
“I Had a Baby and Cancer When I Worked at Amazon” - denzil_correa
https://medium.com/@jcheiffetz/i-had-a-baby-and-cancer-when-i-worked-at-amazon-this-is-my-story-9eba5eef2976
======
tinbad
This story doesn't surprise me at all. My 7 month pregnant wife is currently
going through the exact same experience at Google. As soon as she notified her
manager of her pregnancy, a week later they are trying to get rid of her. Made
her pick between PIP or 2 months severance. Before she could make her
decision, luckily, her doctor put her on leave because of a higher risk
pregnancy (twins), she was entitled to short term disability but the company
that handles Googles disability is a complete mess to deal with. It seems like
make it super difficult to make use of these 'perks' so you just give up and
don't bother. Anyway, long story short its the same everywhere. Im sure Larry
and Jeff had good intentions when they started their companies but now that
it's in the hands of middle management it's no different than any other big
corp.

~~~
gruez
what does PIP stand for?

~~~
doughj3
Performance Improvement Plan - it's when you get "evaluated" for
"underperforming" but is really just often used as a first step to getting rid
of someone.

~~~
x0x0
ie creating a paper trail of documentation of underperformance to prove that
you weren't discriminated against

------
curveship
Holy cow:

    
    
        "After my surgery [for cancer], while I was still on
         maternity leave, I received a form letter saying 
         that the health insurance provided by my employer 
         had been terminated. Dozens of panicked emails 
         and phone calls later, the whole thing was, I was
         told, a glitch in the system. After a week of back 
         and forth, I was offered COBRA coverage, by which 
         point I had already switched to my husband’s 
         insurance, where I remained for the duration of my 
         care."
    

That's a pretty GIGANTIC "glitch," one that turned out hugely in Amazon's
favor. Cheiffetz claims she accepts that it was an "administrative error," but
you have to wonder. By getting her to switch to her husband's plan, Amazon may
have saved themselves hundreds of thousands of dollars.

~~~
ohitsdom
The insurance company saved money, but did Amazon? I thought the portion of
premiums that employers pay is fixed? That's why everyone pays premiums- the
healthy subsidize the sick. And when there are more healthy than sick, the
insurance company profits.

What am I missing, how would Amazon save money by her switching insurance
providers?

~~~
chimeracoder
> The insurance company saved money, but did Amazon? I thought the portion of
> premiums that employers pay is fixed?

Large companies actually underwrite their own plans (this is known as self-
insuring[0]). The plan is managed by a known insurance company (e.g. Aetna,
Blue Cross), so from the employee's perspective it's the same, but the actual
risk is borne by the company. I would be very surprised if Amazon did not do
this, given their size (~200K employees) and company age (over 20 years).

As a rule of thumb, the break-even point is about 1000 lives covered. Once a
company gets to that point, it starts to be in their best interest to
underwrite the insurance plans they provide.

Source: Founded a health-tech company that sold to insurers (which meant
selling to companies that self-funded their plans as well, as they were they
real risk-bearing entity).

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-
funded_health_care](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-funded_health_care)

~~~
sjg007
Yes but a self insured company should also buy catastrophic reinsurance that
covers high claims cases.

~~~
chimeracoder
Reinsurance doesn't completely let the company off the hook for the costs (in
the long run). Even if reinsurance covers 100% of costs above the cap (which
it typically does not), those costs will just get factored into the future
premiums charged to the company[0] .

It makes it hard to place an exact price tag on how much this employee's
coverage would have cost the company without knowing the details, but it's
clear that it would have been very expensive to them one way or the other -
and certainly a lot more than it cost them to have her switch to her husband's
insurance instead.

[0] It's just like how your renter's insurance rates will [often] skyrocket
immediately if you try to file any claim at all. People aren't used to this in
the consumer health insurance market because there's a lot of indirection in
the healthcare system, but that's how _all_ insurance models work at a high
level[1], so that's how the costs all (eventually) flow (extra emphasis on
"eventually").

[1] There's also the added wrinkle that we _also_ use "health insurance" as a
political tool to do things that have nothing to do with risk smoothing at
all, so the model gets tricky to unpack, but that's a separate matter.

~~~
sib
While I agree with your comment overall, this "It's just like how your
renter's insurance rates will skyrocket immediately if you try to file any
claim at all" is not true in all cases. I filed what turned out to be a $10K
claim for theft against renter's insurance, on a policy that I had only had
for about 3 years. The claim was paid in full, with no pushback, even though I
did not have receipts for all of the items stolen, and there was absolutely
zero increase in premium. The policy has been renewed twice since then, again,
without premium increase.

------
grecy
It saddens me that in the 21st century in the richest country in the world
people having babies and being diagnosed with cancer have to worry about
treatment and money, the last thing they should be thinking about.

What a sad state of affairs.

~~~
tweakz
The U.S. is not the richest country in the world, at least not anymore.

~~~
itslennysfault
Who cares. This "actually, we're not #1" pedantic bs is just a distraction
from the problem.

The point was we are VERY rich and could afford to not have our citizens
stress about healthcare.

~~~
praptak
It's not "you" who is very rich.

~~~
forgetsusername
> _It 's not "you" who is very rich._

Oh no? I'm in top 0.2% in income in the world, and I'm sure there are people
here doing far better than I am. How about you?

[http://www.globalrichlist.com/](http://www.globalrichlist.com/)

------
kevcampb
If you can lose your health insurance for being sick, it's not insurance.

~~~
xlm1717
If you can only use it for routine and preventative care, and not for
emergencies, it's not insurance. It's a backwards payment plan that puts all
the risk on the patient, instead of the insurance company. It doesn't "insure"
anything. It only insures that you lose coverage when it stops being a payment
plan.

Calling it insurance is a farce.

~~~
pbreit
That's the one thing a really don't like about Obamacare: it's doing away with
"catastrophic insurance" which is really what insurance actually is.

But I suspect when given the choice between cheap insurance or an expensive
payment plan, everyone would pick the former.

~~~
yuliyp
That's because the US has turned into a defacto buyer-coalition system where
you have to pay to join a club (health insurance provider) which negotiates
rates with health care providers. If you don't join such a club, you get
charged rates that can be significantly higher (read 2x or more).

------
roymurdock
I once took a class on business operations. In it, we studied the value
discipline model of the firm:

 _To succeed in the marketplace, companies must embrace a competitive
strategy. Authors Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersma describe three generic
competitive strategies, or value disciplines: operational excellence, customer
intimacy and product leadership. These are described in their book, The
Discipline of Market Leaders (1997).

The author’s main premise is that companies must choose—and then
achieve—market leadership in one of the three disciplines, and perform to an
acceptable level in the other two._ [1]

Operational Excellence: Amazon, Walmart

Product Leadership: Apple, Mercedes Benz

Customer Intimacy: Nordstroms, Home Depot

We studied Amazon and Walmart as case studies for companies that have pushed
the boundaries of operational excellence. You can also think of these
companies as the ones who cut costs on a race to the bottom; companies at
which efficiency is prized above all else.

Don't have a kid while working for a company that demonstrates a strict
adherence to the value proposition of operational excellence. You will be
regarded as just another expendable cost on the bottom line, and you will be
replaced by a younger, hungrier individual with less commitments outside of
work. The company will find a way around the laws that generally protect
mothers/fathers in these situations - that is why they are a market leader,
because they will go where no other companies are willing/able to in order to
uphold the mantra of operational excellence.

[1] [http://www.marsdd.com/mars-library/competitive-strategies-
in...](http://www.marsdd.com/mars-library/competitive-strategies-in-
operational-excellence-customer-intimacy-and-product-leadership/)

~~~
alex_doom
How is Home Depot a model of "Customer Intimacy". Have you been to one of
their stores? If you do, god forbid, don't ever go on the weekend and look for
help.

~~~
smtddr
I don't know where you are... but in Bay Area, California my experience with
Home Depot locations around here have always been very positive. There's
always someone walking around with those orange aprons and they always know
where something is in the store. Note though, that before I go to Home Depot
I've done all the research I can on what I need to fix/create whatever I need
in my home. I've watched youtube vids of people making repairs very similar to
what I'm trying to do. So I don't go in like a deer in the headlights; when I
show up at Home Depot I know exactly what item I need or very specific
question to ask.

~~~
saboot
This widely varies. In Livermore (technically Bay Area) I asked a simple
question of whether they sold a compass. The man in the orange apron had no
idea what a compass was, and I had to correct his spelling of 'compass' as he
searched for it on homedepot.com . It was very bizzare.

------
mjt0229
A coworker of mine at Amazon was diagnosed with cancer, and as far as I can
tell, he was treated with the utmost respect and decency. His team and
managers made a lot of accommodation for him while he underwent treatment.
Unfortunately, he eventually passed away - to my knowledge, he was still
employed to the very end (I moved away and left the company for other reasons,
but many of my friends/coworkers stayed and are still there today).

So, I have an anecdote, and this story is an anecdote. I'm not saying that my
friend's story offsets the story here (especially because I wasn't the cancer
patient in either case). Let's slow down before we draw too many conclusions
from either one.

~~~
jobu
From the Article:

 _" You can’t claim to be a data-driven company and not release more specific
numbers on how many women and people of color apply, get hired and promoted,
and stay on as employees. In the absence of meaningful public data —
especially retention data — all we have are stories."_

Unless Amazon is willing to release the numbers, then most people will tend to
believe the bad stories (like Julia's) over stories like your friend's.

~~~
brlewis
People can believe both stories. Even companies a lot smaller than Amazon can
be inconsistent in how they handle things.

~~~
zamalek
That is the ultimate truth. If Bezos really stands by what he says then he's
got to root out and cut out the [managerial] cancer is his company.

------
webaholic
The NYTimes article just turned the tap on. I am sure that the snippets in the
nytimes article were not one off anymore.

~~~
gdulli
I roughly 2006 I planned to leave my job and go to a new city, and Amazon was
the first company I considered working for because the Pacific northwest
interested me.

Some light research online indicated that Amazon would not be a good place to
work. It was just anecdotes, but I had a nagging feeling that these negative
anecdotes about Amazon were easier to find than for other large companies I
was considering. I decided against pursuing Amazon, but wondered if I had put
too much weight on this research.

It stuck in my mind and all the other negative things I've heard about Amazon
between 2006 and now sort of snowballed for me. How they treat their corporate
employees, how they treat their warehouse employees. How they treat their
business partners. How they treat their sellers. (Hint: the opposite of how
they treat their buyers.) And so on.

So the recent NYT article told me nothing new. I had already realized that
Amazon had this definite pattern. Whereas the occasional anecdote you hear
about other companies just remains a few anecdotes, it doesn't become a
pattern.

~~~
MCRed
For most readers of Hacker News, though, I suspect that they see these
anecdotes rarely, and for many the NYT article is the first one... yet they
have seen press releases from Amazon that are designed to tout it as a tech
company and Jeff Bezos as the next Steve Jobs, every month, like clock work
for the past decade. (and we'll get even more of them now.)

The anecdotes are hard to find. Glassdoor promotes positive reviews over
negative ones, effectively burying them, even when the negative ones have more
up votes and you're looking at reviews ranked by vote!

Most people Amazon is hiring aren't exposed to the negative reviews of the
company.

~~~
fludlight
Glassdoor's revenue comes from companies advertising to job seekers. It would
not surprise me if this comes with a handshake deal to make the advertiser
look good.

~~~
shostack
Glassdoor's entire revenue stream is dependent on having a user-base visit
them to generate the impressions that comprise their inventory of job seekers.

That user-base will only continue to visit Glassdoor if they maintain their
reputation of having credible reviews around companies. It really does not
seem in their best interest to shoot themselves in the foot in that regard. Of
course Yelp was accused of similar things (whether true or not) and I'm not
sure it really hurt them, so who knows.

------
Sealy
If you aspire to be a startup entrepreneur, take note. Stories are the most
powerful form of communication you can use. Whether its your experience in
working for Amazon, or a multi billion dollar pitch for your next startup.

Great piece.

~~~
untog
This seems like a very strange lesson to take away from a woman being denied
healthcare.

------
darren884
This is why I would never want to work at Amazon. I get requests from their
recruiters all the time and based on these stories even though they most it
seems are not related to the technology department make me disgusted when I
think of working for them. They have great products (which I really enjoy) and
software but if they cannot take care of their employees how well can they
take care of their customers? It is sad that a company like this does this. It
tells me you cannot enjoy your life working for a company like them.

~~~
jedahan
Why not go through the interview process (perhaps as practice for companies
you actually care about) and then if you get to an offer stage, politely
decline then cite the reasons. Your decline should be much more visible as
many more people past the initial recruiter will have met with you, etc. Might
make more of a difference.

~~~
shostack
More importantly, it gives you the chance to have a conversation with real
people (and hopefully ones you'd be working with) to get a clearer picture of
things with which to make a more balanced decision.

------
bechampion
Good for her that switched jobs and carried on. In terms of Amazon ... who
knows .. another company that don't give a shit about their people.

~~~
atopuzov
Exactly, Amazon does not give a shit!

------
coderdude
I'm going to take the road less traveled and be critical. For a piece that is
essentially about a (painful and harsh) health insurance screw-up, this
article is shoehorning quite an agenda:

> I met some of the strongest, most brilliant women of my career there.

> I quickly noted, when it came to leadership positions, they were almost all
> men.

> the voices commenting on the New York Times piece so far have been
> predominantly male leaders of male-dominated teams.

> Women power your retail engine. They buy diapers. They buy books. They buy
> socks for their husbands on Prime.

> On behalf of all the people who want to speak up but can’t: Please, make
> Amazon a more hospitable place for women and parents.

> You can’t claim to be a data-driven company and not release more specific
> numbers on how many women and people of color apply, get hired and promoted,
> and stay on as employees.

Those types of statements can make sense in the right context but they seem
out of place here, in this article. I wasn't able to make that connection that
she seems to be able to make readily and without effort.

~~~
cpeterso
> a piece that is essentially about a (painful and harsh) health insurance
> screw-up

Did you miss the second half of the article where her team taken from her and
she was placed on a PIP when she returned from maternity leave?

~~~
coderdude
Clearly I read the entire article. I don't consider that to be relevant to the
quotes I pulled and I'll explain why. She had a team, she went away for
several months, the team needed be reassigned and when she returned, she
(rightfully) expected to be returned to that same leadership position. But,
what had happened, was that the team was reassigned. That much makes sense.
I'm sure she got screwed over in that situation but I still don't make the
connection she's drawing.

~~~
RogerL
You are treated like crap in multiple ways at Amazon is the connection.

~~~
coderdude
Being treated like crap doesn't automatically mean you're being treated like
crap because of your gender or race. Right? I can't be the only person who
believes that.

~~~
bonaldi
Amazon apparently doesn't have proper maternity leave procedures in place: if
you go on mat leave it treats it like you left the company and your team gets
reassigned. That's crap treatment that will only happen to one gender.

~~~
coderdude
They have paternity leave, too. You're making a claim that can actually be
verified so if you have any information to put forward, please do.

~~~
bonaldi
There's a difference between allowing people to take parental leave (eg their
legal requirement) and actually supporting it.

If they only pay lip service to the letter of the law and you return to find
your job effectively gone, then that's still crap treatment that will
disproportionately affect one gender, given the usual length of maternity
leave compared to paternity

~~~
saranagati
but she did return to her existing job, it's just that it was now working with
another team. would it be fair for the people who had been working for the
interim manager to now have to switch managers again? that is going to affect
their annual review and possible promotions. on top of that all her directs
except for one were already gone, so why would it make sense to put her back
on that team? did she start working there specifically to run that team
because thats not usually how these big companies work, people are expected to
have to occassionally switch from one team or another.

~~~
bonaldi
That's zero-sum: the (minor) cost the team pays for supporting the leave is
repaid by the support they get when they need to take leave themselves.

The other things could and should have been improved by Amazon. Their
obligation is to get you back into a situation as close as practicable to the
one you left.

~~~
saranagati
what are you talking about? reporting to a new manager is far from a minor
cost, especially when it's a manager you never reported to to begin with.
since everyone else is making random unfounded statements, her going on
maternity leave probably had a lot to do with why there was only one person
left on the team when she came back.

what about the new manager? why should they have to change teams? basically
what you're saying is that everyone on the team should suffer significantly so
that one person can return to lead the same team with different members rather
than just leading a new team that needs a manager?

~~~
bonaldi
If properly handled maternity cover is a pretty painless process. It's not
like a boss quitting: there are handover periods and keep-in-touch mechanisms.
The new manager should be explicitly hired for maternity cover, and have their
expectations set. It happens in most of Europe, almost without comment it's so
routine.

If it's a massive career-impacting hassle for employees of people on leave at
Amazon, where they "suffer significantly" that's yet more evidence for Amazon
being a terrible place to work.

------
amyjess
> I was placed on a dubious performance improvement plan, or PIP, a signal at
> Amazon that your employment is at risk.

Ah, the PIP. Shorthand for "we're going to get rid of you because of office
politics, but only after we humiliate you and make you feel like a horrible
person".

~~~
cpeterso
The PIP also encourages the employee to resign instead of waiting to be fired,
minimizing employer risk of wrongful termination lawsuits or having to pay
severance. In the author's case, she resigned; the PIP was a success for
Amazon.

------
Xyik
Thank you. For all this talk about Amazon being a 'data-driven' company, I
have yet to see any data on their employee churn rates from the people
defending Amazon. I wonder why we don't hear about these types of horror
stories from other companies?

------
pbreit
It's frustrating because Google and Amazon are no doubt extremely impressive
and truly have "changed the world".

The problem is that a lot of jerks are using the self-proclaimed "changing the
world" mantle as cover for their lousy behavior.

------
danharaj
No matter how skilled you are, no matter how much you're compensated, to be
labor is to be the disposable, exploitable end of these modern relations of
production. To management, to the owner (whether an individual or a
corporation owned by institutions owned by faceless stakeholders) you are but
labor-power.

Your body, your self, your individual knitted from human fabric is a
liability. If they could chop your labor-power from your flesh, from your
family, from your community, and expropriate it as their own, the owners
would. The labor market is not a market for human beings, it is a market for
working bodies. Bodies that don't work profitably are bad bodies.

~~~
mindcrime
So are we just going to spout Marxist dogma, or do you have some idea for a
solution? Preferably something that doesn't require a massive government
apparatus and that doesn't infringe on the rights of every individual to make
their own choices?

~~~
api
My own view is this:

The ideal would be to have a strong social safety net and a fair system of
redistribution that operates with minimal micromanagement or intrusion into
individual affairs.

Basically you have a government that taxes everyone according to the same rate
and provides health care, unemployment and disability protection, insurance
against certain emergencies (FEMA, etc.), and some sort of basic income. But
as long as you pay into this system and are a 'shareholder' you can do
whatever you want.

Employment should be at-will. Companies should be easy to start. Regulations
should be minimal and justified by specific rationales (e.g. environmental
protection).

The problem with the USSR and to a much lesser extent European Socialist
countries is that they try to micro-manage. They have all these messes of laws
that try to dictate exactly how things work and exactly how people must live
their lives. That doesn't work. It just chokes everything and weighs
everything down.

The irony is that all this micro-management is put into place because the
obvious alternative -- just redistributing wealth -- is politically toxic. So
instead of just redistributing wealth, we try to reach in and piecemeal adjust
the operation of capitalism to make it 'more fair.' The end result is the
worst of both worlds: the system remains unfair, and we end up with
micromanaging regulations that are far more expensive than what it would cost
to just redistribute wealth.

The US healthcare system is a great example. We have everything that is bad
about micro-managing Socialism (heavy regulations, bureaucracy, inefficiency)
combined with everything that is bad about capitalism/free market healthcare
(inequality, losing coverage when you get sick, etc.).

No "system" is fair. All systems contain intrinsic biases, emergent behaviors,
randomness, massive opportunities for cheating and exploitation, and
unintentional/non-obvious "goal functions" that conflict with the stated
intents of their designers or operators. Constructing a fair system through
central planning is impossible... IMHO it is "perpetual motion" or "halting
problem" impossible. Complex living systems are not logical and their
behaviors cannot be pre-specified by an intelligent designer.

Wealth redistribution is the obvious answer. Instead of trying to impose the
impossible on a chaotic counter-intuitive world, just apply noise reduction
and normalization.

~~~
Apocryphon
The insane thing is that what you're describing isn't even remarkable. _Other_
capitalist countries have it. It's just the U.S. doesn't, and doesn't even
want it.

~~~
api
I'm not sure about that. As far as I know European social democracies
micromanage too much.

One thing none of these countries seem to get is that complex regulations and
micromanagement are more expensive than taxation. These things have huge
unintended costs, largely in time and in preventing innovation.

If we had free health care and basic income, who cares about at-will
employment? If I lose my job, I'll just move on. You don't _need_ all those
regulations if you apply a "fairness correction" after the fact.

~~~
Apocryphon
How about the East Asian Tigers? Or maybe Britain and the Anglosphere? I don't
think they necessarily all micromanage at the same level as the Euros do.

------
MCRed
I totally understand and sympathize with her viewpoint, even though it differs
from my own, because much of this reads like someone who was kicked out of
Scientology but still thinks the Church of Scientology is full of brilliant
people making the world a better place-- that adoration for how great a
company Amazon is, that comes thru in this piece, is the exact same flavor
that the company cult works to reinforce, much the way the scientology cult
does.

Yes, as someone who has dated a member of the church of scientology, and had a
good friend get married there, then divorced when they discovered her husbands
great grandfather worked for the IRS, and then re-married in a scientology
arranged wedding, and seen the consequent personality changes and
manipulations, .... and as someone who worked for Amazon for three years... I
feel quite comfortable comparing Amazon to the Church of Scientology.

The funny thing is, this article reminds me of something I didn't notice.
Things really were different in the way women were treated. There's definitely
a bit of male chauvinism going on, and also women were treated _better_ at
amazon, probably because they were seen as more helpless and delicate. They
certainly got less abuse in my group than the men did.

This is the lesson to take away-- the really dangerous thing is not just that
Amazon is often a hostile and abusive workplace-- you can find that anywhere,
and you can find pockets of decency in Amazon as well.

The lesson to learn is-- and this is leaking out about Amazon over and over--
that Amazon is a cult.

Her comment about the PIP being obviously a way to move out out-- shows that
the actions (the PIP) have the opposite intended purpose to what they are
supposed to. If an employee messes up (eg: goes thru a divorce and their work
suffers) then they should be helped to improve.

That PIP is obvious code for "we're giving this person the ax and we're only
keeping them around to cover our asses legally" shows that the company is
manipulative and deceitful. -- If a firing was legitimate, they wouldn't need
to lie with the PIP. If PIPs were used for their intended purpose, people
wouldn't know that it was time to resign.

This kind of mantra heavy, "culture" heavy, ideological heavy, deceitful
attitudes from a company are, in my experience, clear signs the company is
very much like a cult.

I saw it in Scientology, at Amazon and at another company I worked for (also
terrible)... but none of this existed at the other 20+ companies I've worked
for in my career.

------
davidann
As a shameless plug, where I work (Moz), offers 3 months of _paid_
paternity/maternity leave.

I'm always learning, always growing and it's a great place to work.

[https://moz.com/about/jobs](https://moz.com/about/jobs)

------
williamtrask
how does this have 420 points after 8 hours...yet is on the 4th page?

------
wwwhatcrack
Congratulations?

------
brookside
Cold.

------
KiDD
I read working at Amazon gave me a baby and cancer

------
angersock
This is pretty horrendous--at the same time, I'm a little puzzled: if you are
gone for almost half a year and you're in a leadership position, is it that
surprising the company will route around you?

EDIT:

I guess what I'm asking is: how do we square "hey, workers need to be able to
take family leave for potentially long periods of time" with "this team needs
a leader"? It's a tricky question, and the shittiest answer is "oh, well, you
can work from home! XD".

~~~
potatolicious
You need people who can cover in leadership positions - this happens all the
time, how do you handle a leader going on a 3-week vacation to Bali?

Obviously, longer term absences are qualitatively different, but again not
insurmountable.

More importantly though is that not only had someone else taken over her
position permanently, but she was put on a PIP. A PIP is usually reserved for
extremely poor performers who are on the razor's edge of termination, not an
otherwise good performer who just returned from an extended absence.

But of course I know multiple people at Amazon who had PIPs used against them
politically - a PIP is an employment lawsuit mitigation strategy, even though
it's a "Performance Improvement Plan" there is never an actual intention to
follow through, it's _always_ the precursor to firing.

Her team being taken away from her because she went on maternity leave is
extremely shitty. Her being put on a PIP immediately after returning is what
takes this from "shitty" to "heinous".

~~~
pc86
> there is never an actual intention to follow through, it's _always_ the
> precursor to firing.

No, it's not. I've had employees on PIPs that are here years later with no
problems.

~~~
Spooky23
Individual contributors, sure. I've never seen someone in a leadership
position who had their staff suddenly stripped away and put on a PIP for not
delivering make it through without some "divine" intervention.

~~~
potatolicious
Not to mention PIPs-out-of-nowhere IMO always represent a decision that has
already been made, and the PIP is just the follow-through.

If this is genuinely a case where your manager has repeatedly told you about
your poor performance, and is now going official with a PIP, then yeah,
probably recoverable if you get your head screwed on right and do a great job.

But a PIP that hits you out of left field unexpectedly is pretty much always a
political maneuver, and represents a decision to fire you that has already
been made.

------
torgoguys
Lots to dislike about Amazon in that story, but 5 months leave and still have
a job! (Or maybe not because of the PIP...) Oh to be so lucky on that point!

------
78666cdc
Why would you expect to be able to come back into having people report to you
after a five month leave from a high-paced environment? Getting brought back
up to speed will be obviously necessary, and the PIP thing sounds like an
explicit effort towards exactly that. So, in the end, she collected half a
year's pay for no work, and then quit.

The insurance "glitch" is highly suspicious, but, aside from that, I can't
help but coming away from this article with an impression of an air of self-
entitlement.

The obvious agenda (and probably the only reason this weakly composed and
unconvincing narrative even got published) regarding gender in tech seems
absolutely shoehorned in. At companies like these, women in fact have a clear
advantage in getting hired - though that is damaged by stories of women
collecting pay for no work and then quitting right afterwards.

I am glad that the author has recovered and is healthy, but this article is
very unconvincing.

~~~
objclxt
> _Why would you expect to be able to come back into having people report to
> you after a five month leave from a high-paced environment?_

You seem to be suggesting that if I'm a manager and I take maternity leave
it's totally OK for me to come back to a completely different position with no
reports or responsibility. That seems...wrong.

> _So, in the end, she collected half a year 's pay for no work, and then quit
> [...] At companies like these, women in fact have a clear advantage in
> getting hired - though that is damaged by stories of women collecting pay
> for no work and then quitting right afterwards._

That sounds like the ramblings of a misogynist. Firstly, you say women have a
"clear advantage" at tech companies, when there's absolutely no evidence
that's the case (indeed, all of the evidence is the opposite: most tech firms
are majority male, with very few women in leadership roles). Secondly, you
seem to be suggesting we shouldn't provide paid maternity (or paternity) leave
and to do so damages a company, when again all the _evidence_ on productivity
suggests that companies that provide such benefits perform better and have
more satisfied employees that are retained for longer.

> _I can 't help but coming away from this article with an impression of an
> air of self-entitlement._

Yes, _how dare_ a women who goes off to have children expect to be able to
come back into the workplace in the same position she had when she left?

Comments like yours illustrate exactly what's wrong with the industry. In a
way it's a shame you're going to be downvoted because people really need to
see the kind of crap that gets thrown around.

~~~
78666cdc
You're strongly misinterpreting what I said. Of course she should be back in
the same position after maternity leave.

But when there's a team of people that report to you, they need to report to
someone else while you're away for five months. Of course when you go back
they'll be reporting to someone else until you're back up to speed on what's
gone on for nearly half a year.

Whether getting back up to speed takes 15 minutes or two weeks will of course
very with respect to the position and the project.

See also the edit I added to my original comment.

Edit: and yes, in my experience and from what I've seen, women have a clear
advantage in hiring. Note that I specifically said "hiring" advantage.

------
wehadfun
What are companies supposed to do when their employees become mothers?

Women have baby and when this happens she is going to be out for a month
probably longer. Her family will encounter medical cost along with whatever
expences existed before and she will not be able to work to pay for this.

We point the finger at whatever company happens to be her employeer and act
like it is there responsibility to pay the bills.

I feel like society through the government should either pay this bill or be
willing to accept what a company does in its financial interest.

~~~
mindcrime
_What are companies supposed to do when their employees become mothers?_

Offer a nice, lengthy maternity/paternity leave policy and give the new
parents plenty of time to adjust to their new lives, and then make sure their
jobs are still available to them (barring some crazy circumstance) when they
return.

OTOH, for a parent returning from leave, I don't think it's necessarily the
case that you should expect everything to be as it was, when you return. The
company, and the world, don't just go "on pause" while you're out. The
business has to continue to adjust and adapt the reality it operates in, so if
your direct reports have been moved, your project cancelled, shuffled, re-
budgeted, your responsibilities re-distributed, etc., then I think you just
have to accept that. But the company obviously should make an effort to get
you back into a productive position as soon as possible.

 _I feel like society through the government should either pay this bill or be
willing to accept what a company does in its financial interest._

Having a baby is a choice, unlike cancer (excepting rape cases or whatever).
How about people just don't have babies unless they are able to handle the
financial implications of doing so? Why should somebody else be on the hook to
pay because you decided to have a baby?

~~~
mindcrime
Perhaps you downvoters would care to actually share your opinion? Do you
disagree with my assertion that having a baby is a choice? If so, I'd like to
hear your justification for that.

Or do you disagree that the ethical thing for companies to do, is to offer a
generous maternity/paternity leave policy?

~~~
bonaldi
Sure, having a baby is a choice, but it's also a universal human right -- and
like the other rights, society needs to protect those. It protects them in
some cases by putting obligations onto employers. That's why "someone else
should be on the hook".

A society where rights become secondary to the unrestricted pursuit of profit
is not a good society.

~~~
mindcrime
_Sure, having a baby is a choice, but it 's also a universal human right --
and like the other rights, society needs to protect those._

I think we have different definitions of what a "right" is. A "right" in my
book, is "something you don't need to ask permission to do". So yeah, I agree
that having a baby, in and of itself, _is_ a right. But, I disagree that the
exercise of that right then automatically creates a burden on me, or you, or
anybody else, to support the new baby.

That doesn't mean that you, or I, or anyone else in particular, won't
sometimes - if the means are available - help a less fortunate person who is
struggling to feed their child or what-have-you. And I personally am FAR more
sensitive to the needs of children than I am to adults. But there's a big
difference between what someone will do, if asked, because they believe it is
right, and the idea that they are _obligated_ to do those things.

 _A society where rights become secondary to the unrestricted pursuit of
profit is not a good society._

As far as I'm concerned, your rights are your rights, and profit doesn't even
enter into the equation. But, again, we probably have a different idea of what
a "right" is.

To put it a different way, I do not believe in so-called "positive rights" as
discussed at
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights)

~~~
bonaldi
I was using the definition of the UN declaration of universal human rights:
[http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/](http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/)

That may not match the definition in your book, but their book is bigger and
is written with the blood of multiple wars and genocides. I think society in
general, and I in particular, expect companies to honour that definition and
stand up to the obligations it engenders in them.

~~~
mindcrime
_That may not match the definition in your book, but their book is bigger and
is written with the blood of multiple wars and genocides._

So it's right just because the UN say so? Sounds like an appeal to authority
to me. But anyway, it's kind of a moot point, because we're never going to get
100% agreement on this stuff. The divide over positive/negative rights alone
is too sharp and to ingrained in people's psyche. And the UN document is a
muddled-up mishmash of both kinds of rights. There's some good stuff in there'
but a lot of it is total hokum as well. _shrug_

 _I think society in general, and I in particular, expect companies to honour
that definition and stand up to the obligations it engenders in them._

I don't see any particular reason that companies (or anyone else) should adopt
the UN's doctrines over any other.

~~~
bonaldi
If you want to get all fundamental about it, it's right because of their
might. Most societies are signed up to it, and they're much bigger than you.

Society might adopt your peculiar view of a right someday, when it does we can
judge Amazon by that. Until then, we should actually existing mores.

~~~
mindcrime
My view is hardly "peculiar". It's actually quite common, and the divide I
speak of is an old and bitter philosophical debate among people who care about
this sort of thing. As for the UN, no, I don't think I'll be changing my
position just because "they're big". Imagine the world we'd live in if
everybody adhered to _that_ kind of thinking.

~~~
bonaldi
It's not the view used to judge human rights cases or build international law
upon. And if not the control of might, it would be interesting to - somewhere
else - talk about the foundations you would rest society upon.

