Lost in Amazon: lifestyle inside the e-commerce giant

As an MBA Student You Must Learn These Things From

If you read the news and stay abreast with latest developments, then you have a good idea about Amazon’s work culture. Chances are you have followed Amazon over years and you have probably read about the working conditions there in some of their factories.

While people may have differing views on the depth and breadth of such claims, but anyone with a heart will cringe hearing about a company that would tolerate such problems. If after reading about such articles you asked yourself – why would anyone ever want to work there? Then know that you were not alone!

But the stark truth is despite the harsh conditions, people still want to work at Amazon, especially many MBA students. As a company Amazon has been consistently ranked as one of the most desirable companies amidst MBA students. Most MBA students are known to butt their heads with the likes of companies like consulting firms, investment banks, blue chip tech giants like Google and Apple. But these companies have also ramped up their hiring criteria for MBA students and graduates to a considerable level.

The University of Michigan (Ross) had sent 27 of their students there; INSEAD sent about 39 to make the jump into the very lap of the world’s largest retailer.

This should not come as a surprise to MBA students as they are required to be evaluating and interviewing with companies who are hiring within the industry. They also analyze and review organizations in the classroom. Even in the future MBAs may be made responsible for managing, hiring, and contributing to the company’s work environment.

The NY Times story done on Amazon is not solely about bringing down Amazon but mostly about the issues it brought to light (the claims made in their story were not new and have been mentioned by many before).

To make it great you need to make great sacrifices!

There are more than just a few things that make Amazon a great place to start working for your career. It is a major retailer no two way about that, it touches the lives of millions of people and has a central role in the business and commercial sector. If you get a chance to work at Amazon then consider it as an opportunity to be a part of something transformational and impactful. However, such great things do not come for free. There are more than thousands of people who have worked tirelessly to make Amazon the way it is today. Amazon suggests that everything it does is solely for the good of the customers and that regular sacrifice need to be made for the happiness of customers.

As an article outlined people had to give up significant things in order to continue working at Amazon. So, you must understand that for working at a major brand name company like Amazon, Google or a consulting or investment banking firm may sound interesting for most considering the prestigious position, but it also comes with a price tag for the same. The question however, for each and every individual is if you are dedicated enough to pay for it.

The concept of work-life balance is a completely personal issue: The concept of work-life balance has a lot of opinions about it. However, companies recently have been moving in the direction of offering additional benefits and perks to help their employees manage their personal lives better, despite having successful careers. But the main thing about them is that they are still too new to fully know their impact or benefits if any (no pun intended). However, one thing is clear about them which is what does work-life balance mean to you personally? How important is it in the

ranking for your life? A few industries are known to have tough obstacles to maintain work-life balance, while others tend to be easier for it. Moreover, this issue may evolve for people over time as they move on from different stages of life. If you have been writing assignments for a year or two for the sake of your MBA program, you must already have learned to manage proper work and life balance.

A company can never be represented by one person and a company does not represent one person only!

No company is mutually exclusive with their employees and especially not a giant like Amazon of 180,000, so, it is highly probable that there may be thousands of people who like the company and thousands more who do not. However, what it does mean is that the group, pod or team that you choose to be in or be put in can make a big difference of whether or not you will have a great experience and these are the factors that make things like networking, relationship building and working well with others even more of a critical task.

Tech firms are not always about fun and games as they seem: Due to the media and pop culture in some ways tech firms have been falsely glorified as highly fun places where people can play games all day and come up with ingenious ideas once in awhile. And then walk home with millions of dollars after only a few hours of work. But sadly that is not the entire truth. While some tech start-ups have managed to have done that successfully and Amazon is often called as the biggest tech start-ups of the world. But behind all that fluff and media there is a lot of blood, sweat and tears.

Constructing a whole new company up from the ground is definitely hard work and while it is great to hear about all the good news about success and other positive news we still forget sometimes about the pitfalls, failures and the darker side of the struggle.

And though NY Times did a story on Amazon, but it is safe to assume that such things happen in all other companies. Especially in the case for those that hire elite white collar employees or in other words those that hire MBAs. While the debate rages on whether Amazon is right or wrong in its ways of operation, what is important for the MBA students, future entrepreneurs and business leaders is to think about the type of workplace environment they want to enter and what company will enable them to capitalize on their priorities and goals.