The office after Amazon: is the workplace becoming a jungle?

The recent claims about Amazon's aggressive corporate culture were a cause of consternation to many - but plenty of others couldn't see what the problem was. So is a gentler, more relaxed office culture any better for employees? And is it even what they want?

Workers crying at their desks. Workers subjected to anonymous criticism. Workers put on performance reviews after a miscarriage or cancer. The office isn't what it used to be - at Amazon, anyway. This week, the New York Times revealed extraordinary stories of management practices at the tech giant's Seattle HQ, where the most pugnacious employees earn the nickname of "Amholes". And yet, as extraordinary as the anecdotes were, for many people, they rang a bell.

But in the storm of comment that the Amazon story unleashed, the picture was not as straightforwardly critical as you might have expected - and the public conversation about it was often heated. "Of course you've got conflict in teams, that's what teams are about!" burst out radio talkshow host Nick Ferrari on Thursday morning, as he clashed with a female caller who said it was never OK to shout at colleagues. He was not alone. Meanwhile, Amazon fiercely battled the image that the story projected. Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos fired off an email to employees in which he wrote that the article did not describe "the caring Amazonians I work with every day", and suggested they read the detailed rebuttal posted on Linkedin by Nick Ciubotariu, a head of infrastructure in the company's search department.