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

211–220 of 344 posts

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

#211

Post by darkwizard42 »

Stampo00 wrote: post #194
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.

They're both at fault since each side expects the other to catch those who fall into this unfortunate situation. The government should provide for people in this situation so that if you lost your job due to the circumstances, it shouldn't be a double-whammy that will sink the rest of your life. In the absence of a government safety net, the company should pick up that slack if they value the employee more than the c…

I mean, the government has legislated that full-time employees HAVE to get benefits from the employer... I don't think it is quite a "both at fault" situation because the government can actually change the rules, companies just have to follow them...

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

#212

Post by sangnoir »

madrox wrote: post #158

What 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…

> He was at turns informally warned, encouraged to take leave, and offered severance.

Both these options would leave him without ongoing income and would do nothing to help him as a person[1]. They'd neatly solve the employer's problems though, and it's apparent who you more closely identify with in this story.

1. As someone else mentioned, short- and/or long-term disability was the mutually beneficial solution, but management/HR took the path of least resistance, regardless of the cost to his humanity.

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

#213

Post by decebalus1 »

mrRandomGuy wrote: post #29
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.

God, sometimes reading the comments on this website makes me want to burn my eyeballs off. Like, why is there such a large chunk of people who literally go to bat for such shit practices?

Are you a Blind app user? If you're not, please be kind to your eyeballs and don't install it. You would be surprised of how many of our coworkers actually think like that.

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

#214

Post by jerry1979 »

madrox wrote: post #158

What 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…

The sucky part about this story isn't that, as you say, "managers don't have the same luxury of defending their side of the story". More so, it comes across as a little twisted to suggest that this dude's anger at his boss is just "part of his grieving process", like he's going through some teenage phase that he will grow out of once he realizes that Amazon's history of mistreating its employees has nothing to do with his boss or his experiences at Amazon. Instead, he can realize that all the stories about Amazon trampling over its workers to get packages out the door only apply to other people.

I do like the slogan Amazon should have for its workers with sick loved ones, as you put it: "safe to be unemployed". Classic Amazon.

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

#215

Post by marricks »

loudtieblahblah wrote: post #144
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…

gotta love that to engage with stuff like this we need to navigate a Brazil level of bureaucratic bullshit to cover our asses. Go to the therapist a bunch, create a paper trail, dig through fine print of short/long term leave.. as if the guy wasn't deal with enough between his work and wife as it was. it's just sad that to find a way to best help yourself, you must suffer more, shoulder more, have more chewing up you…

Last year a story like this would have more comments questioning the company's policy, or at least the ones that did wouldn't be down voted. Now it looks like times have changed a bit and more pro corporate winds are blowing...

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

#216

Post by scruple »

w0mbat wrote: post #103
darkmarmot wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Interesting. My (small, n=3) list of supreme assholes who I never want to work with again also ended up at Facebook.

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

#218

Post by tfehring »

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…

For those of us who are thankfully not in a situation like this currently, it's still worth reading up on those benefits. Obviously the best time to deal with those things is before you need them.

Virtually all employer-provided long-term disability coverage terminates when you leave your job or shortly thereafter without the option to continue your coverage, so if you're pushed out or become unable to work before you formally meet the insurer's definition of "disabled" you're SOL. Also, most LTD plans (both group and individual) either exclude mental health conditions or place significant limits on the benefits you can claim for those conditions - e.g., they'll only pay out for one year, or up to a certain (low) dollar amount.

For those reasons, I recommend that most middle- to high-income people carry individual (i.e., not employer-sponsored) long-term disability insurance. For a very rough indication on price, I got my policy when I was 28, and I pay ~$100/month for coverage that would give me $72k/year in (tax-free) income through age 67.

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

#219

Post by loftyal »

javert wrote: post #106
bserge wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not everyone here is American, "they" is more ambigous in the UK and Australia.

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

#220

Post by twiddling »

mrRandomGuy wrote: post #29
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.

God, sometimes reading the comments on this website makes me want to burn my eyeballs off. Like, why is there such a large chunk of people who literally go to bat for such shit practices?

Kapos for the oligarchs...
Post reply on HN