Amazon Staffer Says She Was Fired over Bathroom Breaks for Bowel Issue(businessinsider.com) |
Amazon Staffer Says She Was Fired over Bathroom Breaks for Bowel Issue(businessinsider.com) |
> 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?
I want to honestly ask you, how would you feel if someone monitored how many times you got up to stretch, how often you went to the bathroom, chatted with a coworker, or even just paused in thought and stopped touching your keyboard/mouse. Like a fucking human with diginity does. Would that not feel weird in your perspective? I certainly get vibes that this type of managerial practice is draconian and dehumanizing, and although my information about her day to day is limited, from the article, it seemed like an excuse to power trip and fire without justified cause.
It's inhumane, yes, but it's not Amazon-specific.
Blue collar work / retail is not like tech where your output is not necessarily a function of hours worked. In tech you can go to the bathroom 8 hours a day as long as you get your work done. Can you say the same for a warehouse worker?
There isn't enough righteous indignation about this on HN. Thank you. (No sarcasm, there really isn't enough - we need to care more about people's lives.)
Also famous anecdote of Terry Guo: during breaks between meetings, top level executives including Guo might go to the toilets. If you were one of the executive and happen to pick a urinal right next to Guo, he would peek if your urine looked healthy. If it looks healthy, that means he can and will put more workload on you.
Similarly, if you were attending a public institution, it makes sense that if you're seeking special accommodation then you'd at least have to disclose how you want to be accommodated. It does not mean you have to disclose you have IBS.
What we might debate is whether 2 months is a reasonable timeframe to ask for a doctor to write a note, or whether 6 bathroom trips a day should be the threshold that a warehouse should care about.
Now for treatment purposes, they were giving me medications for it long before, when they just suspected it. So that fundamentally didn't change. But the whole process of ruling everything else out first took a number of specialist visits over a number of months, including a colonoscopy. I'm wondering if that had any factor into this person's lack of a doctor's note: that her GP could only say "I suspect she has IBS, but she'd need to go to a gastroenterologist to confirm" and the patient never got around to doing the specialist visits due to the time off they require.
IIRC the meds they give you for both IBS and Crohn's are pretty much the same. The crappy thing about them (pardon the pun) is that you're really not supposed to take them preventatively: ideally you should take only as needed when symptoms occur. By the time you realize you're having one of those days, you've already had like three or four bowel movements in the span of a few hours, and you'll probably have several more before the meds start to work.
You don’t need a full diagnoses for that.
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.
and the response seems eminently reasonable. getting a note in 2 months is just not a draconian requirement no matter how it is spun. i have to give benefit of the doubt and assume accommodations could have been made if one had been produced. I'm sorry but this is the reality if you work a menial job where you are easily replaced. I feel like people are just being blinded by seeing "Amazon" in the headline; the alternative is an unbelievable level of naivete
Not to say these policies are grand or the working conditions are anywhere near reasonable just that the claim from the lawsuit it was a disability violation seems like it will be difficult to argue vs just being a shitty place to work.
So as I understand it, if you have e.g. end stage kidney disease, you don't need to inform your employer of the fact you must be gone two times a week for three hours, and they can not fire you when they find out. But they also don't have to pay you.
However the rules about salaried positions seem to imply they can't reduce your salary.
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.
While most people who have chronic conditions are absolutely willing and able to perform up to task if given a reasonable accommodation, in some cases it's staggeringly apparent that the employee has no intention of ever putting in a full day's work, and is using the claim of an illness as a shield while they coast through the day. Manage a large enough number of people and you will inevitably come across such types on rare occasion.
So what? Reasonable accommodation has to include things like this, or the flexibility for the employee to work an extra hour and finish up their duties for the time they missed.
Otherwise, it's not accommodation at all.
And the idea that they're "coasting" when they're working 75% of the time is absolutely ludicrous. Does that mean French workers are all coasting, because they have a 7-hour work day?
There are so many salaried employees in this thread who don't seem to realize how vastly different it is to be treated like a misbehaving child (aka hourly employee) at work.
https://coreyrobin.com/2012/03/08/lavatory-and-liberty-the-s...
I assume that each poop has a time limit as well?
The law firm I worked for lost the notes from my doctor and fired me.
Law firm has amazing lawyers and I was afraid of being blackballed.
That's a good point. I think the remaining obstacles left is perhaps getting that doctors note. I don't live in the tri-state area and have no idea how hard it would be in the current climate.
> What we might debate is whether 2 months is a reasonable timeframe to ask for a doctor to write a note, or whether 6 bathroom trips a day should be the threshold that a warehouse should care about.
Eh, true, so I guess we need more info. Were the bathroom trips long? What if they were pretty long and she actually suffered from IBS -- seems like her lawyers are just making an argument she is protected under disability laws? I am not sure then.
Call centers are like that too.
So, Amazon can easily write up neither employee, which means they don't need anything to justify the different treatment.
(Also, no, Amazon can write up one employee and another just fine. They're an independent company in a free country. They don't answer to Lord Business who tells them they have to run their business a certain way. They can do whatever they like, provided they don't run afoul of a few laws like Title VII or the ADA. And all that will happen if they do run afoul of those laws is they'll get sued - which is exactly what happened under their current policies, so....)
If it's perfectly reasonable, perhaps there's no need for a court case? Or maybe you could concede that there's more details to the story and it remains to be seen if Amazon was being perfectly reasonable. I think it's more the latter, and despite my biases due to the obvious negative press Amazon gets, it may not be the case. Let's be perfectly reasonable ourselves, I made assumptions that the manager was just trying to fire the lady because Amazon be Amazon. You are making assumptions that the worker is a freeloading grifter, and also this:
> If you step out of your white collar tech bubble for a moment you'd realize giving _two months_ to give a doctor's note before reprimanding this woman is perfectly reasonable.
I don't think it's productive to throw assumptions about my work history. I think it's laughable you are using this "you are privileged" argument I've seen time and time again used against to people supportive of Amazon's employment practices here, and swap the worker for the employer. I actually had to double take your stance, because I really had trouble with you assuming my personal work history, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you are addressing the general audience having that viewpoint instead. I think you are bringing up a great point by the way, but I am no means in that "white collar tech bubble".
And hey, consider this, the fact you are typing on this forum right at this moment shows we both have a bubble of sorts, where we can type comments and yell at our monitors on a lazy sunday. Some people have to work, and I am pretty sure I'll still get deliveries by Amazon on Sunday.
Anyone can bring a civil claim against anyone in America. If lawyers think the reputation damage will get Amazon to settle they'll front all bills for a percentage. Your position is exactly what the lawyers hope for at this stage.
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> But Amazon said she was expected to be seeking more than $75,000, one of the reasons it sought to move the case to federal court.
This is pennies for Amazon to settle. They won't since it'll open them up to more of these, and they'll spend as much time here as possible to send a message on the costs of litigating against them to others in the future.
My dread is complete. The avenue disgruntled employees have to air out injustices also lines the pocket of lawyers.
Jokes aside, I appreciate your analysis. There's always another layer to the onion. There's definitely someone at Amazon corporate weighing the scales as you so astutely elaborated. In the end though I am interested to hear about the disability protections afforded by NJ legislature and if they apply here.
some lawyer is picking this up on contingency. They'll have a confidential settlement at some point that will not be binding nor set precedent.
It'll be cheaper for Amazon to do that, than keep sending lawyers to court.
Have you ever worked as a retail worker? Or teacher? Or anything that _isn't_ do your work any time during the day? Or for that matter, have you worked as an frontline IT tech before? If you've done any of these things I think it'd be obvious that this is a completely reasonable case. What would be _unreasonable_ and medical discrimination would be if the woman got fired 5 days after being notified to get a doctor's note. In this case she had 2 months to get a doctor's note, then got written up, then had 5 days to get a doctor's note after _she had already been notified for 2 months_.
Maybe step out of your "big tech and Bezos are evil" bubble for just a moment and consider things objectively. Amazon has plenty of _legitimate_ abuses but this isn't one of them. You seem to believe that all jobs should allow you to behave as if you're a white collar tech worker who can get their work done any time.
This whole store lacks enough detail to know exactly what's going on, however, so we're all going to project our biases on it. If you're anti-Amazon you're going to project your assumptions of unfair business practices. If you're skeptical of that position you're going to project your skepticism into the unknowns of the story. Really there aren't enough facts here to know if this is Amazon firing an underperforming employee who is lying about a health condition, or failing to accommodate an employee with a legitimate health problem.
That doesn't change the fact that there are hurdles that atleast factor in to how the human who was fired in that scenario may feel? And isn't that a major component to the human experience, how we feel, especially in the situation where your employeer fired you for a reason you learned was their mistake? That's full on feel mode for me, I don't know if you have an iron will or what, but you can't always assume that the person in this case would take a step back and accurately make the correct rational judgment you have outlined (see? more agreeing from me!). I would personally be afraid to be blacklisted from the law field, as reputation matters. Even being known as someone who is litigious against your employer whilst also garnering news coverage (great, your name is everywhere for future employers to see) seems to the very _least_ be a tradeoff of getting justice vs all that negative shazz I mentioned.
You only get 1/3rd of your annual income, and the lawyer gets 2/3rd of the income for legal fees.
Plus a good lawyer can delay the case and drive up fees and court time to the point that it is not worth it anymore.
Maybe I should have sued, but I was scared of a backlash.
I didn't ask to have IBS, I developed it from all of the work stress. Sometimes it feels like I am passing glass, and the pain makes it last longer in the bathroom.
Any time my doctor says something affects my work, I ask her for a letter in my medical record and keep a copy for myself.
This seems pretty straightforward and odd that a letter didn’t exist in the first place.
I'm so glad I'm work from home so I don't have to debate with people if I go to the bathroom too often are not.
the other thing is that again, this has to do with the nature of the job. productivity in a warehouse is much more linearly related to time spent in the warehouse than productivity of knowledge workers is to time at the desk
It's not because it's "Amazon". I have a friend who sorts mail in a USPS facility and it's the same deal - human dignity loses out to inflexible management every time.
Also, this isn’t for pee breaks as the employee referenced a bowel issue.
I feel like bowel issues are worse though, since you delinated them. You never ate something that went down wrong? The worst experience I ever had was eating shrimp that caused food poisioning. I practically lived on the toilet, and I think my understanding of what IBS from having a family member who has is gives me a perspective that only offers sympathy rather than criticism unlike other posters. I don't blame people from being doubtful that perhaps the lady in questions self diagnosed as IBS and didn't get a doctors note because it was balogne, but the invasion of medical privacy and heavy handed get-the-note or be-fired dialoge tree the manager has seems fucking bonkers. I suspect it's just an excuse to fire a system designated target -- as amazon does and they just quipped up a reason to fire her.
Are you okay with your employee or client installing screen tracking software on your computer so someone can decide appropriate thresholds for your work and bathroom habits?
> I'm sorry but this is the reality if you work a menial job where you are easily replaced.
Are we back to calling essential work “menial” already?
did i miss your memo? work can be both essential and menial, they are orthogonal dimensions to me. if a task does not require specialized skills i will call it menial.
What's the difference? Why does Amazon have the right to direct observation of their work and bathroom breaks, but your employers/clients don't have the right to direct observation of your work and bathroom breaks?
> if a task does not require specialized skills i will call it menial.
"Specialized" in that context is meaningless. Skills are skills -- there is no job in any modern economy that doesn't require training, whether it's through education, provided by the employer, or picked up through practice doing the work. It would take you years to achieve the productivity of harvesting food[1] compared to those who are skilled at the job, and vice versa.
If you're in IT, the worker shortage that provides you with higher wages is not based on your merit, it's based on market conditions totally out of your control. There are people who have more education/experience, who have invested more time and effort in their field, earn less money, and yet make more substantial contributions to the economy than you do. So I don't think it's wise for anyone to start calling jobs "menial." It's a cultural practice designed to justify worker exploitation.
Having dealt with this before, getting an actual note explaining things from the doctor treating you, or any doctor you attempt to go to afterwards because the first is literally acting like you don't exist, can seriously take 3-6 months.
I can only say, feel lucky or something that you've never had to personally deal with this.
but I certainly appreciate my good fortune in life to not have to work menial jobs