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The human costs of Black Friday, explained by a former Amazon warehouse manager

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Re: The human costs of Black Friday, explained by a former Amazon warehouse manager

#21

Post by Kaveren »

oh_sigh wrote: post #14
choot wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To demonstrate their anonymity statement is rendered useless when you go through the other data in the article.

You're assuming some data hasn't been delicately fudged in order to anonymize the source. Maybe he worked there between August 2016 and September 2017. Maybe is a Navy, not AF veteran. Maybe he isn't a he at all. Who knows?

Isn't that worse than just not revealing personal information at all? Fudging dates could be quite bad in particular if it were to become apparent that policy changes were made after the supposed time period.

I don't find that the military information was valuable, it could've easily been left out, and the veteran question the author posed could have still been asked if it were rephrased.

Re: The human costs of Black Friday, explained by a former Amazon warehouse manager

#22

Post by grardb »

cloakandswagger wrote: post #4

This article indicts Amazon of the following cruelties: - Expects workers to work compensated overtime during a busy period - Tracks worker performance - Expects people to take only their scheduled breaks, and writes them up if they're MIA for 30+ minutes - Requires workers to show up and work during their scheduled work hours The humanity! And this poor guy, working a non-specialized manager position attainable with…

How could you possibly come to that conclusion?

> The military is known for being a bastion of sexism, but I had a worse experience at Amazon.

> . . . the managers do not get any sort of break or lunch. Most of us just never ate. Everyone is on their feet for 12 hours a day.

> Associates got a 30-minute lunch break, two 15-minute breaks, and an additional 15 minutes of “time off tasks.”

Working 12 hours per day with a total of only 1 hour of break time, split into three smaller breaks – and all tracked to the minute? And no lunch for managers?

> The associates work 10 hours a day, the managers 14 to 18. It’s mandatory overtime, the hours are not voluntary, and they are all on your feet.

Do you really think this is acceptable?

To be honest, I'm quite sick of the general attitude on HN towards Amazon. I get that it's convenient and usually cheaper than its competitors. But let's not pretend that the way they do business is morally acceptable. It isn't.

This is absurd. Instead of trying to convince yourselves that it's Not That Bad, why not vote with your dollars and support businesses that treat their employees better? From what I can tell, most people reading HN have the means to do so.

(Edited to better follow HN guidelines.)

Re: The human costs of Black Friday, explained by a former Amazon warehouse manager

#23

Post by basic1 »

cloakandswagger wrote: post #4

This article indicts Amazon of the following cruelties: - Expects workers to work compensated overtime during a busy period - Tracks worker performance - Expects people to take only their scheduled breaks, and writes them up if they're MIA for 30+ minutes - Requires workers to show up and work during their scheduled work hours The humanity! And this poor guy, working a non-specialized manager position attainable with…

Capitalism has failed.

Re: The human costs of Black Friday, explained by a former Amazon warehouse manager

#24

Post by ricardoreis »

cloakandswagger wrote: post #4

This article indicts Amazon of the following cruelties: - Expects workers to work compensated overtime during a busy period - Tracks worker performance - Expects people to take only their scheduled breaks, and writes them up if they're MIA for 30+ minutes - Requires workers to show up and work during their scheduled work hours The humanity! And this poor guy, working a non-specialized manager position attainable with…

This article indicts Amazon of the following cruelties:

It seems we were reading different articles, then. In any case your synopsis provides a very skewed representation of what the article actually said.

Re: The human costs of Black Friday, explained by a former Amazon warehouse manager

#25

Post by School-Cotton »

grardb wrote: post #22
cloakandswagger wrote: post #4

This article indicts Amazon of the following cruelties: - Expects workers to work compensated overtime during a busy period - Tracks worker performance - Expects people to take only their scheduled breaks, and writes them up if they're MIA for 30+ minutes - Requires workers to show up and work during their scheduled work hours The humanity! And this poor guy, working a non-specialized manager position attainable with…

How could you possibly come to that conclusion? > The military is known for being a bastion of sexism, but I had a worse experience at Amazon. > . . . the managers do not get any sort of break or lunch. Most of us just never ate. Everyone is on their feet for 12 hours a day. > Associates got a 30-minute lunch break, two 15-minute breaks, and an additional 15 minutes of “time off tasks.” Working 12 hours per day with…

[flagged]

Re: The human costs of Black Friday, explained by a former Amazon warehouse manager

#26

Post by [deleted] »

neuronflux wrote: post #6
cloakandswagger wrote: post #4

This article indicts Amazon of the following cruelties: - Expects workers to work compensated overtime during a busy period - Tracks worker performance - Expects people to take only their scheduled breaks, and writes them up if they're MIA for 30+ minutes - Requires workers to show up and work during their scheduled work hours The humanity! And this poor guy, working a non-specialized manager position attainable with…

> after I finished serving in the Air Force Reserves in 2014, but then decided to go to graduate school for business administration > My salary was $80,000, which is on the higher end. They gave me more because I said I wouldn’t accept anything less, since I had a master’s.

[deleted]

Re: The human costs of Black Friday, explained by a former Amazon warehouse manager

#27

Post by tonyarkles »

chickenfries wrote: post #20
Waterluvian wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the crappy thing. We should pay you more to teach middle school math if you're a remarkably better teacher than the rest. In high school some of my favourite teachers were there mostly as a semi-retirement job. My favourite was a retired Intel architect who taught grade 10 electrical engineering. I would have been spoiled rotten if we were able to consistently attract those kinds of teachers.

It's pretty well agreed on HN that you get what you pay for, and anyone who complains about being unable to hire good developers simply just isn't compensating well enough. Why on earth would you not want to pay a better qualified teacher more? You must think that teaching is easy because the math is not complicated, yet most of the people who say this would loathe the idea of teaching for a living.

> Why on earth would you not want to pay a better qualified teacher more?

Maybe I'm misreading what the parent said (and got downvoted like crazy for). My interpretation of it was an indictment of the teachers unions, where someone who comes in with a background like his teacher had (serious industry experience) is going to get bottom of the barrel pay because of the lack of seniority etc.

I absolutely think someone with that kind of experience should be able to make good money as a teacher, even if they're teaching grade 10 physics. There's also some amazing teachers who came into the career through the traditional path that should be making way more than they are.

Re: The human costs of Black Friday, explained by a former Amazon warehouse manager

#28

Post by Spooky23 »

cloakandswagger wrote: post #4

This article indicts Amazon of the following cruelties: - Expects workers to work compensated overtime during a busy period - Tracks worker performance - Expects people to take only their scheduled breaks, and writes them up if they're MIA for 30+ minutes - Requires workers to show up and work during their scheduled work hours The humanity! And this poor guy, working a non-specialized manager position attainable with…

How many minutes are you off task per day?

Re: The human costs of Black Friday, explained by a former Amazon warehouse manager

#29

Post by stochastic_monk »

grardb wrote: post #22
cloakandswagger wrote: post #4

This article indicts Amazon of the following cruelties: - Expects workers to work compensated overtime during a busy period - Tracks worker performance - Expects people to take only their scheduled breaks, and writes them up if they're MIA for 30+ minutes - Requires workers to show up and work during their scheduled work hours The humanity! And this poor guy, working a non-specialized manager position attainable with…

How could you possibly come to that conclusion? > The military is known for being a bastion of sexism, but I had a worse experience at Amazon. > . . . the managers do not get any sort of break or lunch. Most of us just never ate. Everyone is on their feet for 12 hours a day. > Associates got a 30-minute lunch break, two 15-minute breaks, and an additional 15 minutes of “time off tasks.” Working 12 hours per day with…

You make good points, but accuse the gp of not reading the article and talk about post scoring, both of which are against guidelines.

Re: The human costs of Black Friday, explained by a former Amazon warehouse manager

#30

Post by hedvig »

grardb wrote: post #22
cloakandswagger wrote: post #4

This article indicts Amazon of the following cruelties: - Expects workers to work compensated overtime during a busy period - Tracks worker performance - Expects people to take only their scheduled breaks, and writes them up if they're MIA for 30+ minutes - Requires workers to show up and work during their scheduled work hours The humanity! And this poor guy, working a non-specialized manager position attainable with…

How could you possibly come to that conclusion? > The military is known for being a bastion of sexism, but I had a worse experience at Amazon. > . . . the managers do not get any sort of break or lunch. Most of us just never ate. Everyone is on their feet for 12 hours a day. > Associates got a 30-minute lunch break, two 15-minute breaks, and an additional 15 minutes of “time off tasks.” Working 12 hours per day with…

I don't know that its specific to Amazon but more generally comes from a core ideology of abiding by concepts of free market rules to the exclusion of concepts of humanity.
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