Sam, if I was a major company, I'd TOTALLY let you blog about impromptu concerts on my campus. It would make me look cool.

It was called Blue something another and I interviewed for the position on south 4th Avenue in Gerogetown. Oh well, it was a couple of years ago.

I horse-whipped the impudent whelp that posted about Kenny G's impromptu appearance at the NapoleonXIV corporate Christmas party.

ALSO, IF I WERE NEW TO SUCH A SITUATION, I WOULD BE VERY, VERY CAREFUL

KEEP BUSY, KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT, BE VERY PLEASANT AND EVEN KEEL AND TAKE IT ALL IN

THE OLD TIMERS WILL TELL YOU ALL THE CRACKS IN THE SYSTEM (DON'T DO CAPS ON EMAIL)

As for blogging at work, TONS of people at Amazon are blogging and not just contract workers; if they canned everyone who was on MySpace or Blogspot at work, there wouldn't be any need for Amazon to build that new South Lake Union campus...they could fit them all in a building the size of the Stranger offices.

That does suck for Mr. Machkovech; I suppose he'll have to continue slogging for rent now.

Needless to say, I've learned my lesson and will stay far away from any more nurturing relationships with sympathetic female managers.

However, sympathetic well-hung MALE managers can continue to nurture me all they want...

I'd love to work for Amazon's pubic relations department. do you have the name of their hiring manager?

Check the employee dress code (re: tattoos, revealing female clothing and piercings) for that "edgy" web hosting company with the girl mascot...

...yep, "Do as I tell you not as I do."

That sucks, Sam. Hope you land with a better agency soon. You can certainly do better.

I guess it makes sense that it didn't, since no one else had mentioned it.

When are Americans going to stop taking this bullshit and start getting pissed off? You're an adult, goddammit, they should treat you like one.

Uh, no. That's the image their PR department tries to put out there, sure, but talk to anyone in Seattle in the HR biz, and you'll hear a *very* different story.

Seriously, they have a policy against tattoos and piercings? I can understand that if you're some fancy pants lawyer at Preston Gates Ellis, or some such, but really?

Well, here's one heavily tattooed PM who'll happily stay at another big beast of a tech firm where there's more interest in my tats that revulsion...

At the same time, the firing doesn't surprise me much. I guess Sam hadn't learned how things work yet, huh? FTEs have almost no power; temps have even less.

Didn't people in the old days, who had such a crappy deal, form unions? Hmmm.

I think they're an amazing company to work for and will be starting full time there next year. The place had a great sense of camaraderie and fun/relaxation.

HOWEVER. If this sort of shit flies I think I might reconsider staying there for long. I mean Billie Ray Cyrus? Come on. I'll be a full-time programmer, so I don't know if there are different rules for me (likely), but even a temp worker shouldn't be fired for this.

But I suppose such things will never affect me given that I'll likely never apply for a temp job. So it goes.

I've seen three workers fired in the last year for blogging about their job (a Nintendo worker, this, and one more), but all three were temp workers.

Sam's post was anything but "bad PR for the company", though. Seriously wtf.

BTW S3 was down for 4 hours today... THAT's the kind of shit people should be axed over, not this.

If you miss your cubicle that much, then set one up in your living room.

The company at the highest levels are assholes and promote assholes. That is all there is to it. For you Amazonians, one word: WBR.

I'd ignore anything their PR says.

As for S3 - is anyone surprised? I'm not.

Several of the good mid-low-level managers left and were replaced by drones who were way more interested in sucking up to their new bosses than they were in actually being a leader for the people underneath them.

It's too bad, really. I'll still shop there because that's the one thing that ain't broken, but I wouldn't recommend it for a career to anyone except programmers looking for a fat paycheck.

And that's exactly what people are NOT fired for over there. You'll soon find that out. It's all "optimizing for optics" despite what the handbook says...