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I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

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Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#121

Post by anigbrowl »

toasterlovin wrote: post #103
lionsdan wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably referring to the contents of this: https://quillette.com/2019/06/05/superior-the-return-of-race...

Searching for “phrenology” doesn’t return a single result until the comments. And the article seems to be a fairly balanced review. It starts by crediting the author of the book they are reviewing for several things before making a reasoned argument against her conclusions. What am I missing?

I'm using the word pejoratively, but I was specifically referring to the handwavey discussion of skull measurement as a synecdoche for the whole article.

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#122

Post by dang »

tw2019072089237 wrote: post #46
awkward wrote: post #8

I worked as a union picker for a warehouse in 2001 - I was just there until I went to college, but if I had stayed for a year the 12.50 an hour I was making would have been raised to 16.50, and subject to raises as I stayed longer. Nearly 20 years later, and under a tighter labor market, amazon has raised the minimum for pickers to $15 an hour. It's great that this guy likes his job, but I have no doubt that amazon h…

Meanwhile, over 6 years ago, when the economy had barely even started bouncing back, Walmart was paying me—and other newish employees with short tenure—over $17/hr for this type of work. But look at mainstream attitudes towards the two companies and try measuring opinion about willingness to say something like "I bought it at Walmart" vs "I bought it from Amazon". There's more, though. And I write all this as a pro-s…

Could you please stop creating accounts for every few comments you post? We ban accounts that do that. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

HN is a community. Users needn't use their real name, but do need some identity for others to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a different kind of forum. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#123

Post by lonelappde »

JetezLeLogin wrote: post #108
throwawayjava wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously? That's the first/only question I ask about vacation policy because it's usually the only detail that isn't included in the first draft of the offer letter. Of course, I also ask before signing the contract. PTO is a significant part of your total compensation. Not clarifying how accrual works is just irresponsible. I honestly don't see how this is any different from asking about other time-based things, su…

"How does it accrue?" might be a better way of asking than "Can we start taking it right now?"

It's a warehouse job, not the PR department. Maybe pay a little better if you expect employees with refined diplomatic skills.

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#124

Post by lonelappde »

vore wrote: post #7

The author seems to very much worry that negative press is going to be the cause of him losing his job due to automation: >Just about every job in my sortation center could probably be done by a robot. In fact, it amazes me that Amazon hasn’t simply automated the entire facility. [...] If I had to guess, I’d say that Amazon continues to employ lots of human beings because, by putting money into the pockets of working…

The author is a libertarian think-tank shill, not actually worried about his job.

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#125

Post by markdown »

goldcd wrote: post #74
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and no. I was once in a HR seminar where they welcomed you to the company. When the woman said "we get 19 days PTO a year", you'd be surprised how many people shot up and said "can we start taking them right now?" Before they had even worked a day! PTO days are accurred by hours worked. For me, it's ~6 hours per 15 calendar days. You think you're entitled to PTO having worked 0 hours?...

PTO is a very strange concept for much of the world. I'm in the UK and get work full time and get 25 days holiday to take, plus the national/bank holidays. If I'm sick I take a sick day. If I take a significant number of sick days, I'll be asked to produce a note from my doctor confirming that I'm sick. If I get really sick, then myself and my employer both contribute to insurance that (I think, not checked for a whi…

We have this in Fiji, plus a new one that started this year called Family Care Leave. Family Care Leave is 5 days/yr you can take off to care for a family member.

There's still some uncertainty about how it can be used... some employers don't require a sick sheet (of your family member), so you could use it to support a child on a day they're playing a rugby match, or when you can't get a babysitter. Other employers require you to present your family members' sick sheet.

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#126

Post by selimthegrim »

frereubu wrote: post #3

As David Runciman has pointed out in his book How Democracy Ends and on the Talking Politics podcast - https://www.talkingpoliticspodcast.com/blog/2017/71-how-demo... - if you could only ask one question of someone you'd never met before, which would give you the best possibility of guessing whether they'd voted for Brexit, it would be whether they went to university (Remain) or not (Leave). He argues that, in the UK…

I thought bringing back the death penalty was a stronger correlate than university education? (Also I wonder if David is related to Steven Runciman)

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#127

Post by NotSammyHagar »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #76
joe5150 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

entitled? PTO is part of my compensation, of course I'm entitled to it.

As MuffinFlavored wrote, not unless it is accrued.

some companies let you take your 3 weeks off in a calendar year so you can actually start taking them your second day.

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#128

Post by objectivetruth »

tw2019072089237 wrote: post #46
awkward wrote: post #8

I worked as a union picker for a warehouse in 2001 - I was just there until I went to college, but if I had stayed for a year the 12.50 an hour I was making would have been raised to 16.50, and subject to raises as I stayed longer. Nearly 20 years later, and under a tighter labor market, amazon has raised the minimum for pickers to $15 an hour. It's great that this guy likes his job, but I have no doubt that amazon h…

Meanwhile, over 6 years ago, when the economy had barely even started bouncing back, Walmart was paying me—and other newish employees with short tenure—over $17/hr for this type of work. But look at mainstream attitudes towards the two companies and try measuring opinion about willingness to say something like "I bought it at Walmart" vs "I bought it from Amazon". There's more, though. And I write all this as a pro-s…

[dead]

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#129

Post by deogeo »

jacquesm wrote: post #117
WalterBright wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once talked to a manager about how he handed out raises. He mentioned one engineer who was sick exactly 10 days out of each year. Coincidentally, the company offered 10 days of paid sick leave a year. He laughed, and said she wasn't fooling anyone, and didn't give her a raise.

Here in NL employees get 2 full consecutive years of paid sick leave before you are allowed to terminate the contract.

I honestly think that's a terrible idea, and that paid sick leave should be paid not by the employer, but from taxes. Which should be raised slightly to cover such a policy.

Otherwise, hiring someone presents a gigantic risk for smaller companies. Getting unlucky even once with someone that will use 1-2 years of sick leave (legitimately or not) would be enough to bankrupt them.

In general I think making employers pay for a safety net, instead of funding it from taxes paid by those employers, is universally bad. What it does is make employers discriminate against potential hires likely to need that safety net, which makes those in need even worse off.

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#130

Post by mattigames »

m0zg wrote: post #41
reaperducer wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ca…

What would be the point? We got our "free PR", and nobody reads retractions anyway.

Retractions are always a small corner while the original story got a full page. They fear saying "we were wrong" too many times could affect their credibility and therefore their (economic) bottom line.
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