Amazon Makes It Harder for Disabled Employees to Work from Home

I dunno. I don't like the idea of companies holding inquisitions on just how disabled people are, but if we're going to hold the expansive view of disabilities the article takes for granted it seems inevitable. When someone claims that they're unable to work in an office because they're suffering from a stress disorder, it's reasonable to have some followup questions about how they manage the disorder on other occasions that call for them to leave home.

> someone claims that they're unable to work in an office because they're suffering from a stress disorder, it's reasonable to have some followup questions about how they manage the disorder on other occasions that call for them to leave home.

No it's not. It makes no sense to say "oh, you can't commute to work and then home again five times a week? so how do you get groceries?" because those are two completely separate things in completely separate environments.

It's none of Amazon's business how people manage their disabilities outside of work. The only thing that matters is what the most effective way of managing their disabilities is inside of work. Amazon is not your doctor, and if your doctor says that this is the most effective way for you to manage things while being productive then they need to accept that the doctor knows what they're doing.

This falls apart the second you realize it's trivial to find a doctor who will say or do literally whatever you want if you pay the right amount.

I don't think it does, actually.

Let's say, hypothetically, that someone gets this benefit who has no health condition that anyone will admit exists without being paid a bribe.

Are you arguing that you're taking something from the company by them allowing this?

You rapidly run into a similar problem to one many means-testing programs for benefits in the US do - it becomes far more expensive to do the testing than it would to just give people the benefit if they ask for it, even if many more people asked for it.

And if some core job requirement makes WFH an actual nonstarter (e.g. if you're being paid to move packages in a warehouse, you generally can't do that from your bed), then it doesn't matter if your doctor says you can't do it, they can still fire you for not meeting a core requirement of your job that they can't just work around.

If you think work from office is more productive, then yes, they are taking something from the company and their coworkers who can't learn from them. If you feel that WFH has no productivity impact, then fair enough that you see any coercion as an unwarranted risk.