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Amazon Unpacked

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Re: Amazon Unpacked

#51

Post by kristopolous »

44Aman wrote: post #29
kristopolous wrote: post #5

I 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)?

Metric system quite intimately. I measure all my travels, all lengths of anything meaningful, just about everything with these units. I know how long it would take me to bike, walk or drive that.

I know how much that would cost me in server farm, apartment, and retail space. My exposure to a magnitude (or a collection of) meters far exceeds my exposure to a large area reserved for multiple say, soccer fields, or any intuition on really how large they are.

To be honest, whenever I hear something like "17 football fields" I go look up the distance of a football field to try to understand what the heck they are talking about. They might as well have phrased it as the distance a snail travels in the time it takes for a tea-candle to burn.

I use metric and imperial units every day. I intuitively and immediately know what 330 meters is in almost any context.

Re: Amazon Unpacked

#52

Post by incision »

elteto wrote: post #50
incision wrote: post #40

I'm surprised at the amount of negativity here. It's work. As demonstrated in the article some of these people were surely just subsisting on unemployment prior. My first job wasn't near-minimum wage, it was the absolute minimum. I didn't have work-issued safety boots to complain about, I had to buy my own. I didn't walk around a clean warehouse, I walked around outside cleaning up after every kind of urban nastiness…

Just because you had less than standard working conditions on your first job doesn't mean that others have to go through the same. I am glad it worked out for you in the end but the fact remains that your first employer was not the best one. I think the negativity doesn't arise from the nature of the work, if I am told that the position requires heavy lifting and walking 15 miles a day then maybe I should consider wh…

>"Just because you had less than standard working conditions on your first job doesn't mean that others have to go through the same. I am glad it worked out for you in the end but the fact remains that your first employer was not the best one."

I knew I'd get this comment the moment I wrote that. You've completely missed the point to construe it that way.

>"My negative reaction comes from the shady employment techniques that they seem to be using, such as using the promise of full time employment as a 'dangling carrot', as the article puts it."

That's an analogy from a former employee. There's nothing to suggest anything was actually promised.

I'm familiar with what Costco is doing and think it's great, but they're obviously quite a bit different from the model of Amazon with big, membership drive B&M stores. There's surely something to be learned from how they've succeeded, but to assume it can be applied universally is naive.

Re: Amazon Unpacked

#53

Post by potatolicious »

droopyEyelids wrote: post #8

It's funny how a job like this fits with the cultural idea of 'the dignity of work.' The politicians and Amazon describe the human-robot job in positive terms, like they're helping the community. But the real way jobs help people is by providing them with enough resources to improve their situation, and gain control of their lives. Working in an Amazon factory doesn't do that. First, after hustling for 15 miles a shi…

I've worked a job before that involved a lot of walking (fittest I've ever been, sadly), I probably came close to the 15 miles-a-day bar. It's really not that bad, assuming the environment isn't a grueling hellhole.

Which Amazon warehouses reportedly are. Lots of reports of lack of air conditioning and unreasonably high temperatures. Walking 15 miles a day in a reasonably cooled warehouse is a piece of cake. 15 miles a day in a burning hot warehouse with high humidity and little fresh air... that's life-threatening.

The larger concern I have is the commute. The sort of people taking these jobs are disproportionately likely to rely on public transit, and disproportionately likely to live far from their jobs. When I worked that factory job my commute was an hour each way - and that was pretty good.

When it comes to improving one's lot in life the poor have everything stacked against them, and a reasonable commute is a major component. Nothing like working 8 hours in a heavily manual labor job, and then watch another 4 hours melt away as you wait for shittastic public transit to go back to your home in the middle of nowhere.

Re: Amazon Unpacked

#55

Post by leef »

droopyEyelids wrote: post #8

It's funny how a job like this fits with the cultural idea of 'the dignity of work.' The politicians and Amazon describe the human-robot job in positive terms, like they're helping the community. But the real way jobs help people is by providing them with enough resources to improve their situation, and gain control of their lives. Working in an Amazon factory doesn't do that. First, after hustling for 15 miles a shi…

That is not true. Success in a job is not always defined by thinking outside the box and being creative. Often it is much simpler - show up to work on time, produce, add value as depicted in your job description. The people that do these things are the people at get the full time job at Amazon, become shift supervisors, etc. I have worked with people who started out at Amazon on the floor and are now high level managers of warehouses and software teams.

I've been to a couple of the Amazon warehouses in the US and it's hardly a sweatshop. You work a normal shift, you get a lunch break, at least minimum wage, etc. It is certainly a job far removed from what I am used to now as a software developer. It was more reminiscent of my time in the Navy but still not a bad job to have and an opportunity for those who take advantage of it.

Re: Amazon Unpacked

#56

Post by BashiBazouk »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #39
droopyEyelids wrote: post #8

It's funny how a job like this fits with the cultural idea of 'the dignity of work.' The politicians and Amazon describe the human-robot job in positive terms, like they're helping the community. But the real way jobs help people is by providing them with enough resources to improve their situation, and gain control of their lives. Working in an Amazon factory doesn't do that. First, after hustling for 15 miles a shi…

First, after hustling for 15 miles a shift making minimum wage, you aren't going to be able to return to your shelter and work on a skill or education. You'd have to eat and sleep and recover. Walking for 7-15 miles, spread over an 8 hour day, is not actually all that strenuous. It's worse than an office job, but it's pretty light exercise. In terms of calories burned, it's about double a typical boxing workout (roug…

Well, keep in mind the recovery is less the total calories burned and more the act of putting your entire body weight on the soles of your feet for eight hours on cement floors in crappy shoes.

Also, four to five hours of walking is not "pretty light exercise". It's a decent workout. Average speed for walking is around 3mph not 2, and if pressed by electronic monitoring and management, a bit faster than that. Probably one of the best forms of exercise out there, but rarely done for most people don't have the time. Low intensity workouts over long periods of time have a different recovery than high intensity workouts over a short time. The direct calorie comparisons don't really do it justice...

Re: Amazon Unpacked

#57

Post by cafard »

mchusma wrote: post #46

My tl;dr: -Mine went under in mining town -High unemployment -Amazon came in and offered jobs -Jobs paid minimum wage and 8 hour day -This in practice puts workers in top 8% globally ( http://www.givingwhatwecan.org ) -Jobs required moderate labor (~3-6x office work) -UK's version of OSHA required safety boots which suck -Amazon uses objective performance measures Realistically, most of these low skill jobs will not…

"This in practice puts workers in the top 8% globally."

Considering cost of living in this area, or averaging it against much poorer places?

Re: Amazon Unpacked

#58

Post by saintx »

zrail wrote: post #22
saintx wrote: post #13

At 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)

Of course, you're right about this. I think the comparison detracted from my point, and it was insensitive to people for whom cancer is not a metaphor. So, really it failed on two counts. I'm sorry about that, and am grateful for the feedback.

I was trying (without much success) to highlight a possible underlying principle in organizational development and growth of a local economy, not to imply that Amazon (or any other business) invites comparison to a devastating disease, because I don't believe they do. That town would be better off if Amazon had a half dozen strong competitors just like it, in factories across the street. I just think a town can't rest all its hopes in one company. I grew up in a town with about 600 households and 800 or so people working in one factory. When that factory went away, it was very hard on the local economy, for the families who relied on it, for the schools, and generally for everyone in the community. It seems, and I might be wrong about this, that local policies to encourage and reward entrepreneurial growth and diversification of the local economy could have provided a stronger buffer against the inevitable end of its once solid manufacturing sector. I've been pretty fortunate since then to live in places where there were hundreds of employers competing in dozens of industries, and which had a healthy cultural ferment, many different ideas to talk about, and innovation bubbling up all over the place.

Re: Amazon Unpacked

#59

Post by nkurz »

EliRivers wrote: post #43
axgop wrote: post #26

I 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 y…

we pay well over minimum wage because of the nature of the work The article indicates the basic wage is one penny over minimum wage.

You are correct about the article, but the OP's "we" refers the distribution center that he works for, which is not run by Amazon. Presumably it is located somewhere there are other job possibilities, and thus has to pay a premium to attract workers.

Re: Amazon Unpacked

#60

Post by cpeterso »

potatolicious wrote: post #53
droopyEyelids wrote: post #8

It's funny how a job like this fits with the cultural idea of 'the dignity of work.' The politicians and Amazon describe the human-robot job in positive terms, like they're helping the community. But the real way jobs help people is by providing them with enough resources to improve their situation, and gain control of their lives. Working in an Amazon factory doesn't do that. First, after hustling for 15 miles a shi…

I've worked a job before that involved a lot of walking (fittest I've ever been, sadly), I probably came close to the 15 miles-a-day bar. It's really not that bad, assuming the environment isn't a grueling hellhole. Which Amazon warehouses reportedly are. Lots of reports of lack of air conditioning and unreasonably high temperatures. Walking 15 miles a day in a reasonably cooled warehouse is a piece of cake. 15 miles…

Why does Amazon let their warehouses get so hot? There are news stories about Amazon parking ambulances outside warehouses on hot days. Instead of reducing the time to take heat exhausted workers to the hospital, why not prevent the problem in the first place?

http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2017901782_a...

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