I feel like im talking to the borg • Hacker News Board

Re: I feel like im talking to the borg

#181

Post by Yoric » Thu, Aug 15, 2019, 2:21 PM UTC

GarrisonPrime wrote: post #73

Frondo wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may also stem from some union-busting messaging. One of the talking points that you see on anti-union posters and in videos is "unions get in the way of you talking to your manager, when you can talk to your manager directly you can address concerns straightaway with them." This reminds me of that.

Yes...and is that not factual? My experience being in a union tells me it is.

My experience in a union tells me that it isn't. Being unionized doesn't mean that you have to be on the warpath at all time. It just means that if the structure (quite often, not directly your manager) has a big problem, the workers have the necessary logistics to share information and help each other, regardless of the management structure.

In some cases, it may be confrontational, but that's pretty unusual in my personal experience.

Re: I feel like im talking to the borg

#182

Post by Yoric » Thu, Aug 15, 2019, 2:23 PM UTC

username90 wrote: post #165

asark wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some bad companies: no big deal, no one's making you stay, leave if you don't like it. Some bad unions: all unions are awful and the solution is to not have unions.

If a company is bad you can just switch to another company, if a powerful union is bad you'd have to switch to another industry.

I imagine that this may be true, but only if there's a single union in the industry. Why on Earth would that be the case?

Re: I feel like im talking to the borg

#183

Post by BeetleB » Thu, Aug 15, 2019, 2:23 PM UTC

qwsxyh wrote: post #62

blhack wrote: post #15

Can somebody explain how to parse the page linked here? This seems like deeplinking Intl the middle of a conversation. Side note: it feels like Twitter specifically has done immeasurable damage to the discourse. Why does the communication have to be presented so confusingly? To an outsider it seems like it’s to create maximum outrage/confusion/dopamine response. That’s much scarier to me than a customer service team.

You scroll up, and then read each tweet. I refuse to believe HN users are this genuinely ignorant about such a basic website. It's really nowhere near as hard to read as anyone here makes it out to be.

>I refuse to believe HN users are this genuinely ignorant about such a basic website.

You sound a lot like @rulesObeyer.

Re: I feel like im talking to the borg

#184

Post by umvi » Thu, Aug 15, 2019, 2:23 PM UTC

Well when you come out of the gate swinging, what do you expect?

She didn't seem reasonable either. Her mind was set on Amazon warehouse conditions = universally bad, and wouldn't take any other answer.

Re: I feel like im talking to the borg

#185

Post by umvi » Thu, Aug 15, 2019, 2:25 PM UTC

Yoric wrote: post #182

username90 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a company is bad you can just switch to another company, if a powerful union is bad you'd have to switch to another industry.

I imagine that this may be true, but only if there's a single union in the industry. Why on Earth would that be the case?

Because Unions are basically corporations that go by another name and want to gobble up the market share?

Unions are not benevolent. They are bureaucratic organizations that want to grow in power and resources just like a corporation. Their interests just happen to be orthogonal to corporate interests which can be beneficial for employees.

https://kk.org/thetechnium/the-shirky-prin/

Re: I feel like im talking to the borg

#186

Post by nacs » Thu, Aug 15, 2019, 2:26 PM UTC

ptah wrote: post #9

my favourite FC ambassador for sure https://twitter.com/SvetaPinto

I'm pretty sure that's one of the meme accounts that popped up/changed their name after this thread happened and not an actual FC ambassador.

Re: I feel like im talking to the borg

#187

Post by liveoneggs » Thu, Aug 15, 2019, 2:27 PM UTC

imglorp wrote: post #159

jordigh wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to this article, they're actual warehouse employees who tweet one day and work on the warehouse three other days: https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/23/what-is-this-weird-twitter...

Is a normal warehouse schedule 4 tens?

shift work comes in all kinds of splits; it's pretty normal anywhere

Re: I feel like im talking to the borg

#188

Post by rtkwe » Thu, Aug 15, 2019, 2:28 PM UTC

Accacin wrote: post #143

scrozart wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I also doubt that the warehouse jobs are bad jobs I agree that these folks are probably real people, but you must have missed the last several month's worth of very public information about the conditions in their warehouses. https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-employees-describe-pe... https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/3/11/18260472/amazon-ware... https://www.newsweek.com/amazon-drivers-warehouse-conditions...…

If the conditions are so bad, why are there more complaints? I'm very distrustful of the media in general and feel like they're pushing an agenda more than anything. I know people personally that work in distribution centres and they find it a perfectly fine job. It'd hard work, yes, but you see complaints like "boiling hot in summer and freezing in winter", and it's like.. yeah.. Which loading bay isn't like that?

For one there's no reason the whole warehouse has to be as hot as the actual loading docks and the answer to megacorp is treating it's workers poorly isn't really well this whole class of jobs sucks.

Re: I feel like im talking to the borg

#189

Post by rtkwe » Thu, Aug 15, 2019, 2:30 PM UTC

enkiv2 wrote: post #56

avsteele wrote: post #14

I see people saying they are 'chat bots'; any evidence of this other than people's general feeling? To me the FCA's came off like normal human beings who actually like their job a bit more than average (these people do exist). The people replying to them come off as infantile.

They don't seem to be regular FC employees, but I also don't think they're bots. Instead, they appear to be humans with a limited understanding of english who are required to reply based on a manual (like call-center workers). This explains why different accounts swap out -- the manual was designed for a single conversational thread, but employees are supposed to reply to individual tweets (as picked up from some kin…

Yeah with the really weird insistence that they're not being paid to tweet while saying I do this two days a week instead of packing while being paid.

Re: I feel like im talking to the borg

#190

Post by ahelwer » Thu, Aug 15, 2019, 2:31 PM UTC

BeetleB wrote: post #178

aerovistae wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not seeing it. RO is speaking like a real person with pretty reasonable arguments; the others feel like exactly what she accuses them of being: paid shills.

>are you a robot, did they make a bunch of ai to lie for them instead of helping real workers Talking to a real human this way is not reasonable. Nor is it an argument. >how much are you compensated per tweet like this This is like the question "Have you stopped beating your wife?" When the assumption of malintent/guilt is there from the start, you're setting yourself up for a very unreasonable conversation. >so they…

It isn't false that they're paid to tweet. One of the Amazon borg replies they tweet for two days (at $15/hour) then work in the warehouse for two days.