911 calls from Amazon warehouses show emotional distress and suicide threats • Hacker News Board

Re: 911 calls from Amazon warehouses show emotional distress and suicide threats

#51

Post by rdiddly » Mon, Mar 11, 2019, 6:12 PM UTC

School-Cotton wrote: post #42

avgDev wrote: post #3

More reasons for me to stop using Amazon but.... this is pretty interesting for me and I am not sure how to feel about it. On one hand I feel like they exploit the least educated and relatively poor people. On the other hand I think the only reason they are getting bad press is because they are a large corp. I have worked at many small businesses over the years and did physical work. I was treated like garbage by mos…

How are they exploiting anyone? Are they forcing people to work there against their will?

The definition of 'exploit' has very little to do with force. If someone drops $5 and doesn't notice, and I keep it, I exploited their inattention. If there's a forest, and I have a chainsaw/crane/truck, and no one cares if I chop it down, I can exploit their indifference and exploit that resource. If you click on a phishing link, the hacker exploits your carelessness. If the developers of your OS left a security hole, hackers can exploit that (and when they do, it's called an exploit). If you love puppies, the ASPCA can exploit that to get donations. And if you have only a high school education and live in an area with plenty such people, I can exploit that by building my warehouse there, and you'll be eager to work there for minimum wage, and I can exploit that. No guns were drawn in any of these examples.

Re: 911 calls from Amazon warehouses show emotional distress and suicide threats

#52

Post by ken » Mon, Mar 11, 2019, 6:12 PM UTC

forthehorde wrote: post #17

The name of this article is a bit misleading (as other commentators stated), but the growing suicide rate is troubling. I think the part where employees feel like robots is a huge part of the problem. It's hard to make ends meet in a rough economy and a lot of people don't believe they have any say in current democratic process, one vote is what you get but the whole management of the system is hardly controlled by t…

There's a couple different ways to interpret "feel like robots". This article specifically says:

> feeling like "robots" due to intense surveillance in the warehouses, while others described how their coworkers would urinate in trash cans because they didn't have enough time to rush to the bathroom

I'm of two minds. I can see the need for surveillance at a warehouse full of consumer goods, but excessive surveillance can feel oppressive.

Not having time for bathroom breaks is a real problem, though. So is getting hurt doing your job. These aren't normal, even at warehouse jobs.

> It's hard to make ends meet in a rough economy and a lot of people don't believe they have any say in current democratic process, one vote is what you get but the whole management of the system is hardly controlled by the electorate.

That's quite insightful and I think it comes very close to the real "feel like robot" issue without mentioning the "U" word that is so controversial here: union.

In a warehouse job, you're always going to act pretty much like a robot. That's just what it is. You don't have to feel like a robot if you get reasonable working conditions (e.g., regular breaks, overtime pay) from a collectively bargained contract. Being a member of a democratically run group can make all the difference.

(This might also help with the surveillance issue. Having worked under a union, there's definitely a sense -- occasionally spoken -- that you do not screw up, because you'll make the union look bad.)

Re: 911 calls from Amazon warehouses show emotional distress and suicide threats

#53

Post by ken » Mon, Mar 11, 2019, 6:15 PM UTC

legitster wrote: post #28

elicash wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything is about degree. Nobody in my office has ever called 911 due to something like this. I have no idea where this rates in comparison to other warehouses. But also it's hard to measure because maybe Amazon calls 911 to report this where other companies wouldn't -- similar to Apple calling an ambulance over people walking into glass doors just to protect themselves.

How are you sure? Talk to someone in HR and you may be surprised how many ways that people can lash out or cry out for help.

I've worked in warehouses. I've never worked in an Amazon warehouse, but I have worked with people who have, who've told me it's the worst warehouse they've ever worked in, and they refuse to buy anything from Amazon.com today because of that experience.

I've also worked in offices, and while it can be stressful I've never seen anyone urinating in a garbage can because they weren't given time to go to the bathroom. I think I would have noticed that.

Re: 911 calls from Amazon warehouses show emotional distress and suicide threats

#54

Post by Inconel » Mon, Mar 11, 2019, 6:22 PM UTC

chriselles wrote: post #50

Disclosure: I worked at Amazon 97-01 in Operations. Amazon’s culture, when I worked there was firm but fair. It was largely manual labour with a veneer of technology on top that has grown thicker over time. I hired and fired countless people. In my opinion, the bifurcated culture at Amazon found on Glassdoor contrasts Amazon Operations with Amazon Corporate white collar jobs. I believe it stems from the early days of…

I worked in Ops as well, albeit as an L1 - L3 part time AA. I was actually surprised, especially after what I'd read online about Amazon, at how much slack they would cut employees regarding rate and other behavioral issues. It always seems like it would take way too long to weed out bad employees. I definitely don't relish anyone losing their job but I'd say my biggest issue working at Amazon was how demoralizing it would be to see so many extremely hard working associates having to pick up the slack for lower performing ones. I'm sure this is fairly site dependent though.

Re: 911 calls from Amazon warehouses show emotional distress and suicide threats

#55

Post by jcranmer » Mon, Mar 11, 2019, 6:28 PM UTC

wlesieutre wrote: post #38

legitster wrote: post #24

I have a friend who works in an Amazon warehouse and asked him about it: "It's fine. Pay is decent. I get to do a lot of walking, which is nice. I'll probably look for something more long term." I asked him about all of the horror stories and stress I've read about: "You work in an office. Are you saying there isn't any stress or bad bosses or horror stories?" Point taken. They have 200,000 warehouse employees. On av…

I'm reminded of the articles a few years ago calling out Apple for Foxconn employee suicides. When you looked at the numbers it turned out that the suicide rate for Foxconn employees was substantially lower than normal for China. > According to a 2011 Centre for Disease Control and Prevention report, the country has a high suicide rate with approximately 22.23 deaths per 100,000 persons. In 2010, the worst year for w…

Comparing Foxconn employees to the general populace is not necessarily the right cohort for comparison. For starters, the natural prior for suicides is that you would expect unemployed people to have a higher suicide rate than employed people. Nevertheless, I think that Foxconn's suicide rate was shown to be in line with the typical suicide rate for Chinese manufacturers.

Re: 911 calls from Amazon warehouses show emotional distress and suicide threats

#56

Post by wutbrodo » Mon, Mar 11, 2019, 6:56 PM UTC

colejohnson66 wrote: post #49

simonsarris wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah it's silly. Generally its helpful in most headlines about [any large org] to substitute [Public Schools] and see if someone would bother to bat an eye at the headline. > 911 calls from [Public Schools] show emotional distress and suicide threats Nobody would care. (Maybe partly because people are already resigned to public schools being CAFOs, though) 189 calls over a 5 year period across 46 different facilities…

> Generally its helpful in most headlines about [any large org] to substitute [Public Schools] and see if someone would bother to bat an eye at the headline. Just because nobody would care doesn’t mean people shouldn’t care

I think the point is not that people wouldn't care at all, but that most wouldn't jump straight to the assumption that this is entirely due to public schools doing something horrible to the children, but rather that this reflects a broader societal problem with mental illness and mental healthcare[1]. By contrast, there are plenty of people whose brains consist mostly of a soup of simplistic media tropes, who are primed to think of "tech company hiring low-wage workers" as combining the worst of Dickens and Black Mirror and thus jump uncritically on flawed data as evidence of horrific conditions.

I think previous reports of Amazon's warehouse policies are concerning, but I don't see the utility in being dishonest or sloppy with the facts of the situation.

[1] I'm aware that many do think of (some) public schools as hellholes, but they'd be correct not to assume that the problems describe all or mostly originate with the school's actions.

Re: 911 calls from Amazon warehouses show emotional distress and suicide threats

#57

Post by School-Cotton » Mon, Mar 11, 2019, 7:01 PM UTC

rdiddly wrote: post #51

School-Cotton wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are they exploiting anyone? Are they forcing people to work there against their will?

The definition of 'exploit' has very little to do with force. If someone drops $5 and doesn't notice, and I keep it, I exploited their inattention. If there's a forest, and I have a chainsaw/crane/truck, and no one cares if I chop it down, I can exploit their indifference and exploit that resource. If you click on a phishing link, the hacker exploits your carelessness. If the developers of your OS left a security hol…

In most of your examples except the Amazon one (and, maybe, the ASPCA one), the person being "exploited" is worse off afterwards.

You are equivocating on two subtly different definitions of exploit: the bad one where you abuse someone (the hacker exploits your carelessness... to hurt you), and the neutral one (exploiting a resource).

In your Amazon warehouse example, people in the area are better off than they would have been without the warehouse.

Re: 911 calls from Amazon warehouses show emotional distress and suicide threats

#58

Post by zaroth » Mon, Mar 11, 2019, 7:46 PM UTC

tumetab1 wrote: post #27

jrnichols wrote: post #2

189 calls over a 5 year period across 46 different facilities, and the original article even notes that many of those were not work related at all. It seems to try to lean towards "Amazon warehouse jobs are causing people to think about killing themselves" but the opposite could also be said - Amazon was able to engage these same employees with suicidal ideations and get them help. Only one seems to have actually kil…

«The Daily Beast noted that its report was "not evidence that Amazon staffers experience suicidal episodes more often than other American workers, in or out of a warehouse."» This articles is just click bait and slander.

A written defamatory statement is libel. Spoken defamatory statements are slander.

Part of the problem with organizations publishing stories like this and calling it “news” is that there is a higher bar for proving defamation against a news origination;

Where the defamatory comments are made by the media or where they are directed towards a public figure, the First Amendment requires that the defamed person must prove the offender published a defamatory statement with knowledge that the statement was false or with a reckless disregard of its falsity.

[1] - https://rtdna.org/article/a_closer_look_at_defamation_in_the...

Re: 911 calls from Amazon warehouses show emotional distress and suicide threats

#59

Post by rdiddly » Mon, Mar 11, 2019, 8:24 PM UTC

School-Cotton wrote: post #57

rdiddly wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The definition of 'exploit' has very little to do with force. If someone drops $5 and doesn't notice, and I keep it, I exploited their inattention. If there's a forest, and I have a chainsaw/crane/truck, and no one cares if I chop it down, I can exploit their indifference and exploit that resource. If you click on a phishing link, the hacker exploits your carelessness. If the developers of your OS left a security hol…

In most of your examples except the Amazon one (and, maybe, the ASPCA one), the person being "exploited" is worse off afterwards. You are equivocating on two subtly different definitions of exploit: the bad one where you abuse someone (the hacker exploits your carelessness... to hurt you), and the neutral one (exploiting a resource). In your Amazon warehouse example, people in the area are better off than they would…

I encourage you to see them all in the neutral sense. I intentionally included examples where exploitation can have a positive effect (ASPCA, if you love puppies), no effect (picking up the fiver the person has already lost), negligible or temporarily negligible effect (forest) or arguable effect (Amazon) on the victim. These things are usually not primarily about the victim and how awesome it will be to screw them over. (Except maybe the hacking examples where they might find it fun or funny.) But the neutral use of the word exploit is the one that will come closest to the business analysis being done by Amazon or any other big company. They don't set out to screw people. But they will exploit people, as a resource, to the degree that they're available at a good price.

Anyway I was only here to point out that exploitation doesn't always involve force, not really to argue whether Amazon workers are better off. Couldn't really weigh in on that without surveying them. And I'd need to have a list of criteria in mind, which may or may not match the people's own criteria. (Or I'd have to use their own criteria, which would mean asking more questions and lengthening the interview a bit.)

Off the cuff though I'd say whoever calls a suicide line or 911 because of work issues is probably not overall better off because of that job. (Add the appropriate disclaimers to the effect that those people are presumably a very small minority, and probably have non-work-related issues in addition to or instead of work-related ones.) Also they're not as well off as someone else who got hired at the hypothetical "other employer" with the warehouse in walking distance from their house who pays twice the rate and has showers, free employee caviar etc. (Edit: or just being allowed to take a simple bathroom break with dignity!)

Then there's also the notion (and this is where it gets really hand-wavy) that being a conduit for that money, from your employer's customers to your landlord, isn't exactly the height of joy and fulfillment, as most of us know. Though it does define some basic level of competency in a capitalist economy and being well off or at least better off as you say, than you would with a worse job or no job.

Re: 911 calls from Amazon warehouses show emotional distress and suicide threats

#60

Post by andrekandre » Mon, Mar 11, 2019, 9:38 PM UTC

KorematsuFred wrote: post #31

legitster wrote: post #24

I have a friend who works in an Amazon warehouse and asked him about it: "It's fine. Pay is decent. I get to do a lot of walking, which is nice. I'll probably look for something more long term." I asked him about all of the horror stories and stress I've read about: "You work in an office. Are you saying there isn't any stress or bad bosses or horror stories?" Point taken. They have 200,000 warehouse employees. On av…

It all depends on how many people work there. A job at a restaurant will be 10x more stressful and will face people issues than a job as a coder in downtown San Francisco. I think people need to adjust their expectations. All this bad press has not hurt people willing to work in Amazon's warehouses even in one of the best job markets so I think Amazon warehouses are at par with their industry standards compared to Wa…

> I will trust market signals over journalists and experts any day.

i think it’s a balance, market signals alone aren’t enough imo. it’s multitude of sources that are important, and then to correlate with data that indicates a trend in one direction or another... “market signals” don’t necessarily take into account morals or “human dignity” etc... if we just relied on “market signals” we would arguably still have child labor and (even more) lax labor laws because desperate people will fill any role they can get to “fit the market”

that being said “journalism” now a days is more and more clickbait and sensationalism (profit motive at work?) so i can totally understand the sentiment....