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Comment by graphe | Hacker News Reader

I think the person writing this is biased and using this person's unfortunate death for political gain.

Dariusz is a victim of circumstance, a mental unwillingness to stop working for any period of time, a situation I have also tried to stop friends who were exploited from workplaces in the restaurant industry again and again. Only mental health would have saved him from throwing himself off the metaphorical cliff; if not Amazon, another place. You read it correctly but I feel sympathy for the victim.

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Maybe there is this related-sounding issue that has been close to you from friends, and you are sensitized to try to spot it elsewhere (like we learn from trauma)?

Is it possible that the person in the article didn't fully fit the pattern to which you've been sensitized, and that the biggest cause in that case is actually different?

Also, in case of your friends, maybe there are two problems to address: (1) any weakness of self or situation that makes them vulnerable to being exploited; and (2) any party that consciously or negligently exploits that.

Maybe the reason I'm pushing back on this: I've known people who soldier through tough situations they shouldn't have to, including someone who died from it. In all cases, they tried hard to get out of the situation, but people who were the cause of the bad, or whose job was to be a check on the bad, either refused to help, or made it worse by trying to cover it up rather than fix it. I think that to blame the victims in those situations would be incorrect.

The end result was that in all these cases, they worked themselves to death and they had a poor sense of self preservation. This is the pattern I see.

If I was to be positive on Amazon I'd suggest that they may have paid bonuses or some incentives to keep him there. I believe that Dariusz may have been paid bonuses but I ignored that as it wasn't important for self preservation, I'm taking the negative stance that they fostered this environment, but the writer did not die or want to leave the job, and many others quit due to their own sense of self preservation.

Self preservation isn't an innate trait and I feel sympathy for Dariusz that he did not have that trait.

Nonsense.

You didn't know this person at all, and I suspect you aren't a licensed psychiatrist, so you have no place diagnosing him with some sort of work-himself-to-death mental illness.

The most likely and simplest explanation is that he believed he needed this job in order to survive, and as the staff around his job function was reduced and he was given more to do, he felt he had no choice but to do the extra work that was assigned to him, or else lose his job and suffer financial ruin.

He diagnosed himself when he worked himself to death after years of neglecting his health. You may believe he had a strong sense of self preservation or mentally healthy if you wish to.

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