Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks

pulse.ng

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 721 posts

Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks

#161

Post by jhall1468 »

kelukelugames wrote: post #46
gorbot wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all employees are treated poorly. Yeah, the stock vest is back loaded, but they typically give cash upfront, which you could just turn around and buy stocks with..

That's a poor argument. I've gotten offers from many tech giants. They all included a sign-on cash bonus. Often much bigger than Amazon's. Amazon's total offer was usually about 100k lower. Sometimes more. Amazon SWEs still earn hundreds of thousands of dollars. So being treated poorly and paid less is relative. In Amazon's defense, I have friends who enjoy working there. The MBAs especially love it. Again, it's not…

> Amazon's total offer was usually about 100k lower.

Come on, that's so misleading. Offers from the big tech companies come in 4 year bundles. There's no way your offer was $100k per year lower unless you didn't get leveled the same at Amazon as you did Google.

I got an offer from Google in Mountain View and despite being CONSIDERABLY higher, the COL difference made Amazon's pay higher. And that assumed stock prices remained the same. They've doubled.

Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks

#162

Post by philwelch »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #40

What's so special about Amazon in comparison to the Chinese factories where those goods are manufactured? Are we just upset because these people are geographically closer? Or is it nationalism; Americans/Westerners are too good for such treatment? Racism?

I used to think it was some sort of nationalism, but I think it's mostly because making sure all Americans are treated well is a much more tractable problem than worrying about the welfare of literally everyone in the world.

It is conceivably possible for every American to have adequate food, housing, and medical care, to work in safe and humane conditions, and so forth. Even that seems crazy and utopian to some, but there's a plausible-enough plan that people see it as a solvable problem.

Once you take a global perspective, though, you realize that one of the most cost-effective ways of preventing human suffering today is to buy people in malaria-infested regions insecticide-treated mosquito nets. That's kind of overwhelming to think about. Warehouse workers have to pee in a bottle, but at least they aren't dying of malaria. And let's say we manage to eradicate malaria, or at least contain it enough that we can move on to the next-lowest-hanging-fruit, and you still have to worry about access to clean water, or having their children murdered/kidnapped by the local warlord or rape cult, or the effects of dirty open-pit mining (particularly as overseen by the local warlord or rape cult), or the cultural practice of mutilating the genitals of infant girls, etc., etc. The problems of the world are just so big and so complicated and so multi-faceted that the natural emotional reaction is just to get overwhelmed and give up, and that doesn't help anyone.

Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks

#163

Post by niroze »

creep wrote: post #93
java_script wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is pro gaming a white collar industry?

Lol, are jokes not allowed on HN? Geeeeez you guys.

Jokes get you downvotes here, I tried to make a joke and everyone took it seriously.

It is like talking to a bunch of toddlers sometimes, where a sense of humor doesn't exist and everything is taken literally.

Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks

#164

Post by s73v3r_ »

wnevets wrote: post #82
notheguyouthink wrote: post #2

Are Amazon's margins razor thin? I'm trying to understand what compels them to be so toxic in their work environment. Especially compared to the people I know who work at Costco, I struggle to understand why Costco treats employees so well, and Amazon treats their employees so poorly. It's really sad, regardless.

> I'm trying to understand what compels them to be so toxic in their work environment. Their warehouse employees are extremely replaceable and amazon knows this.

That shouldn't be an excuse for anyone with a shred of humanity or decency.

Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks

#165

Post by bitwize »

Domenic_S wrote: post #138
baby wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a few centuries students in history classes will look back and try to understand why we let our people die in the streets.

Who is dying in the street in substantial numbers?

Go to San Francisco. You'll meet them.

Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks

#166

Post by acdha »

isostatic wrote: post #75
kelukelugames wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a poor argument. I've gotten offers from many tech giants. They all included a sign-on cash bonus. Often much bigger than Amazon's. Amazon's total offer was usually about 100k lower. Sometimes more. Amazon SWEs still earn hundreds of thousands of dollars. So being treated poorly and paid less is relative. In Amazon's defense, I have friends who enjoy working there. The MBAs especially love it. Again, it's not…

White collar jobs are somewhat different than. We have choice, we have power. The best bet for amazon warehouse employees, and delivery drivers, would be to unionise. This would lead to either 1) More investment in robotics, taking away menial jobs 2) Better conditions for shelf-stackers. Both are good -- as a society we should not be making people work when the work could be done by robots.

I disagree only in the assessment that unionization isn’t also good advice for people with desk jobs. The C-level sees us as expensive workers who need to be treated better but still an expense rather than peers.

Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks

#167

Post by [deleted] »

atrexler wrote: post #23

Long-haul truckers have been doing this for decades for the same reason-- they don't have time to pull over and use the restroom-- and no one is upset about that. I'm sure there are many industries, white and blue collar, where similar norms are expressed. Edit to add: I'm not endorsing the practice in any industry at all, just pointing out that its not a unique problem to Amazon. My comment would have been better ph…

[deleted]

Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks

#168

Post by sigstoat »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #111
noonespecial wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I do already own some of the robots. I have Amazon stock in my 401k. That's what "the people owning the robots" looks like. What you're getting at is that there are many people right now who are too poor (and are going to be too poor) to ever own any part of the robots. This century's great debate is forming up to be whether or not we should give them some anyway even though they can't "earn" it for whatever movi…

I think there are some differences between owning stock and owning the machines. Stock gives you abstract control through voting, and the board has much more power than you. When you own the machine, you can physically operate it yourself. It’s like owning a car versus owning stock in Uber - when you own a car you reap the benefits of cheap travel much more directly and in a very different way than getting a dividend…

> I think there are some differences between owning stock and owning the machines. ... When you own the machine, you can physically operate it yourself.

i... sure?

if i'm not an expert in using (and maintaining) that equipment (who also happens to own a space which is large enough and zoned for that equipment, and proximate to the customers or raw inputs for the equipment), owning the corporation that owns the equipment is better than owning the machinery, because it means i also employ people to run (and maintain) the semiconductor fabs and wire bending machines and shit (which have been located in cost effective places) for me, so i can go off and do the things i know how to do well.

> ...when you own a car you reap the benefits of cheap travel much more directly and in a very different way than getting a dividend check.

i also accept all of the risks and responsibilities directly. if i buy into a hypothetical publicly traded ride sharing company, i don't have to worry about any of that.

Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks

#169

Post by tomc1985 »

Why aren't more people on Amazon's ass for pushing their people so hard? This sounds preventable simply by setting production standards to be in line with the environment provided.

Yes, there are important bits in here about tech. But this sounds like a classic case of management abuse

Re: Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks

#170

Post by lr4444lr »

opencl wrote: post #28
notheguyouthink wrote: post #2

Are Amazon's margins razor thin? I'm trying to understand what compels them to be so toxic in their work environment. Especially compared to the people I know who work at Costco, I struggle to understand why Costco treats employees so well, and Amazon treats their employees so poorly. It's really sad, regardless.

Meanwhile they shove all of their software developers into one of the highest cost of living cities in the world and pay them six figure salaries.

You would think Amazon would be a pioneer in remote IT work, wouldn't you...
Post reply on HN