Bully Pulpit: The Untold Story


Tim Gilmer

It’s hard to believe that Jeff Shannon passed away almost two years ago. He was not only an important voice in the disability community, but also a gifted “crossover” media journalist whose work was recognized and supported by Roger Ebert. The part of his story that hasn’t been told yet, however, is how another media giant — Amazon.com — took unfair advantage of Jeff’s considerable talent, and him.

Jeff, a C5 quad, wanted to tell this story in NM but decided against it. He had signed a confidentiality agreement with Amazon that prohibited disclosure of the details of his employment. And, as was typical of Jeff, he did not want Amazon to feel bitter about hiring people with disabilities.

An Aug. 15 New York Times article corroborates Jeff’s unfortunate experience by exposing Amazon as having a high-pressure, at times brutal, work environment that encourages combative competition via a secret feedback system. Backstabbing for personal gain is, in effect, rewarded. Women employees report a high incidence of discriminatory practices. Employees work as many as 80 hours per week. “Purposeful Darwinism,” a former Amazon human resources director called it. The average work tenure at Amazon is one year. Jeff lasted three times the norm, but it took its toll.

“They really treated him especially poorly,” says his brother, Kevin. “It was shock enough to my wife and me, helping him empty out his office under armed escort. But Jeff’s bigger shock was that, after he had been laid off, his old position opened back up and he didn’t even get an interview.”

Jeff had been promised that he would be first in line for the position when it re-opened. So he didn’t look for another job; he waited — while taking freelance writing jobs. He never got that chance to re-apply. An “in-house” competitor was hired instead. “Jeff was justifiably enraged, and contacted a lawyer,” says Kevin. A Washington state agency ruled it discriminatory, and Amazon agreed to a confidential settlement.

The settlement was much less than he could have earned had he been able to stay on at Amazon. But the real rub is that Jeff’s stellar work ethic had been ignored. Like many of us with computer-dependent positions, Jeff had a work-from-home option, but in Jeff’s case, the option worked against him. He did his work diligently, mostly at Amazon, occasionally from home, but the Amazon secret feedback machine favors employees who work “in-house.”

“He really got screwed by the whole situation, and Amazon continues to profit by it,” says Kevin. “The hundreds of DVD reviews he wrote, along with the thousands of others he edited, provide the bulk of the critical source material that is still up on the Amazon site.”

The cruel irony is Jeff was the best kind of employee. “He would tackle a project like a pit bull,” says Sue Shannon, Jeff’s sister. “He would isolate himself in his office and just hammer away.” Why wasn’t the “all-seeing” Amazon eye there to record it?

Maybe the corporate octopus was too busy expanding and growing new tentacles — everything but a heart.


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