Reminds me of the "I was a warehouse wage slave" first-person account article - submitted to HN about a year back:
Amazon Unpacked
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Re: Amazon Unpacked
#22At the end of each day, in a University town, you might sit down to enjoy a meal or a cup of coffee at a local café, and strike up a conversation with a complete stranger. The two of you might find quite a lot to talk about, trading ideas and perspectives on different subjects, and ideas would flow between you, like heat from a hot cup of coffee into cold hands. But in a one-shop town (like the one I grew up in, or t…
(please don't compare things to cancer, it does both a disservice)
Re: Amazon Unpacked
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
Probably. But mining had huge risks. The cave collapses. The air you breathe was horribly toxic. You traded life expectancy for more money. I imagine you did a fair amount of harder labor and walked more than an Amazon warehouse. And there is a damn canary chirping all the time.
I don't know why you're using past tense here. People are still working in mines all over the world and all of those risks you list are their every day reality.
Because the mine in the story we're discussing closed in 1990. I am aware there are still active mines, complete with miners, all over the world.
Re: Amazon Unpacked
#24At the end of each day, in a University town, you might sit down to enjoy a meal or a cup of coffee at a local café, and strike up a conversation with a complete stranger. The two of you might find quite a lot to talk about, trading ideas and perspectives on different subjects, and ideas would flow between you, like heat from a hot cup of coffee into cold hands. But in a one-shop town (like the one I grew up in, or t…
(please don't compare things to cancer, it does both a disservice)
Metaphor is a common part of every language. Please don't ask people not to use it without clear information on why they shouldn't.
Re: Amazon Unpacked
#25At the end of each day, in a University town, you might sit down to enjoy a meal or a cup of coffee at a local café, and strike up a conversation with a complete stranger. The two of you might find quite a lot to talk about, trading ideas and perspectives on different subjects, and ideas would flow between you, like heat from a hot cup of coffee into cold hands. But in a one-shop town (like the one I grew up in, or t…
(please don't compare things to cancer, it does both a disservice)
Accumulation without differentiation is what we call cancer
Re: Amazon Unpacked
#26I work in a distribution center (not one of Amazon's and not on the floor). What they're describing in the article is pretty much industry standard for non-robotic picking. It's a very difficult and demanding job and we're very up front about that. People take the job figuring they can sling a few boxes and a large percent leave within their probationary period because they underestimate the work no matter how much you try to set their expectations.
I'm not saying Amazon is a benevolent employer (we pay well over minimum wage because of the nature of the work), just that nothing in the article was shocking.
Re: Amazon Unpacked
#27I like how the unit of size was football pitch. I guess around the world it's assumed that the reader has intimate familiarity with lining up sporting fields but can't handle things like a metric system.
I would have preferred metric. I spent a minute trying to figure out how the distance a pitched (US) football could be a useful unit of measure when it's so variable. Then I realized pitch means field . And probably not a US football field.
US football and football/soccer fields/pitches are about the same length (~100m)
Re: Amazon Unpacked
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
(please don't compare things to cancer, it does both a disservice)
Metaphor is a common part of every language. Please don't ask people not to use it without clear information on why they shouldn't.
Sorry, it's a personal irk. Cancer is a horrible, concrete, real thing that I have experienced far too much of in the past year, and to see it compared to something relatively trivial and abstract makes me immediately dismiss the author's argument.
Edit: Upon further reflection, I guess my point is that "x is cancer" is far too powerful of a metaphor to just throw around. In my opinion it should be reserved for things that have all of the personal heart wrenching connotations that the word implies for people who have experienced it.
Re: Amazon Unpacked
#29I like how the unit of size was football pitch. I guess around the world it's assumed that the reader has intimate familiarity with lining up sporting fields but can't handle things like a metric system.
It's nothing to do with the metric system. Can you visualise 330m, or would it be easier to visualise three football pitches (or insert any other familiar large area)?
Re: Amazon Unpacked
#30At the end of each day, in a University town, you might sit down to enjoy a meal or a cup of coffee at a local café, and strike up a conversation with a complete stranger. The two of you might find quite a lot to talk about, trading ideas and perspectives on different subjects, and ideas would flow between you, like heat from a hot cup of coffee into cold hands. But in a one-shop town (like the one I grew up in, or t…
Are you saying that the place is too big and so it employs too many of the hard working people over there? Some maybe should be unemployed so they can trade perspectives on having vs not having a job?