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

221–230 of 344 posts

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

#221

Post by yibg »

ivraatiems wrote: post #32
illumin8 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read the timeline and it seems like he started in mid-late 2018, was having performance problems throughout 2019, and didn't even get fired until mid-2020. This is super generous, and while I have a lot of empathy for his personal situation, I think he could have had a much different outcome if he would have been more proactive about managing expectations: - Amazon does have a bereavement benefit that you definitel…

I'm not sure how it's done at Amazon - they are, after all, notorious for driving employees hard - but my understanding is that poor performance over a year or so is usually about the point at which firing begins to be discussed at large companies. And the problem wasn't that he didn't want to perform or was intrinsically a bad employee; the problem was that he literally couldn't due to circumstance. It's not generou…

What's the alternative though? Let the employee continue to underperform indefinitely? I feel the same way here. I have a lot of empathy for the author, what he went through sounds like hell. But I'm not sure what Amazon was supposed to do here.

This feels like a failing of the US health care system and social safety net more than anything else. Specifically in this case having to have a job (when you're least able to keep a job) to continue having medical insurance.

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

#222

Post by yibg »

rewma wrote: post #35
Jiro wrote: post #6

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.

> 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…

This wasn't a couple of weeks though. From the timelines in the story it was more than a year. Would you expect to keep getting paid on paternity leave for 2 years?

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

#223

Post by caeril »

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 dying wife's situation directly onto her? Hey honey I know you're dying, but let me make you feel guilty about it, too.

Incredible. Is Amazon a terrible place to work? Yeah. But this isn't about that. This is about casting being a greedy, terrible person in a sympathetic light.

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

#224

Post by yibg »

mrRandomGuy wrote: post #5
CoastalCoder wrote: post #2

I read through the article. I really, really hurt for its author, and pray that I never face similar circumstances. It sounds like he's stinging from his manager not expressing enough empathy. But with the information in the article, I don't really understand what Amazon should have done differently. Unfortunately the article was vague about just how much the author was underperforming. Also, while I'm no fan of Amaz…

A 'normal' company would understand that while a persons significant other is dying of a cancer, their work output may suffer as a result.

I think the issue is the time factor.

I think everyone agrees that if an employee is struggling for a short time then there should be some understanding, sympathy and accommodation. But I don't think anyone would argue that companies should do that forever.

The question is how long is reasonable. In this case it looks like it was almost 2 years (mid - end 2018 to Aug 2020). Granted performance issues probably didn't come up right away but from the article it sounded like it came up pretty soon after joining. 2 years is a long time.

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

#225

Post by refurb »

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.

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

#226

Post by cowvin »

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.

Family leave typically means you stop working while on leave and there will be a job waiting for you when your leave ends. Like with parental leave, you are typically expected to rely on government programs like disability insurance and such if you need to do so for a long time.

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

#227

Post by Plasmoid »

ctvo wrote: post #208
rewma wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Those lists tend to compute how long has the current employee worked here, instead of how many years of work do leaving employees have?

The list shows that older companies have significantly longer tenure numbers.

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

#228

Post by uncomputation »

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…

Jesus christ. The author said he needed the money to help support his wife’s medical bills. Show some compassion if you’re going to comment.

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

#229

Post by caeril »

uncomputation wrote: post #228
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…

Jesus christ. The author said he needed the money to help support his wife’s medical bills. Show some compassion if you’re going to comment.

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

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

#230

Post by uncomputation »

caeril wrote: post #229
uncomputation wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jesus christ. The author said he needed the money to help support his wife’s medical bills. Show some compassion if you’re going to comment.

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

Insurance does not cover everything. There is a wide variety in coverage.
Post reply on HN