[Permit]

> According to the filing, when she told a manager in November about her IBS and that she needed to use the bathroom up to six times a day, the manager told her to get a doctor's note. It appeared from the filing that Olivero didn't get the note.

> Olivero then said in the filing that in January her manager said she was going to be written up, and that she'd need to get a doctor's note within five days.

That seems... reasonable? Two months is a decent amount of time. How long should Amazon have waited?

[mrmuagi]

The scenario becomes weird when you take a step back and realize that she is a human being and bodily functions are even being monitored in such a way. I go to the bathroom sometimes more than her and the reasons are extremely defensible even outside medical reasons. Drink water often and see (although I would say perhaps with electrolytes mixed in as not to flush them out). I would not even doubt this was an excuse and they just wanted to get rid of her. It just feels icky, why does your manager need proof of your medical issue? What if it's a more private issue and you really don't want your medical privacy to be known to your manager? Perhaps a sexual organ is involved, and you are just not comfortable being pried into that way. Yuck.

I want to honestly ask you, how would you feel if someone monitored how many times you got up to stretch, how often you went to the bathroom, chatted with a coworker, or even just paused in thought and stopped touching your keyboard/mouse. Like a fucking human with diginity does. Would that not feel weird in your perspective? I certainly get vibes that this type of managerial practice is draconian and dehumanizing, and although my information about her day to day is limited, from the article, it seemed like an excuse to power trip and fire without justified cause.

[rrrrrrrrrrrryan]

60%+ of Americans work in retail once in their lives, where bathroom breaks are almost always monitored. The people working at Walmart, grocery stores, department stores, etc. are absolutely expected to man their shift until their scheduled break, as are many people that work in restaurants, on manufacturing floors, etc.

It's inhumane, yes, but it's not Amazon-specific.

[inter_netuser]

Not even just retail.

Call centers are like that too.

[b9a2cab5]

It sounds like you've never worked with people who intentionally "use the bathroom" to not work. If you step out of your white collar tech bubble for a moment you'd realize giving _two months_ to give a doctor's note before reprimanding this woman is perfectly reasonable.

Blue collar work / retail is not like tech where your output is not necessarily a function of hours worked. In tech you can go to the bathroom 8 hours a day as long as you get your work done. Can you say the same for a warehouse worker?

[srswtf123]

So what you’re saying is: it’s reasonable to dehumanize blue collar workers because they might be lazy?

[mrmuagi]

> It sounds like you've never worked with people who intentionally "use the bathroom" to not work. If you step out of your white collar tech bubble for a moment you'd realize giving _two months_ to give a doctor's note before reprimanding this woman is perfectly reasonable.

If it's perfectly reasonable, perhaps there's no need for a court case? Or maybe you could concede that there's more details to the story and it remains to be seen if Amazon was being perfectly reasonable. I think it's more the latter, and despite my biases due to the obvious negative press Amazon gets, it may not be the case. Let's be perfectly reasonable ourselves, I made assumptions that the manager was just trying to fire the lady because Amazon be Amazon. You are making assumptions that the worker is a freeloading grifter, and also this:

> If you step out of your white collar tech bubble for a moment you'd realize giving _two months_ to give a doctor's note before reprimanding this woman is perfectly reasonable.

I don't think it's productive to throw assumptions about my work history. I think it's laughable you are using this "you are privileged" argument I've seen time and time again used against to people supportive of Amazon's employment practices here, and swap the worker for the employer. I actually had to double take your stance, because I really had trouble with you assuming my personal work history, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you are addressing the general audience having that viewpoint instead. I think you are bringing up a great point by the way, but I am no means in that "white collar tech bubble".

And hey, consider this, the fact you are typing on this forum right at this moment shows we both have a bubble of sorts, where we can type comments and yell at our monitors on a lazy sunday. Some people have to work, and I am pretty sure I'll still get deliveries by Amazon on Sunday.

[ctvo]

> If it's perfectly reasonable, perhaps there's no need for a court case? Or maybe you could concede that there's more details to the story and it remains to be seen if Amazon was being perfectly reasonable

Anyone can bring a civil claim against anyone in America. If lawyers think the reputation damage will get Amazon to settle they'll front all bills for a percentage. Your position is exactly what the lawyers hope for at this stage.

---

> But Amazon said she was expected to be seeking more than $75,000, one of the reasons it sought to move the case to federal court.

This is pennies for Amazon to settle. They won't since it'll open them up to more of these, and they'll spend as much time here as possible to send a message on the costs of litigating against them to others in the future.

[mrmuagi]

> Your position is exactly what the lawyers hope for at this stage.

My dread is complete. The avenue disgruntled employees have to air out injustices also lines the pocket of lawyers.

Jokes aside, I appreciate your analysis. There's always another layer to the onion. There's definitely someone at Amazon corporate weighing the scales as you so astutely elaborated. In the end though I am interested to hear about the disability protections afforded by NJ legislature and if they apply here.

[inter_netuser]

what costs?

some lawyer is picking this up on contingency. They'll have a confidential settlement at some point that will not be binding nor set precedent.

It'll be cheaper for Amazon to do that, than keep sending lawyers to court.

[b9a2cab5]

I took a quick look through your comments. You seem to work in tech and/or IT. Either of which can be considered white collar and neither of which has hourly work you need to get done.

Have you ever worked as a retail worker? Or teacher? Or anything that _isn't_ do your work any time during the day? Or for that matter, have you worked as an frontline IT tech before? If you've done any of these things I think it'd be obvious that this is a completely reasonable case. What would be _unreasonable_ and medical discrimination would be if the woman got fired 5 days after being notified to get a doctor's note. In this case she had 2 months to get a doctor's note, then got written up, then had 5 days to get a doctor's note after _she had already been notified for 2 months_.

Maybe step out of your "big tech and Bezos are evil" bubble for just a moment and consider things objectively. Amazon has plenty of _legitimate_ abuses but this isn't one of them. You seem to believe that all jobs should allow you to behave as if you're a white collar tech worker who can get their work done any time.

[hkt]

> Like a fucking human with diginity does.

There isn't enough righteous indignation about this on HN. Thank you. (No sarcasm, there really isn't enough - we need to care more about people's lives.)

[davidjytang]

I myself am used to not being monitored. But a famous PCB factories in my country has famous policy that production line workers should always "run" to the toilet. Consequences if caught walking.

Also famous anecdote of Terry Guo: during breaks between meetings, top level executives including Guo might go to the toilets. If you were one of the executive and happen to pick a urinal right next to Guo, he would peek if your urine looked healthy. If it looks healthy, that means he can and will put more workload on you.

[dboreham]

I will say this is all true but when you end up managing someone who just doesn't want to work, you may change your opinion. It's been many decades since I was in that position and it has occurred only once in my career, but it happens. Very disturbing experience tbh.

[threatofrain]

You can ask your doctor to simply be vague and affirm that you have a clinically significant problem which requires accommodation. There is no reason to get into the details, except with respect to the ways you're asking to be accommodated.

Similarly, if you were attending a public institution, it makes sense that if you're seeking special accommodation then you'd at least have to disclose how you want to be accommodated. It does not mean you have to disclose you have IBS.

What we might debate is whether 2 months is a reasonable timeframe to ask for a doctor to write a note, or whether 6 bathroom trips a day should be the threshold that a warehouse should care about.

[mrmuagi]

> You can ask your doctor to simply be vague and affirm that you have a clinically significant problem which requires accommodation.

That's a good point. I think the remaining obstacles left is perhaps getting that doctors note. I don't live in the tri-state area and have no idea how hard it would be in the current climate.

> What we might debate is whether 2 months is a reasonable timeframe to ask for a doctor to write a note, or whether 6 bathroom trips a day should be the threshold that a warehouse should care about.

Eh, true, so I guess we need more info. Were the bathroom trips long? What if they were pretty long and she actually suffered from IBS -- seems like her lawyers are just making an argument she is protected under disability laws? I am not sure then.

[inter_netuser]

Diagnoses are almost never revealed on accomodation requests, only what aspects need to be accomodated.

[AdmiralAsshat]

Speaking as someone with IBS, it took a long time to get a definitive "IBS" diagnosis from my doctor. IBS is a process of elimination diagnosis. They'll confirm it's not any number of other things, and only after definitively ruling out Crohn's disease and other more serious conditions will they settle on IBS (which I took from my doctor to mean "We don't know.")

Now for treatment purposes, they were giving me medications for it long before, when they just suspected it. So that fundamentally didn't change. But the whole process of ruling everything else out first took a number of specialist visits over a number of months, including a colonoscopy. I'm wondering if that had any factor into this person's lack of a doctor's note: that her GP could only say "I suspect she has IBS, but she'd need to go to a gastroenterologist to confirm" and the patient never got around to doing the specialist visits due to the time off they require.

IIRC the meds they give you for both IBS and Crohn's are pretty much the same. The crappy thing about them (pardon the pun) is that you're really not supposed to take them preventatively: ideally you should take only as needed when symptoms occur. By the time you realize you're having one of those days, you've already had like three or four bowel movements in the span of a few hours, and you'll probably have several more before the meds start to work.

[awsthro00945]

I don't know exactly what Amazon asked for in this case, but any time for me in the past at either school, work, or otherwise, when "doctor's note" is mentioned, they aren't asking for a definitive diagnosis. In fact, I've never even seen a doctor's note that specifically said "[name] has influenza/rhinovirus/UTI". It's always been sufficient for the note to just say something like "I am a doctor and [name] was seen by me for digestive tract issues, please accommodate them." I can't imagine that wouldn't have sufficed here, too.

[behringer]

It absolutely wouldn't. Amazon's next step would be to tell her whatever note she brought isn't good enough and to get on fmla.

[TheCoelacanth]

Getting an appointment with a gastroenterologist can also take a long time. I don't think I've ever been able to schedule an appointment with one less than three months out.

[inter_netuser]

You can be accommodated for a suspected condition, or without a definitive diagnosis.

[boublepop]

That still would not prevent you from getting a doctors note within a 2 month timeframe.

You don’t need a full diagnoses for that.

[kradeelav]

Not requiring a doctor's note for going to the restroom infrequently seems a bit more on the reasonable end.

I'd have more sympathy for Amazon if, say, she was AWOL from work for more than an hour a day with no explanation. Humans are not machines and deserve some flexibility with their time.

[bllguo]

to me 6 times during working hours is frequent by any measure, but that's hardly the important thing here. there has to be a line somewhere. is 8 frequent? 10? there is some threshold X, what we care about most is the response to crossing it

and the response seems eminently reasonable. getting a note in 2 months is just not a draconian requirement no matter how it is spun. i have to give benefit of the doubt and assume accommodations could have been made if one had been produced. I'm sorry but this is the reality if you work a menial job where you are easily replaced. I feel like people are just being blinded by seeing "Amazon" in the headline; the alternative is an unbelievable level of naivete

[LAC-Tech]

> to me 6 times during working hours is frequent by any measure, but that's hardly the important thing here.

I'm so glad I'm work from home so I don't have to debate with people if I go to the bathroom too often are not.

[bllguo]

to be clear it said "bowel issues" in the headline. having to urinate 6 times is not something i imagine anyone would care about. it's certainly not what i had in mind..

the other thing is that again, this has to do with the nature of the job. productivity in a warehouse is much more linearly related to time spent in the warehouse than productivity of knowledge workers is to time at the desk

[mypalmike]

Lucky us who don't have menial jobs that we get treated with respect and trust.

It's not because it's "Amazon". I have a friend who sorts mail in a USPS facility and it's the same deal - human dignity loses out to inflexible management every time.

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

In theory you should be using the bathroom every 2 hours if you are drinking the right amount of water. That is 4 times in 8 hours, so 6 is not a lot

[prepend]

No, this is not correct. I drink a gallon of water each day and go 3-4 times.

Also, this isn’t for pee breaks as the employee referenced a bowel issue.

[mrmuagi]

I think it varies, yes. People have smaller bladders, some have larger. It also depends on how reactive you are to the sensation of a full bladder, and how risk averse you are to having it full -- perhaps you have had bladder issues, infections, etc. in the past and are mandating a self policy of frequent urination. But it's just a reference range, and if you ever took a blood test, you realize they might not matter some times.

I feel like bowel issues are worse though, since you delinated them. You never ate something that went down wrong? The worst experience I ever had was eating shrimp that caused food poisioning. I practically lived on the toilet, and I think my understanding of what IBS from having a family member who has is gives me a perspective that only offers sympathy rather than criticism unlike other posters. I don't blame people from being doubtful that perhaps the lady in questions self diagnosed as IBS and didn't get a doctors note because it was balogne, but the invasion of medical privacy and heavy handed get-the-note or be-fired dialoge tree the manager has seems fucking bonkers. I suspect it's just an excuse to fire a system designated target -- as amazon does and they just quipped up a reason to fire her.

[Kranar]

The person you're replying to did not make any leap or make any kind of universal judgement. On the contrary it was the person claiming that everyone should be using the bathroom every 2 hours who is making a universal claim. All OP did was point out a single counterexample and in doing so is implying that there is probably not one single universal rate that people should be going to the bathroom.

[nicoffeine]

> there has to be a line somewhere. is 8 frequent? 10? there is some threshold X, what we care about most is the response to crossing it

Are you okay with your employee or client installing screen tracking software on your computer so someone can decide appropriate thresholds for your work and bathroom habits?

> I'm sorry but this is the reality if you work a menial job where you are easily replaced.

Are we back to calling essential work “menial” already?

[bllguo]

i object to those methods but not the concept of appropriate thresholds

did i miss your memo? work can be both essential and menial, they are orthogonal dimensions to me. if a task does not require specialized skills i will call it menial.

[nicoffeine]

> i object to those methods but not the concept of appropriate thresholds

What's the difference? Why does Amazon have the right to direct observation of their work and bathroom breaks, but your employers/clients don't have the right to direct observation of your work and bathroom breaks?

> if a task does not require specialized skills i will call it menial.

"Specialized" in that context is meaningless. Skills are skills -- there is no job in any modern economy that doesn't require training, whether it's through education, provided by the employer, or picked up through practice doing the work. It would take you years to achieve the productivity of harvesting food[1] compared to those who are skilled at the job, and vice versa.

If you're in IT, the worker shortage that provides you with higher wages is not based on your merit, it's based on market conditions totally out of your control. There are people who have more education/experience, who have invested more time and effort in their field, earn less money, and yet make more substantial contributions to the economy than you do. So I don't think it's wise for anyone to start calling jobs "menial." It's a cultural practice designed to justify worker exploitation.

[1] https://youtu.be/OTCqyfJwkx0?t=422

[s5300]

Nah.

Having dealt with this before, getting an actual note explaining things from the doctor treating you, or any doctor you attempt to go to afterwards because the first is literally acting like you don't exist, can seriously take 3-6 months.

I can only say, feel lucky or something that you've never had to personally deal with this.

[bllguo]

well if this is the case then I will concede. I assumed getting a note is relatively trivial

but I certainly appreciate my good fortune in life to not have to work menial jobs

[Touche]

They should not require doctors notes for using the bathroom. Be a human.

[fridif]

Literally this. Just more vindictive management at Amazon.

[mypalmike]

*vindictive management at most hourly employers

[CodeWriter23]

I doubt in 60 days one can accumulate 1 day of sick time to use to go to the doctor. An unexcused absence during the probationary period would likely result in immediate termination.

[zamadatix]

I think the 2 weeks sick time and unlimited unpaid sick time off were still in effect, not to mention a full day off probably isn't required.

Not to say these policies are grand or the working conditions are anywhere near reasonable just that the claim from the lawsuit it was a disability violation seems like it will be difficult to argue vs just being a shitty place to work.

[CodeWriter23]

My current job, I started with 0 hrs sick time and accumulate 1.67hrs per pay period (2x/mo). I’m fortunate that I work in a cool place and they would have fronted me the day off if I needed it.

[missedthecue]

Someone with diagnosed IBS could get a note in an email exchange with their primary physician.

[CodeWriter23]

Sure, if pre-employment, one had the privilege of having a primary physician.

[crooked-v]

As someone with a pretty good job in software, I don't have a primary physician, because what's "in network" changes every time I switch companies.

[mypalmike]

Indeed, this is one of the reasons I chose to pass on a full time offer recently and negotiated to work under contract instead. I get to keep the same healthcare provider.

[prepend]

A diagnosis of IBS requires a physician, right? It’s surprising that a letter wasn’t obtained on diagnosis in the first place.

Any time my doctor says something affects my work, I ask her for a letter in my medical record and keep a copy for myself.

This seems pretty straightforward and odd that a letter didn’t exist in the first place.

[mypalmike]

Oh they had a primary physician?

[missedthecue]

Someone diagnosed them with IBS

[CodeWriter23]

Does not require a physician to diagnose. Diagnosis is based on casual observation and the cause as yet is unknown.

[mullingitover]

A one-hour trip to urgent care, or even an email or phone call to the doctor's office likely would've handled this.

[geofft]

Going to urgent care to get a routine doctor's note for a non-urgent situation wouldn't be covered by insurance, would it?

[maxk42]

Walk-in clinics are affordable and frequently faster than urgent care.

[klyrs]

IBS is a diagnosis of last resort. You don't get that from a walk-in clinic, you get that from a months- or years-long quest to eliminate every possible cause, before your doctor throws up their hands and calls it IBS.

[mullingitover]

Counterpoint: someone I know personally got that diagnosis from a single doctor's visit, so this isn't exactly a hard rule.

[mypalmike]

I thought walk in clinics were exactly urgent care.

[Igelau]

Where are these quick, affordable, walk-in GI specialist clinics you speak of?

[mullingitover]

If you've been suffering acute IBS for months and can't get a regular doctor's appointment in that time, why would that not be considered a case for urgent care?

This whole store lacks enough detail to know exactly what's going on, however, so we're all going to project our biases on it. If you're anti-Amazon you're going to project your assumptions of unfair business practices. If you're skeptical of that position you're going to project your skepticism into the unknowns of the story. Really there aren't enough facts here to know if this is Amazon firing an underperforming employee who is lying about a health condition, or failing to accommodate an employee with a legitimate health problem.

[R0b0t1]

From random reading on the DOL website I am pretty sure she should not have been fired. However, some of her pay could have been withheld (possibly contingent on her being classified as hourly or piecewise paid). The previously tested scenario was dialysis.

So as I understand it, if you have e.g. end stage kidney disease, you don't need to inform your employer of the fact you must be gone two times a week for three hours, and they can not fire you when they find out. But they also don't have to pay you.

However the rules about salaried positions seem to imply they can't reduce your salary.

[hkt]

I'm from the UK, can someone explain the timescales, cost and process of getting a doctor's note in the US?

[geofft]

Why require a doctor's note at all?

Humans need to go to the bathroom sometimes, and six times in a workday is, while higher than average, not terribly so. If your business processes cannot deal with humans who need to use the bathroom, that's the fault of the business process, not of the humans. It's like me running code on a cloud instance and then asking Amazon for a hardware tech's note when it reboots for hardware issues. My job, as an SRE, is to design computer systems in a way where it's okay if computers crash every so often, and if I can't do that, that's me failing at my job. Their job, as a supervisor, is to design human systems in a way where it's okay if humans go to the bathroom every so often.

Note that I'm not saying that you need to allow employees to sit in the bathroom for eight hours straight and then clock out. By all means, require that they get their work done! Just measure them on work done.

What is the doctor's note even supposed to prove? Suppose that the employee is lying about IBS and just likes the ambiance of bathrooms. Weird, sure, but does that affect your business processes? Again, measure them on work done.

If you're worried the employee is going to the bathroom to get high, or to hook up with coworkers in violation of ethics policies, or to leak trade secrets, or whatever, then go after that.

[kcdev]

You're forgetting this is a warehouse employee where productivity is tracked and ranked against other employees. Amazon cannot write up one employee and not another without something like a dr. note to justify the different treatment.

[geofft]

I think you misread my comment. I'm specifically not advocating for different treatment. I'm saying any employee who wants to use the bathroom six times a day should be permitted to do so, IBS or no IBS. If you want to enjoy the ambiance of the bathroom six times a day, that's fine.

So, Amazon can easily write up neither employee, which means they don't need anything to justify the different treatment.

(Also, no, Amazon can write up one employee and another just fine. They're an independent company in a free country. They don't answer to Lord Business who tells them they have to run their business a certain way. They can do whatever they like, provided they don't run afoul of a few laws like Title VII or the ADA. And all that will happen if they do run afoul of those laws is they'll get sued - which is exactly what happened under their current policies, so....)

[bb88]

In other words, they're being stack ranked, right?