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I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave: Inside the online-shopping shipping machine

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Re: I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave: Inside the online-shopping shipping machine

#181

Post by onemoreact »

noonespecial wrote: post #35

If you ever find yourself in a situation where static electricity is a problem as in this article, find a regular wooden pencil, break it in half, sharpen both ends and then blunt them a bit so they don't poke you. As you approach the metal object, touch the end of the pencil to it first. Make sure you are in good contact with the other end. The graphite "lead" is a conductor. You won't feel the shock.

Works with any conductor like a ring or tape a paperclip to your index finger. I often touch the metallic part of my keys then use the key's to touch your door.

Re: I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave: Inside the online-shopping shipping machine

#182

Post by tomjen3 »

noonespecial wrote: post #35

If you ever find yourself in a situation where static electricity is a problem as in this article, find a regular wooden pencil, break it in half, sharpen both ends and then blunt them a bit so they don't poke you. As you approach the metal object, touch the end of the pencil to it first. Make sure you are in good contact with the other end. The graphite "lead" is a conductor. You won't feel the shock.

Surely the graphite is a resister rather than a conductor? Otherwise how can it stop the spark.

Re: I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave: Inside the online-shopping shipping machine

#183

Post by liber8 »

alan_cx wrote: post #162
fmx wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was going to upvote you for the quote, but then I got to "her description of this job doesn't sound all that bad"... It sounds pretty bad to me, at least for a first-world country.

Well, there's your problem. First World countries now need to compete with Third World countries. Its what unregulated capitalism does. It cant happen and wont happen, but this downward spiral of competing to the floor can only be stopped if the entire world sets minimum standards of employment. Even them places like the US and EU will need to revise down , while the likes of India and China will have to revise up!!!…

>>It cant happen and wont happen, but this downward spiral of competing to the floor can only be stopped if the entire world sets minimum standards of employment. Even them places like the US and EU will need to revise down, while the likes of India and China will have to revise up!!!This is preposterous. The "downward spiral" as you call it is already slowing, as can readily be seen by many US companies "reshoring" jobs now that China's labor costs have risen so dramatically.

India, Vietnam, Bangladesh, etc., are all following suit because as demand for labor in those places increases, so does the price of that labor. No government intervention necessary.

Re: I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave: Inside the online-shopping shipping machine

#184

Post by vijayr »

kijin wrote: post #70
Permit wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, that's truly incredible. I didn't realize anyone had reached this point. I'm excited to see this stuff progress, but I can't help but wonder what sort of social problems this might create as the unskilled jobs of an economy are slowly chipped away at. This sort of work surely creates more jobs in tech sectors and in maintenance, but skills learned in boxing are not transferable to any of the jobs that might be c…

Machines have been replacing jobs for over 200 years now, but I don't think there's been a huge increase in unemployment over that period. We've always managed to invent more meaningless and repetitious tasks for ourselves to do. One might say that most office jobs nowadays are like that, too. Factories replaced farms, cubicles replaced factories. But usually this happened over generations, so people had a chance to…

Factories replaced farms, cubicles replaced factories

At least on farms/agriculture, we get a chance to be outside with nature, and stay healthy/fit (even though it is much harder work). What have we got to show for modern day cubicles? :(

Re: I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave: Inside the online-shopping shipping machine

#185

Post by steamer25 »

hythloday wrote: post #168
chii wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) I dont believe being a "consumer" can by itself have any value 2) The real question is, whether the left over capacity could be put to better use, instead of keeping alive those not pulling their weight (when they could've). Would science and tech be that much more advanced because there'd be money to put into research and development? Would infrastructure be better because money isn't "wasted" on people who other…

1) I dont believe being a "consumer" can by itself have any value How can you have a capitalist economy without consumers to signal prices? I think I just don't understand your point here. Consumers obviously create value to my mind, because the knowledge of what they're willing to consume is itself valuable. How do you understand differently?

Speaking in purely economic terms (i.e., inherent human value aside), a consumer is only valuable for what they have to offer in trade. If you're a producer but I don't have anything you could want (you already have it or the tech to create it effortlessly), the price signal I'm sending as a consumer is $0.00 for anything you'd sell.

Re: I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave: Inside the online-shopping shipping machine

#186

Post by DirtyCalvinist »

ericd wrote: post #3
ck2 wrote: post #2

It's interesting how we put down companies for their abusive labor conditions in China but at least 50% of the population will rally behind forces that prevent any sort of government regulation or unions that help prevent this kind of abuse "in the homeland". Oh and I don't just mean the right wing, fun fact, Hillary Clinton was a bigtime lawyer for walmart to help them prevent unions. Walmart even has a swat-like te…

Unions are disastrous for the competitiveness of a company on the global market. We do need worker protections of some form (perhaps greater informational transparency about working conditions would help?), we don't need the techniques that unions use to obtain unsustainably high wages for their workers.

Nonetheless, companies would do well to remember that the first unions were formed not to demand higher pay, but to protect the worker from employer caprice and tyranny, and to lobby employers to make changes to keep workers from being mangled by the machines they worked on. Paying people a pittance may make them depressed, but destroying their dignity and their health will compel them to organize - labor laws and strike breaking tactics be damned.

Re: I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave: Inside the online-shopping shipping machine

#187

Post by neilk »

tomjen3 wrote: post #182
noonespecial wrote: post #35

If you ever find yourself in a situation where static electricity is a problem as in this article, find a regular wooden pencil, break it in half, sharpen both ends and then blunt them a bit so they don't poke you. As you approach the metal object, touch the end of the pencil to it first. Make sure you are in good contact with the other end. The graphite "lead" is a conductor. You won't feel the shock.

Surely the graphite is a resister rather than a conductor? Otherwise how can it stop the spark.

It doesn't stop it. Consider: the energy of the spark is flowing through your whole body, but it's only painful at the point of contact, because it's concentrated in the smallest possible cross-section. So use something else at that point of contact.

Re: I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave: Inside the online-shopping shipping machine

#188

Post by jrockway »

Sounds about right. Amazon is great for their investors and customers. Employees? Not so much, it seems.

In this case, it doesn't seem unreasonable. The pay rate and overtime they get means they make around $40,000 a year. In rural America with no skills other than the ability to walk and use a barcode scanner, that's not bad money. I'm all in favor of educating people so they can work 8 hour days behind a desk, but the reality is that that won't work for everyone. So having jobs available that let people good at manual labor have a decent life doesn't seem that horrible to me. I may be wrong, though.

Re: I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave: Inside the online-shopping shipping machine

#189

Post by hythloday »

steamer25 wrote: post #185
hythloday wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) I dont believe being a "consumer" can by itself have any value How can you have a capitalist economy without consumers to signal prices? I think I just don't understand your point here. Consumers obviously create value to my mind, because the knowledge of what they're willing to consume is itself valuable. How do you understand differently?

Speaking in purely economic terms (i.e., inherent human value aside), a consumer is only valuable for what they have to offer in trade. If you're a producer but I don't have anything you could want (you already have it or the tech to create it effortlessly), the price signal I'm sending as a consumer is $0.00 for anything you'd sell.

effortlessly

Science fiction aside, even if you can produce everything 10-100x more efficiently than me, it is still worth us trading.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_Advantage

Re: I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave: Inside the online-shopping shipping machine

#190

Post by kfcm »

vijayr wrote: post #184
kijin wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Machines have been replacing jobs for over 200 years now, but I don't think there's been a huge increase in unemployment over that period. We've always managed to invent more meaningless and repetitious tasks for ourselves to do. One might say that most office jobs nowadays are like that, too. Factories replaced farms, cubicles replaced factories. But usually this happened over generations, so people had a chance to…

Factories replaced farms, cubicles replaced factories At least on farms/agriculture, we get a chance to be outside with nature, and stay healthy/fit (even though it is much harder work). What have we got to show for modern day cubicles? :(

>At least on farms/agriculture, we get a chance to be outside with nature, and stay healthy/fit (even though it is much harder work).

At one time (just 20 years ago), your statement would have been fairly accurate. People still walked beans to get weeds, baled square bales of hay and straw (on hot summer afternoons, with indoor barn temps reaching 110+), manhandled livestock, and had to do a lot more manually with equipment.

Those days are fading, though.

The present and future of crop farming are GMO crops (with spray resistance traits, or plants producing their own pesticides/herbicides) and (near future) UAV-style robotics for tractors and combines operated from the house (or corporate HQ).

Livestock farming does remain more hands-on. However, a lot of confinement ops are automated to ensure proper and timely weight gain and less stress. And before people start complaining about confinements, many of those are popping up due to regulatory requirements based upon head count.

Times they are a changin'.

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