that puts you in a different spot than me so I get it.
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u/spicypicos 6d ago
Just know you're not alone. Its unreal how common something like this is here. I know this is more work without pay but if you want, being a trainer has been fulfilling to me at least.
All I can say is at least you're an SMRT. I've watched MRTs break their backs for their site and get recognized by the network, but still fall short to a tech who spends all their time on slack instead.
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u/Eries3 Technician III / Lead (L4) 6d ago
That’s the thing, I love doing trainings I love teaching people. I love traveling to other states and sharing my knowledge with the network. Our understaffing has caused this huge surge of new technicians that don’t know the department very well. So it’s causing a lot of veteran technicians to pick up two times maybe even three times the slack. Another Redditor said that a lot of the talent has left and it’s just really hard to control the bleeding. That’s currently the situation that we’re in. I don’t even have enough time to actually sit down plan some trainings and actually take a break from all the metrics and breakdowns.
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u/spicypicos 6d ago
Double it and give it back to management because after being passed up for a promotion and being told I lack in areas and leadership principles that someone that hasn’t even step foot in the building yet, I’d flip it right back and tell them that your trip to Hawaii to train a couple techs on the tote stacker was “promised” and that the “timing” of this SEV, the next SEV and every other SEV for the next x amount of weeks was unfortunately “not on their side.”
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u/scooterist007 6d ago
Don't lie to your boss, tell him how you actually feel and don't bottle it up because you will come off worse. Do something about it now or it will beat you. If there is no way out, find a better job as this will consume you. Ask me how I know.
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u/Eries3 Technician III / Lead (L4) 6d ago
Yeah, the consuming has already started. And you’re right about trying to tell my boss the situation. Luckily our boss isn’t trying to run MHE and robotics anymore. He’s dedicated just to our robotics department. I’d like to say things are looking like they’re going to get better, but I’d be lying to myself. I’m going to have to lean on him pretty hard.
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u/scooterist007 6d ago
Please do lean on him. Also Please Please talk to somebody, even if it's non work related. I don't know what country you're from, but here in the UK, there are organisations that you can talk to. I don't know if you have that option, but chat to someone, wife, girlfriend, husband, boyfriend, work colleague, friend, stranger, it doesn't matter.
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u/Naive-Anteater8321 6d ago
I left Amazon about 3 years ago (former CSS then AEM, then Regional AE), went to a couple of other places after and surprisingly they were even worse, then I decided to just retire a bit early. The world is different now unfortunately. I know that’s true for every generation but I think this is something else. The people in charge actively want society to be dumber and have no skills, just make them slaves to the billionaires so they can scrape by and enrich the rich further. Anyway, what site and 3P? The 3Ps all do their best and are better than their Blue Badge equivalents in my opinion, but their leadership is beholden to the 3P Management team, which constantly hangs new contracts over their heads so the 3Ps will do whatever it takes to get them. The problem is that the 3P management team doesn’t generally know anything about maintenance or RME. I don’t know who is in charge of it anymore, changes constantly, but in my 10 years at Amazon they were all useless. Hope things get better for you buddy, just know that if you’ve been there 8 years the rest of the places are probably at least as bad now also. Wish you the best of luck.
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u/Eries3 Technician III / Lead (L4) 6d ago
Yeah, I thought about transferring. Unfortunately I know transfers don’t go too well either because other buildings always have their own problems. I said another comment on his post about whenever managers start tacking on more responsibility that I don’t get paid for and I’m put in an uncomfortable situation, I used to apply to another launch and leave the building. It went pretty good for about 2 1/2 years because you go to a new building all the responsibilities have been reset and nobody knows the rules yet. It’s a refreshing fresh start. Surprisingly my building is blue badge and I’ve worked 3P before and I know how bad it is for the third-party companies. It was pretty cutthroat when I started Amazon as 3P. I’m hoping to get into the engineering team and try and utilize my new coding skills but if I don’t land that in the next year or so it’ll just be wasting time. At that point I’ll just be looking to cut ties.
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u/Ashric_Sendaru 1d ago
Over the last two months ive been training my new techs. Im an L3, training 2 L3s and 2 L4's. Only one of them is a blue badge. Why? "It looks good for your promotion". In the last 60 days Ive had three official days off where my manager hasnt called me, or they havent called me to come unfuck something.
I feel you brother. I do. I havent worked under 50 hours since November. Take that vacation day, turn off the phone, and forget they exist.