I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento • Hacker News Board

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#31

Post by bhl » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 7:50 PM UTC

Note that the publishing title of the article is “Tourist Journalism Versus the Working Class”, which should be an indication of the author’s bias. The story initially begins with comparing the personal, working experience of the author with what he has seen depicted in the media. I thought it was compelling, even if the author worked in a “sortation warehouse” instead of the “fulfillment center” frequently covered, and only represents one datapoint.

But then he interjects his argument with how working for Amazon has allowed him to interact with diverse colleagues? The story felt like it went from an appreciation of the working class to a defense of corporations and capitalism, with a bit of nationalistic pride sprinkled in. I don’t know what to think.

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#32

Post by the8472 » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 7:51 PM UTC

Guest42 wrote: post #23

the8472 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really, since they are single events you don't know anything about the frequency and how it compares to the frequency in other locations. The law of large number causes unusual events to happen every day, which means the more globally your news operates the more freak events you can accumulate. Your town newspaper regularly reporting that someone had to work next to a corpse would be concerning. BBC world news re…

"The weak law of large numbers states that the sample average converges in probability towards the expected value" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_large_numbers

Ah, I was thinking of "The Law of Truly Large Numbers"

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#33

Post by seibelj » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 7:51 PM UTC

There is similarly a great EconTalk episode from 2009 about what working at WalMart is like http://www.econtalk.org/platt-on-working-at-wal-mart/

One thing I took from that episode is how so many people yearn for the mom-and-pops to come back, even though their prices were awful, selection poor, service subpar, working for them had less protections, and on and on.

WalMart is actually a pretty good employer compared to many other low-wage industries and the benefits in terms of price and selection for rural areas should not be underestimated.

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#34

Post by reaperducer » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 7:51 PM UTC

m0zg wrote: post #25

I (and people I directly worked with) have been interviewed a couple of times by what one would call "mainstream press". Once by a NY Times columnist and another time by TechCrunch. The resulting articles bore very little semblance to what we said, omitted crucial facts, and contained the kinds of exaggerations that neither I nor any of the people interviewed would ever make. I'm talking "breaking the laws of physics…

I was going to ask if you contacted The Times about this. It used to take such things very seriously.

Then after I did a search for the Times' ombudsman, I came across an article stating that it eliminated its Public Editor position in 2017.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/02/public-editor/liz-spayd-f...

While The Times is prolific in its corrections, all I can find now is this sentence: "Messages on news coverage can be e-mailed to nytnews@nytimes.com or left toll-free at 1-844-NYT-NEWS."

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#35

Post by fzeroracer » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 7:53 PM UTC

The logic applied in the article cuts both ways, however. I've seen my fair share of companies find one happy employee, and use that to try and sweep all of the bad shit going on in the background under the rug. Look at John Manson and how happy he is. All of the other stories are just workers looking for revenge, lazy good-for-nothings, etc.

So while it's true that the writer of this story might not be abused or experiencing disparate work conditions, there are many others that are.

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#36

Post by dvfjsdhgfv » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 7:56 PM UTC

> Apart from employing a lot of staff, Amazon does a number of things progressives ought to like. For instance, it employs a very diverse group of people. On my shift, I work with African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, white people, gay people, deaf people, ex-convicts, and people whose ethnicities and even genders are a mystery to me.

This is a warehouse job with a medium low salary. If the author worked as a programmer and could still repeat the above, that would really be commendable.

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#37

Post by floatboth » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 7:58 PM UTC

bhl wrote: post #31

Note that the publishing title of the article is “Tourist Journalism Versus the Working Class”, which should be an indication of the author’s bias. The story initially begins with comparing the personal, working experience of the author with what he has seen depicted in the media. I thought it was compelling, even if the author worked in a “sortation warehouse” instead of the “fulfillment center” frequently covered,…

> a defense of corporations and capitalism, with a bit of nationalistic pride sprinkled in

About what you should expect from that awful publication.

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#38

Post by blueboo » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 8:00 PM UTC

seraphsf wrote: post #12

I love this article. It’s so hard to find moderate voices, especially when algorithmic curation tends to surface outrage first. As the author puts it: “I don’t object to journalists writing about the trials and tribulations of Amazon employees. I only wish they would do so fairly. Just because a journalist has found an Amazon employee somewhere who got sprayed with bear repellant, that doesn’t mean Amazon employees s…

[flagged]

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#39

Post by ilaksh » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 8:00 PM UTC

Glad to hear a different side to this. There absolutely are not any robots that can do all of the tasks the people in the sortation center do as quickly as they do them. Not even close. I actually think that deep learning systems can be trained for all or almost all the fixed tasks already, but there are no robots that have anywhere near the combination of mobility, power-to-weight, flexibility, speed and agility necessary to replace humans in those jobs.

I think that it's going to take a new type of more effective artificial muscle to get there.

But then absolutely all of those jobs will be eliminated.

I think Marshall Brain's books are pretty good on the subject.

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#40

Post by m0zg » Sat, Jul 20, 2019, 8:02 PM UTC

nova22033 wrote: post #27

m0zg wrote: post #25

I (and people I directly worked with) have been interviewed a couple of times by what one would call "mainstream press". Once by a NY Times columnist and another time by TechCrunch. The resulting articles bore very little semblance to what we said, omitted crucial facts, and contained the kinds of exaggerations that neither I nor any of the people interviewed would ever make. I'm talking "breaking the laws of physics…

Were you quoted by name?

Don't think I was, but our CEO and CTO were.