[HN Gopher] My Wife Was Dying of Brain Cancer. My Boss at Amazon...
___________________________________________________________________
My Wife Was Dying of Brain Cancer. My Boss at Amazon Told Me to
Perform or Quit
Author : posharma
Score : 354 points
Date : 2021-09-28 20:03 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.motherjones.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.motherjones.com)
| [deleted]
| ltbarcly3 wrote:
| Obviously it is horrible to fire someone in these circumstances.
| I wonder what I would do though? Lets say you have an employee
| that is completely and totally incompetent, but their child has
| cancer and will slowly die over the next two years. Do you just
| be compassionate and try to minimize the harm having this person
| around causes? What if you can't afford to keep an extra person
| around? I don't think this as easy of a situation as I would like
| it to be.
| limeblack wrote:
| The exchanges are much better then nothing but aren't great.
| Alternative autoimmune disease so let's say diabetes(example IBD)
| are not covered with out huge deductibles. I know because I have
| experienced this.
| mynameisash wrote:
| I am quite pessimistic about Amazon and its influence, having
| worked there for about a year. In my (admittedly jaded) opinion,
| the company encourages this kind of dehumanizing behavior toward
| people.
|
| That said, this isn't new and it isn't limited to Amazon. My
| brother died of cancer at the age of 10. My dad's manager gave
| him a bad performance review and said that he let his son's death
| affect his work. Other people where my dad worked were more
| empathetic (though unfortunately, not in his management chain).
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| I read through the article. I really, really hurt for its author,
| and pray that I never face similar circumstances. It sounds like
| he's stinging from his manager not expressing enough empathy.
|
| But with the information in the article, I don't really
| understand what Amazon should have done differently.
| Unfortunately the article was vague about just how much the
| author was underperforming.
|
| Also, while I'm no fan of Amazon, it sounds like they treated him
| far better than the legally required minimum. They were paying
| him _a lot_ of money to do something. When he wasn 't able to do
| it, it's not like they fired him instantly; they even offered him
| $30k of severance.
| mrRandomGuy wrote:
| A 'normal' company would understand that while a persons
| significant other is dying of a cancer, their work output may
| suffer as a result.
| dkarl wrote:
| I think if we're trying create a sane and decent society,
| we're barking up the wrong tree by attaching basic human
| compassion to employment, which is a bizarre choice that I'm
| guessing can be traced back to ideological polarization in
| the Cold War. The country wouldn't tolerate a completely
| pitiless dog-eat-dog system, but private enterprise was
| afraid of being exterminated if communism got a foothold in
| society, and they agreed to take on the responsibility of
| funding and administering the welfare state for everybody who
| was employed, so the welfare state for everybody else could
| be minimized and stigmatized. That's the just-so story in my
| head, anyway.
|
| As a result, we're in this absurd situation where the only
| way to do the right and decent thing for a poor person
| suffering a brutal personal tragedy is for them to get paid
| $300k per year to do an incredibly rare-air information
| economy job that they aren't actually doing.
|
| I agree, Amazon has a responsibility to this person because
| that's the system we've built. Amazon is reaping the benefits
| of the system and shouldn't be allowed to dodge the
| responsibilities. But my god, what an absurd system we've
| built.
| Jiro wrote:
| If I was a plumber, and my wife was dying, and as a result I
| was unable to repair plumbing, I would not expect anyone to
| give me money to repair their plumbing, not even if I told
| them my wife is dying and they should be sympathetic.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Are you working as a contractor or employee?
| silisili wrote:
| This analogy would work if engineers were paid by some
| metric like milestone completion. The vast majority are
| not, but instead paid yearly. And if you want to be a
| company people want to actually work at, you think of
| employees as investments so it's some scope even beyond
| yearly. A few months even of suffering performance is
| nothing in the grand scheme of things to a company Amazon's
| size. This is just cruelty for cruelty's sake.
| louwrentius wrote:
| You might work part-time and so balance work/income and
| care.
| zerr wrote:
| Employment != Sole proprietorship. Employer != Client.
| s5300 wrote:
| Huh.
|
| I have a friend who owns a pool cleaning company, commonly
| known as pool routes. They contract a large amount of
| mostly laborers, and give them clients to form a route in
| which they go pool to pool to clean. 4-6 pools daily during
| season to my knowledge.
|
| A benefit these independently contracted pool cleaning
| laborers get:
|
| If you have any sort of personal or family health
| emergency, other pool cleaners will pick up your route for
| up to six months, with _fully_ paid leave, and your
| position guaranteed whenever you 're able to come back.
|
| And this is _just_ for cleaning pools.
|
| You don't think plumbers and plumbers unions can do/deserve
| something close to this or better? Sounds like an awful
| world to live in if so.
| rewma wrote:
| > If I was a plumber, and my wife was dying, and as a
| result I was unable to repair plumbing, I would not expect
| anyone to give me money to repair their plumbing, not even
| if I told them my wife is dying and they should be
| sympathetic.
|
| When I filed for paternity leave, I was paid quite a few
| weeks for not working at all, because the country where I
| live understands that workers are people who have lives and
| struggle with major life events.
|
| It saddens me that some of us are so driven by self-
| contempt that don't realize they are far more than mindless
| organisms in a big Borg collective, ready and willing to be
| discarded whenever their productivity shows a drop.
| hartator wrote:
| > When I filed for paternity leave, I was paid quite a
| few weeks for not working at all, because the country
| where I live understands that workers are people who have
| lives and struggle with major life events.
|
| No country has this kind of benefits for plumbers who are
| mostly independent.
| rewma wrote:
| > No country has this kind of benefits for plumbers who
| are mostly independent.
|
| How about Amazon SDEs?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| A plumber will presumably understand the nature of
| independent contracting.
|
| A salaried plumber employed by a larger plumbing company
| would reasonably expect employee benefits.
| [deleted]
| judge2020 wrote:
| But we don't know how much. What if they made one small bug
| fix in a week? What if they literally did zero work?
| nickff wrote:
| The issue here _may_ have been that the manager had no
| baseline of 'good performance' that they could expect this
| individual to 'return to'.
| rkk3 wrote:
| He was offered a Family Leave option, but the details aren't
| shared so it's hard to judge...
|
| Terrible situation for the author, but expecting the company
| to eat the 500k/year he was costing them doesn't seem fair
| either.
| relaunched wrote:
| Companies employ people. People have problems. Firing
| people, or forcing out people, when they have problems,
| doesn't sound like a very good place to work.
|
| It's very possible that the unspoken culture at Amazon is
| work hard above all else. If you've read "The Everything
| Store", there is a quote, something like, (regarding Bezos)
| "If you're bad, Jeff will run you out of the company. If
| you're good, he'll ride you into the ground." It also talks
| about Jeff firing an early and long-time employee, he did
| throw a party for him in Hawaii, because Amazon no longer
| had a use for him. I don't know if either are true, but if
| true, I could see that attitude creating an unspoken
| culture of, "I don't care about your problems, we have work
| to do. If you can't do it, we need someone who can." I can
| also see how the success and the stock price, given the
| commitment to work above all, reinforces that mentality.
| gruez wrote:
| >Companies employ people. People have problems. Firing
| people, or forcing out people, when they have problems,
| doesn't sound like a very good place to work.
|
| Sure, it'd be great if my workplace kept paying me $300k
| even if I was under-preforming because of personal
| issues. However, how realistic is this expectation? Are
| there any places that keep under-preforming employees for
| half a decade, or more?
| notJim wrote:
| > Are there any places that keep under-preforming
| employees for half a decade, or more?
|
| Microsoft is often recommended for this, and some say
| Google these days too :).
| relaunched wrote:
| Are you arguing that no tech company has employees in
| most of Europe? It's very expensive to terminate people
| for cause in Scandinavian countries, France and the
| England.
|
| Just because we don't do it in the US, doesn't mean they
| aren't doing it.
| kelnos wrote:
| I expect that this is also why there are fewer tech
| companies in Europe than in the US, and why software
| developer salaries are much lower in Europe than in the
| US. Companies can't afford to pay top dollar (er, euro)
| when they have to hedge against being unable to fire
| employees who aren't doing their work.
|
| Not saying either situation is better or worse overall; I
| expect there are winners and losers in both systems. Or,
| likely more accurately, the European system creates few
| big winners, but also few (or no) big losers, whereas the
| US system gives you the opportunity to be a big winner,
| but you could also end up homeless.
|
| Personally I'm happy with how the US system has worked
| out for me, but I'm sure there are some people who feel
| the opposite.
| notJim wrote:
| Companies employ people _to do work_. That is the
| fundamental nature of the relationship. Some leeway is to
| be expected for temporary fluctuations in the work being
| done. But in the long term, if the work is no longer
| being performed at the agreed upon level, the company is
| not obligated to continue paying the person.
|
| In a sense, blaming the company becomes kind of a
| distraction from the real issue, which is that in the US,
| we have an extremely thin safety net. One of the reasons
| getting fired from your tech job is so concerning is that
| even someone in that job is only a few difficult
| situations from utter destitution and homelessness. That
| $4k/mo Seattle mortgage burns through your savings pretty
| quick, and if you have assets of any kind, you won't get
| any assistance from the state for disability. Even our
| unemployment benefits won't keep you afloat for long.
|
| We should be focused on making these things better, not
| expecting companies to employee people who are unable to
| work.
| mindslight wrote:
| A thousand times this. Expecting companies to be the
| source of resources that smooth over personal problems
| actually ends up disempowering workers, who then have to
| abide by companies' policies to receive the benefit.
| Imagine a similar family situation only the employee was
| about to get fired for other reasons, and now their
| health "insurance" has skyrocketed as well!
|
| Rather than seeing companies as the reservoirs of wealth
| that should be taking care of employees (eg this,
| healthcare, parental leave, etc), we need to move that
| wealth _outside of corporate control_ - through a
| combination of higher compensation, better managing of
| personal finances, catchall social safety net, etc.
| relaunched wrote:
| To your point, corporations would be happy to have the
| government take over those functions. But, these are
| solvable problems. For example, there is no doubt that HR
| knew that long-term and short term disabilities were
| options. Google has a death benefit for the spouse and
| kids, under 21. Top tech companies that have money to
| burn could probably figure out how to keep you on
| insurance, as a benefit, during leave.
|
| However, whether or not it's an employers'
| responsibility, is a culture and values thing -
| especially if the social safety nets are lacking.
| notJim wrote:
| If the company has benefits that are available, they
| should definitely point the employee to them. That is
| just the humane thing to do in my view. When I had a
| death in my family a few years ago, I filed to use
| vacation time, and my boss rejected it, because the
| company had bereavement leave (I didn't know about it.)
| That was the right thing to do, because it helped me take
| advantage of all the available benefits.
|
| And of course, if companies provide these benefits, that
| is good, especially since they are absent from our
| broader safety net. But keeping benefits tied to
| employment has a lot of downsides, and we should try to
| move away from that.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _corporations would be happy to have the government
| take over those functions._
|
| Is this really true? I would think so, too, but if it
| were, wouldn't we see a flood of companies in the US
| lobbying Congress to create a government-backed
| healthcare option, or even single-payer? To the point
| where it would have been done decades ago, right-wing
| political ideology be damned?
|
| The cynical part of me wonders if companies like the
| current situation, since that gives companies more power
| over their employees.
| iamdbtoo wrote:
| He mentions the family leave option would've left him
| without any income. No one was asking Amazon not to eat his
| whole salary, just not expect him to function exactly the
| same as someone whose wife isn't dying from brain cancer.
| geodel wrote:
| A 'normal' company would give normal salary not these
| outsized Software salaries.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I do not know what a normal business is, but this is a luxury
| that a business with large margins and redundancies might
| have. A 7 eleven franchisee is not going to be able to afford
| that type of policy.
| NBJack wrote:
| I agree this seems to largely be a manager issue, though I
| would go as far to say it's more prevalent in the company
| culture.
|
| That said, I also agree this isn't exactly fair on Amazon's
| part as they were informed, up front, that this was an ongoing
| issue. The picture this paints isn't then one of "they did
| their best and were generous"; instead, it's one of "they got
| what they wanted out of him." Note that by company policy, all
| employees are given a max base pay of about $160k (including
| Mr. Bezos himself, which they love to point out during
| negotiations); the remainder of the $300k would have likely
| been through stock options, which the author points out were
| left behind during termination. Thus they were technically
| paying him almost half plus whatever signing bonus was
| negotiated.
| illumin8 wrote:
| I read the timeline and it seems like he started in mid-late
| 2018, was having performance problems throughout 2019, and
| didn't even get fired until mid-2020.
|
| This is super generous, and while I have a lot of empathy for
| his personal situation, I think he could have had a much
| different outcome if he would have been more proactive about
| managing expectations: - Amazon does have a bereavement benefit
| that you definitely should take if you lose a brother like he
| did. - There are many opportunities to get help from doctors
| and medical professionals and document any disability you might
| have, which can help accessing disability benefits - While
| family medical leave is typically unpaid, if you are making
| $300K a year and were presumably making a lot less before you
| took the job, I think you can reasonably take a few months of
| unpaid family medical leave knowing your job will be there when
| you return.
|
| I feel bad for the guy in this situation, but I think Amazon
| was very generous and gave them every opportunity to perform.
| How many years should a company wait for an underperforming
| employee to perform?
| ivraatiems wrote:
| I'm not sure how it's done at Amazon - they are, after all,
| notorious for driving employees hard - but my understanding
| is that poor performance over a year or so is usually about
| the point at which firing begins to be discussed at large
| companies.
|
| And the problem wasn't that he didn't want to perform or was
| intrinsically a bad employee; the problem was that he
| literally couldn't due to circumstance. It's not generous to
| say "well, find a way to work through your wife's brain
| cancer and we'll keep you on."
| bloodyplonker22 wrote:
| Many things wrong with your comment, starting with the fact
| that firing beings to be discussed only after a year. It
| actually begins to be discussed immediately after the
| employee is assessed to be an underperformer. It's only
| after a year of bad written performance reviews that they
| can actually start to do something about it, such as put
| the employee on a "PIP" or fire the employee.
| majormajor wrote:
| At the large company I was at firing wouldn't be a
| conversation until at least one review cycle of poor
| performance (every 6mo), more likely after two. The PIP
| started at the same time as the firing conversation;
| before that was time given for the employee and manager
| to try to figure it out themselves. (Which maybe is what
| you mean by "is assessed to be an underperformer," but
| then doesn't disagree with the comment you're replying
| to, really.)
| ivraatiems wrote:
| What were the other things?
| SavantIdiot wrote:
| > How many years should a company wait for an underperforming
| employee to perform?
|
| Perhaps wait until after their spouse has died and see if
| they recover? Even the idea of an "underperforming employee"
| is specious at best.
|
| This is why I love Italy and France, it is night impossible
| to fire someone for things like this from tech companies. Of
| course, they also don't have to worry about going bankrupt
| due to medical issues. They understand there is more to work
| than meeting the numbers. It is something you spend 2/3rds of
| your life doing, and other countries honor that.
|
| [Oh, and also COBRA can cost $3000-$5000/month for shit
| coverage. Once you run out of money, they come for your
| stocks, retirement, and house. Source: I incurred over $100k
| of hospital debt AFTER INSURANCE from an assault that left my
| arm paralyzed. Why? If the hospital charges more than 125%
| medicare costs for the procedure, my $700/month Gold Plan
| didn't cover it. I was let go due to 6 months of absence from
| work, and then while unemployed and needing physical therapy,
| the hospital sent a request for tax statements and they began
| the process of a lien against my property. A lawsuit
| ultimately saved me, but if I hadn't been a victim, they
| would have taken everything. Fucking american healthcare is a
| joke.]
| aborsy wrote:
| This is simplistic. The situation in France and Italy can
| be horrible in many other ways.
|
| There are choices and trade offs. But don't think that
| those regulations in France or Italy are rosy in every way.
| majormajor wrote:
| I've gotten a couple Cobra offers in the past few years
| after leaving jobs, both of them with very solid to great
| health insurance, and haven't seen a number higher than
| $1k/month (101% or whatever of the employer cost). What
| sort of insurance do you have to have to ask for
| $3-5K/month? That would be 36-60K a year! I've never seen a
| company paying close to that in benefits. And my current
| employer has a "cost to employer" under $1k/month for
| insurance.
|
| Have I just gotten lucky with companies with good
| negotiated deals? (The open exchange plans generally have
| looked terrible compared to any group plan I've had in the
| last 10 years.)
| iammisc wrote:
| I've not paid any more than 1k either.
| kelnos wrote:
| Is this for just yourself, or for you and dependents? I
| went on a leave a few years ago, and COBRA was $700/mo
| just for myself (and I'm sure premiums have gone up since
| then). I could easily imagine that being $3k/mo for a
| family of four. Maybe $3k-$5k/mo is high, maybe it's
| normal, maybe my company has a good deal on insurance.
| Who knows; the entire system is disgustingly opaque.
| darkwizard42 wrote:
| I don't even think you can get a Cobra plan for that much
| money...was this for your whole family? You must have been
| on the top tier program at your company...
| goldcd wrote:
| I came away with similar sentiments. I've absolutely no issue
| with anybody criticising their employment practices in their
| warehouses or delivery arms - especially the use of contracting
| companies to isolate themselves from the questionable practices
| that seem required to get the job done.
|
| However, if they're paying you $300k to do a job, it strikes me
| as fair that if you cease to do that job you get terminated.
| Also that's enough money for you to have put in place your own
| safety net if one wasn't provided by your employer in your
| benefits.
| iamdbtoo wrote:
| Is letting a struggling employee underperform for a while
| seriously not an option? At the very least, they could have not
| made this man's last few years with his sick wife that much
| more difficult because they require him to be functioning at
| top performance all of the time.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| It really depends on how much they are underperforming. Are
| they late to a few meetings or not showing up for weeks
| without making arrangements?
| Justsignedup wrote:
| He did give the hiring team a big heads up that he rather not
| take the job than join Amazon. However the big issue is that
| Amazon's HR could have done so many things differently:
|
| - work with him to get on short term or long term disability -
| work with him to figure out a way to take the time off that he
| needed combined with getting back on track - don't judge him on
| metrics he has no control over
|
| Its a perfect combination of not giving a shit. I understand it
| costs them money, but Amazon has the money.
| lordkrandel wrote:
| Wait a minute.
|
| It's for this cases that universal healthcare paid by taxes
| exists. I wouldn't blame it on your boss or Amazon. It's the USA.
|
| A person should not depend on money or productivity to be cured.
|
| And a company should not be liable to spend $300000 an year on a
| non productive employee.
|
| Which btw is about 9 years junior developer gross salary
| equivalent in Italy.
| javert wrote:
| The current USA healthcare hellscape came as a result of an
| attempt to implement universal healthcare that was derailed via
| regulatory capture.
|
| It's hard to see how you could implement universal healthcare
| successfully in country like the US which has third-world
| standards for corruption and democracy, and low average human
| capital.
| Stampo00 wrote:
| They're both at fault since each side expects the other to
| catch those who fall into this unfortunate situation.
|
| The government should provide for people in this situation so
| that if you lost your job due to the circumstances, it
| shouldn't be a double-whammy that will sink the rest of your
| life.
|
| In the absence of a government safety net, the company should
| pick up that slack if they value the employee more than the
| cost of hiring and training someone new. In fact, it may be in
| their best interest regardless, because loyalty among your
| employees is a very expensive asset.
|
| If two outfielders are running to catch a fly ball and then
| both stop at the last second because they each think the other
| one had it and the ball hits the ground, I'd consider them both
| at fault.
| gruez wrote:
| At $300k/year, I think amazon is more concerned about the
| salary going towards a non-productive employee, than whatever
| money they're paying towards his health insurance.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > I think amazon is more concerned about the salary going
| towards a non-productive employee, than whatever money
| they're paying towards his health insurance.
|
| The _employee_ was concerned about costs, including uncovered
| medical costs with insurance [0], which is why they didn 't
| take family leave (which the US federally only guarantees
| unpaid, and the state the employee was in has no state paid
| family leave--though both his previous state and the one he
| declined to move to for the job _do_ have paid family leave.)
|
| So, both public health insurance policy and public employee
| benefits policy in the US, as well as Amazon's particular
| practices (employees aren't prevented from providing paid
| leave or reduced demands without a mandate), are involved in
| this case.
| limeblack wrote:
| So you are saying Medicaid/Medicare? Where do you put all your
| money into a house?
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| > And a company should not be liable to spend $300000 an year
| on a non productive employee.
|
| Nor the taxpayer. It looks more like insurance than healthcare.
| blocked_again wrote:
| A good publicly funded health care system essentially work
| like an insurance.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| OK, give any example of such good public fund. There is
| none, never was, never will.
| stillbourne wrote:
| This happened to me @ Charter. I'd been the primary caretaker for
| both of my elderly grandparents. My grandpa died in 2017 and my
| grandma passed in 2020. When she passed I was basically told
| perform or quit with my boss yelling at me the whole time that I
| wasn't making my commitments.
| SergeAx wrote:
| And this is why Amazon is a 1.6 trillion dollar company.
| jimmaswell wrote:
| > I'd never want him to go through it because it was so painful.
|
| I never really sympathized with this train of thought. I see
| nothing wrong with wishing equal pain on this boss who refused to
| have any human empathy. Maybe he'd learn some needed humility.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| 1. How do other companies handle these situations? How do you
| effectively handle an employee rendered unable to perform their
| job due to tragedy? This came up with Atlassian a few weeks ago,
| and they have a much better reputation than Amazon and it doesn't
| seem like they handled things in a great way either. The reality
| is that you might just need to terminate people who cannot
| perform, no matter what the reason.
|
| 2. I am obviously sympathetic to his plight, but at this point
| Amazon has that reputation as a brutal employer. Every ex-
| Amazonian I have known in real life has told me that the pay is
| so that they own you, whether 3PM or 3AM and they have no qualms
| about firing you (a former co-worker who was with AWS said that
| if I ever take an AWS role, don't get a full year lease for a
| condo in Seattle). Not to blame him, but it is unfortunate that
| he didn't have someone who could advise him that taking a hard
| job at a notoriously uncaring company with a sick wife would be
| unwise.
| joefife wrote:
| Given that we gladly give 6 months paid maternity to those who
| choose to have children, I'm fairly sure we'd give this chap a
| break.
|
| I cannot believe the inhumanity in this thread.
| rmah wrote:
| Most of the time on maternity leave is typically unpaid. If I
| understand correctly, this guy refused to take leave on
| reduced pay.
| medvezhenok wrote:
| Grandparent specifically mentioned paid leave. As far as I
| know, many companies are now switching to 12-24 week paid
| leave models for maternity/paternity leave.
| bink wrote:
| Everywhere I've worked in the last 10+ years has paid
| maternity leave and most now have paid paternity leave.
| They offered him unpaid leave.
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| It varies wildly by manager.
|
| When I was at Amazon, one of my coworkers had a serious mental
| and physical crisis. Our manager went out of his way to support
| them, granting them unlimited leave, accepting them back on a
| part time / temporary basis whenever they felt up for it, etc.
| To make this work, though, I'm pretty sure the manager and
| probably his manager went around the system and basically
| didn't report the absences, because corporate policy almost
| certainly would've been to fire them. It effectively cost that
| manager an invaluable headcount spot, and it went on for over a
| year.
|
| I generally hated working for Amazon, but I loved that
| particular manager and would happily work for him again
| anytime.
| starbugs wrote:
| You behave like a human being with feelings. You do the best
| you can to support and help someone who suffers unbelievably
| and you f**ing show some empathy. This involves actually
| putting yourself in the shoes of someone else, yes. It means
| that you share a part of their suffering.
|
| You are dealing with a human, not a "resource" and not a
| machine. It sickens me to read stories like that to the point
| where I really consider stopping ordering anything from Amazon.
|
| I hope this practice is going to backfire on them.
| rmah wrote:
| I understand your perspective, but... for how long? 1 month?
| 6 months? 3 years? 10 years? At what point does basic empathy
| turn into someone sponging off of generosity?
| starbugs wrote:
| One of my employees was suffering from lymphatic cancer. So
| unfortunately, I have real life experience.
|
| You support them for how long it takes. Period.
|
| For my team mate, it took about 18 months until we could
| slowly start to reintroduce him to normal working hours.
| Even then, it took a couple of months until he was up to
| speed again.
|
| As soon as he returned to the office, I treated him as if
| he was fully recovered to show him that we don't see him as
| some kind of disabled person, because of his cancer
| treatment. He recovered quickly and is now back to where he
| was before he left for treatment performance-wise.
|
| Every screening for remission has been an extreme burden
| for him. Every time, I told him that even though I can
| fully understand his fear, the illness doesn't exist for me
| anymore and he is going to be fine.
|
| 2 years later, he's healthy and provides more value to the
| team than ever. We are all very thankful that he survived.
| dlp211 wrote:
| Fun fact, most people aren't lazy lay-abouts trying to con
| employers into handouts.
| asjldkfin wrote:
| If I'm paying a person $200-$300K to build a house and his
| wife gets cancer; it doesn't entitle him to keep my money. He
| gives it back because he didn't do his job.
|
| Same principle.
| adt2bt wrote:
| The analogy of a house is entirely incorrect - a house is a
| one time transaction. Giving an employee space and support
| during this time likely leads to loyalty and better
| production in the long run. It also prevents articles like
| this, which is probably worth the $300k, as even ONE
| talented engineer turned off from joining Amazon due to
| this article will cost them that much and more.
| starbugs wrote:
| This is actually _not_ about money. It 's about a human
| life.
| geodel wrote:
| So why didn't this person simply leave Amazon's shitty
| job and give some dignity to human life.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| Because at the end of the day it is about money.
| [deleted]
| ivraatiems wrote:
| It's not about "your rights", it's about "what's right".
| Sure, you're within your rights. But when you're a
| trillion-dollar-market-cap company, you can eat $300k for a
| year and let the employee get through his grief and come
| back to you.
|
| Also, you edited your comment in a way that was deceptive,
| and didn't say the reason for the edit -- but your
| comparison is still flawed. $300k to you is pennies to
| Amazon.
| asjldkfin wrote:
| It's not like Jeff Bezos personally fired him. His direct
| manager is not working with a trillion dollar market cap.
| ivraatiems wrote:
| That's another dodge. His direct manager is acting on
| behalf of the company, and in the interest of the
| company. The company should have behaved better. His
| direct manager also isn't paying the writer's salary out
| of a personal bank account.
|
| The point is that companies ought to treat their
| employees with empathy even when it costs them. There are
| reasonable limits to that, yes, but $300k for Amazon is
| well within that bounds in my view.
| asjldkfin wrote:
| No, companies should treat its employees with well
| defined policies that are easy to understand, enforce and
| audit.
|
| Treating employees with something as variable and open to
| interpretation as "empathy" is what causes companies to
| implode- because who defines empathy? Who defines where
| the line is drawn? And why is it fair that some people
| will inevitably get more empathy than others because
| maybe the manager was having a good day and then a bad
| day.
|
| Don't take this the wrong way, but I assume you're
| probably early enough in your career you never had to
| manage people. But when you eventually do, try to
| separate idealism from reality.
| starbugs wrote:
| Sorry, I am old and have more than 10 years of management
| experience.
|
| You can try to formalize human life with your rules for
| the next 100k years and it will still not work. There are
| things that are beyond words and beyond your and my
| ability to "define".
|
| I am afraid a lot of us have lost any of their inherent
| common sense, because there was no policy for it.
|
| This is not idealism. This is someone dying. And you are
| talking about policies. Come on!
| dlp211 wrote:
| Which company imploded because of empathy?
| ivraatiems wrote:
| > No, companies should treat its employees with well
| defined policies that are easy to understand, enforce and
| audit.
|
| These are not mutually exclusive things, much of the
| time, but sometimes exceptions have to be made.
|
| > Treating employees with something as variable and open
| to interpretation as "empathy" is what causes companies
| to implode- because who defines empathy? Who defines
| where the line is drawn? And why is it fair that some
| people will inevitably get more empathy than others
| because maybe the manager was having a good day and then
| a bad day.
|
| This is a reasonable point, but it, again, does not
| address my fundamental point: Amazon _as a company_
| should have more ethical and empathetic policies. Amazon
| _as a company_ should instruct managers to help their
| employees and be willing to back that help up with
| financial assistance.
|
| Whether it's Jeff Bezos or this person's manager, you
| seem to want to keep this at an individual level of
| decision-making, but that's not the change I want to
| make.
|
| As for myself, I'm not a manager because I don't want to
| be, and having to enforce policies I don't agree with is
| one of the reasons for that.
| oceanplexian wrote:
| This is the right answer. Your safety net is your
| responsibility, not your company's or the government's
| (like it or not, this is the reality we live in today, in
| the USA). Making the high income that he does, it should
| have been trivial to save a few years worth of emergency
| fund for exactly this situation. If he had made different
| choices he would be able to take a year off and properly
| take care of his family, not blame Amazon for his life
| choices.
| ivraatiems wrote:
| It shouldn't be the reality in a society with the amount
| of wealth ours has.
| oceanplexian wrote:
| If you make mid six-figures and can't put together an
| emergency fund that is on you. He could have made
| different life choices and spent time with his wife in
| her last moments rather than slaving away at work.
| s5300 wrote:
| Cancer treatment often goes up over a million, sometimes
| into _millions_
|
| Perhaps you're unaware of that, but do you still expect
| somebody making six figures to be able to have that
| emergency fund just sitting around?
| ivraatiems wrote:
| I agree absolutely on the importance of an emergency fund
| from a tactical, this is how society is perspective.
|
| But I don't think it should be necessary and I don't
| concede that that's the right way for things to work.
| starbugs wrote:
| Do you really think that this is about the money? This
| man is losing his wife, he cannot think clearly, because
| he loses the person he loves and has children with. He
| may suffer from severe depression. I'd bet my right leg
| that if he didn't need to, he would not think about money
| for a minute. It also doesn't matter whether he should
| have built up an emergency fund that can cover cancer
| treatment expenses. He clearly has different problems
| than that right now.
|
| I can't comprehend how you can even talk about money
| until you have helped that guy with all you have.
| Clearly, Amazon is well enough equipped to first provide
| support, then ask questions once a situation like that
| has been resolved.
|
| The way this is being handled is just wrong. You wouldn't
| treat any of your friends or family members like that, so
| why do it to your employee?
| cameronh90 wrote:
| I worked for a small company with very little spare cash and a
| short runway when an enormous family tragedy struck suddenly.
| They let me take a month off and accepted I wasn't quite at
| normal levels of productivity for maybe a year afterwards. It
| was tough, but they made it work.
|
| If they could afford it, Amazon can.
| ivraatiems wrote:
| > Not to blame him, but it is unfortunate that he didn't have
| someone who could advise him that taking a hard job at a
| notoriously uncaring company with a sick wife would be unwise.
|
| This is blaming him.
|
| > The reality is that you might just need to terminate people
| who cannot perform, no matter what the reason.
|
| Or even better, give them a few months' leave at half or a
| quarter salary, or at least let them keep their benefits. I
| know, crazy to suggest we might put corporate profits over
| helping someone in need, but you could give it a try.
|
| Edit: Amazon did offer the employee family leave unpaid. It
| wasn't workable and their response was that he should quit.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| I am not blaming him as I don't think he knew. He is not at
| fault for not knowing. Just that for those who have heard
| what Amazon is like, that this end result was predictable and
| it is unfortunate that he didn't have that.
| ivraatiems wrote:
| "What did you expect from Amazon" is a fair point, but in
| no way excuses Amazon whatsoever. They always have the
| opportunity to be better.
| ep103 wrote:
| A normal company would recognize that the employee's hardship
| is temporary, that treating the employee with compassion will
| buy long term loyalty that will far outlast the lost-work of
| the temporary hardship, and would treat the employee with basic
| human moral emotion and empathy.
|
| I broke my arm in a bad vehicle accident ~5 months into my last
| work position. I couldn't code for ~2 months. I couldn't
| commute into the office for another ~2 after that due to
| personal fragility from the injuries.
|
| My direct boss offered to come help me fix up my apartment in
| case I couldn't reach things in my apartment. My employer
| worked with me every step of the way.
|
| I was so touched, having come from a 'fire first' mentality
| shop before that, that I worked at that firm for another 7
| years. I rose to a directorship, and ultimately ran half of
| their engineering department. I worked countless nights,
| because I cared. And when I did finally leave, having long
| since outgrown the organization, I went to work for the boss
| that had offered to help me rearrange the apartment.
|
| Human empathy is basic, good business sense.
| goldcd wrote:
| I accept a slightly lower income from my employer, as I think
| they're pretty generous in their flexibility. Over a decade
| ago my father died and they just told me to take off whatever
| I needed. I'm still with them and have seen them to be
| sympathetic to my colleagues and even when laying them off,
| have paid over the legal minimum. It's one of the reasons I'm
| still working for them.
|
| From a distance I know amazon are bastards, but pay more. If
| I switched job, I'd just accept that some of that salary bump
| needs to be put into personal insurance.
|
| I'd have sympathy if amazon were knonw to be cuddly and
| picked on this guy, or didn't pay him enough to...
| louwrentius wrote:
| It's so fucking simple.
|
| Let them do their work as best as they can under the
| circumstances. maybe allow them to work less hours / part-time
| if that's what they need.
|
| Really, work isn't all-or-nothing. Like either you do 60h a
| week or you're worthless, that's just a typical American
| cultural thing to make you a work slave.
|
| A decent company accommodates people who have a spouse with a
| terminal illness.
|
| It's that simple. You treat people like fucking human beings.
| aaomidi wrote:
| > I am obviously sympathetic to his plight, but at this point
| Amazon has that reputation as a brutal employer. Every ex-
| Amazonian I have known in real life has told me that the pay is
| so that they own you, whether 3PM or 3AM and they have no
| qualms about firing you (a former co-worker who was with AWS
| said that if I ever take an AWS role, don't get a full year
| lease for a condo in Seattle). Not to blame him, but it is
| unfortunate that he didn't have someone who could advise him
| that taking a hard job at a notoriously uncaring company with a
| sick wife would be unwise.
|
| Make it illegal to companies to do this. Simple. Companies
| operate within the laws of the society they're based in. If
| Amazon doesn't like it they can take their bags and go
| somewhere else.
| sokoloff wrote:
| If many companies are paying $100K/yr, is it really in the
| public interest to prevent a hard-driving company from paying
| $300K/yr to employees who want to sign up for that bargain?
|
| If you don't want that bargain, don't take it, but I don't
| see the public interest in blocking others who do want it
| from taking it.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| A tip: If anyone finds themselves in a tragic situation like this
| where they can't work but also can't afford to take leave,
| investigate your short and long-term disability benefits ASAP.
| Also read up on the documentation necessary to begin disability
| claims.
|
| Engage with a doctor early on who can document the severe
| depressive symptoms that are preventing work (which the author
| specifically cites in his anecdote). Do it as early as possible
| to generate a documentation trail. Don't wait until you're close
| to being terminated to begin documenting anything because that
| will make the claim much weaker compared to someone with months
| of doctor's notes documenting the situation.
|
| I can't speak to Amazon's specific benefits, but most big tech
| companies I've worked for have provided some base level short and
| long term disability coverage as part of their core benefits,
| partially to avoid situations like this where employees are
| unable to work due to external circumstances but are unable to go
| on leave.
| marricks wrote:
| Totally, with all the free time I have between performing at
| work and caring for my dying partner I'll be sure to study
| applicable law, meet with my doctor to get a note, then defend
| myself to HR
| CaliforniaKarl wrote:
| Another HN user posted--and then deleted--this comment:
|
| > I worry that many people in such a situation may not have the
| right frame of mind to be able to find, read, understand, and
| absorb what is normally quite dry reading material requiring
| often ending in something requiring exceptional perseverance.
|
| (I noticed because I was writing a reply.)
|
| I think it's a good comment! And I think that is why you do it
| now. It's just like how every flight begins with the safety
| briefing. Learn your company's policies and procedures now,
| when you don't need them. And refresh your memory regularly.
| filmgirlcw wrote:
| Absolutely! Know what your policies are as soon as you join
| any company -- but this is triply true for a FAANG. All of
| the information at a FAANG is in your intranet. As you say,
| learn those policies and procedures now and refresh them.
|
| I've made a lot of decisions that have been counter to my own
| self-interest in my professional life (usually out of a
| misguided feeling of loyalty), but I have been very good at
| knowing policies and procedures (and for getting stuff stated
| explicitly in my contract before signing anything) and it has
| come in handy on a number of occasions.
|
| Know your rights. And know them before you need to use them.
| gruez wrote:
| > It's just like how every flight begins with the safety
| briefing. Learn your company's policies and procedures now,
| when you don't need them. And refresh your memory regularly.
|
| That's more of a consequence of how we're irrationally afraid
| of flying than anything else. AFAIK you're far more likely to
| die of a building fire than a plane crash, yet how many
| people actually check their hotel's evacuation plan when they
| first enter the room?
| hnlmorg wrote:
| Checking your hotels evacuation plan is something the guest
| has to choose to do, which isn't the case with flight
| safety briefings. Fire drills would be a closer comparison
| with regards to fire safety.
|
| As an aside, up until a few years ago I was one of those
| people that did check hotel evacuation plans. I suffered
| from a lot of habitual ticks back then though and I suspect
| checking evacuation plans might have been one of them.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| That's actually misleading, but a common misconception: The
| process is much less demanding than trying to continue
| working a demanding job at Amazon, for example.
|
| Disability claims are a common target for fraud and abuse so
| getting some early documentation from a medical professional
| is important. Engaging with medical professionals is
| something anyone with debilitating depression should be doing
| ASAP anyway, so it's not much of an extra step just for the
| claim.
|
| The rest can be started by calling the disability insurance
| and asking about the process. Some company's HR teams might
| even help direct employees to the benefit because they'd
| rather retain the employee if possible and also use the
| insurance for its intended purpose of covering periods of
| disability (rather than firing the employee or paying for
| someone who is unable to perform). YMMV with how much you
| trust HR departments, though, so best to call the disability
| insurance company first.
| divbzero wrote:
| Reminds me that I should send out a short "how to" guide to
| my family on where and how to file claims for support. Makes
| it easier to take action if needed with minimal mental
| effort.
| ucm_edge wrote:
| Very much this. You always want to be asking HR for an
| accommodation that is protected by law. Then HR enters into the
| mode of protecting the company by ensuring they don't get in
| trouble for violating the law.
|
| You go in and say "Hey my wife is dying and my performance is
| probably going to be impacted, can something be done?", HR may
| opt to 'protect' the company by starting to build a case for
| terminating a low performing employee.
| tomhallett wrote:
| Oh wow. This (especially with respect to the mental model of
| the incentives for how a company works on the inside) should
| be taught in school.
| teekert wrote:
| You mean as a way to show kids that no morality exists in a
| context that allows one to be a faceless HR department?
| Despicable.
| vkou wrote:
| You make not like how sociopathic bureaucracies running
| society operate, but it's important to educate children
| on how not to get screwed by them.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > You go in and say "Hey my wife is dying and my performance
| is probably going to be impacted, can something be done?", HR
| may opt to 'protect' the company by starting to build a case
| for terminating a low performing employee.
|
| That's the cynical approach, but most companies don't
| actually want to lose valuable employees. This is why they
| have disability insurance coverage in the first place to help
| cover those gaps (while having the insurance foot the bill).
|
| Also, in this case the author says he voluntarily warned them
| his wife was dying of cancer during the interview process. If
| HR wanted to get rid of him for that, they would have simply
| found an excuse to not hire him. Instead they gave him an
| offer.
| geofft wrote:
| Companies don't "want" things. They do not have a single
| will. Companies are agglomerations of many humans, who have
| various wills and more importantly various incentives.
|
| Same with "HR," and not only are there multiple people, in
| large enough companies, there are fairly disconnected
| _teams_ that handle the various parts of HR, like sourcing
| candidates, making offers to candidates, supporting
| managers, handling accommodations and keeping the company
| on the right side of the law, overseeing budgets and
| headcount. (If it helps, consider engineering, and the
| statement, "If engineering didn't want to move their
| legacy services to public cloud, they would simply have not
| signed a services contract with this cloud vendor in the
| first place instead of wasting their money.")
|
| It's entirely possible that every individual on the hiring
| side genuinely wanted (of their own will) to hire this
| person anyway, but none of them were the same people who
| handle working with existing employees, who are all more
| misanthropic, and they don't talk to each other. It's also
| possible, and quite a bit more likely, that every
| individual on the hiring side is incentivized to fill
| roles, not to retain (how do you give someone an OKR or
| performance bonus this year based on whether their hires
| are still around three years in the future, anyway?), and
| that every individual on the existing-employees side is
| incentivized to demonstrate that they aren't coddling low
| performers.
|
| Being employed at a company is a business transaction. It's
| not cynical to ask what the involved people's financial
| incentives are and whether they line up with yours, any
| more than it's cynical to expect that McDonald's will
| refuse to negotiate on the price of a burger. Even if the
| employee is nice, they've got a job to do, and they may not
| be nice.
| munchbunny wrote:
| > That's the cynical approach, but most companies don't
| actually want to lose valuable employees.
|
| While an abstract rational actor like a company might come
| to this conclusion, day to day line managers often do not
| come to the same conclusions. A low performing employee
| affected by personal issues is dead weight on said line
| manager's budget and headcount, and therefore their metrics
| and their own performance and promotion. The trickle-down
| performance model often doesn't incentivize long-term-
| focused management practices.
| crispyambulance wrote:
| Given that the employee was making ~300K, we can figure
| that his manager is probably making 50% to 100+% more.
|
| I find it mind-boggling that the manager could not find
| it within himself to give some slack to the employee. I
| guess maybe he didn't want to slow down the rate at which
| he was pulling in F-U money.
| sangnoir wrote:
| > I guess maybe he didn't want to slow down the rate at
| which he was pulling in F-U money.
|
| Bingo! The manager's 10-30% bonus was on the line; and
| they probably saw the stressed employee not quite through
| a human lense, but was more of a broken cog that was
| gumming up the works and tanking the manager's
| metrics/KPIs.
| j_walter wrote:
| Most managers don't either and will deal with some amount
| of loss of productivity...but part of that is also a
| calculation of "how long will it take to train a new hire X
| to do poorly performing employee Y's job" as well.
|
| Now I've heard my fair share of people that claim "I was
| fired because my kid was sick"...and that might have been
| the final straw, but it was the other 7 unscheduled
| absences in the last few months that were not covered under
| family leave laws that were the major factor. Sometimes
| managers can't wait to terminate those employees because
| they weren't good anyway and they are just waiting for a
| reason to fire them in an easy way.
| m0zg wrote:
| I actually wish more people got it through their heads that
| HR _is not_ and _will never be_ their friend or savior.
| Their only loyalty is only to the company, by design. There
| are no exceptions to this that I have seen in 25+ years in
| the industry. The extent of whatever help you might get out
| of them is whether or not there's a risk that the company
| would come out worse on the other end if that help is not
| provided, such as, if you have a thoroughly documented
| case, the law is on your side, and you're willing and able
| to enforce your rights. If it's not documented or not
| protected by law, you'll be screwed by HR 100% of the time.
| loudtieblahblah wrote:
| >That's the cynical approach, but most companies don't
| actually want to lose valuable employees. T
|
| Maybe.
|
| But Amazon isn't most companies.
| ucm_edge wrote:
| No, some element of the people operation whose job
| performance is in part judged on getting engineers through
| the door wanted to hire him. Likely all that person cared
| about was "This engineer will make it X months", where X is
| based on if the employee separates prior to X the recruiter
| gets yelled at for sourcing a bad candidate.
|
| Other parts of the org clearly had no issues branding the
| employee as a low performer and target for termination
| because their performance reviews.
| soperj wrote:
| "May opt"? HR isn't there for you, they are for the employer.
| Too many people confuse this. They will always protect the
| company because that's their job.
| codegeek wrote:
| In the United States, here is a starting point for FMLA (Family
| and Medical Leave Act)
|
| https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fmla
|
| You have to also check your specific state law and go from
| there. I would google "FMLA <statename>" for example.
| alberth wrote:
| In the US, the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) provides
| certain employees with up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected
| leave per year. It also requires that their group health
| benefits be maintained during the leave.
| loudtieblahblah wrote:
| gotta love that to engage with stuff like this we need to
| navigate a Brazil level of bureaucratic bullshit to cover our
| asses.
|
| Go to the therapist a bunch, create a paper trail, dig through
| fine print of short/long term leave..
|
| as if the guy wasn't deal with enough between his work and wife
| as it was.
|
| it's just sad that to find a way to best help yourself, you
| must suffer more, shoulder more, have more chewing up your time
| and limited ability to deal with mounting stress.
|
| and people wonder why random people snap and blow away 15
| random people at their office.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| iJohnDoe wrote:
| This isn't surprising. People in work environments are just
| people. Most of them might be below average intelligence.
|
| What's terrible is that no one else at Amazon helped to fix this
| situation? I understand most HR people are toxic. But no
| executive or anyone higher up thought this situation was wrong?
| Absolutely no one wanted to stick their neck out to do the right
| thing? This tells you everything you need to know about the
| corporate environment.
| madrox wrote:
| What sucks about stories like this is, while my heart breaks for
| what this guy went through, managers don't have the same luxury
| of defending their side of the story to Mother Jones.
|
| I worked as an EM at Amazon. I went into this ready to think he
| had a bad boss (because those definitely exist at Amazon), but
| after reading this I feel like there's another side to this that
| has more compassion than is being reflected here. He was at turns
| informally warned, encouraged to take leave, and offered
| severance. It sounds like he expected a pass on all this for his
| life circumstances until it was too late. Without more details
| from both sides as to what the performance issues were, this
| reads as using a tragedy to get more than he's owed.
|
| I can't even imagine what this guy went through. He had to watch
| his wife slowly die while raising two girls and providing for his
| family. Watching my father die from cancer after a long life was
| awful enough and affected me for years. His grief has to be
| phenomenal. I imagine part of his grieving process is lashing out
| at his boss for not being more understanding. That said, I think
| his story would be the same no matter where he worked. It's just
| more in vogue to bash Amazon.
|
| If he wants to lash out at anything, I suggest lashing out at a
| system that requires us to work while going through such awful
| life circumstances. That man shouldn't have had to work. He
| should have been safe to be unemployed while focusing on being
| there for his family. The idea that he felt compelled to work to
| avoid his family going bankrupt is lunacy to me.
| dml2135 wrote:
| I would be more apt to share this opinion if not for the fact
| that he says he specifically warned Amazon that his wife had
| brain cancer when they began trying to recruit him.
| triactual wrote:
| So you would want Amazon to pass him over because his wife
| has an existing medical condition? That would be a good
| article too.
| m0zg wrote:
| > warned Amazon that his wife had brain cancer when they
| began trying to recruit him
|
| Not to defend Amazon, god forbid, but I'd be surprised if
| this actually reached the people who would be able to make
| decisions about this either way. Recruiting gets paid per
| head. They got a head. What happens next is of no interest to
| them whatsoever.
| gkya wrote:
| Fuck managers' side of the story.
| msarrel wrote:
| I'm disappointed at how widespread this seems to be.
|
| My mother died earlier this year. When I asked my boss at our
| series b startup for leave her response was, "do you really need
| this much time, its the end of the quarter." I told her that I
| did actually want 2 weeks to grieve the loss of my mother and she
| never responded. When I returned to work, she had never told HR
| that my mother died. HR didn't understand why I was absent for 2
| weeks. I decided to resign and not work with people who behave
| like that.
| drdeadringer wrote:
| Assuming you told HR that your mother had died as to the why,
| how did HR respond given their ignorance of your situation?
|
| Note: Condolences for your loss.
| mgh2 wrote:
| It hard to hear these stories, but necessary to warn future
| employees about it https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28555480
| PerkinWarwick wrote:
| You know, I don't doubt that Amazon is a bunch of bastards, but I
| can't say that any company I have worked for ever did much for
| employee tragic circumstances. They were just more polite about
| it.
| friedman23 wrote:
| You would think with how huge and renown amazon is as a company
| they would have their pick of top engineers. It's not the case.
| None of my friends that work in Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and
| other unicorns even consider applying to Amazon on their job
| search. It's actually pretty comical, I have no idea where Amazon
| gets their talent pool from.
| psyc wrote:
| Eh, not so fast there. Perhaps that talent pool is larger and
| more diverse than you realize. It's entirely possible that I'm
| out of touch now, but when I was at MSFT 10 years ago, there
| was a steady flow of top talent to Amazon. All the people I
| knew who went over were sort of the way-overachiever type who
| wouldn't mind being punished (and rewarded) by an employer.
| They were single, male, career and status obsessed. Also among
| the best developers and managers I worked with. FAR from the
| bottom of the barrel. I myself declined all invitations to come
| over, but people want different things from their jobs. I liked
| the ability to hide and coast in relatively slow-moving MS.
| friedman23 wrote:
| 10 years ago their abusive workplace culture was not nearly
| as well known as it is now and also the possibility of
| massive stock appreciation isn't as likely either given sky
| high valuations. I see no reason why someone would choose
| Amazon over a unicorn or any other FANG company which offers
| much better work life balance.
| psyc wrote:
| I agree with all this. Heck, I even agreed 10 years ago.
| I'll only say that those people I knew seemed almost
| attracted to the abuse, as though they believed it would
| help make them wealthy. (They did all become millionaires,
| but you're right that they could have done so at many other
| companies.)
| w0mbat wrote:
| I agree. I have worked for a lot of FAANGs and nobody I knew
| ever went to Amazon.
|
| I was partway through agreeing to an interview request from
| Amazon last year when my research turned up how stingy their
| 401k match is. Similarly their stock vesting schedule is awful
| compared with everybody else.
|
| It's not that I desperately needed that extra bit of money on
| top of the perhaps generous salary (no sum was named).
|
| It's that being stingy about that stuff indicates to me that
| they will be less than generous in every possible situation,
| say if I need time to deal with a health issue or a family
| emergency.
| anonymousDan wrote:
| Maybe your friends at Facebook, Google and Microsoft aren't
| such special snowflakes and in fact there are plenty of
| engineers around good enough to do the job? Don't mean to sound
| harsh but it's not like working at any of the above companies
| instantly makes you some kind of Einstein.
| friedman23 wrote:
| I don't know why anyone good enough for the job would choose
| to work somewhere as abusive as amazon.
|
| Also, there is no need for insults, don't spread your abusive
| workplace online please :)
| anonymousDan wrote:
| Well say that then. I certainly don't work for Amazon (or
| ever intend to)!
| dvt wrote:
| I wish we had a #MeToo for horrible corporate environments.
| Amazon is an atrocious place to work at, and even though I'm no
| fan of cancel culture, if any case begs for naming and shaming,
| it's got to be this one. There _are_ people that make these
| decisions. Amazon isn 't some "monolith" where no one has free
| will. That argument didn't work for WW2 Nazi guards, so why
| should it work here? "Just following orders" isn't good enough.
|
| I've been approached _dozens_ of times by Amazon -- by
| recruiters, but even by _hiring managers_ -- and I 'm sure I'd
| get paid a ton. But I could never morally justify working for
| such a garbage company in 1000 years.
| almost_usual wrote:
| I really don't understand why people work for Amazon. Low ball
| offers and long work hours. No thanks.
| dlp211 wrote:
| Amazon still pays better than a lot of companies. If you are
| choosing between Google and Amazon, yea, it's pretty much an
| easy decision, if you are choosing between some mid-sized B2B
| tech company and Amazon, not so easy a decision any more (or it
| is and it's tilted in Amazon's favor).
| sokoloff wrote:
| The linked article is about an Amazon employee making $300K in
| Tennessee (far from a high-cost area in the US).
|
| That is a 99th percentile salary and 97th percentile household
| total income for TN.
| Traubenfuchs wrote:
| I don't understand how someone smart enough to make 300.000 a
| year (That is an insane fortune to almost everyone, even in first
| world countries) feels entitled to a month-, year-long reduction
| of performance expectations because of personal tragedy.
|
| There are thousands waiting for his position and they would kill
| to get it.
| sundaeofshock wrote:
| You are a horrible human being.
| outworlder wrote:
| > That is an insane fortune to almost everyone
|
| Pfft. No it isn't. It just illustrates how badly underpaid some
| sectors are.
|
| The author seems to have been in a bit better position by not
| relocating to a high cost of living region. Still, when the
| "American Dream" term was coined - decades ago - the wages were
| much more "insane", as you put it. Even minimum wage could
| support a couple with a child above the poverty line.
|
| 300k a year (before taxes) likely can't even pay for his wife's
| healthcare, if he were to pay out of pocket (due to losing his
| job).
|
| > There are thousands waiting for his position and they would
| kill to get it.
|
| Not really. There are companies that pay even better, for a
| similar amount of effort, and better policies.
| retrac wrote:
| It seems no more entitled than expecting health insurance or
| personal disability leave to me. Nearly all of us will face a
| few personal derailments that leave us unable to function much
| at some point in our lives. We could recognize that fact and
| mutually insure each other against it. Or we could just throw
| each other to the wolves? Do you want a cut-throat hellhole
| that will dispose of you as soon as possible, or just a nice
| place to work? Most of us want the latter, I think. Probably
| shouldn't be up to the employer like this anyway. The public
| employment insurance in my country covers partial pay for up to
| a year to look after a dying relative.
| ivraatiems wrote:
| Human beings are entitled to a little empathy from other human
| beings.
| jen20 wrote:
| I don't understand how a company who has been paying someone
| 300,000/year (not a fortune for a FAANG, in the slightest) does
| not understand that by acting this way, they guarantee they
| will lose an employee when the situation is over, vs gaining
| loyalty from them.
| adt2bt wrote:
| Not only lose an employee, but lose future employees as well.
| I'll never work for Amazon because of this crap, and I know
| I'm worth well more than $300k/year to them.
| slothtrop wrote:
| Loyalty is a farce, there is none. And the vast majority of
| FAANG employees are replaceable.
| almost_usual wrote:
| Not really, compensation is off the charts right now.
| johncessna wrote:
| Companies, and Amazon isn't alone in this, don't care about
| employee loyalty. They will all hem and haw about giving
| someone making a 100k a 5% raise and talk about how they
| can't do a raise that 'high' but when that employee leaves,
| they'll backfill their replacement at 120k.
|
| Yes, 300k is a lot of money, but for better or worse, a US
| based L5/6 at Amazon is just another cog in the wheel. They
| probably fired 100 or so of them the day this person was
| fired, and the following Monday, another 100 started.
| mrRandomGuy wrote:
| God, sometimes reading the comments on this website makes me
| want to burn my eyeballs off. Like, why is there such a large
| chunk of people who literally go to bat for such shit
| practices?
| badpeoplehere wrote:
| It's an offshoot if the culture of YC, the mods and Paul
| Graham. This place collects reactionaries, racists,
| sexists... above all else it's people who worship
| billionaires. It's a disgusting pit of the tech industry and
| the site owners _encorage_ this behavior by moderating away
| anyone who has even an ounce of humanity. No doubt you'll get
| scolded if you keep pointing out how obviously horrible this
| "community" is.
| ldjkfkdsjnv wrote:
| Believe it or not, this isn't a rare attitude among managers at
| Amazon. A significant percentage of SDMs believe they must "keep
| a high bar" and remove any dissenting subordinates. Word has
| gotten out about it, mostly on the blind app, which forced Amazon
| to raise pay bands for engineers 50-100k. This is costing the
| company a lot of money.
|
| The difference going forwards for Amazon is that the stock is
| mostly stagnant, and so employees are no longer putting up with
| miserable harsh working conditions, the financial incentives are
| no longer there.
| mataug wrote:
| The reality is that the SDMs are cogs in the machine as well.
|
| If a director asks the SDM why an employee isn't performing,
| and the SDM responds with any reason that doesn't support the
| organisation's goals, the director / VP is going to ask the SDM
| to get rid of the employee to meet Amazon's infamous URA
| quota[1]. If the SDM refuses, they are going to find another
| SDM who will do the job.
|
| At the same time, the following is also true
|
| > A significant percentage of SDMs believe they must "keep a
| high bar" and remove any dissenting subordinates.
|
| > The difference going forwards for Amazon is that the stock is
| mostly stagnant, and so employees are no longer putting up with
| miserable harsh working conditions, the financial incentives
| are no longer there.
|
| This is why Amazon is now importing a lot of international
| engineers, especially from Amazon India. Employees on L1 visa
| can't refuse the harsh working conditions, unless they are
| willing to take a huge pay cut and move back.
|
| [1]: https://archive.is/44DyG
| ActorNightly wrote:
| While what you say may be true, I urge everyone reading this
| thread not to make personal opinions solely on stuff posted
| online that does not have hard evidence associated with it.
| debacle wrote:
| What is the blind app?
| ctvo wrote:
| One of the most toxic environments on the internet, filled
| with people who define themselves by their employment at big
| tech, and how large their salaries are. Think WallStreetBets
| meets tech but with less self-deprecation and emotional
| maturity, if you can imagine it.
| pabl8k wrote:
| It's a forum for people at tech companies to anonymously talk
| to other people at their companies in a private forum, or
| with people at other companies publicly to all members. They
| validate employment using your email address. As could be
| expected many of the topics devolve into toxic messes, but
| there is some useful discussion.
| ajb wrote:
| Only available to people in the US and South Korea at the
| moment, apparently.
|
| A pity, but I guess they need lawyers in every country they
| do business in.
| jasonladuke0311 wrote:
| Yep. It sucks in many, many ways, but it also is full of
| info on negotiation, interview processes at many companies,
| and salary/offer sharing.
|
| I had no idea how much more money I could be making until I
| signed up there. Deleted the app as soon as I signed an
| offer sheet.
| [deleted]
| friedman23 wrote:
| teamblind.com
| shreyansj wrote:
| teamblind.com
| enra wrote:
| It's 3rd party app that you can join your company's forum if
| you have an email address with the company domain.
|
| It's like Nextdoor but for employees of a particular company
| where people can vent, spread rumors, and at times share
| useful information.
| [deleted]
| seattle_spring wrote:
| In my ~15 year career I've met a _lot_ of people that have gone
| on and worked at almost every big company imaginable. For some
| reason an outsized amount of people that I hated working with
| ended up as SDMs at Amazon. The list of people I hate is very,
| very small too, so it seems like more than a coincidence.
| darkmarmot wrote:
| For me the high correlation seems to be with Facebook.
| w0mbat wrote:
| Yeah me too. All the assholes went to Facebook. Only one
| person I like went there, and he quit.
| twalla wrote:
| One of the things I do to get Amazon recruiters to leave me the
| hell alone is to respond to their emails with a link to the
| most recent public AMZN snafu and urge them to quit - it's
| funny/sad how each time I respond I can quickly find 3-5 new
| links no more than a few months old.
| mabbo wrote:
| A thought: be nice to recruiters. They're generally nice
| people who are underpaid for the work they do (usually).
| They're in a really tough business.
|
| And if you want a selfish take: Maybe today they're working
| for Amazon, but tomorrow they may be doing the same job at
| your dream company. They have too many people to try reaching
| out to, and they may remember your name.
| erikerikson wrote:
| +1
|
| For years I asked them to put me on their do not contact
| list. I eventually asked someone with authority. Whenever I
| am still contacted by managers, I simply forward that email
| with a polite note to that stakeholder. I get apologies and
| they get a lesson in their responsibilities from someone to
| which they are liable.
| radicalbyte wrote:
| I just tell them how much it would cost to get me to up and
| move to Canada or the US to work for them, just to be equal
| to my situation here in Europe.
|
| That usually stops them pretty quickly :)
| xtracto wrote:
| Haha, this is the way.
|
| Over the last 2 years I started to receive a lot of
| unwanted recruit spam both in my email and through
| Linkedin. I used to ignore them and get angry. Now my
| response is quite straightforward: Sure, I am happy to talk
| if you can offer me $250,000 USD, Work from Home (I live in
| Mexico) and X, Y, Z benefits that I currently have.
|
| This also applies for the ones that want to have a call to
| you for a "mysterious client" ( particularly for exec
| positions), usually just wasting your time. You are the one
| that contacted me, if you want to get my time better be for
| something good. It usually isn't.
| mabbo wrote:
| I think there is some selection bias in this. And I say this as
| someone who has recently quit working at Amazon (after many
| years there).
|
| People who get fired are far more likely to leave reviews on
| blind. And the whole performance improvement plan process that
| proceeds being fired takes place between the employee and the
| SDM.
|
| It may be the case that their org leadership told the SDM to
| cut their lowest ranked person to make the org's "Unregretted
| Rate of Attrition" quota for the year. From the employees point
| of view, this was purely some kind of malicious move by a
| terrible SDM. In reality, it's an SDM who wants to keep their
| job in a sociopathic system that enforces minimum rates of
| firing people to "keep the bar high".
|
| Salaries are rising for engineers across the industry, in part
| because of the 'great resignation' going on. Make no mistake:
| Amazon would not raise salaries because of angry reviews on
| Blind. They would only raise wages if they saw too many people
| choosing to quit or not accept job offers in favour of other
| companies. Probably entirely based on a formula that used those
| numbers as inputs.
| rewma wrote:
| > People who get fired are far more likely to leave reviews
| on blind.
|
| It is said that the average tenure at Amazon is two years. By
| your measuring stick, a company that is a revolving door does
| have the nasty tendency to leave a lot of its employees with
| plenty of reasons to complain.
| ctvo wrote:
| There's nothing extraordinary about Amazon having a 2 year
| tenure average. Here's a somewhat dated (I'd guess it's
| gotten even shorter since) article from 2018 listing many
| more company tenures:
|
| https://www.inc.com/business-insider/tech-companies-
| employee...
|
| There are many known companies with ~2 years give or take.
| [deleted]
| JohnBooty wrote:
| This happened to me, as well. Not my wife and not Amazon, but
| actually a handful of family members dying over the last year.
|
| On one hand I completely understand my employer. Unlike Amazon,
| they do not have Amazon-style money. They are fighting to
| survive. Like the author I am not sure what they _should_ have
| done for me.
|
| During the conversation where I was terminated, I told my boss I
| understood their position. They needed performance above all
| else.
|
| But, combined with the company's meager retirement plan, meager
| health insurance, and stingy PTO that barely covers a couple of
| funerals each year.... I said who the fuck are you trying to
| hire, here? Exclusively people... without families? Are you
| trying to hire typical human beings or what? Or strictly
| obsessive coders who do nothing but code all day and don't have
| families and don't need PTO?
|
| "I don't think those kinds of guys exist any more," he said.
|
| "Well maybe you should build a fucking company for the other kind
| of person then, huh?" I said.
|
| He had no answer.
| gruez wrote:
| I don't get it. Are they also having a hard time hiring people
| or something? As for your premise of "who the fuck are you
| trying to hire, here? Exclusively people... without families?",
| I don't see weird about that. If you're a company of a dozen or
| so people, it doesn't seem too hard to find a bunch of 22-30
| year olds with very little commitments.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| I don't get it.
|
| Understandable. There was a lot of context I left out because
| it wasn't too interesting and I wanted to keep things under a
| billion words so I just mentioned the similarities with the
| linked article. As for your premise of "who
| the fuck are you trying to hire, here? Exclusively
| people... without families?", I don't see weird about
| that.
|
| Yes, they are having a difficult time finding and keeping
| people, particularly experienced ones.
|
| The product involves a large-ish amount of customer data, and
| our experience was that recent grads and "people that just
| did a 4-week 'Code Camp' style course" are particularly
| unsuited for that kind of work: they can write basic CRUD
| till the cows come home, but they know nothing about
| performance/scaling.
|
| (Best-case scenario: they _know_ they know nothing. More
| typical scenario: they _think_ they know...)
| If you're a company of a dozen or so people, it
| doesn't seem too hard to find a bunch of 22-30 year
| olds with very little commitments.
|
| Depending on your jurisdiction it's likely downright illegal
| to discriminate against employees or prospective employees
| based on them having families.
|
| But even from a pure self-interest standpoint, if you're
| strictly hiring people without families you're ignoring a big
| chunk of the talent pool and if a company's having problems
| hiring, perhaps that's something that should be re-evaluated.
|
| FWIW, note that I am using "family" here to mean "having any
| family members whatsoever" -- I'm not just talking about
| people with children. I don't even have children, myself. But
| I have family. They die, get married, etc.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| That's horrible.
|
| I have one question for HN: Why do you all still use Amazon?
| gnabgib wrote:
| I remember this being posted as an Ask/Tell HN message a few
| weeks back.. although several people suggested at the time he
| might want to delete, since it could complicate things for him.
| (Which seems to have happened) It's a bit meta for an HN story to
| come back to HN.
| cratermoon wrote:
| https://www.instagram.com/p/CUX9UZ1pfEk/
| gkya wrote:
| Reading the comments on this topic, I can't but feel validated
| for having quit my programming career right as it started.
|
| You lot sound so absorbed into your privilege that you can't even
| begin to think about the human side of the story, and it really
| shows that your "oh I can't begin to imageine how hard this is
| but..." is performative. It shows that you never really had to
| deal with this sort of stuff, be the person responsible to assist
| a loved one thru their hard and/or terminal times. You really
| can't but show how far removed from human suffering you are. A
| hive of young able-bodied economically privileged people.
|
| But, programmers are increasing in number. You're becoming
| cheaper to hire, replace. Enjoy that privilege while it lasts,
| because it won't last for that long.
|
| If companies shouldn't be responsible for taking care of their
| employees in their hard times, they shouldn't try and replace the
| state as the apparatus of care for the disprivileged, they
| shouldn't capture and commodify access to livelihood and
| wellbeing, they shouldn't attempt to bust unions, support "small"
| government nonsense, and they should pay their taxes in full or
| even in extra. If a company won't be liable for when the employee
| has no chance to be productive, then that person is entitled to
| something to fall back on.
|
| But of course that's not a thing because with the system that's
| in place, our livelihoods is a carrot-on-the-stick in front of us
| used to extract labour from us, and when we're spent we're sent
| to the recycling bin. And you folk are those who so far have been
| on the winning side of this shitty deal, either as employees or
| as employers, temporarily for most of you, but having pulled
| thyselves up, you can't but kick down, and look down upon the
| rest.
|
| This whole thing is really toxic and boring and uncool and
| honestly a pile of shit. Your corporate shilling here is pure
| unadulterated boot licking, and I throw up in my mouth reading
| it. But I like reading it. It validates my decision from many
| years ago. For however much of an economic improvement a tech
| career would have been for yours truly, I'd much rather eat my
| shoes than spend a moment of my day with the likes of you.
| eschneider wrote:
| The thing about companies that treat other people badly, be it
| other workers, vendors, or customers is that , if you work for
| them, eventually they'll get around to treating you badly. :/
| heavyset_go wrote:
| This rule also applies to people who treat others badly.
| a-dub wrote:
| having been through a similar situation myself (where the outcome
| has spilled over from the place i was working when it occurred to
| contaminate following business relationships) i've thought a lot
| about what went wrong and what i wish would/could have happened.
|
| i think, really, what would be ideal, would be some sort of pause
| or alternate low stress duties that can be put on the job.
| perhaps some sort of salary reduction, or maybe insurance that
| covers the lost wages at the time, that allows for time to deal
| with these things properly and then a proper return where one
| isn't caught between trying to deliver in a high stakes
| environment and being a reasonable human in family/home matters.
|
| i've seen some comments along the lines of "people who work in
| trades don't get this sort of benefit." yeah, that's not totally
| true... and computering for dollars is different, a
| depressed/mentally stressed programmer is like an electrician
| with a skeletal injury. a friend of mine is an electrician and
| when he injured himself, the union found a desk job for him until
| he was able to heal. i feel like something similar should exist
| for computer people.
| drdeadringer wrote:
| In the film "A Good Year", the main character reaches a crossing
| point between his successful career [high, big finance] and his
| budding rediscovered life [a vineyard].
|
| He is offered the coveted, prestigious Partnership. Rich for
| life. Known around the globe. Power. Influence. Move mountains.
| Meet Kings.
|
| Or.
|
| He can make efforts to reboot a vineyard in another country. It's
| fallowed somewhat over the decades but it has promise if given
| attention. The wine was and can be again good; there is a
| reputation to (re)harness.
|
| His boss calls him to carpet. "So, here it is. Your money or your
| life."
|
| A vineyard isn't brain cancer; the point remains the same. There
| are times when you need to choose over the other.
| eecc wrote:
| I need to find the words to describe my feelings about this.
|
| Definitely involves drawing negative conclusions about Amazon.
|
| I feel lucky that despite my recent losses, I didn't have to deal
| with this horror.
| bserge wrote:
| Yeah, had a coworker die and they didn't allow anyone to attend
| the funeral. Like, you'd get written up if you skipped the day.
| No one gave a fuck, so that's good. Too many people are garbage.
| manuel_w wrote:
| Had a coworker die and the company explicitely allowed everyone
| to violate core time for that day. As it became apparant that
| quite a few people would attend (it was a well-respected
| collegue, a genuinely nice man) they even booked a bus to the
| funeral and back so things would be a bit more streamlined.
|
| Employer was the automotive part of bosch.at. Thought that
| deserves some public appraisal.
|
| Disclaimer: I'm no longer employed there.
| jliptzin wrote:
| That is absolutely ridiculous
| gilney wrote:
| also Amazon?
| bserge wrote:
| No, but it was the biggest company in the industry in the UK.
| I can only guess when you become a manager they take you for
| special reprogramming.
| javert wrote:
| It would be helpful if you would edit your original
| comment, because you're literally saying it was Amazon.
|
| The "they" is unspecified, so presumably it refers to the
| subject of the article you're commenting on, i.e. Amazon.
| nick_ wrote:
| "wOrK lIfE bAlAnCe"
| conductr wrote:
| FWIW, many big companies in US have HR policies and they have
| middle manager's/VPs that ignore the crappy parts and do what's
| right.
|
| My wife had cancer in early 30s and it was a punch to the gut for
| us both. It was actually a very survivable thing but she had to
| go through some extreme treatments. Regarding work, she did some
| paperwork and went through the HR stuff for most but there was a
| lot of "off the books" type stuff that fell into her leader's
| "who cares about this place, put your health first" policy.
|
| I wasn't even sick and honestly didn't even get any additional
| stress other than worrying for her (we had no kids yet, her mom
| was helping her daily) and my ability to perform was shot. I
| could barely keep a thought in my mind or give a shit about petty
| work "problems". Probably for a solid 6-12 months. The first 3
| months were and still are a complete fog. I never officially told
| my company HR, but my leadership was extremely supportive and I
| basically just phoned it in for that year. I did no significant
| work and offloaded most of my responsibilities to others so that
| I was not a key part of anything.
|
| When you go through something like this, you start to learn how
| much other people have gone through as well. They feel obligated
| to pull you aside and share their story and how things turned out
| for them. Often positive stories but obviously not always. But
| generally people treat people in these situations how they'd like
| to be treated as, it could happen to any of us.
|
| Just wanted to throw some positive perspective out there. Amazon
| is a well known shitty place to work for humans. I'm not
| surprised by this article. I dodge their phone calls like many of
| you and encourage you to get to know your coworkers on a deeper &
| personal level. They are a more important part of your life than
| you may realize and will help carry you through some really rough
| spots if you let them.
| advael wrote:
| My days of being unwilling to work at any large tech company
| regardless of compensation are certainly coming to a middle
| 541 wrote:
| Looks like it's not just Amazon. Here is another incident
| discussed on HN involving Atlassian
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28555480
| Stampo00 wrote:
| We've seen these stories before. We need to keep seeing them
| until something is done about it. I just hope we don't get
| desensitized before that happens. Because then it will be
| accepted as normal.
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