Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

quillette.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–289 of 289 posts

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#281

Post by jschwartzi »

zdragnar wrote: post #207
jschwartzi wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it abuse if I use my PTO? The whole point of PTO is that the company is agreeing to give you 10 days worth of slack. So obviously it shouldn't be a problem if you use that 10 days of slack. Are you telling me that the company is lying about the benefits it provides, and that it doesn't actually provide 10 days of sick leave? What else are they lying about?

In reverse order: > Are you telling me that the company is lying about the benefits it provides, No, I'm telling you that there's a difference in requirements for taking sick leave versus vacation. The only reason that sick leave doesn't have the same requirement as vacation is you don't choose when you get sick . If you take a sick day as a vacation day, you're forcing others to scramble to make up for you not being…

Well, I disagree with your assessment that by taking my sick days I am hurting another employee. It's actually you, as the employer, who offered me 10 days of sick leave, and who knowingly understaffed your workplace assuming that I wouldn't use that time off, who is hurting your employees. Don't rationalize it by putting the responsibility on me. You're the one who told me I was allowed to do it. If you don't want to offer 10 days of paid sick leave then don't offer it, but don't punish me for using it, and don't try to guilt me out of using it by pretending that I'm the one creating the situation. It's your job to staff your workplace appropriately.

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#282

Post by c0vfefe »

mcny wrote: post #248
Fomite wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was my immediate thought: "I bet she's sick for more than 10 days a year". But who knows. Maybe one of his employees trying to work through being sick will come in and give him norovirus. A man can hope.

Personally, I think PTO subsuming sick leave ought to be illegal. I've seen multiple people with bright, red noses in the office unable to function much but won't go home because they can't afford to take the day off and they already have plans to take PTO two months out. Why should I have to risk getting the flu because of this nonsense?

I find int helpful for companies to convert unused sick time into vacation time at a rate like 2/3. This provides less incentive for faking sick.

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#283

Post by c0vfefe »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #92
vore wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a valid concern and I think there's no really great path forward, aside from broad structural changes that will blunt the negative consequences of automation: how do you balance good working conditions with the specter of automation? If human labor forever has to undercut the cost of automation, then we can't discount the human cost of doing so.

The problem isn't actually automation. If a job gets automated, now the thing being produced costs less. At scale it means you can have the same standard of living with a lower salary -- a boon for the poor. The real problem is when some of the things have artificial scarcity. If we have zoning laws that prevent new housing from being built, the poor can't afford housing. If we have restrictions on the number of new…

> If a job gets automated, now the thing being produced costs less. At scale it means you can have the same standard of living with a lower salary -- a boon for the poor.

This is making the massively optimistic assumption that cost savings will be passed onto the consumer rather than hoarded for executives & shareholders.

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#284

Post by Fomite »

c0vfefe wrote: post #282
mcny wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I think PTO subsuming sick leave ought to be illegal. I've seen multiple people with bright, red noses in the office unable to function much but won't go home because they can't afford to take the day off and they already have plans to take PTO two months out. Why should I have to risk getting the flu because of this nonsense?

I find int helpful for companies to convert unused sick time into vacation time at a rate like 2/3. This provides less incentive for faking sick.

Alternately, it incentivizes coming in sick and making your co-workers sick.

As an epidemiologist, I hate policies that allow sick days to be converted into something of value, or that put's restrictions in them.

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#285

Post by c0vfefe »

Fomite wrote: post #284
c0vfefe wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find int helpful for companies to convert unused sick time into vacation time at a rate like 2/3. This provides less incentive for faking sick.

Alternately, it incentivizes coming in sick and making your co-workers sick. As an epidemiologist, I hate policies that allow sick days to be converted into something of value, or that put's restrictions in them.

I understand hating that from a health perspective, but for a profit-driven entity there's no resolving this issue without compromise. Sick time will always get abused by someone, so you might as well provide some incentive to not abuse it.

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#286

Post by depr »

dang wrote: post #212
nameismypw wrote: post #192

It doesn't seem appropriate to discuss a Quillette article without mentioning that it's an alt-right publication. We must not normalize it, and I strongly encourage people to flag the submission. A preliminary search will turn up plenty of reprehensible authors and plenty more reprehensible articles. Posts like these are low-key attempts for Quillette to legitimatize itself.

It's penalized on HN the same way we downweight all mostly-political or ideological publications. But such sites do come up with the occasional interesting article, and on HN we care about the article, not the site. Same with Jacobin or something like that.

"ideological" meaning not matching the HN ideology of course

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#287

Post by Fomite »

c0vfefe wrote: post #285
Fomite wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternately, it incentivizes coming in sick and making your co-workers sick. As an epidemiologist, I hate policies that allow sick days to be converted into something of value, or that put's restrictions in them.

I understand hating that from a health perspective, but for a profit-driven entity there's no resolving this issue without compromise. Sick time will always get abused by someone, so you might as well provide some incentive to not abuse it.

That's one possibility. But there's also the possibility that encouraging presenteeism (which is what incentivizing hoarding sick days is) results in a net loss of productivity as sick employees both half-ass their work and also get their coworkers sick.

Which a profit-driven entity should care about.

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#288

Post by ci5er »

mcny wrote: post #249
DrScump wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My first programming job was for a defense contractor. There was no PTO concept, just vacation (2 whole weeks a year) and sick leave (12 days a year). Unused sick leave accrued indefinitely but was not usable in any other way. I was putting myself through University and still had about 2.5 years of work. I was taking 12-13 units at night year round. So, there were times when I'd use a sick day for study/project/etc t…

I think asking for a doctor's note for sick leave ought to be illegal. Doctors have got better things to do!

Maybe they do, but in the US FFS re-imbursement regime, it's what they do.

That said - it is still ridiculous simply because the doctor can't do anything about whatever I might be most commonly sick for (migraine, flu, bad cold, bad seasonal allergy). I'll happily go to the doctor when I have a broken leg or a heart attack, but I'd prefer to stay home and sleep in a dark room and drink water when I have the flu...

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#289

Post by dang »

depr wrote: post #286
dang wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's penalized on HN the same way we downweight all mostly-political or ideological publications. But such sites do come up with the occasional interesting article, and on HN we care about the article, not the site. Same with Jacobin or something like that.

"ideological" meaning not matching the HN ideology of course

Leftists think HN is rightist, rightists think HN is leftist. We moderate on both sides of the ideological abyss, in the hope of preserving HN for intellectual curiosity rather than ideological battle. One can't have both.

That doesn't stop anyone from perceiving bias, indeed obvious bias ("of course"). It's the instant reflex that every ideologically committed user experiences, but it's in the eye of the beholder. People's own views determine how they imagine HN's bias or mods' bias—not only which polarity they perceive, but how intensely they perceive it. If you tell me what bias you perceive in HN, I can tell you what your own politics are. This is perhaps the most reliable phenomenon we see on HN.

Post reply on HN