7 ms·

This seems to come off as a means of using peer pressure to ensure everyone comes to work every day, regardless of personal or family illness. If little Timmy

This seems to come off as a means of using peer pressure to ensure everyone comes to work every day, regardless of personal or family illness. If little Timmy gets the flu or something worse and you take a week or longer off to look after him because he can't go to school, your team is going to feel like your child has cost them money, which he has. Not a good work way to build an environment based on affection and personal respect. Childless people will hate people with sick kids and if someone has a chronic illness that person is now a drain on the team. Also a good way to ensure sick people heroically come to work and infect everyone else.

kafkaesq 10y ago
Also a good way to ensure sick people heroically come to work and infect everyone else. No problem -- we can count on Amazon to just put few ambulances + paramedics outside for when people start collapsing at their stations. Just like they do during major heat waves: http://www.seattletimes.com/business/workers-complain-about-amazon-warehouse-jobs/ http://www.seattletimes.com/business/workers-complain-about-...
- aanm1988 10y ago
  No, they put in AC. Because it became a PR nightmare once their disgusting policy decisions became known.
  - kafkaesq 10y ago
    No, they put in AC. What do you mean, "No"? Are you saying the reports of Amazon hiring "Cetronia Ambulance Corps to have ambulances and paramedics stationed at its two adjacent warehouses during five days of excessive heat in June and July", as per the article, were just fake news -- and if so, which parts? You're right about what ultimately drove the longer-term decision to put in better AC, though.
    - aanm1988 10y ago
      *now. No, they put in AC now.
desdiv 10y ago
"Peer pressure" is the polite way of putting it; I would go as far as to say "collective punishment".
- Mithaldu 10y ago
  I've been pondering this because on the face of it it sounds stupid and counter-productive. I want to think that the decision makers aren't complete baboons and at least thought they were doing something good. What i think they might be thinking is this: In germany workers have EXTREMELY strong sick protections and take every chance to get paid-sick-leave as mandated by law they can. And the main way this happens is the flu, which knocks a person out of work for two weeks over here. And this is unavoidable, people get the flu, people get sick. It happens. Especially in group environments. But if people are individually on the hook for their flu stuff, have it affect their bonuses, then they have an incentive to show up to work, not get their days counted, but get everyone else sick. Out of those there will be a number of people who do take the sick days. However if you average the bonus sickday connection out over a group, then suddenly the sick people have an incentive to stay home. If they don't infect coworkers, they don't raise the sick days of the group en masse, thus affect their own bonuses, and everyone else's less than if they went to work sick and got everyone else sick too. At least that's what i think the managers are thinking. Whether that works out like this here, i can't even imagine.
  - spullara 10y ago
    This was my take on it as well. The damage that one sick person coming to work could do with this structure would probably cause the peer pressure to be not to show up and potentially spread it around. Guess we will see.
    - Scarblac 10y ago
      That's already the peer pressure in the Netherlands which has similar illness rules as Germany I think. If you're sick, stay home, not least because other people don't want to be infected. And we also have a sort of common punishment -- if too many people are at home sick, we get less done of the stuff we want to get done.
merraksh 10y ago
Also, a good incentive to hire people that have no kids or chronic conditions.
- VLM 10y ago
  Or breasts. Women today supposedly have a lifetime odds of 1 in 8 of living long enough to get breast cancer. I mean, sure, we'd love some diversity, but we "Just Have To" stick to only hiring male devs, you know, solely to maintain our group bonus, not because girls have cooties or we're a sexist company or anything like that, nope solely just because of the bonus. And let me tell you a fascinating statistic that prevents hiring a certain skin color because of sickle cell anemia, I mean we'd love to get some diversity in this department, sure, listen to me virtue signal about how great it could be, but that darn group sick day quota means we just can't so we all white males here...
  - pbhjpbhj 10y ago
    Isn't prostate cancer [UK, 1-in-7 men] more prevalent than breast cancer [UK, 1-in-8 women]? [Stats from mass media sources eg The Independent; prostate stat is supported by nhs.uk .] Aside, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3411479/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3411479/ suggests we've got a mismatch with funding and health/societal costs of different cancers with Breast, Prostate and Leukemia all being relatively richly funded FWIW.
  - mynewtb 10y ago
    Or prostates. If you are not a sexist.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - lsiebert 10y ago
      Ah but prostates are an issue more for older men, right?
  - bloodbeard 10y ago
Spooky23 10y ago
A some of the fire departments around here did this to prevent overtime. It pretty much eliminated bullshit sick call outs, especially for "illnesses" that hit during indesireable shifts like Thanksgiving and Christmas.
jvvw 10y ago
I don't agree with the policy but surely you use vacation time not sick leave when your children are sick? I do at least and assumed everybody else did too. (I'm in the UK though so appreciate sick leave may be a different concept in the US).
- daenney 10y ago
  No? Why would I use vacation time for that? I'm not on vacation or taking a break. I'm taking care of a sick family member. Thankfully we have a system for that known as VAB[1] in Sweden that covers this case. [1]: https://www.forsakringskassan.se/privatpers/foralder/!ut/p/z1/hc9NC4JAEAbg39LBqzN-It02FdMCE6FsL6GwrYa5spr285PqUvQxtxmed5gBChnQJh8qnveVaPJ66vfUPphLz9UCF1exlXpI7DDRtqmv-wsddneAX4og0N_5lDXTDvqPvQEnMCwkyUYzzFiPohSf4McdEVBei-LxE2kKw-FAJTsyyaR6kdO47Pu2myuo4DiOKheC10ztmIKfEqXoesheILTn7BqerHpYk9kN1niPFA!!/?1dmy&urile=wcm%3apath%3a%2Fcontentse_responsive%2Fprivatpers%2Fforalder%2Fom_barnet_blir_sjukt https://www.forsakringskassan.se/privatpers/foralder/!ut/p/z...
  - jessaustin 10y ago
    So Sweden has something set up for this, but it still isn't called "sick leave". How is that relevant to GP's specific point?
    - justifier 10y ago
      Where do you live? Your local government might have those same allowances.. know your rights Here's California Labor Code section 246.5(o): Diagnosis, care, or treatment of an existing health condition of, or preventive care for, an employee or an employee’s family member. (o) http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=246.5.&lawCode=LAB http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection...
    - daenney 10y ago
      The GP comment is: > I don't agree with the policy but surely you use vacation time not sick leave when your children are sick? My reply to it is "No". I surely don't use vacation time instead of sick leave to care for sick family members. I can't really make this any clearer and as far as relevant to GP's point, it's an answer to their question. Even if we didn't have that system I wouldn't take out vacation days should this problem show up. It's not vacation.
netsharc 10y ago
It's an incredible way of trying to get the American model into the German system, because in Germany, you don't get a "sick days" budget, if you're sick you're sick, AFAIK the company still has to pay you your full wage for 6 weeks, and after that they're off the hook, your health insurance will pay 80% of your wage.
- devoply 10y ago
  The idea behind the American hands-off sort of system is that certain businesses can only work with horrible rules and it's better that a job be created even with shitty working conditions and that business be done than no business be done. This however has led to super competitive companies exploiting workers that can easily afford to pay properly, but choose not to for the supposed sake of efficiency. Wal-mart was doing this already but it seems like Amazon takes it to the next level. It all cries out for unionization. Only way to remedy this bad creeping problem.
- tradersam 10y ago
  This doesn't introduce the American model into the German system at all, in America we don't punish the whole group of workers for individual person's sick time.
  - logfromblammo 10y ago
    Right. In America, I don't get a bonus at all, which means it can't be reduced by the amount of sick leave I or the others in my group take--which is collectively zero, because sick leave and vacation were replaced by "PTO" at least five years ago. Amazon.DE employees have much further to fall before reaching benefits parity with Americans. But I do get paid more than a typical European in base salary, so there is that.
    - tradersam 10y ago
      > But I do get paid more than a typical European in base salary, so there is that. The typical European get's paid for healthcare and a usable international public transit system. So, there's that.
thaumasiotes 10y ago
> if someone has a chronic illness that person is now a drain on the team. I largely agree with your points, but wasn't the person with a chronic illness a drain on the team before?
- Mz 10y ago
  Not necessarily. But, now, their self care time eats into your bonus.
- user5994461 10y ago
  It's variable. It's mostly annoying because you never know when the person may show up or not, and how long it may disappear. On the other hand, as far as the disease is not too bad, the person is still doing regular work like everyone else when it's here and you may really need the hands. That's up to the environment. Amazon is in the business of cheap warehouse workers. It's very draining physically and it probably hates unpredictable leaves from employees. It's likely very unfriendly to chronic disease.
- matt4077 10y ago
  This is warehouses and maybe customer service hotlines we're talking about. The work is fungible and the teams are large enough for it to average out. I'd also argue that because of them being a drag in other work environments, there already is enough social pressure to keep "fake" illnesses low. Humans are surprisingly sensitive to the disapproval of their team/tribe.
fictioncircle 10y ago
> Also a good way to ensure sick people heroically come to work and infect everyone else. The bonus pool is likely finite and can be manipulated by sick people heroically infecting other teams to improve your team's metrics relatively. This creates a virus spreading mechanism backed by human ingenuity within the company. I, for one, welcome my new virus overlords in the hopes they spare my health.
dvtv75 10y ago
> Also a good way to ensure sick people heroically come to work and infect everyone else. There will always be people who'll do that, some out of sheer disregard for others and feelings of being a superhero by not letting a "little" thing like a 'flu stop them, but there are some really bad employers out there who discourage sick days through bad planning and poor decisions. I just worked two days with someone who has a 'flu bad enough that he has a fever. He shouldn't have been there because he's infectious, and something of a hazard to himself. The only reason he came in is because the employer refuses to train backup staff, and holds each of us responsible for our jobs to the point of stupidity. (What do I mean by that? Old equipment fails, it's marked on the sheet as "operator error." Last week, a script generated incorrect job numbers and we had to restart production well into the run as a result of it - that wasn't accepted by management as an error, because it would never happen. Stupidity on the order of "that printout attached isn't proof of it, it comes from a printer and anybody can do that.")

kafkaesq 10y ago

Also a good way to ensure sick people heroically come to work and infect everyone else. No problem -- we can count on Amazon to just put few ambulances + paramedics outside for when people start collapsing at their stations. Just like they do during major heat waves: http://www.seattletimes.com/business/workers-complain-about-amazon-warehouse-jobs/ http://www.seattletimes.com/business/workers-complain-about-...

aanm1988 10y ago
No, they put in AC. Because it became a PR nightmare once their disgusting policy decisions became known.
- kafkaesq 10y ago
  No, they put in AC. What do you mean, "No"? Are you saying the reports of Amazon hiring "Cetronia Ambulance Corps to have ambulances and paramedics stationed at its two adjacent warehouses during five days of excessive heat in June and July", as per the article, were just fake news -- and if so, which parts? You're right about what ultimately drove the longer-term decision to put in better AC, though.
  - aanm1988 10y ago
    *now. No, they put in AC now.

desdiv 10y ago

"Peer pressure" is the polite way of putting it; I would go as far as to say "collective punishment".

Mithaldu 10y ago
I've been pondering this because on the face of it it sounds stupid and counter-productive. I want to think that the decision makers aren't complete baboons and at least thought they were doing something good. What i think they might be thinking is this: In germany workers have EXTREMELY strong sick protections and take every chance to get paid-sick-leave as mandated by law they can. And the main way this happens is the flu, which knocks a person out of work for two weeks over here. And this is unavoidable, people get the flu, people get sick. It happens. Especially in group environments. But if people are individually on the hook for their flu stuff, have it affect their bonuses, then they have an incentive to show up to work, not get their days counted, but get everyone else sick. Out of those there will be a number of people who do take the sick days. However if you average the bonus sickday connection out over a group, then suddenly the sick people have an incentive to stay home. If they don't infect coworkers, they don't raise the sick days of the group en masse, thus affect their own bonuses, and everyone else's less than if they went to work sick and got everyone else sick too. At least that's what i think the managers are thinking. Whether that works out like this here, i can't even imagine.
- spullara 10y ago
  This was my take on it as well. The damage that one sick person coming to work could do with this structure would probably cause the peer pressure to be not to show up and potentially spread it around. Guess we will see.
  - Scarblac 10y ago
    That's already the peer pressure in the Netherlands which has similar illness rules as Germany I think. If you're sick, stay home, not least because other people don't want to be infected. And we also have a sort of common punishment -- if too many people are at home sick, we get less done of the stuff we want to get done.

merraksh 10y ago

Also, a good incentive to hire people that have no kids or chronic conditions.

VLM 10y ago
Or breasts. Women today supposedly have a lifetime odds of 1 in 8 of living long enough to get breast cancer. I mean, sure, we'd love some diversity, but we "Just Have To" stick to only hiring male devs, you know, solely to maintain our group bonus, not because girls have cooties or we're a sexist company or anything like that, nope solely just because of the bonus. And let me tell you a fascinating statistic that prevents hiring a certain skin color because of sickle cell anemia, I mean we'd love to get some diversity in this department, sure, listen to me virtue signal about how great it could be, but that darn group sick day quota means we just can't so we all white males here...
- pbhjpbhj 10y ago
  Isn't prostate cancer [UK, 1-in-7 men] more prevalent than breast cancer [UK, 1-in-8 women]? [Stats from mass media sources eg The Independent; prostate stat is supported by nhs.uk .] Aside, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3411479/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3411479/ suggests we've got a mismatch with funding and health/societal costs of different cancers with Breast, Prostate and Leukemia all being relatively richly funded FWIW.
- mynewtb 10y ago
  Or prostates. If you are not a sexist.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - lsiebert 10y ago
    Ah but prostates are an issue more for older men, right?
- bloodbeard 10y ago

Spooky23 10y ago

A some of the fire departments around here did this to prevent overtime. It pretty much eliminated bullshit sick call outs, especially for "illnesses" that hit during indesireable shifts like Thanksgiving and Christmas.

jvvw 10y ago

I don't agree with the policy but surely you use vacation time not sick leave when your children are sick? I do at least and assumed everybody else did too. (I'm in the UK though so appreciate sick leave may be a different concept in the US).

daenney 10y ago
No? Why would I use vacation time for that? I'm not on vacation or taking a break. I'm taking care of a sick family member. Thankfully we have a system for that known as VAB[1] in Sweden that covers this case. [1]: https://www.forsakringskassan.se/privatpers/foralder/!ut/p/z1/hc9NC4JAEAbg39LBqzN-It02FdMCE6FsL6GwrYa5spr285PqUvQxtxmed5gBChnQJh8qnveVaPJ66vfUPphLz9UCF1exlXpI7DDRtqmv-wsddneAX4og0N_5lDXTDvqPvQEnMCwkyUYzzFiPohSf4McdEVBei-LxE2kKw-FAJTsyyaR6kdO47Pu2myuo4DiOKheC10ztmIKfEqXoesheILTn7BqerHpYk9kN1niPFA!!/?1dmy&urile=wcm%3apath%3a%2Fcontentse_responsive%2Fprivatpers%2Fforalder%2Fom_barnet_blir_sjukt https://www.forsakringskassan.se/privatpers/foralder/!ut/p/z...
- jessaustin 10y ago
  So Sweden has something set up for this, but it still isn't called "sick leave". How is that relevant to GP's specific point?
  - justifier 10y ago
    Where do you live? Your local government might have those same allowances.. know your rights Here's California Labor Code section 246.5(o): Diagnosis, care, or treatment of an existing health condition of, or preventive care for, an employee or an employee’s family member. (o) http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=246.5.&lawCode=LAB http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection...
  - daenney 10y ago
    The GP comment is: > I don't agree with the policy but surely you use vacation time not sick leave when your children are sick? My reply to it is "No". I surely don't use vacation time instead of sick leave to care for sick family members. I can't really make this any clearer and as far as relevant to GP's point, it's an answer to their question. Even if we didn't have that system I wouldn't take out vacation days should this problem show up. It's not vacation.

netsharc 10y ago

It's an incredible way of trying to get the American model into the German system, because in Germany, you don't get a "sick days" budget, if you're sick you're sick, AFAIK the company still has to pay you your full wage for 6 weeks, and after that they're off the hook, your health insurance will pay 80% of your wage.

devoply 10y ago
The idea behind the American hands-off sort of system is that certain businesses can only work with horrible rules and it's better that a job be created even with shitty working conditions and that business be done than no business be done. This however has led to super competitive companies exploiting workers that can easily afford to pay properly, but choose not to for the supposed sake of efficiency. Wal-mart was doing this already but it seems like Amazon takes it to the next level. It all cries out for unionization. Only way to remedy this bad creeping problem.
tradersam 10y ago
This doesn't introduce the American model into the German system at all, in America we don't punish the whole group of workers for individual person's sick time.
- logfromblammo 10y ago
  Right. In America, I don't get a bonus at all, which means it can't be reduced by the amount of sick leave I or the others in my group take--which is collectively zero, because sick leave and vacation were replaced by "PTO" at least five years ago. Amazon.DE employees have much further to fall before reaching benefits parity with Americans. But I do get paid more than a typical European in base salary, so there is that.
  - tradersam 10y ago
    > But I do get paid more than a typical European in base salary, so there is that. The typical European get's paid for healthcare and a usable international public transit system. So, there's that.

thaumasiotes 10y ago

> if someone has a chronic illness that person is now a drain on the team. I largely agree with your points, but wasn't the person with a chronic illness a drain on the team before?

Mz 10y ago
Not necessarily. But, now, their self care time eats into your bonus.
user5994461 10y ago
It's variable. It's mostly annoying because you never know when the person may show up or not, and how long it may disappear. On the other hand, as far as the disease is not too bad, the person is still doing regular work like everyone else when it's here and you may really need the hands. That's up to the environment. Amazon is in the business of cheap warehouse workers. It's very draining physically and it probably hates unpredictable leaves from employees. It's likely very unfriendly to chronic disease.
matt4077 10y ago
This is warehouses and maybe customer service hotlines we're talking about. The work is fungible and the teams are large enough for it to average out. I'd also argue that because of them being a drag in other work environments, there already is enough social pressure to keep "fake" illnesses low. Humans are surprisingly sensitive to the disapproval of their team/tribe.

fictioncircle 10y ago

> Also a good way to ensure sick people heroically come to work and infect everyone else. The bonus pool is likely finite and can be manipulated by sick people heroically infecting other teams to improve your team's metrics relatively. This creates a virus spreading mechanism backed by human ingenuity within the company. I, for one, welcome my new virus overlords in the hopes they spare my health.

dvtv75 10y ago

> Also a good way to ensure sick people heroically come to work and infect everyone else. There will always be people who'll do that, some out of sheer disregard for others and feelings of being a superhero by not letting a "little" thing like a 'flu stop them, but there are some really bad employers out there who discourage sick days through bad planning and poor decisions. I just worked two days with someone who has a 'flu bad enough that he has a fever. He shouldn't have been there because he's infectious, and something of a hazard to himself. The only reason he came in is because the employer refuses to train backup staff, and holds each of us responsible for our jobs to the point of stupidity. (What do I mean by that? Old equipment fails, it's marked on the sheet as "operator error." Last week, a script generated incorrect job numbers and we had to restart production well into the run as a result of it - that wasn't accepted by management as an error, because it would never happen. Stupidity on the order of "that printout attached isn't proof of it, it comes from a printer and anybody can do that.")