My Wife Was Dying of Brain Cancer. My Boss at Amazon Told Me to Perform or Quit • Hacker News Board

Re: My Wife Was Dying of Brain Cancer. My Boss at Amazon Told Me to Perform or Quit

#91

Post by oceanplexian » Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 9:08 PM UTC

ivraatiems wrote: post #45

oceanplexian wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the right answer. Your safety net is your responsibility, not your company’s or the government’s (like it or not, this is the reality we live in today, in the USA). Making the high income that he does, it should have been trivial to save a few years worth of emergency fund for exactly this situation. If he had made different choices he would be able to take a year off and properly take care of his family, not…

It shouldn't be the reality in a society with the amount of wealth ours has.

If you make mid six-figures and can’t put together an emergency fund that is on you. He could have made different life choices and spent time with his wife in her last moments rather than slaving away at work.

Re: My Wife Was Dying of Brain Cancer. My Boss at Amazon Told Me to Perform or Quit

#92

Post by gruez » Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 9:08 PM UTC

lordkrandel wrote: post #43

Wait 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.

At $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.

Re: My Wife Was Dying of Brain Cancer. My Boss at Amazon Told Me to Perform or Quit

#93

Post by iamdbtoo » Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 9:09 PM UTC

CoastalCoder wrote: post #2

I 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 Amaz…

Is 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.

Re: My Wife Was Dying of Brain Cancer. My Boss at Amazon Told Me to Perform or Quit

#94

Post by bink » Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 9:09 PM UTC

rmah wrote: post #51

joefife wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that we gladly give 6 months paid maternity to those who choose to have children, I'm fairly sure we'd give this chap a break. I cannot believe the inhumanity in this thread.

Most of the time on maternity leave is typically unpaid. If I understand correctly, this guy refused to take leave on reduced pay.

Everywhere I've worked in the last 10+ years has paid maternity leave and most now have paid paternity leave. They offered him unpaid leave.

Re: My Wife Was Dying of Brain Cancer. My Boss at Amazon Told Me to Perform or Quit

#95

Post by eschneider » Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 9:09 PM UTC

The 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. :/

Re: My Wife Was Dying of Brain Cancer. My Boss at Amazon Told Me to Perform or Quit

#96

Post by a-dub » Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 9:11 PM UTC

having 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.

Re: My Wife Was Dying of Brain Cancer. My Boss at Amazon Told Me to Perform or Quit

#97

Post by iamdbtoo » Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 9:11 PM UTC

rkk3 wrote: post #21

mrRandomGuy wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 'normal' company would understand that while a persons significant other is dying of a cancer, their work output may suffer as a result.

He 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.

He mentions the family leave option would've left him without any income. No one was asking Amazon not to eat his whole salary, just not expect him to function exactly the same as someone whose wife isn't dying from brain cancer.

Re: My Wife Was Dying of Brain Cancer. My Boss at Amazon Told Me to Perform or Quit

#98

Post by ucm_edge » Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 9:12 PM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #87

ucm_edge wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very much this. You always want to be asking HR for an accommodation that is protected by law. Then HR enters into the mode of protecting the company by ensuring they don't get in trouble for violating the law. You go in and say "Hey my wife is dying and my performance is probably going to be impacted, can something be done?", HR may opt to 'protect' the company by starting to build a case for terminating a low perfo…

> You go in and say "Hey my wife is dying and my performance is probably going to be impacted, can something be done?", HR may opt to 'protect' the company by starting to build a case for terminating a low performing employee. That’s the cynical approach, but most companies don’t actually want to lose valuable employees. This is why they have disability insurance coverage in the first place to help cover those gaps (…

No, some element of the people operation whose job performance is in part judged on getting engineers through the door wanted to hire him. Likely all that person cared about was "This engineer will make it X months", where X is based on if the employee separates prior to X the recruiter gets yelled at for sourcing a bad candidate.

Other parts of the org clearly had no issues branding the employee as a low performer and target for termination because their performance reviews.

Re: My Wife Was Dying of Brain Cancer. My Boss at Amazon Told Me to Perform or Quit

#99

Post by anonymousDan » Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 9:12 PM UTC

friedman23 wrote: post #71

You 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.

Maybe 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.

Re: My Wife Was Dying of Brain Cancer. My Boss at Amazon Told Me to Perform or Quit

#100

Post by johncessna » Tue, Sep 28, 2021, 9:12 PM UTC

jen20 wrote: post #28

Traubenfuchs wrote: post #14

I 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.

I 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.

Companies, and Amazon isn't alone in this, don't care about employee loyalty. They will all hem and haw about giving someone making a 100k a 5% raise and talk about how they can't do a raise that 'high' but when that employee leaves, they'll backfill their replacement at 120k.

Yes, 300k is a lot of money, but for better or worse, a US based L5/6 at Amazon is just another cog in the wheel. They probably fired 100 or so of them the day this person was fired, and the following Monday, another 100 started.