When an Amazon employee bypassed the human resources department and reached out directly to Jeff Bezos with a pay issue, she wasn’t aware of the chain of events her appeal would set in motion.
Jeff Bezos, now 61, is one of the wealthiest individuals globally, having transformed Amazon from a small operation in his garage into the 5th most valuable company worldwide, according to Companies Market Cap.
A year before Bezos passed the leadership of the company to Andy Jassy in July 2021, he received an email from Tara Jones, an Amazon warehouse worker in Oklahoma.
Jones was on medical leave and expected a $540 paycheck but discovered that a significant portion of it was missing.
She reported to Amazon authorities that she was short $90 from her wages.
When the issue repeated, Jones decided to take action herself and sent a personal email to then-CEO Bezos.
In her message, which was reviewed by the New York Times, Jones expressed her distress: “I’m behind on bills, all because the pay team messed up. I’m crying as I write this email.”
Soon after, it became clear that Jones was not the only employee who had experienced missing wages.
Her email initiated a company-wide investigation, revealing that 179 other warehouse employees had been underpaid for approximately 18 months, according to the report.
One affected employee mentioned their car was repossessed, while others claimed termination due to software errors marking their medical leave as absences.
Additionally, there were reports of doctors’ notes mysteriously disappearing from the system.
Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel addressed the situation in a statement to The Independent: “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 one 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.”
Interestingly, Jones is not the only individual to receive prompt responses after contacting Bezos.
In a Reddit thread LegalAdviceUK, an Amazon customer shared their frustration after purchasing a ‘high value item’ for £1,099.97 ($1,480).
The item, safeguarded by a one-time password, was mistakenly marked as delivered, although the customer hadn’t received it.
Instead of dealing with customer service, they reached out to Bezos, soon receiving a response from an executive customer relations officer, who provided a full refund and a gift card.
Sometimes, reaching out to the top can indeed bring swift resolutions.