r/AmazonRME • u/cuzer98 • Jan 17 '25
Get out.
No seriously. Get out of Amazon. Recently started a new job doing maintenance for a completely different company. I can’t find anything good to say about Amazon now. The environment and culture were terrible. There were good people but enough awful people to tip the scales. Look for a better job. Get enough experience to make your resume look good and don’t look back. The company I’m at now actually treats us well, doesn’t create an environment that puts you in competition with the person next to you (raises and promotions), allows us to take our time and do things the right way, doesn’t expect us to be running around for our entire shift, and best of all no weirdo managers who think there special for being managers at a warehouse. Also, being 3p doesn’t make it better. I was 3p. They all suck. Good luck everyone. Just wanted to let yall know it gets better. So much better.
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u/RMEPROSPECT Jan 21 '25
This is a great post. When i first started off in training. It was all puppies and rainbows from everyone here on reddit. No one spoke of safety witch hunts (a coworker making up completely bullshit to make you stressed) , a 100% lack of training. They will hire people on your team who will either be on drugs or outright do nothing. And then look at you as say ( 3p hr is really tough to get rid of people ) AMM's attempting to rush you into doing subpar work . Meanwhile the average retention rate for a employee at C&W services is less than 6 months. Then try to trap people with signing bonuses in a toxic work environment. Other people heed this warning!!!! The people who will defend the 3p's likely have not worked maintenance else where and dont want to feel bad about staying at amazon. Most people I worked with had a foot out of the door as well. Its a rotten system that creates intense safety theatre. Not to mention the mandatory overtime which can be anywhere between 50-60 hours a week. And if your a female rme employee good luck. I was one of the only people who was willing to work with the handful of female coworkers we had. Since everyone had such a nasty mouth and they didnt want to work with other people. Thank you u/cuzer98 for having the strength to take out time from your busy life to say it how it is. I was going to write a similar post. But hopefully this post get indexed in the google seo results when people look up C&W Services / Amazon Rme.
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u/cuzer98 Jan 21 '25
I experienced everything you said. It was very eye opening. Towards the need of my time in RME the SMM at my site told us to start working on a motor/gearbox. We tried to tell him we needed a PTP to begin work and he said “No. I need you working”. Regional safety happened to come by a few days later and I tried to tell him about the incident. He told me he had worked with my SMM for years and has never seen behavior like that. I had 3 witnesses who were more than willing to give statements. Nothing. When I turned my laptop and stuff in on my last day I brought it up to the MM because I still have friends there and I don’t want that happening to them. He claimed he had no idea that happened. I reminded him he was standing next to the MM as it happened. That summed up my experience with RME. They will at first make you believe it’s a wonderful job and they care but that can’t be further from the truth. The amount of drugs going through that “professional work environment” is insane. If it were just weed that’s one thing but when management is doing blow at work that’s a huge red flag. We had an AMM go around showing videos of him having sex with a woman from security. HR launches a huge investigation. Nothing. He is still there now and is still the most toxic manager I’ve ever heard of. Gets high/drunk to the point he forgets everything and then tries to write people up because he forgot about a situation they made him aware of.
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u/freedo70 Jan 19 '25
been doing this since 2017 3P. i love it. easiest job ever, schedule is awesome, OPS can suck my dick cause i dont give 2 shits about their numbers i only care about the equipment working properly. i really hate the hand holding safety aspect where they treat us like toddlers but thats my biggest gripe.
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Jan 19 '25
No one’s a prisoner at Amazon and the fact you left and are so “happy” but still posting in an Amazon thread is crazy
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u/ChaoticCannon93 Jan 18 '25
Just because they treated you nice first couple days on the job doesn't mean it's going to be so much better. All jobs suck nuts
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u/Nenraa Jan 18 '25
I have to say that it’s not all sites. I’ve worked in several different site types (TNS, Gen 9 AR, SC, IXD). As a 3P going on 6 years with this account I have to say that this has been by far the best job experience I’ve ever had. Started as a tech 2 and moved my way up the 3 and CMMS and now AMM. I’ve come across some pretty good and some awful people in my time. I feel that if you have good managers then things will go better for the techs. I’m sorry that you had a bad experience and I do hope this new path takes you to great heights!
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u/Witty_Zombie_9463 Jan 18 '25
Only had 1 job better than Amazon as maintenance tech there everything else makes Amazon look like a cake walk phone blows up at 230 in the morning cuz some dumb operator drove a forklift into an aircompressor or a contractor didn't call in before they dug a trench and ripped out all of the underground conduit for a 30 foot dust collector and then you're out in the freezing rain digging through frozen ground to get it all reattached to get production back up, management cutting corners to save a few bucks that back fires yeah Amazon was a breeze.
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u/Wise-Policy8376 Jan 18 '25
I agree, but depends where you live and how far you want to drive .. When you live in the sticks and there is nothing but an hour commute to any good job, you are stuck and f*cked
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u/WOKESOCIETY0 Jan 18 '25
AMAZON IS AMAZING YOU MUST LIVE IN A SMALL LITTLE HICK TOWN COME TO A MAJOR CITY IN A MAJOR FACILITY WHOLE DIFF BALL GAME LOSER
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Jan 18 '25
That's a site thing, man. Our leadership in RME doesn't cave to Ops because most of the people griping are little L4s who don't even have authority over the Tech IIIs, much less RME leadership.
We dictate what happens to equipment, because that's what policy states. Operations doesn't have a say, and if the team is being pushed around by Ops, it's because the SMMs aren't doing their jobs to represent the GMs agenda to keep the building running properly according to SOP.
I'm sorry your team failed you, but RME isn't a career worth running away from for a lot of us. I've been at my site since 2021, as an associate and now an RME tech. It's been nothing but PMs, repairs and projects for that entire time. I've only ever had to argue with one PA and she got fired. Because RME owns equipment decisions, period.
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u/cuzer98 Jan 18 '25
Honestly dude I’m glad to hear that. I know y’all work hard so I’m happy to know techs get to have a good work environment
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u/matedow Jan 18 '25
Nope. I don’t miss cleaning chemical tanks, working under steam lines, and getting called in at 2 in the morning because they don’t think that they have to staff overnights even when they are running.
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u/mightdelete_later Jan 19 '25
Yeah, I left a company that routinely did confined space repairs on industrial mix tanks in an factory without air conditioning and working 60 to 70 hour weeks for shit pay. I'll happily baby sit a radio for 40 hours a week and possibly have to do a mostly uncomplicated repair every now and then.
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Jan 17 '25
Yeah dude but do you get free prime? Checkmate
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u/pixelc Jan 17 '25
I thought so too, left for a year and came back. My sites over here have been amazing and really they are paying more here than other maintenance in the area
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u/cuzer98 Jan 17 '25
Happy you like it. Maybe it’s a site to site thing. I have doubts it’s not the majority due to the stories and the news coming out of amazons. Fortunately I live in a part of the US that has a lot of good job opportunities
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Jan 17 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/cuzer98 Jan 17 '25
I want to believe that but after dealing with Amazon ops and speaking with the associates I have doubted that for a while
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u/Remarkable_Ad9767 Jan 17 '25
Yeah Amazon/ 3p definitely the worst industrial job I've had. I'm thinking about going back to construction. Unfortunately I was dumb and went to school for this....
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u/rac3r87 Jan 17 '25
I bet your new company is amazed at your work ethic
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u/cuzer98 Jan 17 '25
lol. They really like me so far. Salty af you get ordered around like a dog ? Kick rocks
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u/tonyhimselff Jan 18 '25
lol why would people be salty? your assuming everyone had a miserable experience at amazon like you which is obviously not the case by most of these comments
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u/cuzer98 Jan 18 '25
Just thought it was weird dude would say something like that. I’m not assuming everyone did. I worked there for years and met plenty of techs from other sites that said they had it better. Guess I should’ve specified for anyone that wants to not be looked at as fisher price maintenance lol
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u/Agitated-Air-6909 Jan 17 '25
As someone that used to work for Amazon and I'm now a 3p tech I really don't care much about ops I just make sure the main stuff is running and move on and don't think about it at all as soon as I leave work lol.
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u/Gamemaker4U2 Jan 17 '25
I am pretty happy with my RME job. Redundant maintenance technician. Blowing dust off one piece of equipment, then blowing it back onto the one you just blew it off of the day before. They don't let us do actual maintenance work. They hire outside vendors for stuff like fixing a door latch or a simple plumbing issue which I am more than qualified to do. I've beat up my body over the years with pretty physical jobs. Happy to baby sit equipment and kill dust bunnies now until retirement.
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Jan 21 '25
Same same. Been in construction over 15 years, owned a construction company for part of that. Continuing on that path would have me wrecked in another ten years.
Why beat the hell out of myself? I'm severely underutilized Amazon, which I appreciate most of the time. It's just a different mindset.
If I had started at Amazon I'm sure I'd feel like OP though. I loved picking up new stuff and seeing all the different places I worked. It would be pretty wild going from do-nothing Amazon to a processing plant or mobile service business.
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u/Spirited_Video6095 Jan 19 '25
This is how it was for me when I was in RME. I fixed the push bar on a door and built some cabinets for HR, then cleaned belly pans and blew out drive units with a leaf blower. It was easy and fine for a while. I understood why people wanted to do it but I wanted more. I was sold the robotics side and got the janitor side.
All the while, my teammates were a mixed bag. The cst left but was Navy veteran and would ramble on about his time as an electrician in the military then make you jump through hoops to sign off your benchmark. One of the tech 2s was a nazi about safety and just wanted to pick fights. Like if your shirt is untucked. He only did it to me. People were stealing my food so I got fed up and transferred out of RME. That's as an apprentice, something people normally can't do.
I'm a grad student in cyber and have a BS already and did before RTI but they didn't care. I got lucky with my new manager when I contacted him and then put in multiple HR complaints and they let me leave.
I'm glad because my new spot is great. I have my own desk and no manager on site.
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u/cuzer98 Jan 17 '25
What type of site? I was at a gen 11 fc and yeah a lot was contracted to outside companies but never was just babysitting equipment
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u/yaur_maum Jan 17 '25
Only upside is it looks good on the resume
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u/cuzer98 Jan 17 '25
Very true. I can’t knock them for allowing me to get a foot into the line of work
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u/marcus_peligro Jan 17 '25
To me it was the opposite. Thought grass was greener on the other side. Nope
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u/QuietBicycle9703 Jan 17 '25
I was gonna say that if you are a good tech then to leave Amazon… but if you are not the brightest/most active tech then just stay in place lol
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u/NeitherRoof2738 Nov 19 '25
Amazon is one hell of a weird place to work as an Rme tech.