Comment by orm | Hacker News Reader

Comment by orm | Hacker News Reader

Some things about this article bother me. It starts by describing what is objectively a problem ascribable to Amazon itself ( letting on-call rotations reach the 3 week mark is terrible ), and then descends to pure appeal to emotion.

Here's what I mean: the only thing that seemed an actual problem, to judge from the article, is that the on-call rotations became once every three weeks. Perhaps the length of the on-call, or the number of on-call people at the same time is another problem Amazon could address in this case.

On-call in general (24/7 availability for some period of time), is not exclusively an Amazon thing. I'm surprised the writer tried to portray it so.

After that, the author stops giving reasons. For example, the decision to go on a business trip after 4 weeks of their daughter being born seems to have been their own, not Amazon's. " I imagine he could have turned that down, but I was insistent that he go so". She did not explain if they felt coerced by Amazon and how.

Same thing goes for the hotel they cancelled a day early. How did that happen and why? The writer did not thing this was important enough somehow, but I think it is.

Normally I'd call this sloppiness, but considering the author is a professional and this had to get proof-read, it may just be the author is being a bit disingenuous as well.

Did we read the same article? They went on a weekend trip in the summer, had to cancel their hotel and come back a day early, and the guy still got an earful from his manager the next day about how he isn't delivering. I don't see how this is "pure appeal to emotion".

Also, a 15-minute max window for responding to pagers? Fucking hilarious. If these people were doctors getting called to the ER, I would understand. But this is a fucking online retail business! Furthermore, what the fuck happened to the concept of having backups on call so that if one person can't respond (i.e. they are driving), someone else can? This is a business decision by Amazon, and also isn't "pure appeal to emotion".

(same as orm), just my settings don't allow me to reply.

"Did we read the same article? They went on a weekend trip in the summer, had to cancel their hotel and come back a day early, and the guy still got an earful from his manager the next day about how he isn't delivering. I don't see how this is "pure appeal to emotion"."

She says: A happended. The next day B happened. She puts the two sentences together to imply cause and effect. But she she does not explicitly say 'A caused B', and I believe this is for a reason. All she does is to suggest it. To me, as an engineer, the fact she only suggests it is one of those things about the writing that bothers me. She did not explain what had been happening leading up to this nor the reasons the management gave.

Note, I worked for Amazon for a couple of years. While I have to admit my team was really on the lucky side in terms of on-call while I was there. I am familiar with some of these policies. The 15 minute rule is just the time it takes for you to say 'I'm awake and I'm looking at the ticket'. You don't have to solve it. They use this deadline as a way to see if they should reach-out to a secondary on-call, as a backup.

> On-call in general (24/7 availability for some period of time), is not exclusively an Amazon thing. I'm surprised the writer tried to portray it so.

I don't think the writer did.

The problem I see being described is not so much being on call, as instead being called. Lots. Because there seems to be no on-duty staff who are capable of doing the work.

In this article, "on call" really means "on duty during non-work hours... a lot".

It's a tactic to avoid paying on-duty people. Just make all employees work 24/7!

Why didn't I think of that. That's a great business model.

Agreed. The other glaring hole I see in this article is the absence of any push back or assertion of boundaries. Was this guy's manager even aware of the sacrifices this guy was making? Did he ever sit down and say, "24/7 rotation every three weeks is exhausting and more than I signed up for; we need to hire." Did he tell HR he was reaching a breaking point? We are adults with demanding jobs; we have to assert boundaries. If we get a call asking us to come in, it is very reasonable to say, "I'm away on vacation with my family, can someone else cover this?" If the answer is no, then you make your choice, but your manager at least knows that sacrifice that is taking place. If you can't work with your manager to make life livable, talk to his manager or talk to HR. There is no excuse for toiling away silently and playing the martyr. The very fact that this guy's wife wrote the article instead of himself gives the impression that he doesn't know how to self-advocate.

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