Are dark kitchens the satanic mills of our era?
theguardian.com
Are dark kitchens the satanic mills of our era?
1–10 of 18 posts
Re: Are dark kitchens the satanic mills of our era?
#2I'd say Amazon warehouses and delivery services are the 'satanic mills'. Deliveroo kitchens are the western world sweatshops...
Re: Are dark kitchens the satanic mills of our era?
#3A portion of the article speaks of an Amazon fulfillment center:
“The top floor on which I worked was a gloomy place, with the only natural light coming in through small rectangular windows located far above on the high ceiling,” he writes. “Most of the light was provided by grey steel lamps the shape of rugby balls and about the same size. These were dotted about the ceilings on every floor and cast a peculiar yellow glow about the place. During the course of the night … many of the motion-sensitive lights would malfunction, meaning a dozen or so workers would be left scuttling around in the dark on the top floor of a warehouse at three o’clock in the morning. Who, when they purchase an iPhone charger or an Adele album with a click on Amazon’s website, imagines anything like this?”
Who wouldn't imagine something like this ?
What else could it possibly look like ? Regional shipment centers predate Amazon (and the web) and one would have to be comically out of touch with reality to not understand what a time sensitive shipping facility would look like ...
Re: Are dark kitchens the satanic mills of our era?
#4From the article: "This is no way to run an economy, let alone a society. "
It's a great way to run an economy, if you're the owner and not an employee.
It's a horrible way to run a society, regardless.
Re: Are dark kitchens the satanic mills of our era?
#5A portion of the article speaks of an Amazon fulfillment center: “The top floor on which I worked was a gloomy place, with the only natural light coming in through small rectangular windows located far above on the high ceiling,” he writes. “Most of the light was provided by grey steel lamps the shape of rugby balls and about the same size. These were dotted about the ceilings on every floor and cast a peculiar yello…
Having enough light to see to do your job safely is something I would expect from such a center.
Re: Are dark kitchens the satanic mills of our era?
#6A portion of the article speaks of an Amazon fulfillment center: “The top floor on which I worked was a gloomy place, with the only natural light coming in through small rectangular windows located far above on the high ceiling,” he writes. “Most of the light was provided by grey steel lamps the shape of rugby balls and about the same size. These were dotted about the ceilings on every floor and cast a peculiar yello…
You'd be surprised. I don't think the large majority of the population thinks about the logistics involved at all, except insofar as it directly concerns them (ie. the last link in the chain, or when there's a problem in fulfilling the order). Retail is an abstraction that conjures products into consumers' hands as if by magic. This permits them to stay conveniently ignorant of the ugly parts of the supply chain, whether it's torturing and killing animals on factory farms, inhumane working conditions at a sweatshop in a faraway country, or the labor-laws-dodging gig economy of couriers and fulfillment center workers.
Re: Are dark kitchens the satanic mills of our era?
#7A portion of the article speaks of an Amazon fulfillment center: “The top floor on which I worked was a gloomy place, with the only natural light coming in through small rectangular windows located far above on the high ceiling,” he writes. “Most of the light was provided by grey steel lamps the shape of rugby balls and about the same size. These were dotted about the ceilings on every floor and cast a peculiar yello…
Having enough light to see to do your job safely is something I would expect from such a center.
The lighting issue is pretty surprising, if only because making people pick goods in the dark sounds like it would decrease efficiency far beyond any money motion sensing lights might save.
The rest is pretty unsurprising, although if the lights did work right, there's still a very special misery associated with being in a large space that has only motion sensing lights. Something about being surrounded by darkness while you're perpetually under a light is very strange, and it's made even more disconcerting because motion sensors on their associated lights don't trip until you're getting into the space where you need that light. It feels like constantly walking into dark rooms and then having somebody flip the light on unexpectedly.
Re: Are dark kitchens the satanic mills of our era?
#8A portion of the article speaks of an Amazon fulfillment center: “The top floor on which I worked was a gloomy place, with the only natural light coming in through small rectangular windows located far above on the high ceiling,” he writes. “Most of the light was provided by grey steel lamps the shape of rugby balls and about the same size. These were dotted about the ceilings on every floor and cast a peculiar yello…
You'd be surprised. I don't think the large majority of the population thinks about the logistics involved at all , except insofar as it directly concerns them (ie. the last link in the chain, or when there's a problem in fulfilling the order). Retail is an abstraction that conjures products into consumers' hands as if by magic. This permits them to stay conveniently ignorant of the ugly parts of the supply chain, wh…
> This permits them to stay conveniently ignorant of the ugly parts of the supply chain
Yes, but it also leaves them completely ignorant of the extent to which modern capitalism is an unprecedented miracle of human cooperation and effort, which results in a lot of very silly rhetoric about the evils of corporations that wouldn't survive the slightest contact with the realities of running a business.
Re: Are dark kitchens the satanic mills of our era?
#9A portion of the article speaks of an Amazon fulfillment center: “The top floor on which I worked was a gloomy place, with the only natural light coming in through small rectangular windows located far above on the high ceiling,” he writes. “Most of the light was provided by grey steel lamps the shape of rugby balls and about the same size. These were dotted about the ceilings on every floor and cast a peculiar yello…
Me. The many warehouses and such I have been to, though not Amazon, and perhaps smaller than an Amazon building, have been lit with artificial daylight levels of brightness. Hard to be sure but it sounds like it's describing sodium lights. I would expect fluorescent tubes, floodlights, or LED equivalents.
Even the damn lorry bays and car parks outside such things are usually spitting out far too much light.
The one thing I'd absolutely not imagine or expect would be "gloomy". That I would imagine for a mushroom farm and precious little else. How the hell would they pick the correct product in what sounds like gloomy yellow sodium lighting from years ago?
Re: Are dark kitchens the satanic mills of our era?
#10John Harris is one of the few journalists at The Guardian I have respect for. His series "Anywhere but Westminster" is very good. He also did a smaller "Anywhere but Washington" series.