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I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

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Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#141

Post by barrkel »

WalterBright wrote: post #113
jkaplowitz wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For vacation days, your point makes sense to me. For sick days, people don't get to choose when they get sick. Someone can just as easily get sick on day 1 or 2 of a job as on day 401 or 402.

I once talked to a manager about how he handed out raises. He mentioned one engineer who was sick exactly 10 days out of each year. Coincidentally, the company offered 10 days of paid sick leave a year. He laughed, and said she wasn't fooling anyone, and didn't give her a raise.

I reckon results should be rewarded, not presenteeism. I might be more interested in results, who knows.

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#142

Post by [deleted] »

lkey wrote: post #137
WalterBright wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once talked to a manager about how he handed out raises. He mentioned one engineer who was sick exactly 10 days out of each year. Coincidentally, the company offered 10 days of paid sick leave a year. He laughed, and said she wasn't fooling anyone, and didn't give her a raise.

So he decided he'd figured out her scam without ever bringing it up in yearly or monthly review. He also never asked for proof of the 10 days of sick leave after the first year, which is reasonable to do if he had a suspicion she was flouting a rule. If he wanted to factor sick days into his pay decision, he had a responsibility to make sure he was correct using the proper internal channels. An alternate and equally…

[deleted]

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#143

Post by Sebb767 »

deogeo wrote: post #129
jacquesm wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in NL employees get 2 full consecutive years of paid sick leave before you are allowed to terminate the contract.

I honestly think that's a terrible idea, and that paid sick leave should be paid not by the employer, but from taxes. Which should be raised slightly to cover such a policy. Otherwise, hiring someone presents a gigantic risk for smaller companies. Getting unlucky even once with someone that will use 1-2 years of sick leave (legitimately or not) would be enough to bankrupt them. In general I think making employers pay…

I like the way it's handled in Germany: Your employer is on the hook for 6 weeks, after that insurance takes over. Cases like being sick for the same reason again are covered as well. And the employer may demand a signed statement from a special doctor if he suspects cheating (this will only say wether the person may work, no details).

It could however be that he's talking about firing the person, in which case it's pretty hard in Germany as well. As far as I know early retirement or a termination from the employee are pretty much the only way. Social security mitigates this risk, however, and the protections are lower for part time/student jobs, so hiring is not made too risky.

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#144

Post by jetti »

WalterBright wrote: post #113
jkaplowitz wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For vacation days, your point makes sense to me. For sick days, people don't get to choose when they get sick. Someone can just as easily get sick on day 1 or 2 of a job as on day 401 or 402.

I once talked to a manager about how he handed out raises. He mentioned one engineer who was sick exactly 10 days out of each year. Coincidentally, the company offered 10 days of paid sick leave a year. He laughed, and said she wasn't fooling anyone, and didn't give her a raise.

That seems plausible to me, especially if they have a chronic illness. Places I have been would make you use PTO if you had no sick days so then it becomes a cost/benefit analysis. Do you feel bad enough to use up PTO or can you "suffer through it".

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#145

Post by simonebrunozzi »

I generally like John Oliver, although I find most of his content geared toward a shallow journalism that I don't enjoy.

If he were an amazing man, he would read this piece, decide this critique made sense, and run a new episode in which he corrects and fixes everything that was not super accurate in his previous take on Amazon.

John Oliver, I know you lurk on Hacker News every day, for several hours, under a fake username. Please, do this!

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#146

Post by WalterBright »

barrkel wrote: post #141
WalterBright wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once talked to a manager about how he handed out raises. He mentioned one engineer who was sick exactly 10 days out of each year. Coincidentally, the company offered 10 days of paid sick leave a year. He laughed, and said she wasn't fooling anyone, and didn't give her a raise.

I reckon results should be rewarded, not presenteeism. I might be more interested in results, who knows.

I'd be the first to agree with you. However, allowing a stellar performer to come and go as they please tends to have a bad effect on morale of the rest and impairs team cohesiveness.

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#147

Post by zarify »

WalterBright wrote: post #113
jkaplowitz wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For vacation days, your point makes sense to me. For sick days, people don't get to choose when they get sick. Someone can just as easily get sick on day 1 or 2 of a job as on day 401 or 402.

I once talked to a manager about how he handed out raises. He mentioned one engineer who was sick exactly 10 days out of each year. Coincidentally, the company offered 10 days of paid sick leave a year. He laughed, and said she wasn't fooling anyone, and didn't give her a raise.

I can believe someone taking 10 sick days off a year and no more. You take the paid time off if you're sick without much hesitation, and after that you weigh up whether you're sick enough to cost you a day's pay.

People should use their sick leave - that's what it's for. This "no raise for using sick leave" argument is no better than the overwork culture that's been discussed at length lately.

Mind you, I'm not an engineer, I'm a teacher. Unless it's seriously contagious or I'm basically unable to function I don't tend to use my sick leave because it's more work to prepare lessons for a replacement teacher than it is to come to work and teach.

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#148

Post by capex »

lkey wrote: post #137
WalterBright wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once talked to a manager about how he handed out raises. He mentioned one engineer who was sick exactly 10 days out of each year. Coincidentally, the company offered 10 days of paid sick leave a year. He laughed, and said she wasn't fooling anyone, and didn't give her a raise.

So he decided he'd figured out her scam without ever bringing it up in yearly or monthly review. He also never asked for proof of the 10 days of sick leave after the first year, which is reasonable to do if he had a suspicion she was flouting a rule. If he wanted to factor sick days into his pay decision, he had a responsibility to make sure he was correct using the proper internal channels. An alternate and equally…

I come to HN for comments like this.

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#149

Post by WalterBright »

lkey wrote: post #137
WalterBright wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once talked to a manager about how he handed out raises. He mentioned one engineer who was sick exactly 10 days out of each year. Coincidentally, the company offered 10 days of paid sick leave a year. He laughed, and said she wasn't fooling anyone, and didn't give her a raise.

So he decided he'd figured out her scam without ever bringing it up in yearly or monthly review. He also never asked for proof of the 10 days of sick leave after the first year, which is reasonable to do if he had a suspicion she was flouting a rule. If he wanted to factor sick days into his pay decision, he had a responsibility to make sure he was correct using the proper internal channels. An alternate and equally…

Fair enough, I agree he was being passive aggressive, but on the other hand, if someone is doing something that has the appearance of impropriety, it's a good idea to proactively bring it up with the boss to head off the suspicions.

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#150

Post by neonate »

klenwell wrote: post #60
seibelj wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or it’s the kind of vile right-wing strawman-bestrewn ass-covering FUD typical of Quillete. This is the precise type of commentary that is extremely off-putting to me. I consider myself a critical reader and what you wrote is the type of argument I immediately dismiss.

Then let me try. I concede the GP's tone is off-putting. I don't watch John Oliver regularly because I generally find him more entertaining than informative. Yet I still think this piece is largely disingenuous claptrap. Kevin Mims is not a moderate voice. He's a unique voice. A white man "in my sixties" with bylines with NPR and the NY Times who works a second job at a small bookstore and still finds time to turn ou…

I can't tell if you're suggesting that he's only there to write propaganda for Amazon? Someone doing that wouldn't need to work 70 shifts. Also he says in the article that he's been doing low-paying manual labor for most of his adult life. The most likely explanation is that he's a writer who has worked day jobs to pay the bills. Since he's in his early 60s, that's a lot of jobs. I don't see any reason to disbelieve him when he says that his Amazon job has been one of the better ones, even if he does have political opinions.
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