Amazon Staffer Says She Was Fired over Bathroom Breaks for Bowel Issue

Cue the amazon defenders with their “it’s not that bad amazon is better than working in a coal mine suck-it-up softie”. Humans are not AWS instances. We need bathroom breaks, conversations, time off when a family member dies, and high enough wages we can build our lives and care for the people in them. If your company is not doing that, then it is actively harming the people who make you money - and should be driven out of business.

Re: Amazon Staffer Says She Was Fired over Bathroom Breaks for Bowel Issue

#5

Post by Permit » Mon, Aug 23, 2021, 12:22 AM UTC

> According to the filing, when she told a manager in November about her IBS and that she needed to use the bathroom up to six times a day, the manager told her to get a doctor's note. It appeared from the filing that Olivero didn't get the note.

> Olivero then said in the filing that in January her manager said she was going to be written up, and that she'd need to get a doctor's note within five days.

That seems... reasonable? Two months is a decent amount of time. How long should Amazon have waited?

Re: Amazon Staffer Says She Was Fired over Bathroom Breaks for Bowel Issue

#6

Post by CodeWriter23 » Mon, Aug 23, 2021, 12:29 AM UTC

Permit wrote: post #5

> According to the filing, when she told a manager in November about her IBS and that she needed to use the bathroom up to six times a day, the manager told her to get a doctor's note. It appeared from the filing that Olivero didn't get the note. > Olivero then said in the filing that in January her manager said she was going to be written up, and that she'd need to get a doctor's note within five days. That seems...…

I doubt in 60 days one can accumulate 1 day of sick time to use to go to the doctor. An unexcused absence during the probationary period would likely result in immediate termination.

Re: Amazon Staffer Says She Was Fired over Bathroom Breaks for Bowel Issue

#7

Post by kradeelav » Mon, Aug 23, 2021, 12:30 AM UTC

Permit wrote: post #5

> According to the filing, when she told a manager in November about her IBS and that she needed to use the bathroom up to six times a day, the manager told her to get a doctor's note. It appeared from the filing that Olivero didn't get the note. > Olivero then said in the filing that in January her manager said she was going to be written up, and that she'd need to get a doctor's note within five days. That seems...…

Not requiring a doctor's note for going to the restroom infrequently seems a bit more on the reasonable end.

I'd have more sympathy for Amazon if, say, she was AWOL from work for more than an hour a day with no explanation. Humans are not machines and deserve some flexibility with their time.

Re: Amazon Staffer Says She Was Fired over Bathroom Breaks for Bowel Issue

#8

Post by missedthecue » Mon, Aug 23, 2021, 12:34 AM UTC

CodeWriter23 wrote: post #6

Permit wrote: post #5

> According to the filing, when she told a manager in November about her IBS and that she needed to use the bathroom up to six times a day, the manager told her to get a doctor's note. It appeared from the filing that Olivero didn't get the note. > Olivero then said in the filing that in January her manager said she was going to be written up, and that she'd need to get a doctor's note within five days. That seems...…

I doubt in 60 days one can accumulate 1 day of sick time to use to go to the doctor. An unexcused absence during the probationary period would likely result in immediate termination.

Someone with diagnosed IBS could get a note in an email exchange with their primary physician.

Re: Amazon Staffer Says She Was Fired over Bathroom Breaks for Bowel Issue

#9

Post by Touche » Mon, Aug 23, 2021, 12:35 AM UTC

Permit wrote: post #5

> According to the filing, when she told a manager in November about her IBS and that she needed to use the bathroom up to six times a day, the manager told her to get a doctor's note. It appeared from the filing that Olivero didn't get the note. > Olivero then said in the filing that in January her manager said she was going to be written up, and that she'd need to get a doctor's note within five days. That seems...…

They should not require doctors notes for using the bathroom. Be a human.

Re: Amazon Staffer Says She Was Fired over Bathroom Breaks for Bowel Issue

#10

Post by geofft » Mon, Aug 23, 2021, 12:36 AM UTC

Permit wrote: post #5

> According to the filing, when she told a manager in November about her IBS and that she needed to use the bathroom up to six times a day, the manager told her to get a doctor's note. It appeared from the filing that Olivero didn't get the note. > Olivero then said in the filing that in January her manager said she was going to be written up, and that she'd need to get a doctor's note within five days. That seems...…

Why require a doctor's note at all?

Humans need to go to the bathroom sometimes, and six times in a workday is, while higher than average, not terribly so. If your business processes cannot deal with humans who need to use the bathroom, that's the fault of the business process, not of the humans. It's like me running code on a cloud instance and then asking Amazon for a hardware tech's note when it reboots for hardware issues. My job, as an SRE, is to design computer systems in a way where it's okay if computers crash every so often, and if I can't do that, that's me failing at my job. Their job, as a supervisor, is to design human systems in a way where it's okay if humans go to the bathroom every so often.

Note that I'm not saying that you need to allow employees to sit in the bathroom for eight hours straight and then clock out. By all means, require that they get their work done! Just measure them on work done.

What is the doctor's note even supposed to prove? Suppose that the employee is lying about IBS and just likes the ambiance of bathrooms. Weird, sure, but does that affect your business processes? Again, measure them on work done.

If you're worried the employee is going to the bathroom to get high, or to hook up with coworkers in violation of ethics policies, or to leak trade secrets, or whatever, then go after that.