5 ms·

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,

by Jiro 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.

louwrentius 5y ago
You might work part-time and so balance work/income and care.
zerr 5y ago
Employment != 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 ago
    A 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 ago
    In 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]
- yibg 5y ago
  This wasn't a couple of weeks though. From the timelines in the story it was more than a year. Would you expect to keep getting paid on paternity leave for 2 years?
  - rewma 5y ago
    > Would you expect to keep getting paid on paternity leave for 2 years? First of all, the article does not talk about leaving for 2 years. I feel you are intentionally trying to put a strawman to avoif debating the real problem. Secondly, the article mentions performance. According to the article, the person in question was pressured into improving performance or get the axe, in a period where his manager knew very well that his wife was dying. The manager even proposed he was placed in a performance evaluating program renowned to be a compulsive exit door whose goal is to help HR justify their decision to terminate contracts. And lastly, when my parental leave went into effect I got 16 weeks paid time off. That's loosely half a year. I'm sure this affects performance at the eyes of Amazon. Should that mean that Amazon would be entitled to fire my ass just because I had a child?
    - yibg 5y ago
      I don’t think it’s a straw man, time matters. He joined mid - end 2018 and was fired end of 2020. We don’t know when the issues started, but it very well could’ve been close to 2 years. My point is the amount of time matters. I don’t think anyone expects a company to keep paying an underperforming employee forever even if there is a good reason. Netflix has a full year paid parental leave policy. That doesn’t mean you can just keep having a child every year and never work.
- maccolgan 5y ago
  Then you wonder why the egregious cost of maternity leave keeps popping up everywhere regularly, you are making the assumption that people in "the country where I live" like what's happening...
heavyset_go 5y ago
Are you working as a contractor or employee?
silisili 5y ago
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.
s5300 5y ago
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.

by Jiro 5y ago

louwrentius 5y ago

You might work part-time and so balance work/income and care.

zerr 5y ago

Employment != 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 ago
  A 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 ago
  In 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]
yibg 5y ago
This wasn't a couple of weeks though. From the timelines in the story it was more than a year. Would you expect to keep getting paid on paternity leave for 2 years?
- rewma 5y ago
  > Would you expect to keep getting paid on paternity leave for 2 years? First of all, the article does not talk about leaving for 2 years. I feel you are intentionally trying to put a strawman to avoif debating the real problem. Secondly, the article mentions performance. According to the article, the person in question was pressured into improving performance or get the axe, in a period where his manager knew very well that his wife was dying. The manager even proposed he was placed in a performance evaluating program renowned to be a compulsive exit door whose goal is to help HR justify their decision to terminate contracts. And lastly, when my parental leave went into effect I got 16 weeks paid time off. That's loosely half a year. I'm sure this affects performance at the eyes of Amazon. Should that mean that Amazon would be entitled to fire my ass just because I had a child?
  - yibg 5y ago
    I don’t think it’s a straw man, time matters. He joined mid - end 2018 and was fired end of 2020. We don’t know when the issues started, but it very well could’ve been close to 2 years. My point is the amount of time matters. I don’t think anyone expects a company to keep paying an underperforming employee forever even if there is a good reason. Netflix has a full year paid parental leave policy. That doesn’t mean you can just keep having a child every year and never work.
maccolgan 5y ago
Then you wonder why the egregious cost of maternity leave keeps popping up everywhere regularly, you are making the assumption that people in "the country where I live" like what's happening...

heavyset_go 5y ago

Are you working as a contractor or employee?

silisili 5y ago

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.

s5300 5y ago

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.