A senior Amazon employee recently revealed that he has been collecting a significant salary without contributing meaningful work to the company for over a year and a half. In his now-viral confession on the anonymous forum Blind, the employee disclosed that he joined the e-commerce giant after getting laid off by Google. He revealed that he holds the position of Senior Technical Program Manager at Amazon and earns over $370,000 (approximately Rs 3.10 crore) for doing "nothing". He also wondered when his luck would run out as he explained his subterfuge.
"I joined Amazon 1.5 yrs ago after I was included in Google's layoff. I joined with the intention of doing 'nothing,' getting free money, and eventually getting put on a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP)," the employee wrote on Blind, a community where verified professionals can discuss all things work-related. He further said that during his tenure, he has only resolved seven support tickets and developed a single automated dashboard, which he claimed took three months to build, when in fact it was created in just three days using artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT.
Further, the employee said that most of his 8-hour workday is spent attending meetings. "My current day-to-day is saying no to other teams wanting to integrate with my team or have them own 95%+ of the integration work," he wrote.
The employee's post has taken the internet by storm. A screenshot of the Blind post was also shared on X (formerly Twitter).
The post has triggered a discussion online. While some users criticised the employee's actions, others argued that it reflected a broader issue within corporate structures.
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"These people are ruining the game for everyone else that actually wants to work and earn an honest day's work," wrote one user. "This person is hurting themselves more than they are hurting their employer. Is there a worse torture than throwing away your limited time in life by pretending to be busy? Experience comes from doing, not by time itself. That's why some engineers with 1 year of work experience have 10 years of real expertise. The opposite also happens," said another.
"What. How is that possible? And why would anyone go down such a sad, boring path? What do they do all day? No goals?" added a third user.
"People who tie their self esteem and purpose to their corporate job are completely wrong. A person working 2 hours a day, getting paid for 8 and having all that time for their private lives, family and hobbies, this person is winning at life," opined a fourth.
