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Comment by rewma | Hacker News Reader

> If I was a plumber, and my wife was dying, and as a result I was unable to repair plumbing, I would not expect anyone to give me money to repair their plumbing, not even if I told them my wife is dying and they should be sympathetic.

When I filed for paternity leave, I was paid quite a few weeks for not working at all, because the country where I live understands that workers are people who have lives and struggle with major life events.

It saddens me that some of us are so driven by self-contempt that don't realize they are far more than mindless organisms in a big Borg collective, ready and willing to be discarded whenever their productivity shows a drop.

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This wasn't a couple of weeks though. From the timelines in the story it was more than a year. Would you expect to keep getting paid on paternity leave for 2 years?

> Would you expect to keep getting paid on paternity leave for 2 years?

First of all, the article does not talk about leaving for 2 years. I feel you are intentionally trying to put a strawman to avoif debating the real problem.

Secondly, the article mentions performance. According to the article, the person in question was pressured into improving performance or get the axe, in a period where his manager knew very well that his wife was dying. The manager even proposed he was placed in a performance evaluating program renowned to be a compulsive exit door whose goal is to help HR justify their decision to terminate contracts.

And lastly, when my parental leave went into effect I got 16 weeks paid time off. That's loosely half a year. I'm sure this affects performance at the eyes of Amazon. Should that mean that Amazon would be entitled to fire my ass just because I had a child?

I don’t think it’s a straw man, time matters. He joined mid - end 2018 and was fired end of 2020. We don’t know when the issues started, but it very well could’ve been close to 2 years.

My point is the amount of time matters. I don’t think anyone expects a company to keep paying an underperforming employee forever even if there is a good reason. Netflix has a full year paid parental leave policy. That doesn’t mean you can just keep having a child every year and never work.

> When I filed for paternity leave, I was paid quite a few weeks for not working at all, because the country where I live understands that workers are people who have lives and struggle with major life events.

No country has this kind of benefits for plumbers who are mostly independent.

A plumber will presumably understand the nature of independent contracting.

A salaried plumber employed by a larger plumbing company would reasonably expect employee benefits.

> No country has this kind of benefits for plumbers who are mostly independent.

How about Amazon SDEs?

In Luxembourg, Self-employed can benefit from a Parental leave: https://guichet.public.lu/en/entreprises/ressources-humaines... Everybody pays 24% to the social security and receives benefits when needed.

Then you wonder why the egregious cost of maternity leave keeps popping up everywhere regularly, you are making the assumption that people in "the country where I live" like what's happening...

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