Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks

pulse.ng

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 721 posts

Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks

#301

Post by laythea »

kajumix wrote: post #282
kelukelugames wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bezos. Jeff Bezos is the reason why Amazon treats workers they way they do. Compared to other tech giants, Amazon is incredibly anti-employee. Look at how their stocks vest. I worked at Microsoft during Balmer's reign. The founder/CEO's attitude dictates the work culture. And causes harm if it's bad. I live in Seattle and often hear this joke: Being an Amazon customer is the best. An investor is great. An employee no…

Judging from some of the comments here, software engineers working in Amazon must either be stupid or irrational to continue working there, given the market for software engineers. Amazon is a highly successful company with significant anticipate growth still to come. All that success doesn't come without talent. So maybe not stupid, maybe just irrational? Tech companies in general, and Amazon in particular, are high…

Does the treatment outlined in the article apply to just warehouse workers or does this policy apply to software engineers/office bods also? (pee in a bottle etc?)

Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks

#302

Post by knieveltech »

piracykills wrote: post #135
baby wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a few centuries students in history classes will look back and try to understand why we let our people die in the streets.

I don't think so, reading real statistics on this kind of thing instead of alarmist and politically slanted headlines paints a very different picture of how the world is doing. https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty

It is fascinating how frequently modest increases in quality of living in third world countries is wheeled out as justification for the predations of capitalism. If we're going to have a serious conversation about how the world is doing that has to include the fact that the global economy is predicated on continuous growth despite finite natural resources. There is also a few environmental issues that might be relevant.

Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks

#303

Post by gimmeDatCheddar »

tsnont34nt wrote: post #273
gimmeDatCheddar wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you know what most people DO own? Unnecessary consumer debt that stunts their ability to save and invest. When the average car payment in America is around $500 a month, it's clear evidence that people have a spending problem rather than an income problem. Here's an idea: Teach people not to finance $500 worth of car each month (plus gas, plus insurance, plus maintenance, plus healthcare costs) and suddenly peopl…

Can you post a reference to that $500 number? I find that hard to believe. I was leasing a luxury car for around $400/mo a few years ago. What kinds of cars are average Americans leasing? Rolls Royces?

Quick google search: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2016/06...

Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks

#304

Post by gimmeDatCheddar »

CJefferson wrote: post #289
gimmeDatCheddar wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you know what most people DO own? Unnecessary consumer debt that stunts their ability to save and invest. When the average car payment in America is around $500 a month, it's clear evidence that people have a spending problem rather than an income problem. Here's an idea: Teach people not to finance $500 worth of car each month (plus gas, plus insurance, plus maintenance, plus healthcare costs) and suddenly peopl…

You've replied to multiple posts about these poor people with $500 month car financing. Prove it. And show what they should be doing instead.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2016/06...

Instead, buy a used car for $5,000 to $10,000 and use it. Invest the rest. Hell, financing a car for $200 and investing the rest would be much better than financing $500 worth of car per month.

Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks

#305

Post by marrone12 »

laythea wrote: post #288

Hang on a second. Isn't the magical quality about life, is its ability to adapt? If the world is becoming full of this kind of job, we need as individuals to reject it, and adapt to other forms of income. Off course, if you let the corporations treat us like this, they will. And they are not at fault. It is us at fault for accepting it. We must not accept these forms of income. Easier said than done, I know. But, who…

Not everyone has that kind of luxury. If you have hungry kids and a late car payment you sometimes just need a pay check.

Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks

#306

Post by gimmeDatCheddar »

CamTin wrote: post #268
gimmeDatCheddar wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average working class American is financing their car. The average car payment is $500. That is way too much car, yet people are financing that. Over the average working career, this $500 per month represents a foregone multi-million dollar net worth at retirement. So the average working class American is poor or struggling for cash not because of income issues, but because of spending issues. We have a spending…

I can't find a way that $500 per month adds up to "multi-million dollar net worth". Even at a very optimistic 10% return rate, it comes to just over 1.1 million over thirty years. What assumptions are you making in your calculation to come up with 2million+ at retirement from $500 per month of savings?

$500 a month is $6000 a year. $6000 a year invested from 26 to 66 at 10% interest per year is $2,921,110.87. At 12% it's $5,154,854.34.

Keep in mind this is just from a single decision the average person is making.

Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks

#307

Post by didibus »

truculation wrote: post #124

What's the typical walking time to the toilet in a large warehouse? Where do the relevant employees keep the bottles (e.g. are they attached to their legs underneath trousers? If not how do they avoid CCTV?) Are break periods mandatory or optional?

Ya, I do believe a FC warehouse job sucks pretty bad, but for some reason, this particular article seems strange. The journalist is clearly trying to find sensationalist material for his book. I'm not sure how much I can trust his sources.

Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks

#308

Post by wutbrodo »

vkou wrote: post #272
conanbatt wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please, the world had 94% extreme poverty in their time, and its down to less than 10%. The model of exploitation they have cannot possible account for that. I have tremendous sympathy for the empathic pain they had by seeing those levels of exploitation. Das Kapital's first volume is basically 50% accounts of child labor and exploitation. But they had no way to know that when the state holds the capital the results…

> The model of exploitation they have cannot possible account for that. No, what accounts for that is access to incredibly cheap energy, in the form of fossil fuels and electrification. Energy is what lifted people out of poverty, not any of that other nonsense. Without coal, oil, and hydro power, most of us would still be subsistence peasants, regardless of whether or not we would live in Communism, Feudalism, Capit…

Out of curiosity, what is your model for the dramatic examples of India and China, which were faced with relative stagnation and incredibly dire, largely-intractable poverty for decades after WWII; followed by liberalizing (incrementally) their markets and explosive growth+massive declines in extreme poverty thereafter?

I don't know a ton about the economic history of these two countries, but prima facie this seems to belie your claim that it was simply energy availability.

Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks

#309

Post by mnemonicsloth »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #47

My fear is that the future of work for most people is not unemployment, but shitty jobs like this. My feeling is that in order to avoid this and prosper, the people need to own the robots that do all the work (Marxism heyy). If robots provide huge productivity gains, then they will provide those gains for their owners. If it’s the big corporations that own them, they will see the gains. But as long as people are trea…

The problem with Marxism is that in many of the places where it's been implemented in earnest, it's killed millions of people. Think of Russia under Stalin, China under Mao, and Cambodia under Pol Pot.

People try to rehabilitate Marxism every so often, but the problem of the murderous regime pops up again and again, for a simple reason: when the state arrogates to itself enough power to remake society according to some Marxian vision, it opens the door for abuses far worse than anything Amazon will ever perpetrate.

Are you sure you're not thinking about Social Democracy instead?

Post reply on HN