Comment by mikestew | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mikestew | Hacker News Reader

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I expect to get downvote blasted into oblivion, but maybe someone who is mentally unbalanced enough to commit suicide over a job is the problem, not the company itself.

Down voting your comment would disappoint me very much (and as of this writing, it's the top comment). IMO, at worst Amazon is part of a much larger picture. And as you imply, out of X number of people, Y will hurl themselves off a building. Remember the FoxConn hoo-ha a few years back? Yeah, I sat down and compared the reported suicide rates of 400K FoxConn employees versus China in general (I wasn't the only one, as I recall). Turns out, FoxConn folk must be pretty damned happy, actually, as their suicide rate was lower than the general population of China.

No, to place blame on Amazon is to ignore the problem. I've worked at far shittier places than Amazon is reported to be, and I didn't take my own life. More was at play than just where this person worked. If we need do anything, we need identify that "more" and fix that.

> at worst Amazon is part of a much larger picture.

I think this is the crux of the issue with our industry. It is not unique to Amazon, it just so happens they have had a few vocal employees.

Lower level employees at companies like this tend to get deridden for speaking about their situation and told to "just get a new job / move to a new city". This thread, that Yelp girl, and so on. Disapproval of your circumstances or employment situation have to be expressed in just the right tone and wording to be considered valid by some.

You think this person would have committed suicide wherever they worked, and their experience at Amazon was in no way different than it would have been at any other company? Do you think Amazon is no different than other companies? Is it possible for companies to have different cultures?

You think this person would have committed suicide wherever they worked

I think nothing about the individual in question, other than a blurb in a news story, so I'm not going to make a diagnosis about this individual. I strongly urge others to do the same. My statement stands: blame Amazon if you like, but leaving it at that doesn't save anyone.

> I sat down and compared the reported suicide rates of 400K FoxConn employees versus China in general

You are saying it, like they just happen to work at FoxConn and decided to do it at their workplace and the environment plays no role in it. But that's not how humans work, environment is the key. And Amazon, just like FoxConn, is absolutely the one to blame.

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