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Comment by morganvachon | Hacker News Reader

> They had a snow storm, he got stuck in the snow and instead of being understanding they reprimanded him for it.

Punishing an employee for risking their life to try to come in to a job they already hate? That's textbook sadism, ruthless is too weak a word. In inclement weather our critical staff can depend on officers in 4x4 vehicles to bring them in, with no reprimand for being late due to the weather. Non-essential staff are encouraged to stay home and avoid injury and possible death trying to make it to work.

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This is the reality for the lower quartile of the American workforce. When I was a part of it, I faced either braving the snow and icy roads or getting fired. I left an hour early because I knew I would be driving about 20 miles per hour. I'm not condoning this practice, just providing context. The state governor's prohibition on road travel be damned. The next time it snows, think about how the workers in your pharmacy or bar got to work while you have the day off.

Incidentally, one of my coworkers actually suggested our manager pick him up in a 4x4 during a particularly brutal blizzard. The request was laughed off; there was no way it was worth the fuel and time to go pick up the worker to come to work. It makes sense; a sub- $20-per-hour worker is too cheap for it to work out in most cases. The humane thing to do is just to leave the store or bar closed if staff have to come in. But that extra $1000 of net revenue sounds tempting...

On the other hand, working in a union warehouse (UPS), this has in fact happened - people getting picked up so they can make it in despite weather, since it's the lower management that would get shafted otherwise. This time of year nominally part time workers are pulling 10+ hour days due to massive volume, so missing a lot of people is a huge issue.

Amazon warehouses are notorious for being shitty to work in even considering the type of job, considering logistics jobs like this are sucky in general, that's tough to do.

This is the same company that stationed ambulances outside of a fulfillment center instead of paying for Air Conditioning. They also went to the supreme court (and won) over making people wait in line (unpaid) for 25 minutes before and after work in order to do security checks.

Wait, was it the US Supreme Court? How did they win?

I ask only because Cargill just lost a very similar suit over failing to pay employees for suit-up/down time before and after their shifts, which I thought would apply here.

So it was actually a contractor, but Amazon was involved in the case.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/10/business/supreme-court-rul...

> Punishing an employee for risking their life to try to come in to a job they already hate?

As long as there are more than enough people to hire for a position, managers and policy will tend toward lazy and controlling, it's easier than cultivating people.

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