I Used to Write for Sports Illustrated. Now I Deliver Packages for Amazon (2018) • Hacker News Board

Re: I Used to Write for Sports Illustrated. Now I Deliver Packages for Amazon (2018)

#131

Post by analyte123 » Sun, May 02, 2021, 5:06 PM UTC

deviantfero wrote: post #22

isomorph wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please can you explain more? I’m interested

On the hispanic comment, Spanish is a naturally gendered language, you cannot form a sentence without giving gender to at least the subject, for example "la doctora toma el café por la mañana" would translate to "the (female) doctor drinks (male) coffee by the (female) morning" because English is a mostly gender neutral language you would loose all gender information by literally translating that sentence. Now if we…

“Latinx” is basically an “embrace, extend, extinguish” attempt of Latin American ethnicity in my view. It offers what appears to be acceptance, but only within a progressive Anglo-American framework with a bunch of extra signifiers on top. At the end you have English language thinkpieces about taco authenticity, and assimilation into establishment politics and culture.

Re: I Used to Write for Sports Illustrated. Now I Deliver Packages for Amazon (2018)

#132

Post by jozzy-james » Sun, May 02, 2021, 5:09 PM UTC

ergot_vacation wrote: post #111

seibelj wrote: post #12

> Lurching west in stop-and-go traffic on I-80 that morning, bound for Berkeley and a day of delivering in the rain, I had a low moment, dwelling on how far I’d come down in the world. Then I snapped out of it. I haven’t come down in the world. What’s come down in the world is the business model that sustained Time Inc. for decades. I’m pretty much the same writer, the same guy. I haven’t gone anywhere. My feet are t…

Amazon treats their workers like shit. Nearly all low-wage (and yes, Amazon is still "low-wage" given the work involved) employers do. In Amazon's case they then hire armies of corporate apologists to swarm social media and astroturf any time anyone tries to talk about the shitty way workers are treated. All of this is well established fact at this point. I'm glad the author is doing well. But these are not good jobs…

I worked at a UPS hub before Amazon was much of a thing, and I can say that what you're describing is nothing new or specific to Amazon. Logistics companies, especially in the warehouse/sorting areas, are abjectly horrid to work for.

edit: and that was a union gig.

Re: I Used to Write for Sports Illustrated. Now I Deliver Packages for Amazon (2018)

#133

Post by edoceo » Sun, May 02, 2021, 5:10 PM UTC

fortran77 wrote: post #59

8fGTBjZxBcHq wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone trying to well-actually a writer's self-proclaimed ethnic identity is hackernews af though you have to admit.

That's why there's /r/LOLHackerNews on reddit!

and the top on that sub is pointing to this thread - they're mad at Murph cause the name is Irish but he's an Anglo-Saxon? what even is that?

Re: I Used to Write for Sports Illustrated. Now I Deliver Packages for Amazon (2018)

#134

Post by chris_wot » Sun, May 02, 2021, 5:19 PM UTC

seibelj wrote: post #12

> Lurching west in stop-and-go traffic on I-80 that morning, bound for Berkeley and a day of delivering in the rain, I had a low moment, dwelling on how far I’d come down in the world. Then I snapped out of it. I haven’t come down in the world. What’s come down in the world is the business model that sustained Time Inc. for decades. I’m pretty much the same writer, the same guy. I haven’t gone anywhere. My feet are t…

I did customer service for an energy company. At the time they paid well! It wasn’t IT, but it taught me a few things. When I was able to do a stint in the hardship division for a few months, it showed me a side of society I hadn’t seen before.

Re: I Used to Write for Sports Illustrated. Now I Deliver Packages for Amazon (2018)

#135

Post by lazyant » Sun, May 02, 2021, 5:23 PM UTC

xwdv wrote: post #15

barry-cotter wrote: post #2

> It’s been healthy for me, a fair-haired Anglo-Saxon with a Roman numeral in my name (John Austin Murphy III) This is what assimilation looks like. Someone with an Irish name calling themselves Anglo-Saxon. It’s like a Hispanic person calling themselves Latinx, proof that they have lost all organic connection to the culture of their ancestors.

The damning thing about Latinx though is how forcefully it was hoisted onto Hispanics by whites who knew little to nothing about their cultures. They simply saw an opportunity to make latinos conform to their world views and now identifying yourself as latinx signals that you are one of those fully assimilated hispanics that has bought into white culture, and who can be expected to be agreeable on certain topics with…

Seems convoluted and unfair to condemn all people using a term for what you think are their reasons. Simpler explanation is that "Latinx" doesn't carry a gender so it's more inclusive than "Latinos" and shorter than "Latinas and Latinos". I'm not saying it was a good idea but I don't get all the negativity towards it; at worst seems a misguided attempt by well-intentioned people, big deal, just let people call themselves whatever they want and let words and people evolve (see "African-Americans" and "Blacks").

Re: I Used to Write for Sports Illustrated. Now I Deliver Packages for Amazon (2018)

#136

Post by cbozeman » Sun, May 02, 2021, 5:24 PM UTC

dominotw wrote: post #107

cbozeman wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My news this week is full of stories of employers who cannot find enough labor. Yeah, they can't find enough labor because they want to pay people $15 an hour in an area where the median home price is $572,000. I work in logistics. I occasionally overhear some of executive staff down the hall from my office complain about being unable to keep workers in a non-climate controlled warehouse, lifting enormously heavy t…

> where the median home price is $572,000 Where did all the money come from in last 1 year to inflate the prices to this insanity. So asset inflation is eventually going to make impact on labor prices and cause inflation. Then is why FED so cocksure that inflation is no big deal. >So yeah, I can understand why employers can't find workers... I don't understand why employers cant simply pay more and pass on the costs…

> > where the median home price is $572,000

> Where did all the money come from in last 1 year to inflate the prices to this insanity.

This area of Texas is not well-known to most people. It's a bit of a well-kept secret. While Austin is new money and trendy, and Dallas is cosmopolitan, this area of Texas is old... old money.

> I don't understand why employers cant simply pay more and pass on the costs to their consumers. What's stoping them.

Our company not only has two nationwide competitors, we have significant regional competitors across America, and on top of that, we're having to fight Amazon as well.

I get CC'ed and BCC'ed on most shifts in company policies because it can directly affect logistics and I need to be able to actively work around or with these policies, and things are getting so crazy that Directors of Operations at each warehouse are being tasked with asking low-level warehouse employees to clock out 15 minutes early each day just to avoid any possibility of overtime.

Obviously this creates logistics problems because when a warehouse fills up, you can't send any more stock from suppliers there. So I've had to fold COVID-19 absentee reports into our data analysis, because the loss of productivity from workers can directly affect storage space. For instance, one warehouse currently has three people out with a confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis, but we contact traced another seven people between those three, so that's 10 workers out, 3 of which for at least a few weeks, possibly months. The other 7 until they're cleared by medical doctors. That could mean roughly a 30% reduction in ability to process merchandise at that location for up to a week or two, and around an 8% decline for several weeks or months.

So we can't pass the cost on to consumers because why would you buy a headlamp assembly for your Audi A6 from us for $479 when you can get it from Amazon for $382?

Re: I Used to Write for Sports Illustrated. Now I Deliver Packages for Amazon (2018)

#137

Post by deadite » Sun, May 02, 2021, 5:28 PM UTC

8fGTBjZxBcHq wrote: post #32

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm majority Anglo (like, actually from England), but I have a Spanish last name from one of my grandparents, who in turn is a patrilineal native American whose family adopted Spanish naming some time in the distant unremembered past. The author's terminology could easily be correct in reference to himself, irrespective of his name. That said, I question the relevancy of this comment to the story.

Someone trying to well-actually a writer's self-proclaimed ethnic identity is hackernews af though you have to admit.

Even the tech stuff posted on HN has a political or some sort of a ranty slant to it that it's gotten so damn tiresome. I wish we had a proper HN without any of the political, fiscal, housing, nutrition/dietary, etc bullshit. Just post solid articles on tech and startups. Preferably actionable ones so it's not just a comment minefield of circlejerking from people who have an opinion but have zero idea what they are talking about. Take that shit elsewhere.

Re: I Used to Write for Sports Illustrated. Now I Deliver Packages for Amazon (2018)

#138

Post by bnjms » Sun, May 02, 2021, 5:29 PM UTC

mLuby wrote: post #76

deviantfero wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the hispanic comment, Spanish is a naturally gendered language, you cannot form a sentence without giving gender to at least the subject, for example "la doctora toma el café por la mañana" would translate to "the (female) doctor drinks (male) coffee by the (female) morning" because English is a mostly gender neutral language you would loose all gender information by literally translating that sentence. Now if we…

Anyone know how the unusual consonant x was chosen to replace a and o rather than another vowel (like e)? To my untrained ear, les neen-yes sounds more in line with los neen-yos and las neen-yes than lecks neen-yecks (if that's how you'd pronounce it).

It likely came about in written form then was moved to speech.

I’m in agreement with you that é is the natural neutral replacement letter. But I don’t think this is a serious attempt to change the language so much as a serious attempt to signal group membership.

Re: I Used to Write for Sports Illustrated. Now I Deliver Packages for Amazon (2018)

#139

Post by lazyant » Sun, May 02, 2021, 5:30 PM UTC

barry-cotter wrote: post #50

Swizec wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are fighting words in Europe. We are very serious about our ethnicism. Akin to saying that someone from Philly might as well be from LA, it’s all just a city. Or that the Warriors might as well be the New York Yankees, it’s just sports. PS; this is why Italians, Irish, Polish etc weren’t considered white until pretty late into the 1900’s in USA – not anglo-saxon

> this is why Italians, Irish, Polish etc weren’t considered white until pretty late into the 1900’s in USA This is not true. They were the worst sort of white, the worst sort of people, Catholics, but the US legal system went to great lengths to categorize people by racial category and all of the ethnic groups you named were always considered white.

Depends on the place and time? they were going to lynch a black man for marrying a white woman but they got off since she was from Sicily and thus considered "not white", somewhere in the 1800s [citation needed]

Re: I Used to Write for Sports Illustrated. Now I Deliver Packages for Amazon (2018)

#140

Post by xwdv » Sun, May 02, 2021, 5:33 PM UTC

lazyant wrote: post #135

xwdv wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The damning thing about Latinx though is how forcefully it was hoisted onto Hispanics by whites who knew little to nothing about their cultures. They simply saw an opportunity to make latinos conform to their world views and now identifying yourself as latinx signals that you are one of those fully assimilated hispanics that has bought into white culture, and who can be expected to be agreeable on certain topics with…

Seems convoluted and unfair to condemn all people using a term for what you think are their reasons. Simpler explanation is that "Latinx" doesn't carry a gender so it's more inclusive than "Latinos" and shorter than "Latinas and Latinos". I'm not saying it was a good idea but I don't get all the negativity towards it; at worst seems a misguided attempt by well-intentioned people, big deal, just let people call themse…

The negativity is because Latinos did not call themselves Latinx, white people called them that because they didn’t understand and were intimidated by gendered languages, seeing them as a threat to “inclusivity” rather than just a different way of speaking. So then any “progressive thinking” Latino was forced to adopt the term for themselves as a result of peer pressure to fit in.

I know I’m being hit with downvotes to my name the more I try to explain this but I’d rather speak the truth and be punished than stay quiet and take it to the grave.