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

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

motherjones.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 344 posts

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

#101

Post by gruez »

JohnBooty wrote: post #83

This happened to me, as well. Not my wife and not Amazon, but actually a handful of family members dying over the last year. On one hand I completely understand my employer. Unlike Amazon, they do not have Amazon-style money. They are fighting to survive. Like the author I am not sure what they should have done for me. During the conversation where I was terminated, I told my boss I understood their position. They ne…

I don't get it. Are they also having a hard time hiring people or something? As for your premise of "who the fuck are you trying to hire, here? Exclusively people... without families?", I don't see weird about that. If you're a company of a dozen or so people, it doesn't seem too hard to find a bunch of 22-30 year olds with very little commitments.

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

#103

Post by w0mbat »

darkmarmot wrote: post #84
seattle_spring wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my ~15 year career I've met a lot of people that have gone on and worked at almost every big company imaginable. For some reason an outsized amount of people that I hated working with ended up as SDMs at Amazon. The list of people I hate is very, very small too, so it seems like more than a coincidence.

For me the high correlation seems to be with Facebook.

Yeah me too. All the assholes went to Facebook. Only one person I like went there, and he quit.

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

#104

Post by asjldkfin »

ivraatiems wrote: post #27
asjldkfin wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like Jeff Bezos personally fired him. His direct manager is not working with a trillion dollar market cap.

That's another dodge. His direct manager is acting on behalf of the company, and in the interest of the company. The company should have behaved better. His direct manager also isn't paying the writer's salary out of a personal bank account. The point is that companies ought to treat their employees with empathy even when it costs them. There are reasonable limits to that, yes, but $300k for Amazon is well within tha…

No, companies should treat its employees with well defined policies that are easy to understand, enforce and audit.

Treating employees with something as variable and open to interpretation as "empathy" is what causes companies to implode- because who defines empathy? Who defines where the line is drawn? And why is it fair that some people will inevitably get more empathy than others because maybe the manager was having a good day and then a bad day.

Don't take this the wrong way, but I assume you're probably early enough in your career you never had to manage people. But when you eventually do, try to separate idealism from reality.

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

#105

Post by AdrianB1 »

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.

> And a company should not be liable to spend $300000 an year on a non productive employee.

Nor the taxpayer. It looks more like insurance than healthcare.

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

#106

Post by javert »

bserge wrote: post #90
gilney wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

also Amazon?

No, but it was the biggest company in the industry in the UK. I can only guess when you become a manager they take you for special reprogramming.

It would be helpful if you would edit your original comment, because you're literally saying it was Amazon.

The "they" is unspecified, so presumably it refers to the subject of the article you're commenting on, i.e. Amazon.

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

#107

Post by starbugs »

rmah wrote: post #48
starbugs wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You behave like a human being with feelings. You do the best you can to support and help someone who suffers unbelievably and you f**ing show some empathy. This involves actually putting yourself in the shoes of someone else, yes. It means that you share a part of their suffering. You are dealing with a human, not a "resource" and not a machine. It sickens me to read stories like that to the point where I really cons…

I understand your perspective, but... for how long? 1 month? 6 months? 3 years? 10 years? At what point does basic empathy turn into someone sponging off of generosity?

One of my employees was suffering from lymphatic cancer. So unfortunately, I have real life experience.

You support them for how long it takes. Period.

For my team mate, it took about 18 months until we could slowly start to reintroduce him to normal working hours. Even then, it took a couple of months until he was up to speed again.

As soon as he returned to the office, I treated him as if he was fully recovered to show him that we don't see him as some kind of disabled person, because of his cancer treatment. He recovered quickly and is now back to where he was before he left for treatment performance-wise.

Every screening for remission has been an extreme burden for him. Every time, I told him that even though I can fully understand his fear, the illness doesn't exist for me anymore and he is going to be fine.

2 years later, he's healthy and provides more value to the team than ever. We are all very thankful that he survived.

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

#108

Post by manuel_w »

bserge wrote: post #33

Yeah, had a coworker die and they didn't allow anyone to attend the funeral. Like, you'd get written up if you skipped the day. No one gave a fuck, so that's good. Too many people are garbage.

Had a coworker die and the company explicitely allowed everyone to violate core time for that day. As it became apparant that quite a few people would attend (it was a well-respected collegue, a genuinely nice man) they even booked a bus to the funeral and back so things would be a bit more streamlined.

Employer was the automotive part of bosch.at. Thought that deserves some public appraisal.

Disclaimer: I'm no longer employed there.

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

#109

Post by ajb »

_6hmp wrote: post #57
debacle wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the blind app?

It's a forum for people at tech companies to anonymously talk to other people at their companies in a private forum, or with people at other companies publicly to all members. They validate employment using your email address. As could be expected many of the topics devolve into toxic messes, but there is some useful discussion.

Only available to people in the US and South Korea at the moment, apparently.

A pity, but I guess they need lawyers in every country they do business in.

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

#110

Post by marricks »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #4

A tip: If anyone finds themselves in a tragic situation like this where they can’t work but also can’t afford to take leave, investigate your short and long-term disability benefits ASAP. Also read up on the documentation necessary to begin disability claims. Engage with a doctor early on who can document the severe depressive symptoms that are preventing work (which the author specifically cites in his anecdote). Do…

Totally, with all the free time I have between performing at work and caring for my dying partner I’ll be sure to study applicable law, meet with my doctor to get a note, then defend myself to HR
Post reply on HN