What is this Twitter army of Amazon drones cheerfully defending warehouse work? • Hacker News Board

Re: What is this Twitter army of Amazon drones cheerfully defending warehouse work?

#81

Post by sharkweek » Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 5:53 AM UTC

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #75

eksemplar wrote: post #68

Had anyone ever done a piece of investigative journalism on the actual conditions at Amazon? A company that big will have some terrible managers, and the fact that it’s not discovering those easily, is problematic, but that doesn’t mean the entire company is rotten. I’m a manager in a Scandinavian municipality, and because I work with lean and efficiency I get to see all sides of our operation. I’ve seen departments…

The side of Amazon that works in offices and makes good money also has a reputation as a bad place to work, compared to other major tech companies. See the "Nearly every person I worked with, I saw cry at their desk" article from the NYT a few years back. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-... Anecdotally, as you say, that does seem to depend a lot on your department--good local management ca…

I live in Seattle and thus a notable percentage of my social circle works for Amazon corporate.

None of them love working at Amazon, and only a few like it there, but most are pretty miserable.

I think the stock performance is keeping most of them there with how Amazon’s vesting schedule tends to be heavily backloaded. One guy did comment that he loves the scale of the things he’s working on, which I guess I get, but he always complains about the overall culture.

Re: What is this Twitter army of Amazon drones cheerfully defending warehouse work?

#82

Post by adventured » Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 6:00 AM UTC

jancsika wrote: post #67

jakobegger wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's amazing how well this works despite being obvious propaganda. I felt my own opinion on Amazon Fullfilment Centers change as I read the article. One thing that makes propaganda like this so effective is that journalists generally do not bother to verify any propaganda claims (eg. does Amazon really pay 30% more?), so even if they write articles making fun of you they still repeat your message.

Can you explain a little about what you felt changing in your opinion here? What I got out of it was that Amazon had previously been dehumanizing their workers to the point that the PR drones have to now overtly brag about complying with OSHA laws.

The questions it prompts are pretty straight forward.

Does Amazon actually pay ~30% better now than their competitors (or anything close to that)? Do they offer dental, vision and healthcare coverage for all employees?

If those things are true, then I think better of Amazon because of it. I would have guessed none of those things were true otherwise. The media and essentially all comments online proclaim that Amazon employees are being tortured horrifically on a daily basis and paid absolute bottom tier wages across the board. Those articles and opinions have, to one degree or another, tilted my opinion of Amazon in a negative manner.

Can anyone here speak to if those positive things are true and or mostly true? I have no idea. I'd think better of Amazon if they were.

Re: What is this Twitter army of Amazon drones cheerfully defending warehouse work?

#83

Post by nickthemagicman » Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 6:01 AM UTC

jakobegger wrote: post #61

agwa wrote: post #43

Let's say you're a company with a serious PR problem about the working conditions in your warehouses. You set up 15 Twitter accounts claiming to be employees of your warehouses. You make sure the accounts are laughably bad at concealing the fact that they are shills, with cookie-cutter bios and responses that are obviously canned talking points. This ensures that the accounts are discovered and written up by various…

It's amazing how well this works despite being obvious propaganda. I felt my own opinion on Amazon Fullfilment Centers change as I read the article. One thing that makes propaganda like this so effective is that journalists generally do not bother to verify any propaganda claims (eg. does Amazon really pay 30% more?), so even if they write articles making fun of you they still repeat your message.

It's a gish gallop. No one has time/energy to verify it all and they're not providing any proof.

Re: What is this Twitter army of Amazon drones cheerfully defending warehouse work?

#84

Post by fcthrowaway » Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 6:02 AM UTC

jancsika wrote: post #78

FC_Associate wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I want to be very clear that based on extensive reports I've read in the press, and anecdotes that have been shared online, what krapp said definitely goes on, but no, personally I have never witnessed that. There are two main reasons why it's possible that I've never run across such cases, the most logical one being that I've worked primarily in a Delivery Station and not a Fulfillment Center. From what I've expe…

> I can't imagine any managers at my station writing anyone up for taking bathroom breaks, and definitely not for handling a bloody nose. What exactly is the policy on bathroom breaks?

(I've worked in an FC for over a year. I'm an L1, not a PA or manager.)

Most functions in FCs are "direct": they have rate expectations that are automatically tracked. Every minute you're in a direct function counts toward your rate. You can go to the bathroom whenever you need to, but it'll lower your rate. (Some functions are "indirect", meaning that they don't involve use of any digital tools and so can't be tracked.)

"Time off task" is also automatically tracked. If you go some amount of time without scanning anything -- I think it's five minutes -- that'll show up on your time. Managers know that people have to go to the bathroom and usually won't make a big deal out of it, but if you take an unusually long time in the bathroom you might get written up. TOT writeups are supposed to be automatic but I think managers have some discretion.

I think I was written up for a bathroom break before -- I'm not sure, since my FC isn't very good at delivering feedback -- but I was in there for half an hour, so it was sort of understandable.

There haven't been issues with bathroom breaks where I am, but there's only one floor. The site in the story with associates peeing in bottles apparently had multiple floors, with bathrooms only on the bottom floor. It'd be difficult to take a bathroom break while maintaining the expected rate and low TOT at sites like that.

I think rate expectations are consistent across the network, meaning that managers, or even site leads, can't adjust them to account for things like distance to the bathroom.

In short: you won't get written up for taking a bathroom break, and you can just go to the bathroom when you need to, but you might get written up for low rates or high time off task, and you might end up with low rates or high time off task for going to the bathroom if it's far away or you take a long time.

Re: What is this Twitter army of Amazon drones cheerfully defending warehouse work?

#85

Post by FC_Associate » Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 6:02 AM UTC

jancsika wrote: post #78

FC_Associate wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I want to be very clear that based on extensive reports I've read in the press, and anecdotes that have been shared online, what krapp said definitely goes on, but no, personally I have never witnessed that. There are two main reasons why it's possible that I've never run across such cases, the most logical one being that I've worked primarily in a Delivery Station and not a Fulfillment Center. From what I've expe…

> I can't imagine any managers at my station writing anyone up for taking bathroom breaks, and definitely not for handling a bloody nose. What exactly is the policy on bathroom breaks?

So just to give you a little background info, the DS I work at runs 24/7 using multiple shifts. The bulk of the work is done by the night shift which usually runs from around 11pm to 5:45am. This is the largest shift with 150+ associates and the one that is under the most time pressure. Packages have to be unloaded from trucks and make their way through the warehouse on a conveyor belt system to be stowed in bags that the delivery drivers pick up in the morning. The main duties consist of unloading the trucks, diverting the packages down different lanes, picking the correct packages off the moving belt and placing them on a rack, and then stowing the packages into their appropriate bags located on shelving units. Each one of these steps is done by a different person. I'm providing some extra info here so you get a feel for how the warehouse runs. Basically anyone leaving their post even for a few minutes will result in packages not being properly sorted/stowed and the conveyor belts getting backed up and potentially jammed.

The policy at our station is that if you need to go to the bathroom when not on break or lunch, you need to tell either a line lead, shift assistant, or the people working next to you so that they can cover your post while you're gone so things don't get backed up or packages don't end up spilling on the ground. That's pretty much it. I've worked the night shift before and drink large amounts of water so I could rarely make it through a shift without using the bathroom one or two times in addition to the times I went while on break and lunch. It was never a problem, we would just cover for each other.

Re: What is this Twitter army of Amazon drones cheerfully defending warehouse work?

#86

Post by elp » Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 6:04 AM UTC

mrhappyunhappy wrote: post #27

beamatronic wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How could any professional in this day and age think that this could possibly work?

You should see the scale of similar manipulation efforts that exist on Reddit. Hundreds, sometimes thousands of accounts that completely overtake a sub to drive a certain viewpoint. Any decently intelligent person can see what’s going on but I’m afraid there is a large number of people who are non the wiser. I’ve seen this sort of social manipulation on a grand scale across numerous large online publications with yah…

Some of the posts I've seen here pushing serverless or AWS are not far off this.

Re: What is this Twitter army of Amazon drones cheerfully defending warehouse work?

#87

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 6:15 AM UTC

krapp wrote: post #30

anonytrary wrote: post #25

I don't think the ground workers at Amazon: 1. Care about tweeting about their company. 2. Talk like that. However, I think this could be real if: 1. Amazon has some incentive program that basically allows workers to take on a "marketing assignment" for some sort of bonus. If so, how is this different than contriving good reviews about your restaurant on Yelp? 2. Amazon has developed or is paying for third party soft…

>Amazon has some incentive program that basically allows workers to take on a "marketing assignment" for some sort of bonus. I haven't heard of any such program, but if it existed, I guarantee Amazon wouldn't offer a bonus for it.

[deleted]

Re: What is this Twitter army of Amazon drones cheerfully defending warehouse work?

#88

Post by fcthrowaway » Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 6:18 AM UTC

krapp wrote: post #30

anonytrary wrote: post #25

I don't think the ground workers at Amazon: 1. Care about tweeting about their company. 2. Talk like that. However, I think this could be real if: 1. Amazon has some incentive program that basically allows workers to take on a "marketing assignment" for some sort of bonus. If so, how is this different than contriving good reviews about your restaurant on Yelp? 2. Amazon has developed or is paying for third party soft…

>Amazon has some incentive program that basically allows workers to take on a "marketing assignment" for some sort of bonus. I haven't heard of any such program, but if it existed, I guarantee Amazon wouldn't offer a bonus for it.

They wouldn't offer a bonus. They'd offer entry into a drawing for an Amazon gift card. But I haven't heard of any such program either, nor of any attempt to get us to run PR for them, other than occasionally sending out emails asking us to review Amazon on Glassdoor.

(IME, most FC associates never check their Amazon email accounts, so they wouldn't see that.)

Re: What is this Twitter army of Amazon drones cheerfully defending warehouse work?

#89

Post by fcthrowaway » Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 6:25 AM UTC

userbinator wrote: post #20

I'm not even disturbed. I'm just very puzzled that there are people who would think these messages were anything but pure PR propaganda. It's so blatantly obvious to me. ...and it might just be my unfamiliarity, but "FC Ambassador" just reminds me of football more than anything else. That part of their branding isn't working, if they're trying to get into the minds of people who aren't familiar with the company.

"FC Ambassador" is Amazon jargon. An FC is a fulfillment center, and an ambassador is an L1 associate who's gone through training for coaching new hires... or something like that. They don't really have added responsibilities where I am. I've heard the role is a bigger deal in distribution centers.

Re: What is this Twitter army of Amazon drones cheerfully defending warehouse work?

#90

Post by Papirola » Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 6:32 AM UTC

jakobegger wrote: post #61

agwa wrote: post #43

Let's say you're a company with a serious PR problem about the working conditions in your warehouses. You set up 15 Twitter accounts claiming to be employees of your warehouses. You make sure the accounts are laughably bad at concealing the fact that they are shills, with cookie-cutter bios and responses that are obviously canned talking points. This ensures that the accounts are discovered and written up by various…

It's amazing how well this works despite being obvious propaganda. I felt my own opinion on Amazon Fullfilment Centers change as I read the article. One thing that makes propaganda like this so effective is that journalists generally do not bother to verify any propaganda claims (eg. does Amazon really pay 30% more?), so even if they write articles making fun of you they still repeat your message.

there are the real meme wars