Featured Image Credit: Jason Alden/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Topics: Amazon, Business, Jobs, Money, Jeff Bezos
Brenna Cooper
Topics: Amazon, Business, Jobs, Money, Jeff Bezos
An Amazon employee was left shocked by the manner in which Jeff Bezos answered her desperate email about missing pay.
Dealing with being underpaid by your employer is a nightmare for most people, with some workers even finding themselves facing debt or financial hardship due to missing pennies.
Which is why in 2020 when Tara Jones discovered that she was missing money from her paycheck, she needed to take action.
The Oklahoma woman was on medical leave when she noticed that she was missing $90 (£68) out of her $540 (£408), which was a significant amount for the new mother at the time.
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However, the issue didn't end there, prompting a tearful Jones to send an exasperated email to Amazon's top dog himself.
"I’m behind on bills, all because the pay team messed up. I’m crying as I write this email," she wrote in the email, which was shared with The New York Times.
What happened next was something Jones could have never imagined.
It's no secret that Bezos has (or had) access to an Amazon email of his own, with the 61-year-old previously divulging this fact in a 2018 interview.
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And it would seem that Jones' email was one of those which landed in front of the businessman's eyes and was probably then passed down the chain of command with a '?' as a wider investigation into issues with pay took place at the company shortly afterwards.
It was then revealed that Jones wasn't the only employee to have suffered from this issue, with the NYT report revealing that employees had been underpaid at 179 warehouses for around 18 months and struggled to pay their bills as a result of the oversight.
One worker even claimed their car was repossessed as a result of the underpayment, while others said medical leave had been falsely reported as absences and doctor's notes were 'vanishing' in the system.
Which is certainly not a reputation you'd want to be known for.
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In response to the NYT investigation, Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said the following in a statement: "We're disappointed when any of our employees experience an issue with their leave.
"The New York Times article suggested these issues are widespread and ongoing. They are not.
"We went back and audited the period in question to make sure employees received their pay, and to our knowledge, there are no outstanding issues.
“The controls we've implemented over the last 18 months have resulted in less than 1 percent of people experiencing an issue while being on paid leave. Certainly, the unprecedented nature of Covid did put a strain on our system's ability to keep pace with demand and we've been hard at work investing and inventing to do better every day."