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

301–310 of 344 posts

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

#301

Post by cycomachead »

rkk3 wrote: post #21
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.

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.

Hmm...I tend to agree...but why?

I would assume his output wasn't 0, so the economics are hard to justify. A typical engineer earns many times their salary in revenue for the company. So, maybe this guys was low performing, but maybe that works out to a wash in terms of revenue per employee.

Or maybe, Amazon says "actually, losing $500K to retain good people isn't that bad every so often" -- how many employees can realistically be in the situation? 100 a year? That's what, $50mm...nothing to Amazon in the big picture.

Obviously there comes a time when you need to fire people, and we don't have the full picture. But it's also not like this money really matters to Amazon that much either.

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

#302

Post by DomreiRoam »

hartator wrote: post #69
rewma wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. When I filed for paternity leave, I was paid quite a few weeks for not working at all, because the country where I live understands that workers are people who have lives and struggle…

> When I filed for paternity leave, I was paid quite a few weeks for not working at all, because the country where I live understands that workers are people who have lives and struggle with major life events. No country has this kind of benefits for plumbers who are mostly independent.

In Luxembourg, Self-employed can benefit from a Parental leave: https://guichet.public.lu/en/entreprises/ressources-humaines... Everybody pays 24% to the social security and receives benefits when needed.

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

#303

Post by robtherobber »

kcplate wrote: post #241
sangnoir wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

People seem to think that once they are hired that their employer owes them something more than the agreed upon compensation for the work they agreed to do for them. If your work capabilities continually suffer, short of legally protected events, at some point your company will make moves to end the employment if you are no longer able to provide value for your compensation. Doesn’t matter if Amazon or a mom and pop…

The company does owe employees a lot more than agreed compensation. Companies, as entities in our society, fulfill certain roles which are without exception means to something else. We use (commercial) companies as instruments to improve human life. Modern economy in its entirety is but an instrument and not a goal in itself.

I've grossly oversimplified things here for a number of reasons, but this is pretty much the gist of it.

Companies effectively work as tyrannies where the tradeoff involved (renounce freedoms for the promise that money is) appears to be eventually disadvantageous for the society, even though it may seem advantageous for the economy.

Companies owe society a better life or they're not fit for purpose.

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

#304

Post by JohnBooty »

kamaal wrote: post #278
JohnBooty wrote: post #83

This happened to me, as well. Not my wife and not Amazon, but actually a handful of family members dying over the last year. On one hand I completely understand my employer. Unlike Amazon, they do not have Amazon-style money. They are fighting to survive. Like the author I am not sure what they should have done for me. During the conversation where I was terminated, I told my boss I understood their position. They ne…

>>Or strictly obsessive coders who do nothing but code all day and don't have families and don't need PTO? Unfortunate, but true. If you look at the life profiles of 'rockstar coders' going around FANG like companies they are mostly single(and childless) people, with minimal to no family commitments/connections. These kind of people fit in perfectly into doing the weekend long leetcode tournaments. Changing jobs ever…

Yeah. I don't think that kind of "rockstar" coder typically benefits a company in the long run.

There are the true, true, true outliers: the Linus Torvalds and the John Carmacks, who truly solve problems that others can't.

But then there are people who write a bunch of blog posts, make some kind of name for themselves, show up and crap out a bunch of code, impressing management, etc. I don't think they are good at building systems. They make messes others need to clean up while they've already moved on to making their next mess.

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

#305

Post by thrownaway561 »

a friend of mine who works at Target and is on wellness leave right now for a month where she get 75% of her pay. all she had to do was have her physiatrist write a letter to her HR department. i don't know what Amazon policy is on things like this but I'm sure they are better than Target. bottom line is, look at all your options.

i feel bad for this dude... my heart goes out for him like you wouldn't believe. that said... he put himself in this situation, i would have NEVER have taken that job knowing my wife was sick. his previous boss was empathic and kind, who cares about the money when what he really needed was time with his wife.

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

#306

Post by dukeyukey »

kcplate wrote: post #241
sangnoir wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

People seem to think that once they are hired that their employer owes them something more than the agreed upon compensation for the work they agreed to do for them. If your work capabilities continually suffer, short of legally protected events, at some point your company will make moves to end the employment if you are no longer able to provide value for your compensation. Doesn’t matter if Amazon or a mom and pop…

> People seem to think that once they are hired that their employer owes them something more than the agreed upon compensation for the work they agreed to do for them.

Legally, no.

Morally and ethically, yes they do. And the consequences for breaking a moral or ethical 'rule' is loss of reputation, which is exactly what this post is doing to them. And if companies keep doing this kind of thing, as a society we might decide to make it a legal matter, like we did for minimum wage and protected classes.

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

#307

Post by javert »

loftyal wrote: post #219
javert wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I've never heard that before. Is there any way for me to verify that.

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

#308

Post by [deleted] »

Igelau wrote: post #245
javert wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

People never forgive you for telling the truth. Those are some salty "I wish they were wrong" downvotes.

[deleted]

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

#309

Post by kcplate »

dukeyukey wrote: post #306
kcplate wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People seem to think that once they are hired that their employer owes them something more than the agreed upon compensation for the work they agreed to do for them. If your work capabilities continually suffer, short of legally protected events, at some point your company will make moves to end the employment if you are no longer able to provide value for your compensation. Doesn’t matter if Amazon or a mom and pop…

> People seem to think that once they are hired that their employer owes them something more than the agreed upon compensation for the work they agreed to do for them. Legally, no. Morally and ethically, yes they do. And the consequences for breaking a moral or ethical 'rule' is loss of reputation, which is exactly what this post is doing to them. And if companies keep doing this kind of thing, as a society we might…

Would you make the argument the other way? Where employees owe their company more than their agreed upon effort? I don’t think so.

But what exactly did Amazon do here that was immoral or not ethical? Honestly I don’t see where it failed. The company may not of met the author’s expectations, but I feel like his expectation was “pay me no matter my performance because I cannot afford to take a LOA when my wife is dying, and I am way depressed because I never grieved for my brother…who died before I even came to work here.” Frankly, that is a wholly unreasonable expectation to place on any company.

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

#310

Post by my123 »

NullPrefix wrote: post #294
hawaiianbrah wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m a manager and don’t make 50% to 100+% more than the people that report to me that are around my level.

40% more?

Much less. Teams where the manager is paid less than the engineers that they manage aren't rare either.
Post reply on HN