Julia Cheiffetz read the long article in The New York Times about Amazon being a brutal place to work and its failure to give any compassion to those who struggle with illnesses or have just given birth. Cheiffetz used Medium.com to tell her story about working for Amazon.

Cheiffetz worked for Amazon from 2011 to July 2014. She was in charge of launching a new publishing division in New York. She said that the opportunity was so great that she passed up going to Columbia for her MBA.

When Cheiffetz first arrived at Amazon she was impressed by all of her co-workers throughout the company. She said all the employees were smart, fast and all men. 

Cheiffetz asked a vice president where the high up women were. "So, who's our Sheryl Sandberg?" The vice president told her that General Counsel Michelle Wilson was part of CEO Jeff Bezo's executive team, the only woman on that team.

The very next year, Wilson left Amazon to take maternity leave. Cheiffetz said she never returned to the company.

In 2013, Cheiffetz had a baby as well. Then, six weeks later, she was diagnosed with cancer. Doctors told her that she would have to pump her breast milk and then dispose of it to make sure her baby did not ingest any radioactive materials. Cheiffetz was not confident that she would even make it to her daughter's first birthday.

While recovering from cancer and still on maternity leave, Amazon sent Cheiffetz a letter informing her that her health insurance was terminated. She tried fixing the issue with emails and phone calls but was forced to switch to her husband's insurance. The whole issue can be blamed on a glitch in the system. Cheiffetz wondered how a big company like Amazon could let something like this happen.

After being off work for five months, Cheiffetz was excited to return to work. She was excited to show her co-workers pictures of her new baby and catch up on the things she missed. Instead, she was taken to lunch by a woman she hardly knew. The woman told her that all of the employees but one that Cheiffetz had hired now reported to her.

After that lunch meeting, Cheiffetz was placed on a performance improvement plan, which is a sign at Amazon that an employee's job could be at risk. Cheiffetz decided to resign.

Cheiffetz said she met some strong women working at Amazon. She says most of those women are now gone.

Cheiffetz, in her blog, directly asks Bezos to make Amazon a better place for women to work at the conclusion of her story. She also asks for Amazon to release more numbers on the amount of women and people of color that work at the company and stick with it.