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

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

#111

Post by mynameisash »

I am quite pessimistic about Amazon and its influence, having worked there for about a year. In my (admittedly jaded) opinion, the company encourages this kind of dehumanizing behavior toward people.

That said, this isn't new and it isn't limited to Amazon. My brother died of cancer at the age of 10. My dad's manager gave him a bad performance review and said that he let his son's death affect his work. Other people where my dad worked were more empathetic (though unfortunately, not in his management chain).

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

#112

Post by radicalbyte »

twalla wrote: post #88
ldjkfkdsjnv wrote: post #20

Believe it or not, this isn't a rare attitude among managers at Amazon. A significant percentage of SDMs believe they must "keep a high bar" and remove any dissenting subordinates. Word has gotten out about it, mostly on the blind app, which forced Amazon to raise pay bands for engineers 50-100k. This is costing the company a lot of money. The difference going forwards for Amazon is that the stock is mostly stagnant,…

One of the things I do to get Amazon recruiters to leave me the hell alone is to respond to their emails with a link to the most recent public AMZN snafu and urge them to quit - it's funny/sad how each time I respond I can quickly find 3-5 new links no more than a few months old.

I just tell them how much it would cost to get me to up and move to Canada or the US to work for them, just to be equal to my situation here in Europe.

That usually stops them pretty quickly :)

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

#113

Post by friedman23 »

anonymousDan wrote: post #99
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.

I don't know why anyone good enough for the job would choose to work somewhere as abusive as amazon.

Also, there is no need for insults, don't spread your abusive workplace online please :)

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

#114

Post by bloodyplonker22 »

ivraatiems wrote: post #32
illumin8 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read the timeline and it seems like he started in mid-late 2018, was having performance problems throughout 2019, and didn't even get fired until mid-2020. This is super generous, and while I have a lot of empathy for his personal situation, I think he could have had a much different outcome if he would have been more proactive about managing expectations: - Amazon does have a bereavement benefit that you definitel…

I'm not sure how it's done at Amazon - they are, after all, notorious for driving employees hard - but my understanding is that poor performance over a year or so is usually about the point at which firing begins to be discussed at large companies. And the problem wasn't that he didn't want to perform or was intrinsically a bad employee; the problem was that he literally couldn't due to circumstance. It's not generou…

Many things wrong with your comment, starting with the fact that firing beings to be discussed only after a year. It actually begins to be discussed immediately after the employee is assessed to be an underperformer. It's only after a year of bad written performance reviews that they can actually start to do something about it, such as put the employee on a "PIP" or fire the employee.

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

#115

Post by javert »

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.

The current USA healthcare hellscape came as a result of an attempt to implement universal healthcare that was derailed via regulatory capture.

It's hard to see how you could implement universal healthcare successfully in country like the US which has third-world standards for corruption and democracy, and low average human capital.

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

#116

Post by dkarl »

mrRandomGuy wrote: post #5
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…

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

I think if we're trying create a sane and decent society, we're barking up the wrong tree by attaching basic human compassion to employment, which is a bizarre choice that I'm guessing can be traced back to ideological polarization in the Cold War. The country wouldn't tolerate a completely pitiless dog-eat-dog system, but private enterprise was afraid of being exterminated if communism got a foothold in society, and they agreed to take on the responsibility of funding and administering the welfare state for everybody who was employed, so the welfare state for everybody else could be minimized and stigmatized. That's the just-so story in my head, anyway.

As a result, we're in this absurd situation where the only way to do the right and decent thing for a poor person suffering a brutal personal tragedy is for them to get paid $300k per year to do an incredibly rare-air information economy job that they aren't actually doing.

I agree, Amazon has a responsibility to this person because that's the system we've built. Amazon is reaping the benefits of the system and shouldn't be allowed to dodge the responsibilities. But my god, what an absurd system we've built.

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

#117

Post by outworlder »

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.

> That is an insane fortune to almost everyone

Pfft. No it isn't. It just illustrates how badly underpaid some sectors are.

The author seems to have been in a bit better position by not relocating to a high cost of living region. Still, when the "American Dream" term was coined - decades ago - the wages were much more "insane", as you put it. Even minimum wage could support a couple with a child above the poverty line.

300k a year (before taxes) likely can't even pay for his wife's healthcare, if he were to pay out of pocket (due to losing his job).

> There are thousands waiting for his position and they would kill to get it.

Not really. There are companies that pay even better, for a similar amount of effort, and better policies.

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

#118

Post by blocked_again »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #105
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.

A good publicly funded health care system essentially work like an insurance.

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

#119

Post by gruez »

relaunched wrote: post #86
rkk3 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Companies employ people. People have problems. Firing people, or forcing out people, when they have problems, doesn't sound like a very good place to work. It's very possible that the unspoken culture at Amazon is work hard above all else. If you've read "The Everything Store", there is a quote, something like, (regarding Bezos) "If you're bad, Jeff will run you out of the company. If you're good, he'll ride you into…

>Companies employ people. People have problems. Firing people, or forcing out people, when they have problems, doesn't sound like a very good place to work.

Sure, it'd be great if my workplace kept paying me $300k even if I was under-preforming because of personal issues. However, how realistic is this expectation? Are there any places that keep under-preforming employees for half a decade, or more?

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

#120

Post by heavyset_go »

Jiro wrote: post #6
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.

If I was a plumber, and my wife was dying, and as a result I was unable to repair plumbing, I would not expect anyone to give me money to repair their plumbing, not even if I told them my wife is dying and they should be sympathetic.

Are you working as a contractor or employee?
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