I noticed this when I worked at my first "employee satisfaction" focused company. Half the employees took every perk they could get, seemingly doing as little work as they could under the mantra of "work-life balance". The other half never left their desks. It created a strange dynamic of resentment between the two parties, where one thought the other stupid, and the other thought them lazy. It was hard to know where to stand.
I once worked for a team was historically over worked, that had changed recently for the better, but the team culture was still pretty stressed and nose to the grind stone. We were working to bring that down, but it takes time.
The offices were being renovated and our team was moved next to HR.
HR formally complained (apparently there was a process... where HR sent some sort of complaint to ... HR) that the team sitting next to them was not very friendly.
Before what I can only imagine would have been a horrific joint team meeting / culture clash could occur, someone very smart put the kibosh on the complaint / meeting ....
The culture / work experience differences were extreme.
I agree, I think this situation fits in nicely with the discussion of how stock compensation doesn’t directly result from the results of your work. Employees who aren’t passionate about or motivated by their jobs seek out compensation in return for retention. And even then, they scale their efforts at work based on their interest. I like the independence of Amazon teams, but the independence is limited when the teams don’t control their own finances.
