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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

#231

Post by lloydgrossman »

refurb wrote: post #225
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.

Medical bankruptcy is still an issue in places with universal healthcare like Canada. Why? Even if all your bills are paid you still have a mortgage, food, etc. And even if you have long-term disability payments, it’s often some fraction of your existing salary requiring you to keep working to pay all the bills.

that's pretty non-sequitur to the situation at hand to the point of wondering why it's being mentioned.

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

#232

Post by madrox »

sangnoir wrote: post #212
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…

Yes, as an EM, I'm inclined to think of managers as people and not mustache-twirling villains who think of nothing but their 10%-30% bonus. Most of the ones I worked with are. Ad hominem attacks aside, though, is it not important to have full context before we get out the pitchforks...especially if we feel like there's probably some missing? The only information we have about this situation is the word of a fired employee who is inclined to make themselves sound as sympathetic as possible. This article is certainly scant on details.

I've worked for psychopaths and expected that when I read this, but I don't think that's the whole story this time.

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

#233

Post by caeril »

uncomputation wrote: post #230
caeril wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

6th paragraph, he was already fully insured at his previous job.

Insurance does not cover everything. There is a wide variety in coverage.

> What they offered me was almost $300,000 per year. That was a shitload of money in Tennessee. You can’t really say no, right?

If more and/or better medical coverage was on offer from AMZN, it would have been mentioned. Note that he didn't say "That money would give us much more headroom to cover the deductibles or non-covered procedures." No, he said "That was a shitload of money in Tennessee."

It was always about the Lambos.

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

#234

Post by HelixEndeavor »

triactual wrote: post #198
dml2135 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So you would want Amazon to pass him over because his wife has an existing medical condition? That would be a good article too.

Would it? "Your circumstances have us believe you're not the best fit for the company" is a scandal? Should Amazon be required to hire anyone who walks in the door?

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

#235

Post by sjtindell »

mabbo wrote: post #153
twalla wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A thought: be nice to recruiters. They're generally nice people who are underpaid for the work they do (usually). They're in a really tough business. And if you want a selfish take: Maybe today they're working for Amazon, but tomorrow they may be doing the same job at your dream company. They have too many people to try reaching out to, and they may remember your name.

Thoughts on responding at all? Does anyone expect it? It's not some humble brag but simple fact that I feel inundated and incapable of responding to all the messages I get. I leave every recruiter on read until I'm looking for a new job. Bad etiquette?

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

#236

Post by dgrin91 »

Heartbreaking story, I don't know what I would do in that scenario.

One thing I don't understand - is Amazon's family leave really totally unpaid? It feels like something got lost here. That's pretty untypical for a big company, especially tech. The question rolling around in my head is did this guy just mess up somehow not realizing that family leave was the correct option for him and he would get paid, or is Amazon really that bad with their benefits?

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

#237

Post by CoastalCoder »

caeril wrote: post #223

Ha, of course it's Mother Jones. I don't even know what to say. 1. You had stable employment, with an employer that you knew would be understanding. By your own admission, you knew the Amazon horror stories. But your greed won anyway. 2. "I remember talking to my wife about it and saying, I can’t believe these are my options." What kind of a dirtbag unloads the side effects (all of which he's responsible for) of his…

The parent comment seems like something I might have written before my dad passed away a few years ago.

Losing a close family member can change your perspective / priorities when discussing this stuff. But maybe it's hard to relate to that until it's happened to you personally.

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

#238

Post by uncomputation »

caeril wrote: post #233
uncomputation wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insurance does not cover everything. There is a wide variety in coverage.

> What they offered me was almost $300,000 per year. That was a shitload of money in Tennessee. You can’t really say no, right? If more and/or better medical coverage was on offer from AMZN, it would have been mentioned. Note that he didn't say "That money would give us much more headroom to cover the deductibles or non-covered procedures." No, he said "That was a shitload of money in Tennessee." It was always about…

I suppose. The decision was unwise given his family situation at the time, but it’s hard to put the blame on the loser here and let Amazon get away scot free while treating people infamously bad. The blame is on both parties here, but you seem to only blame the individual rather than the company.

Edit: On a completely unrelated note, does anyone know why Amazon compensates so highly but all of their consumer-facing software is, in my opinion, pretty lacking or dated compared to some of its FAANG peers? Is it just that B2B > B2C?

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

#239

Post by CoastalCoder »

iJohnDoe wrote: post #192

This isn’t surprising. People in work environments are just people. Most of them might be below average intelligence. What’s terrible is that no one else at Amazon helped to fix this situation? I understand most HR people are toxic. But no executive or anyone higher up thought this situation was wrong? Absolutely no one wanted to stick their neck out to do the right thing? This tells you everything you need to know a…

> This tells you everything you need to know about the corporate environment.

YMMV, but I've concluded it's important to withhold judgment until hearing all sides of a story. The Mother Jones article presented just one side.

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

#240

Post by CoastalCoder »

eecc wrote: post #149

I need to find the words to describe my feelings about this. Definitely involves drawing negative conclusions about Amazon. I feel lucky that despite my recent losses, I didn’t have to deal with this horror.

I hope this doesn't sound trite, but I'm sorry for your recent losses. I'm sure others in this discussion share that sentiment.
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