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Amazon Worker Jumps Off Company Building After Email Note (bloomberg.com)

An anonymous reader writes: An Amazon employee was injured when he leaped off a building at the company's Seattle headquarters in what police characterized as a suicide attempt. The man, who wasn't identified by authorities, sent an e-mail visible to hundreds of co-workers, including Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos, before the incident occurred, according to a report on Bloomberg. The man survived the fall from Amazon's 12-story Apollo building at about 8:45 a.m. local time Monday and was taken to a Seattle hospital, police said. The man had recently put in a request to transfer to a different department, but was placed on an employee improvement plan, a step that can lead to termination if performance isn't improved, said the person, who asked not to be identified discussing company personnel matters. More than 20,000 people work in multiple buildings at Amazon's headquarters.

17 of 392 comments (clear)

  1. employee improvement plan by mwvdlee · · Score: 4, Informative

    employee improvement plan, a step that can lead to termination if performance isn't improved

    Whoever invented "employee improvement plan" needs to die.

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    1. Re:employee improvement plan by Paul+Carver · · Score: 4, Insightful

      employee improvement plan, a step that can lead to termination if performance isn't improved

      Whoever invented "employee improvement plan" needs to die.

      Sure, wouldn't want to actually let the employee know why they're getting bad performance reviews, just fire them.

      That was sarcasm, by the way. I know nothing about Amazon's employee improvement plan, but the general idea of giving extra assistance to employees who aren't performing as well as their peers is absolutely a good idea.

      It's utterly naive to think that everyone can be in the top X% or that all employees will perform so equally that better or worse can't be distinguished. As long as some employees perform worse you only have three choices:

      1) Do nothing. Just keep paying them for doing worse than their peers
      2) Fire them. Hire somebody else that you hope will perform better.
      3) Help them to identify why they perform worse than their peers and try to help them improve

      I can't see any reason why option 3 is worse than option 1 or 2.

      Unless you dispute my assumption that there exist some employees who perform worse than others, it absolutely makes sense for companies to have a goal and plan for improving their lowest performing employees rather than firing them or ignoring them.

      Obviously if someone is utterly hopeless then you have to just get rid of them to prevent them from contributing negative value (i.e. creating problems for their peers to fix to the net loss of the company's productivity) but if they're just "ok but not great" then actively working to improve them benefits everyone. Maybe Amazon's plan is broken, I wouldn't know, but the general concept is a good one.

    2. Re: employee improvement plan by barc0001 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The problem is that there are many cases where companies use the employee improvement plan process to fire people who aren't actually bad at their jobs but the companies want them to leave for other reasons and don't want to lay them off with the associated unemployment costs.

      They put the target on said plan in hopes they take the hint and just leave. If not, the employee will be judged to have not sufficiently improved, no matter how they actually perform, and at the end of the EIP deadline they are let go for cause.

  2. Re:I wouldn't work there. by show+me+altoids · · Score: 5, Funny

    This wasn't a suicide attempt, he was trying to get a job as a drone.

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  3. Re:What does he think this is, Apple?!?!?!?!? by MiniMike · · Score: 4, Funny

    It appears he fell in one of the Complaints Department letter storage silos, so he actually only fell like 10 feet.

  4. It's a shit place to work. by Khyber · · Score: 4, Interesting

    One of my former co-workers from the porno business got a job at Amazon. She quit within a week and told me "I'd rather go back to the porno shop, at least there they bother to give you lube for when you get fucked."

    That alone tells me all I need to know about Amazon, and I'll never shop there. If one of my co-workers from a very tough industry couldn't hack something supposedly so simple and benign as Amazon warehouse work when she had no problems sorting and packing and selling boxes of DVDs and lube and sex toys, there's something seriously fucking wrong with Amazon's management and policies and procedures.

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  5. Re:What does he think this is, Apple?!?!?!?!? by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 4, Informative

    If you compared the statistics of suicide for FoxConn vs China as a whole you actually had a reduced chance working for FoxConn.

    That doesn't help sell a narrative, but that's how statistics work.

  6. Re:I wouldn't work there. by jellomizer · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Working for any big organization if you get in the wrong unit, with the wrong set of managers you job is hell. If you get in the right spot, your job may be great, until that manager moves to a different unit.

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  7. Re:What does he think this is, Apple?!?!?!?!? by anegg · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I can't speak to what Tim Cook has or has not innovated in general, but suicide prevention nets were a "thing" in the 1981 Niven/Pournelle novel "Oath of Fealty" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_of_Fealty_(novel). The story revolves around people dwelling in an arcology just outside of Los Angeles. Due to the size of the building, people were attracted to the roof to end their lives. The building designers included a diving board coupled with hidden nets to a) deter, and b) prevent the death of people attempting to commit suicide.

  8. Re:Umm what?! by Zak3056 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    wow it's almost like depression or other types of mental illness can make people do things that aren't rational.

    fucking dipshit.

    Mental health issues are not the easiest thing to wrap your head around (especially if you're of a generation that was taught to rub dirt on it/walk it off in response to any injury, physical, mental, or emotional). If you haven't lived through it, or had a family member/close friend live through it, it's likely you just can't comprehend what some stranger is going through.

    Just because someone is ignorant doesn't make them a dipshit (unless they're willfully so). Indeed, the AC was expressing empathy in general for the guy who tried to kill himself, rather than the disdain that you appear to be trying to respond to.

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  9. From the 4th floor by Wookie+Monster · · Score: 5, Informative

    The jump wasn't from the 12th floor, which is why he survived. He only fell about 20 feet. http://www.seattlepi.com/local...

    1. Re: From the 4th floor by Volanin · · Score: 4, Funny

      20' is 2D6 falling damage. He's badass.

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  10. Re:I wouldn't work there. by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I've known a couple people who (briefly) went to work for Amazon because they were offered a really good salary... then learned that the reason the salary was so high was a corporate expectation of 70-80 hour work weeks plus basically 24/7 on call availability.

    So if you ever hear Bezos talking about needing more H1-Bs because of a "lack of skilled workers", be sure to note he's got a different definition of "skilled" than you or I do. I don't personally think a willingness to give up one's entire existence should be considered a skill - but maybe that's just me.

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  11. Re:Umm what?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    EIP or IIP (Individual Improvement Plans) are a staple of the U.S.'s highly litigious society. If you are a bad performer and I want to fire you I can't just do it. I have to be able to prove you are a bad employee. That means I have to document why you are bad and give you a chance to prove to me that you can be a better employee.
    So say you are habitually late. I have to prove that you're late (No time clocks, don't you know, but RFID ID badges can usually be used to document a worker's habitual tardiness.) Then I have to have a meeting with you, with a witness from HR, where I clearly tell you that being habitually tardy is against company policy and can result in your termination. You typically sign a form saying that I've told you that being tardy is against company policy and that it can lead to your termination. You also promise to be on time in writing. That is your 'improvement.' Typically there is some duration of time the IIP is in effect, so that if you're late once three years after our talk I can't fire you. Usually its a period like three or six months. If you complete the IIP period successfully the IIP may be destroyed, retain for some specific period or go in your permanent work record, depending upon company policy.
    In many states if you are fired for cause (that is because you are habitually late, like in our example) then the employer is not required to pay for you under their unemployment insurance program, just like they don't have to pay if you quit. As a matter of fact in most states all firings are for cause. Terminating you because of other reasons is call being "laid off" and almost always makes you eligible for unemployment payments.

  12. Re:What does he think this is, Apple?!?!?!?!? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    He fell only 20 feet.
    http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Amazon-worker-leaps-from-building-at-Seattle-10640986.php

    h/t Wooky Monster https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=9934505&cid=53385601

  13. Re:What does he think this is, Apple?!?!?!?!? by RabidReindeer · · Score: 4, Funny

    swarm of piranhas

    What kind? Sales or Legal?

  14. Re:What does he think this is, Apple?!?!?!?!? by amicusNYCL · · Score: 5, Funny

    The rooftop was about four stories up -- the pedestal section of the 12-story high-rise -- but the man fell only about 20 feet to a balcony below, Lt. Harold Webb, with Seattle Fire, said.

    And that's a perfect example of the lack of motivation which management was concerned about with this employee. This isn't going to look good on his next performance review.

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