My Wife Was Dying of Brain Cancer. My Boss at Amazon Told Me to Perform or Quit
201–210 of 344 posts
Re: My Wife Was Dying of Brain Cancer. My Boss at Amazon Told Me to Perform or Quit
#202Reading the comments on this topic, I can't but feel validated for having quit my programming career right as it started.
You lot sound so absorbed into your privilege that you can't even begin to think about the human side of the story, and it really shows that your "oh I can't begin to imageine how hard this is but..." is performative. It shows that you never really had to deal with this sort of stuff, be the person responsible to assist a loved one thru their hard and/or terminal times. You really can't but show how far removed from human suffering you are. A hive of young able-bodied economically privileged people.
But, programmers are increasing in number. You're becoming cheaper to hire, replace. Enjoy that privilege while it lasts, because it won't last for that long.
If companies shouldn't be responsible for taking care of their employees in their hard times, they shouldn't try and replace the state as the apparatus of care for the disprivileged, they shouldn't capture and commodify access to livelihood and wellbeing, they shouldn't attempt to bust unions, support "small" government nonsense, and they should pay their taxes in full or even in extra. If a company won't be liable for when the employee has no chance to be productive, then that person is entitled to something to fall back on.
But of course that's not a thing because with the system that's in place, our livelihoods is a carrot-on-the-stick in front of us used to extract labour from us, and when we're spent we're sent to the recycling bin. And you folk are those who so far have been on the winning side of this shitty deal, either as employees or as employers, temporarily for most of you, but having pulled thyselves up, you can't but kick down, and look down upon the rest.
This whole thing is really toxic and boring and uncool and honestly a pile of shit. Your corporate shilling here is pure unadulterated boot licking, and I throw up in my mouth reading it. But I like reading it. It validates my decision from many years ago. For however much of an economic improvement a tech career would have been for yours truly, I'd much rather eat my shoes than spend a moment of my day with the likes of you.
Re: My Wife Was Dying of Brain Cancer. My Boss at Amazon Told Me to Perform or Quit
#203Earlier 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 (…
I actually wish more people got it through their heads that HR _is not_ and _will never be_ their friend or savior. Their only loyalty is only to the company, by design. There are no exceptions to this that I have seen in 25+ years in the industry. The extent of whatever help you might get out of them is whether or not there's a risk that the company would come out worse on the other end if that help is not provided, such as, if you have a thoroughly documented case, the law is on your side, and you're willing and able to enforce your rights. If it's not documented or not protected by law, you'll be screwed by HR 100% of the time.
Re: My Wife Was Dying of Brain Cancer. My Boss at Amazon Told Me to Perform or Quit
#204What sucks about stories like this is, while my heart breaks for what this guy went through, managers don't have the same luxury of defending their side of the story to Mother Jones. I worked as an EM at Amazon. I went into this ready to think he had a bad boss (because those definitely exist at Amazon), but after reading this I feel like there's another side to this that has more compassion than is being reflected h…
I would be more apt to share this opinion if not for the fact that he says he specifically warned Amazon that his wife had brain cancer when they began trying to recruit him.
> warned Amazon that his wife had brain cancer when they began trying to recruit him
Not to defend Amazon, god forbid, but I'd be surprised if this actually reached the people who would be able to make decisions about this either way. Recruiting gets paid per head. They got a head. What happens next is of no interest to them whatsoever.
Re: My Wife Was Dying of Brain Cancer. My Boss at Amazon Told Me to Perform or Quit
#205A 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…
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…
"May opt"? HR isn't there for you, they are for the employer. Too many people confuse this. They will always protect the company because that's their job.
Re: My Wife Was Dying of Brain Cancer. My Boss at Amazon Told Me to Perform or Quit
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 (…
> That’s the cynical approach, but most companies don’t actually want to lose valuable employees. While an abstract rational actor like a company might come to this conclusion, day to day line managers often do not come to the same conclusions. A low performing employee affected by personal issues is dead weight on said line manager's budget and headcount, and therefore their metrics and their own performance and pro…
Given that the employee was making ~300K, we can figure that his manager is probably making 50% to 100+% more.
I find it mind-boggling that the manager could not find it within himself to give some slack to the employee. I guess maybe he didn't want to slow down the rate at which he was pulling in F-U money.
Re: My Wife Was Dying of Brain Cancer. My Boss at Amazon Told Me to Perform or Quit
#207Obviously it is horrible to fire someone in these circumstances. I wonder what I would do though? Lets say you have an employee that is completely and totally incompetent, but their child has cancer and will slowly die over the next two years. Do you just be compassionate and try to minimize the harm having this person around causes? What if you can't afford to keep an extra person around? I don't think this as easy of a situation as I would like it to be.
Re: My Wife Was Dying of Brain Cancer. My Boss at Amazon Told Me to Perform or Quit
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think there is some selection bias in this. And I say this as someone who has recently quit working at Amazon (after many years there). People who get fired are far more likely to leave reviews on blind. And the whole performance improvement plan process that proceeds being fired takes place between the employee and the SDM. It may be the case that their org leadership told the SDM to cut their lowest ranked person…
> People who get fired are far more likely to leave reviews on blind. It is said that the average tenure at Amazon is two years. By your measuring stick, a company that is a revolving door does have the nasty tendency to leave a lot of its employees with plenty of reasons to complain.
There's nothing extraordinary about Amazon having a 2 year tenure average. Here's a somewhat dated (I'd guess it's gotten even shorter since) article from 2018 listing many more company tenures:
https://www.inc.com/business-insider/tech-companies-employee...
There are many known companies with ~2 years give or take.
Re: My Wife Was Dying of Brain Cancer. My Boss at Amazon Told Me to Perform or Quit
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
> That’s the cynical approach, but most companies don’t actually want to lose valuable employees. While an abstract rational actor like a company might come to this conclusion, day to day line managers often do not come to the same conclusions. A low performing employee affected by personal issues is dead weight on said line manager's budget and headcount, and therefore their metrics and their own performance and pro…
Given that the employee was making ~300K, we can figure that his manager is probably making 50% to 100+% more. I find it mind-boggling that the manager could not find it within himself to give some slack to the employee. I guess maybe he didn't want to slow down the rate at which he was pulling in F-U money.
> I guess maybe he didn't want to slow down the rate at which he was pulling in F-U money.
Bingo! The manager's 10-30% bonus was on the line; and they probably saw the stressed employee not quite through a human lense, but was more of a broken cog that was gumming up the works and tanking the manager's metrics/KPIs.
Re: My Wife Was Dying of Brain Cancer. My Boss at Amazon Told Me to Perform or Quit
#210Believe 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,…
What is the blind app?
One of the most toxic environments on the internet, filled with people who define themselves by their employment at big tech, and how large their salaries are. Think WallStreetBets meets tech but with less self-deprecation and emotional maturity, if you can imagine it.