Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is actually not about money. It's about a human life.
So why didn't this person simply leave Amazon's shitty job and give some dignity to human life.
Because at the end of the day it is about money.
My Wife Was Dying of Brain Cancer. My Boss at Amazon Told Me to Perform or Quit
121–130 of 344 posts
Re: My Wife Was Dying of Brain Cancer. My Boss at Amazon Told Me to Perform or Quit
#122Wait 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.
> 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.
The employee was concerned about costs, including uncovered medical costs with insurance [0], which is why they didn't take family leave (which the US federally only guarantees unpaid, and the state the employee was in has no state paid family leave—though both his previous state and the one he declined to move to for the job do have paid family leave.)
So, both public health insurance policy and public employee benefits policy in the US, as well as Amazon's particular practices (employees aren't prevented from providing paid leave or reduced demands without a mandate), are involved in this case.
Re: My Wife Was Dying of Brain Cancer. My Boss at Amazon Told Me to Perform or Quit
#123A 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…
Another HN user posted—and then deleted—this comment: > I worry that many people in such a situation may not have the right frame of mind to be able to find, read, understand, and absorb what is normally quite dry reading material requiring often ending in something requiring exceptional perseverance. (I noticed because I was writing a reply.) I think it’s a good comment! And I think that is why you do it now. It’s j…
Absolutely! Know what your policies are as soon as you join any company — but this is triply true for a FAANG. All of the information at a FAANG is in your intranet. As you say, learn those policies and procedures now and refresh them.
I’ve made a lot of decisions that have been counter to my own self-interest in my professional life (usually out of a misguided feeling of loyalty), but I have been very good at knowing policies and procedures (and for getting stuff stated explicitly in my contract before signing anything) and it has come in handy on a number of occasions.
Know your rights. And know them before you need to use them.
Re: My Wife Was Dying of Brain Cancer. My Boss at Amazon Told Me to Perform or Quit
#124Earlier 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?
Fun fact, most people aren't lazy lay-abouts trying to con employers into handouts.
Re: My Wife Was Dying of Brain Cancer. My Boss at Amazon Told Me to Perform or Quit
#1251. How do other companies handle these situations? How do you effectively handle an employee rendered unable to perform their job due to tragedy? This came up with Atlassian a few weeks ago, and they have a much better reputation than Amazon and it doesn't seem like they handled things in a great way either. The reality is that you might just need to terminate people who cannot perform, no matter what the reason. 2.…
I worked for a small company with very little spare cash and a short runway when an enormous family tragedy struck suddenly. They let me take a month off and accepted I wasn't quite at normal levels of productivity for maybe a year afterwards. It was tough, but they made it work.
If they could afford it, Amazon can.
Re: My Wife Was Dying of Brain Cancer. My Boss at Amazon Told Me to Perform or Quit
#126Earlier 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 to do work. That is the fundamental nature of the relationship. Some leeway is to be expected for temporary fluctuations in the work being done. But in the long term, if the work is no longer being performed at the agreed upon level, the company is not obligated to continue paying the person.
In a sense, blaming the company becomes kind of a distraction from the real issue, which is that in the US, we have an extremely thin safety net. One of the reasons getting fired from your tech job is so concerning is that even someone in that job is only a few difficult situations from utter destitution and homelessness. That $4k/mo Seattle mortgage burns through your savings pretty quick, and if you have assets of any kind, you won't get any assistance from the state for disability. Even our unemployment benefits won't keep you afloat for long.
We should be focused on making these things better, not expecting companies to employee people who are unable to work.
Re: My Wife Was Dying of Brain Cancer. My Boss at Amazon Told Me to Perform or Quit
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
> Are there any places that keep under-preforming employees for half a decade, or more?
Microsoft is often recommended for this, and some say Google these days too :).
Re: My Wife Was Dying of Brain Cancer. My Boss at Amazon Told Me to Perform or Quit
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh wow. This (especially with respect to the mental model of the incentives for how a company works on the inside) should be taught in school.
You mean as a way to show kids that no morality exists in a context that allows one to be a faceless HR department? Despicable.
You make not like how sociopathic bureaucracies running society operate, but it's important to educate children on how not to get screwed by them.
Re: My Wife Was Dying of Brain Cancer. My Boss at Amazon Told Me to Perform or Quit
#129Earlier 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.
This analogy would work if engineers were paid by some metric like milestone completion. The vast majority are not, but instead paid yearly. And if you want to be a company people want to actually work at, you think of employees as investments so it's some scope even beyond yearly. A few months even of suffering performance is nothing in the grand scheme of things to a company Amazon's size. This is just cruelty for cruelty's sake.
Re: My Wife Was Dying of Brain Cancer. My Boss at Amazon Told Me to Perform or Quit
#130You 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.
Eh, not so fast there. Perhaps that talent pool is larger and more diverse than you realize. It’s entirely possible that I’m out of touch now, but when I was at MSFT 10 years ago, there was a steady flow of top talent to Amazon. All the people I knew who went over were sort of the way-overachiever type who wouldn’t mind being punished (and rewarded) by an employer. They were single, male, career and status obsessed. Also among the best developers and managers I worked with. FAR from the bottom of the barrel. I myself declined all invitations to come over, but people want different things from their jobs. I liked the ability to hide and coast in relatively slow-moving MS.