Wal-Mart will pay employees to deliver packages on their way home • Hacker News Board

Re: Wal-Mart will pay employees to deliver packages on their way home

#81

Post by zorked » Fri, Jun 02, 2017, 5:15 PM UTC

SilasX wrote: post #60

leggomylibro wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ugh. I think that this sort of attitude (which was my initial reaction too) is a big part of what's wrong with our current economy. If you take the concept at face value, this is Walmart offering to let their employees make some extra money in exchange for a bit of extra work, once they've clocked out. What a nice company. But realistically, this is Walmart shunting the costs of delivery onto their employees. Instead…

You don't think you're jumping the gun here, maybe? Do you even know what the compensation will be? >Instead of paying their employees a living wage, or offering benefits befitting a delivery driver, Obviously you can criticize Walmart's current practices. The issue is whether this policy is any worse than what they had before. >they can offset all of the risk, deprecation costs, etc associated with delivering a pack…

> You don't think you're jumping the gun here, maybe? Do you even know what the compensation will be?

Walmart is known for high wages.

Re: Wal-Mart will pay employees to deliver packages on their way home

#82

Post by mickrussom » Fri, Jun 02, 2017, 5:15 PM UTC

david927 wrote: post #40

What are the liability concerns for this? If they get in a car crash on their way home, does Wal-Mart pay? And if not, why not? To me, personally, this smacks of late-stage capitalism. How long until "voluntary and paid" becomes "coerced and paid little"?

Vs scamazon? I replace you with drones while delivering b-stock, repackaged, used-as-new and fake products while treating vendors horribly.

Re: Wal-Mart will pay employees to deliver packages on their way home

#83

Post by Houshalter » Fri, Jun 02, 2017, 5:16 PM UTC

justforFranz wrote: post #44

leggomylibro wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ugh. I think that this sort of attitude (which was my initial reaction too) is a big part of what's wrong with our current economy. If you take the concept at face value, this is Walmart offering to let their employees make some extra money in exchange for a bit of extra work, once they've clocked out. What a nice company. But realistically, this is Walmart shunting the costs of delivery onto their employees. Instead…

It blows my mind how libertarian/naive techy types are. But I also suspect there's some right-wing nutjob organization spamming hacker news comments with pro-business community idiocy.

I feel exactly the opposite. It feels like HN is very liberal. I'd bet money it's much more than the general population.

Re: Wal-Mart will pay employees to deliver packages on their way home

#84

Post by rgbrenner » Fri, Jun 02, 2017, 5:18 PM UTC

xienze wrote: post #56

ianai wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, exactly. I could imagine an after-shift delivery taking up to an hour to complete. (I'm factoring-in "find the place" time and retracing their steps after delivery) They will probably only be paid a per Diem for the delivery - and it won't be near their hourly wage nor gas/wear & tear costs. It's a nice thought on the outside...but ultimately, deliveries are best done by actually specialized outfits. I can also…

> and it won't be near their hourly wage nor gas/wear & tear costs. Well then, I suppose the people involved will just have to do the math and see if it makes sense to them. The horror.

Im in the 'wait and see' camp.. but you can say a program is voluntary, while in truth it's required to keep your job.

Just label all the people who refuse as not being team players. Dock them on their performance reviews for it. "Johnny over there wouldn't take a short detour on his way home, so we had to send someone out to deliver a package. If he's not willing to help out, maybe he should go work some place else."

There.. a required voluntary program. This is the natural language/playbook for every manager out there.

Re: Wal-Mart will pay employees to deliver packages on their way home

#85

Post by petra » Fri, Jun 02, 2017, 5:18 PM UTC

ianai wrote: post #61

petra wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incentive: their hourly wages. Routes are selected to minimize extra time on commute. Up to 10 packages per person. Will get a navigational app. Source: https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/01/walmart-begins-testing-usi...

So not only do I work for you, but you want me to install your custom app on my personal device, too? I can't imagine there are any privacy backdoors here at all. Definitely not when I'm required to give it location permissions for it to function. /s

I see you don't work at Walmart. People there have more burning matters, like how to put food on the table.

And you can block location requests(and the like) for the app, after work, Either with Android 6-7 or Lineage's privacy guard.

Re: Wal-Mart will pay employees to deliver packages on their way home

#86

Post by ThrustVectoring » Fri, Jun 02, 2017, 5:18 PM UTC

xienze wrote: post #56

ianai wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, exactly. I could imagine an after-shift delivery taking up to an hour to complete. (I'm factoring-in "find the place" time and retracing their steps after delivery) They will probably only be paid a per Diem for the delivery - and it won't be near their hourly wage nor gas/wear & tear costs. It's a nice thought on the outside...but ultimately, deliveries are best done by actually specialized outfits. I can also…

> and it won't be near their hourly wage nor gas/wear & tear costs. Well then, I suppose the people involved will just have to do the math and see if it makes sense to them. The horror.

When the alternative is starving, taking a worse deal is just what you have to do. And Walmart controls the workers hours, so that's a huge mess.

This can become abusive in a hurry. Suppose the net after gas is that delivering packages pays $5/hr. Walmart knows how many deliveries their workers take, how many they need, and what hours get scheduled. More packages need going out? Cut hours for folks not delivering, schedule the folks delivering for more days with short shifts or split shifts.

Re: Wal-Mart will pay employees to deliver packages on their way home

#87

Post by UseStrict » Fri, Jun 02, 2017, 5:18 PM UTC

david927 wrote: post #40

What are the liability concerns for this? If they get in a car crash on their way home, does Wal-Mart pay? And if not, why not? To me, personally, this smacks of late-stage capitalism. How long until "voluntary and paid" becomes "coerced and paid little"?

I can just imagine an employees quarterly performance review. "Mark you've done a great job this quarter, though I can't help but notice that you drive to work and aren't enrolled in our employee delivery program. It is important to me and to corporate that everyone who is willing and able participate to ensure our customers are satisfied. Don't you want our customers to be satisfied, Mark?"

First it will be optional, then it will be encouraged, and finally it will become coerced.

Re: Wal-Mart will pay employees to deliver packages on their way home

#88

Post by mickrussom » Fri, Jun 02, 2017, 5:19 PM UTC

sabujp wrote: post #4

I can easily see how walmart managers would blackmail^Wencourage employees into doing this.

Please - if you are going to stab at walmart, please, dont let scamazon amazon off the hook. Drones means less jobs. No employee stores mean less jobs. At least walmart employs people. Scamazon's well known to be brutal towards warehouse employees and while paying them bottom dollar they are pouring billions into eliminating those jobs. And for what? Rip off vendors and use monopolist loss-leadership pricing to break competition, create a monopoly and then let the dear-leader jeff use billions to play rocket-chess with Elon Musk in space. Its insane. Cure cancer. Figure out how to make fusion energy or cheap/free energy.

Re: Wal-Mart will pay employees to deliver packages on their way home

#89

Post by ghostly_s » Fri, Jun 02, 2017, 5:20 PM UTC

v45h wrote: post #63

leggomylibro wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ugh. I think that this sort of attitude (which was my initial reaction too) is a big part of what's wrong with our current economy. If you take the concept at face value, this is Walmart offering to let their employees make some extra money in exchange for a bit of extra work, once they've clocked out. What a nice company. But realistically, this is Walmart shunting the costs of delivery onto their employees. Instead…

Is it only shady because you believe Walmart employees are not paid enough as is? Doctors can choose to moonlight and get paid extra, and I don't think anyone is complaining about that. And overtime is certainly a thing. Coming from Walmart's perspective, I'm assuming it just seemed like a smart business decision rather than something maliciously intended. Like hey look, we can make our customers and employees happie…

> Doctors can choose to moonlight and get paid extra, and I don't think anyone is complaining about that.

Doctors have that choice, and yet they don't do that. I wonder why?

Re: Wal-Mart will pay employees to deliver packages on their way home

#90

Post by Alupis » Fri, Jun 02, 2017, 5:20 PM UTC

subway wrote: post #76

xienze wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and it won't be near their hourly wage nor gas/wear & tear costs. Well then, I suppose the people involved will just have to do the math and see if it makes sense to them. The horror.

Sadly for a lot of people, the short term win of being able to use the extra couple dollars to feed the family causes them to act 'irrationally' and ignore the longer term consequences.

> Sadly for a lot of people, the short term win of being able to use the extra couple dollars to feed the family causes them to act 'irrationally' and ignore the longer term consequences

Sort of like driving for Lyft or Uber?

The wear on vehicles alone adds up quickly into large maintenance bills... yet many people still drive for them on an amateur level, making long term profits questionable (buying new tires after 1-2 years instead of 3-4, for example).