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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

by madrox 5y ago

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.

gkya 5y ago
Fuck managers' side of the story.
dml2135 5y ago
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 5y ago
  So you would want Amazon to pass him over because his wife has an existing medical condition? That would be a good article too.
  - HelixEndeavor 5y ago
    Would it? "Your circumstances have us believe you're not the best fit for the company" is a scandal? Should Amazon be required to hire anyone who walks in the door?
    - NavinF 5y ago
      Of course refusing to hire someone because their SO has cancer would lead to a scandal, LMAO. I assume you're joking
      - tcmart14 5y ago
        I hope so. Its reasonable for that response if its the case where the person does not have the technical ability via their prior experience. But that line of reasoning for a candidate to not be hired because of their spouse's ailment is just morale bankruptcy.
- m0zg 5y ago
  > 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.
sangnoir 5y ago
> He was at turns informally warned, encouraged to take leave, and offered severance. Both these options would leave him without ongoing income and would do nothing to help him as a person[1]. They'd neatly solve the employer's problems though, and it's apparent who you more closely identify with in this story. 1. As someone else mentioned, short- and/or long-term disability was the mutually beneficial solution, but management/HR took the path of least resistance, regardless of the cost to his humanity.
- madrox 5y ago
  Yes, as an EM, I'm inclined to think of managers as people and not mustache-twirling villains who think of nothing but their 10%-30% bonus. Most of the ones I worked with are. Ad hominem attacks aside, though, is it not important to have full context before we get out the pitchforks...especially if we feel like there's probably some missing? The only information we have about this situation is the word of a fired employee who is inclined to make themselves sound as sympathetic as possible. This article is certainly scant on details. I've worked for psychopaths and expected that when I read this, but I don't think that's the whole story this time.
  - Domenic_S 5y ago
    I share your sentiment of wanting the full story… surely Amazon has short term and long term disability insurance on offer to employees, I wonder why that wasn’t an option?
- kcplate 5y ago
  People seem to think that once they are hired that their employer owes them something more than the agreed upon compensation for the work they agreed to do for them. If your work capabilities continually suffer, short of legally protected events, at some point your company will make moves to end the employment if you are no longer able to provide value for your compensation. Doesn’t matter if Amazon or a mom and pop shop. At some point there is an end to patience in every organization. In a company with 1.3M employees…it will be unlikely that his situation was all that unique among the employees. With that many employees there could easily be a thousand or more employees dealing with a similar family illness issue, and with similar inabilities to take unpaid LOAs. So a consistency of the policies governing this type of thing will always trump special single considerations in a corporation. As long as Amazon consistently applied it’s policies it’s simply not at fault, and I would argue handled this situation as morally as a corporation could. Amazon is not at fault for the illness, nor at fault for the employee’s inability to take an unpaid leave. If they provided the opportunity for the employee to take an unpaid LOA and preserve his $300k job…that is a helluva benefit to that employee in my mind.
jerry1979 5y ago
The sucky part about this story isn't that, as you say, "managers don't have the same luxury of defending their side of the story". More so, it comes across as a little twisted to suggest that this dude's anger at his boss is just "part of his grieving process", like he's going through some teenage phase that he will grow out of once he realizes that Amazon's history of mistreating its employees has nothing to do with his boss or his experiences at Amazon. Instead, he can realize that all the stories about Amazon trampling over its workers to get packages out the door only apply to other people. I do like the slogan Amazon should have for its workers with sick loved ones, as you put it: "safe to be unemployed". Classic Amazon.
AtlasBarfed 5y ago
This is America. Sure you have benefits, you think, if you have a job, but a huge number of the outcomes where you need those benefits result in you losing your job and no longer having them. And if you get too expensive and start showing up on the company's benefits cost, they are strongly incented to find alternative means for removing you from the payroll. Really, work-provided benefits mainly serve the purpose of preventing people from voting for universal benefits. Of course the percentage of people dealing with the cases where you really need (and they don't want to pay) those benefits is very small, so the number of people that fully understand the situation is very small. Benefits exist for the benefit of the company: to retain people, keep them bound/disincent them leaving, and to appear "competitive" with other companies. Whether they ACTUALLY will hold up is a gamble, and often up to munificience of your "benefactor". To emphasize, when you MOST need benefits, you are LEAST valuable to the company providing those benefits.
- Domenic_S 5y ago
  Blame the government, they’re why we have employer-sponsored health insurance to begin with starting in WWII. Very interesting history to read about.
nodicksplease 5y ago
lol. I worked at Amazon as a SDE and this reply is from Typical shit EM from Amazon. Empathy triumphs your weird corporate logic. Don't just work backwards putting yourself in the customer shoes, learn to work backwards from your report's shoes too.
fastasucan 5y ago
> That man shouldn't have had to work. He should have been safe to be unemployed while focusing on being there for his family. Or even better, a system that guarantees the ability to be on extended leave with benefits from the state. Its a win-win situation if you don't force employees to leave their companies just because they are in a situation like that. Other than that, I totally agree with what you said.
cycomachead 5y ago
> 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. And yet, this man worked for a company who could very reasonably enact such a system if it desired to, at least for its own employees. There is no law which requires corporations to do the minimal amount required by the law. The fact that many chose to do so is a choice motivated by profits and expediency.
- otterley 5y ago
  On the other hand, if we as a society think the ethical floor is too low, we can pass laws that raise that floor - and companies will be bound to follow it.

by madrox 5y ago

gkya 5y ago

Fuck managers' side of the story.

dml2135 5y ago

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 5y ago
So you would want Amazon to pass him over because his wife has an existing medical condition? That would be a good article too.
- HelixEndeavor 5y ago
  Would it? "Your circumstances have us believe you're not the best fit for the company" is a scandal? Should Amazon be required to hire anyone who walks in the door?
  - NavinF 5y ago
    Of course refusing to hire someone because their SO has cancer would lead to a scandal, LMAO. I assume you're joking
    - tcmart14 5y ago
      I hope so. Its reasonable for that response if its the case where the person does not have the technical ability via their prior experience. But that line of reasoning for a candidate to not be hired because of their spouse's ailment is just morale bankruptcy.
m0zg 5y ago
> 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.

sangnoir 5y ago

> He was at turns informally warned, encouraged to take leave, and offered severance. Both these options would leave him without ongoing income and would do nothing to help him as a person[1]. They'd neatly solve the employer's problems though, and it's apparent who you more closely identify with in this story. 1. As someone else mentioned, short- and/or long-term disability was the mutually beneficial solution, but management/HR took the path of least resistance, regardless of the cost to his humanity.

madrox 5y ago
Yes, as an EM, I'm inclined to think of managers as people and not mustache-twirling villains who think of nothing but their 10%-30% bonus. Most of the ones I worked with are. Ad hominem attacks aside, though, is it not important to have full context before we get out the pitchforks...especially if we feel like there's probably some missing? The only information we have about this situation is the word of a fired employee who is inclined to make themselves sound as sympathetic as possible. This article is certainly scant on details. I've worked for psychopaths and expected that when I read this, but I don't think that's the whole story this time.
- Domenic_S 5y ago
  I share your sentiment of wanting the full story… surely Amazon has short term and long term disability insurance on offer to employees, I wonder why that wasn’t an option?
kcplate 5y ago
People seem to think that once they are hired that their employer owes them something more than the agreed upon compensation for the work they agreed to do for them. If your work capabilities continually suffer, short of legally protected events, at some point your company will make moves to end the employment if you are no longer able to provide value for your compensation. Doesn’t matter if Amazon or a mom and pop shop. At some point there is an end to patience in every organization. In a company with 1.3M employees…it will be unlikely that his situation was all that unique among the employees. With that many employees there could easily be a thousand or more employees dealing with a similar family illness issue, and with similar inabilities to take unpaid LOAs. So a consistency of the policies governing this type of thing will always trump special single considerations in a corporation. As long as Amazon consistently applied it’s policies it’s simply not at fault, and I would argue handled this situation as morally as a corporation could. Amazon is not at fault for the illness, nor at fault for the employee’s inability to take an unpaid leave. If they provided the opportunity for the employee to take an unpaid LOA and preserve his $300k job…that is a helluva benefit to that employee in my mind.

jerry1979 5y ago

The sucky part about this story isn't that, as you say, "managers don't have the same luxury of defending their side of the story". More so, it comes across as a little twisted to suggest that this dude's anger at his boss is just "part of his grieving process", like he's going through some teenage phase that he will grow out of once he realizes that Amazon's history of mistreating its employees has nothing to do with his boss or his experiences at Amazon. Instead, he can realize that all the stories about Amazon trampling over its workers to get packages out the door only apply to other people. I do like the slogan Amazon should have for its workers with sick loved ones, as you put it: "safe to be unemployed". Classic Amazon.

AtlasBarfed 5y ago

This is America. Sure you have benefits, you think, if you have a job, but a huge number of the outcomes where you need those benefits result in you losing your job and no longer having them. And if you get too expensive and start showing up on the company's benefits cost, they are strongly incented to find alternative means for removing you from the payroll. Really, work-provided benefits mainly serve the purpose of preventing people from voting for universal benefits. Of course the percentage of people dealing with the cases where you really need (and they don't want to pay) those benefits is very small, so the number of people that fully understand the situation is very small. Benefits exist for the benefit of the company: to retain people, keep them bound/disincent them leaving, and to appear "competitive" with other companies. Whether they ACTUALLY will hold up is a gamble, and often up to munificience of your "benefactor". To emphasize, when you MOST need benefits, you are LEAST valuable to the company providing those benefits.

Domenic_S 5y ago
Blame the government, they’re why we have employer-sponsored health insurance to begin with starting in WWII. Very interesting history to read about.

nodicksplease 5y ago

lol. I worked at Amazon as a SDE and this reply is from Typical shit EM from Amazon. Empathy triumphs your weird corporate logic. Don't just work backwards putting yourself in the customer shoes, learn to work backwards from your report's shoes too.

fastasucan 5y ago

> That man shouldn't have had to work. He should have been safe to be unemployed while focusing on being there for his family. Or even better, a system that guarantees the ability to be on extended leave with benefits from the state. Its a win-win situation if you don't force employees to leave their companies just because they are in a situation like that. Other than that, I totally agree with what you said.

cycomachead 5y ago

> 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. And yet, this man worked for a company who could very reasonably enact such a system if it desired to, at least for its own employees. There is no law which requires corporations to do the minimal amount required by the law. The fact that many chose to do so is a choice motivated by profits and expediency.

otterley 5y ago
On the other hand, if we as a society think the ethical floor is too low, we can pass laws that raise that floor - and companies will be bound to follow it.