Is it just me or is Amazon turning out to be even more evil than Walmart ever was? It's just cuz they're an "innovative" tech company, that we let them get away with it?
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Brutal life working in Amazon warehouse
91–100 of 144 posts
Re: Brutal life working in Amazon warehouse
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
This kind of logic lets you justify any behavior as long as there's a market involved somehow. You're trying to give free agency to people who are very likely choosing between the only job they can find and starvation. That's not a free market, it's wage slavery. Low end employers can do anything they want as long as the alternative for enough of their candidates is starvation.
Should we go back to the days of mandated government work programs? What is your actual recommendation here? At some point we have to accept that people should be able to make free choices, and will typically make sub-optimal choices. We can increase the burden on employers but then that means less overall jobs - which then leads to that starvation outcome you mention.
My only recommendation is to not base your moral code on market forces. Not everything the market allows is good.
And maybe think a little about the people involved in the products you consume.
Re: Brutal life working in Amazon warehouse
#93>>I found staff asleep on their feet, exhausted from toiling for up to 55 hours a week.
What's brutal is their salary, £8.2 an hour, but 55 hours in the busiest season is called brutal? Please.
Re: Brutal life working in Amazon warehouse
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
Treating their employees well is how Google/Microsoft/Facebook are built. It's easy for them, it's office workers who bring super high margins. The business is more valuable by treating people well. Businesses based on grunt work, like Amazon, can't do that. Their existence is based on infinite cheap labor, to execute as much grunt work as cheap as possible.
So why can Costco afford to treat their employees humanely?
Costco is an interesting case. Their profit is based on membership fees. That's why they're so fixated on customer service and happy employees.
For instance, Wal Mart makes more money if you shop their frequently. They have a vested interest in selling you products.
Costco makes their profits off the membership. So whether you shop there once a year or once a week, they continue to get that membership revenue.
On a side note, I wonder if that's the reason that lines at Costco are so miserable and their hours are so short? Perhaps Costco would prefer that you just stay home? Conversely, my Wal Mart is open 24hrs a day and the checkout process takes a couple minutes.
Re: Brutal life working in Amazon warehouse
#95As a customer, Amazon is wonderful. But it needs to treat its employees better. Fix this, Jeff.
If he fixes it, the prices will rise, making Amazon less wonderful.
Re: Brutal life working in Amazon warehouse
#96Try loading trucks at UPS and you'll think this is nothing.
Or, pay them $25 an hour and no one will complain.
Re: Brutal life working in Amazon warehouse
#97Brutal? Sounds like a regular blue collar job. I worked as a sparkwatch at a plywood plant in high school. Basically, a welder’s assistant. This is what regular blue collar jobs look like. You work 12 hour shifts. The machinery is hot. There is constant dust in the air. You are on your feet the entire time. It’s 30ºC in the summer. It’s -20ºC in the winter. People in Sillicon Valley and especially the press are just…
I worked at a UPS sort facility in the 1980s. Everyone there was definitely a human robot. Up to 130F temperatures were legal in the feeder trucks. All sorters and loaders were monitored by supervisors with stopwatches and clipboards. I can't imagine what it might have been like if not unionized and OSHA compliant. I also don't imagine conditions are much better now.
Re: Brutal life working in Amazon warehouse
#98I’m currently working at one of the largest Amazon delivery stations in the US and seeing as there probably aren’t too many low level FC associates hanging out around these parts I’d be happy to answer any questions anyone might have. Keep in mind that I’m at a delivery station, this is a huge warehouse where we receive packages and sort them for delivery, and not one of the warehouses were products are packaged for…
What has surprised you most about the job versus your expectations going in?
Re: Brutal life working in Amazon warehouse
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am against excessive taxation or overregulation but companies like Amazon ...no really any company...should be responsible for treating the society fair. Amazon is a behemoth that grew because of its ruthless behavior towards its competitors. I am sure there is more to life than constant race to the bottom when your average american has to compete with someone from china or africa.
How can you treat someone unfairly when they are not compelled to interact with you at all? Every single person who has a job with Amazon is there because they choose to be.
When the alternative is destitution, homelessness, and starvation the choice to work in a hellish occupation can hardly be called 'voluntary'. Many who find themselves in a situation where a job in one of these hellholes is an attractive proposition are in those types of desperate life circumstances.
Re: Brutal life working in Amazon warehouse
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
So why can Costco afford to treat their employees humanely?
Costco is an interesting case. Their profit is based on membership fees. That's why they're so fixated on customer service and happy employees. For instance, Wal Mart makes more money if you shop their frequently. They have a vested interest in selling you products. Costco makes their profits off the membership. So whether you shop there once a year or once a week, they continue to get that membership revenue. On a s…
> For instance, Wal Mart makes more money if you shop their frequently.
So does Costco; they are profitable even before membership fees, and that's including fixed costs; so more unit sales means more profits. But the membership fees are pure profit on top of all that (and actually encourage people to shop more.)
> On a side note, I wonder if that's the reason that lines at Costco are so miserable and their hours are so short?
IME, the lines are long because of the quantity of items people tend to purchase (but they also move quickly for their length.) The hours are short because hours with low sales volume accumulate costs quickly.
> Conversely, my Wal Mart is open 24hrs a day and the checkout process takes a couple minutes.
IME, checkout at Walmart is much more variable than Costco; the average may be less time, but the range seems to go much higher. The longer hours, including hours with very low staffing, contribute to that, because there's more opportunity for staffing to not be aligned to a cluster of customers.