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My Wife Was Dying of Brain Cancer. My Boss at Amazon Told Me to Perform or Quit
- CoastalCoder 5y agoI 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 5y agoA 'normal' company would understand that while a persons significant other is dying of a cancer, their work output may suffer as a result.
- Jiro 5y agoIf 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.
- louwrentius 5y agoYou might work part-time and so balance work/income and care.
- zerr 5y agoEmployment != Sole proprietorship. Employer != Client.
- rewma 5y ago> 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 5y ago> 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.
- ceejayoz 5y agoA plumber will presumably understand the nature of independent contracting. A salaried plumber employed by a larger plumbing company would reasonably expect employee benefits.
- rewma 5y ago> No country has this kind of benefits for plumbers who are mostly independent. How about Amazon SDEs?
- DomreiRoam 5y agoIn Luxembourg, Self-employed can benefit from a Parental leave: https://guichet.public.lu/en/entreprises/ressources-humaines/conges/situation-perso/conge-parental.html https://guichet.public.lu/en/entreprises/ressources-humaines... Everybody pays 24% to the social security and receives benefits when needed.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- heavyset_go 5y agoAre you working as a contractor or employee?
- silisili 5y agoThis 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.
- s5300 5y agoHuh. 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.
- judge2020 5y agoBut 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 5y agoThe issue here may have been that the manager had no baseline of 'good performance' that they could expect this individual to 'return to'.
- rkk3 5y agoHe 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 5y agoCompanies 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 5y ago>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 5y ago> 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 5y agoAre 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.
- geodel 5y agoA 'normal' company would give normal salary not these outsized Software salaries.
- lotsofpulp 5y agoI 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.
- dkarl 5y agoI 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.
- yibg 5y agoI think the issue is the time factor. I think everyone agrees that if an employee is struggling for a short time then there should be some understanding, sympathy and accommodation. But I don't think anyone would argue that companies should do that forever. The question is how long is reasonable. In this case it looks like it was almost 2 years (mid - end 2018 to Aug 2020). Granted performance issues probably didn't come up right away but from the article it sounded like it came up pretty soon after joining. 2 years is a long time.
- illumin8 5y agoI 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 5y agoI'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 5y agoMany 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.
- ivraatiems 5y ago
- goldcd 5y agoI 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 5y agoIs 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 5y agoIt really depends on how much they are underperforming. Are they late to a few meetings or not showing up for weeks without making arrangements?
- NBJack 5y agoI 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.
- Justsignedup 5y agoHe 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.
- MattGaiser 5y ago1. 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.
- starbugs 5y agoYou 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.
- PragmaticPulp 5y agoA 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.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- CaliforniaKarl 5y agoAnother 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.
- gruez 5y ago> 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?
- Traubenfuchs 5y agoI 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.
- ivraatiems 5y agoHuman beings are entitled to a little empathy from other human beings.
- Ekaros 5y agoEffectively tens of thousands of dollars stops being little empathy to me. I think reasonable move would have been new role like warehouse worker with new pay and clear expectations to fullfill.
- jen20 5y agoI 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.
- slothtrop 5y agoLoyalty is a farce, there is none. And the vast majority of FAANG employees are replaceable.
- almost_usual 5y agoNot really, compensation is off the charts right now.
- slothtrop 5y agoa) highly competitive landscape b) irreplaceable workers pick one
- ldjkfkdsjnv 5y agoBelieve 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.
- debacle 5y agoWhat is the blind app?
- pabl8k 5y agoIt'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 5y agoOnly 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.
- 0xy 5y agoThis isn't true, there's plenty of non-US people on Blind including me.
- ajb 5y agoCurrently to register in the app you have to select US or South Korea. They are setting a strong expectation that you should only do so from one of those countries, which makes it seem unlikely to me that I will find any colleagues -most of move would not think to fake their location. They also won't let you leave a review without a location in the US or South Korea. Makes it all a bit pointless if your company is not in those countries. Maybe they changed this since you registered?
- gnabgib 5y agoI 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.
- bserge 5y agoYeah, 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.
- jliptzin 5y agoThat is absolutely ridiculous
- gilney 5y agoalso Amazon?
- bserge 5y agoNo, 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 5y agoIt 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_ 5y ago"wOrK lIfE bAlAnCe"
- advael 5y agoMy days of being unwilling to work at any large tech company regardless of compensation are certainly coming to a middle
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- lordkrandel 5y agoWait 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.
- gruez 5y agoAt $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 5y ago> 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.
- AdrianB1 5y ago> 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 5y agoA good publicly funded health care system essentially work like an insurance.
- stillbourne 5y agoThis 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.
- eschneider 5y agoThe 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 5y agoThis rule also applies to people who treat others badly.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- mgh2 5y agoIt hard to hear these stories, but necessary to warn future employees about it https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28555480 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28555480
- friedman23 5y agoYou 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.
- anonymousDan 5y agoMaybe 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 5y agoI 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 5y agoWell say that then. I certainly don't work for Amazon (or ever intend to)!
- psyc 5y agoEh, 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.
- dvt 5y agoI 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.
- Igelau 5y agoI have to say I agree. There's only so much catharsis to be had from writing a nasty-yet-deniable review on Glassdoor and like. I was fired for over-competence at a real crab bucket and it still messes with me.
- Ekaros 5y agoI honestly can't feel bad about employees of this level in Amazon. They are very well compensated. That doesn't mean I don't find issues with lower levels like warehouse and drivers work.
- almost_usual 5y agoI really don’t understand why people work for Amazon. Low ball offers and long work hours. No thanks.
- sokoloff 5y agoThe 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.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- dlp211 5y agoAmazon 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).
- JohnBooty 5y agoThis 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 5y agoI 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 5y agoI 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.
- a-dub 5y agohaving 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.
- thomasahle 5y ago> the union found a desk job for him until he was able to heal. i feel like something similar should exist for computer people. Yup. This whole case is a great argument for unions. It would have been a good test of the Google union if it had happened there.
- 541 5y agoLooks like it’s not just Amazon. Here is another incident discussed on HN involving Atlassian https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28555480 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28555480
- mynameisash 5y agoI 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).
- mehphp 5y ago> My dad's manager gave him a bad performance review and said that he let his son's death affect his work Wow... what kind of person would you be if this didn't affect your performance?
- eecc 5y agoI 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.
- CoastalCoder 5y agoI hope this doesn't sound trite, but I'm sorry for your recent losses. I'm sure others in this discussion share that sentiment.
- conductr 5y agoFWIW, 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.
- madrox 5y agoWhat 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.
- gkya 5y agoFuck managers' side of the story.
- dml2135 5y agoI 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 5y agoSo you would want Amazon to pass him over because his wife has an existing medical condition? That would be a good article too.
- msarrel 5y agoI'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 5y agoAssuming 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.
- PerkinWarwick 5y agoYou 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.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y agoThat's horrible. I have one question for HN: Why do you all still use Amazon?
- drdeadringer 5y agoIn 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.
- Stampo00 5y agoWe'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.
- limeblack 5y agoThe 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.
- SergeAx 5y agoAnd this is why Amazon is a 1.6 trillion dollar company.
- jimmaswell 5y ago> 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.
- iJohnDoe 5y agoThis 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.
- CoastalCoder 5y ago> This tells you everything you need to know about the corporate environment. YMMV, but I've concluded it's important to withhold judgment until hearing all sides of a story. The Mother Jones article presented just one side.
- cratermoon 5y agohttps://www.instagram.com/p/CUX9UZ1pfEk/ https://www.instagram.com/p/CUX9UZ1pfEk/
- gkya 5y agoReading 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.
- Igelau 5y ago> 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. I want this on a plaque.
- pcglue 5y agoMay I ask what you did when you quit programming? Are you still doing the same thing now?
- ltbarcly3 5y agoObviously 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.
- dshep 5y agoSteve Yegge had a lot of similar stories about Amazon here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiqYKF0WzjQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiqYKF0WzjQ
- caeril 5y agoHa, of course it's Mother Jones. I don't even know what to say. 1. You had stable employment, with an employer that you knew would be understanding. By your own admission, you knew the Amazon horror stories. But your greed won anyway. 2. "I remember talking to my wife about it and saying, I can’t believe these are my options." What kind of a dirtbag unloads the side effects (all of which he's responsible for) of his dying wife's situation directly onto her? Hey honey I know you're dying, but let me make you feel guilty about it, too. Incredible. Is Amazon a terrible place to work? Yeah. But this isn't about that. This is about casting being a greedy, terrible person in a sympathetic light.
- uncomputation 5y agoJesus christ. The author said he needed the money to help support his wife’s medical bills. Show some compassion if you’re going to comment.
- caeril 5y ago6th paragraph, he was already fully insured at his previous job.
- uncomputation 5y agoInsurance does not cover everything. There is a wide variety in coverage.
- caeril 5y ago> What they offered me was almost $300,000 per year. That was a shitload of money in Tennessee. You can’t really say no, right? If more and/or better medical coverage was on offer from AMZN, it would have been mentioned. Note that he didn't say "That money would give us much more headroom to cover the deductibles or non-covered procedures." No, he said "That was a shitload of money in Tennessee." It was always about the Lambos.
- 5y ago
- dgrin91 5y agoHeartbreaking story, I don't know what I would do in that scenario. One thing I don't understand - is Amazon's family leave really totally unpaid? It feels like something got lost here. That's pretty untypical for a big company, especially tech. The question rolling around in my head is did this guy just mess up somehow not realizing that family leave was the correct option for him and he would get paid, or is Amazon really that bad with their benefits?
- Igelau 5y ago> can’t do this anymore. I was at my wits’ end. I felt like I was going to lose it at any point. Not that I was going to kill myself, but that I was going to be put in a rubber room. Sometimes I think one of the downsides of remote work is that you can push people until you literally drive them insane while being too far away for them to murder your ass. Not to say he should have killed his boss, but most of us have a social awareness that kicks in and says "maybe I shouldn't be a massive douche canoe to this desperate person while in striking distance".
- xiaodai 5y agoUnfortunately, in a private company which mainly cares about profit and hence productivity. That is the sad reality. That's why a cohesive social safety net is so important. Feel sorry for the guy.
- secnono 5y agoWhy do we expect companies to act with compassion? IMHO I think society should be setting up laws to protect and enhance the lives of it's citizens and not let those topics up to companies.
- Ekaros 5y agoSetting up systems. It should not be responsibility of a private entity to support leechers in other ways than taxation for years.
- d13 5y agoA warning to everyone out there: nobody cares and you’re on your own. Three years ago my mom died of breast cancer. 6 days later my girlfriend died of the same. I had a stable, unionised job at a public sector company which gave me three weeks off in combined bereavement and holiday leave. At the same time my father was dying of prostate cancer and I was his only caregiver. I requested 6 months work-from-home, which was granted. An extension to that was declined. I had to choose between my father and my job, so I resigned. My life has been left in ruins and it’s going to take me years to put it back together again. I’ve seen this happen to other people too, in different ways. All of us will eventually be hit with one or two catastrophic life changing circumstances like this which no employers anywhere have mechanisms to deal with.
- chriselles 5y agoI don’t know the subject of the story, but I knew the brother who worked for Amazon and died of pancreatic cancer. The date has been adjusted. A truly wonderful person who exemplified the oustanding people at Amazon in the early days. And another bittersweet story when it came to Amazon 20th anniversary IDs.
- thrownaway561 5y agoa friend of mine who works at Target and is on wellness leave right now for a month where she get 75% of her pay. all she had to do was have her physiatrist write a letter to her HR department. i don't know what Amazon policy is on things like this but I'm sure they are better than Target. bottom line is, look at all your options. i feel bad for this dude... my heart goes out for him like you wouldn't believe. that said... he put himself in this situation, i would have NEVER have taken that job knowing my wife was sick. his previous boss was empathic and kind, who cares about the money when what he really needed was time with his wife.
- sjg007 5y agoThere's the Family Medical Leave Act in the USA which protects your job but provides not your paycheck. Some states offer to pay a part of your salary or a flat amount but a lot do not. I am sorry to hear about the cancer diagnosis. For anyone whose immediate family is impacted by cancer or any complex medical issue etc... and you are employed, you should consult with an employment law attorney in the beginning to get their advice as how the system works and how to protect your legal rights. This will cost a little money but it's about prevention, then preparation and documentation. The company consults lawyers, so should you. The "consult with an attorney in advance advice" also pertains to any situation where you have complex needs, including for example public schools, special education and your children. You have to understand how the system works. Also my advice is to never ever switch jobs when you are dealing with a complex medical situation if you and your employer have a good history and they are acting like human beings should. That relationship is worth a lot.
- suWU43 5y agoOK, though I have posted on blind, I thought I would post here so there wouldn't be a lot of guessing. The article is about me, I use the name suWU43 in blind I posted several responses there. Here is the link for those that are interested https://www.teamblind.com/post/%F0%9F%94%A5Amazon-pipd-while-wife-DIES-of-cancer%F0%9F%94%A5-teJVZUaK https://www.teamblind.com/post/%F0%9F%94%A5Amazon-pipd-while... The timeline many of you have guessed is off, I didn't want to comment on the exact timeline as I went back to work a few months back and I worry about retaliation from Amazon. Several of my friends have reached out that had no idea how bad it was. In the article I stated that of course I could have done better but my performance wasn't zero more like 90%, is that enough when you spouse had a terminal disease? Plus I was clear about it before I started. My performance came into question after I talked to HR, coincidence? There are many instances at Amazon, documented, where an employee is pushed out when they are having personal issues. This push from my manager put me in a spiral that I am just overcoming. My daughters and I are working to find happiness again and unfortunately the cover of the internet lets everyone say whatever they want. I just hope anyone reading this never lives what I did. Watching this amazing woman that you loved so much slowly lose the light in her eyes. Watching her for eight days hoping she finds peace and then praying for one more day with her. Seeing her crossover with her last breathe. I don't know about you, but 100% seems impossible.