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

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

#521

Post by manigandham »

pg_bot wrote: post #449
manigandham wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What software specifically? The AWS cloud is still the leader in most products.

AWS is the leader in the cloud because of its 6-7 year head start on the competition, not because their product is better than their competitors. There was even a company built on top of AWS that made money by creating a reasonable UX on top of that product.[0] walmart.com is better designed that amazon.com. I don't know when that happened but you can take a look at two product pages for the same book and be the judg…

Heroku is PaaS while AWS started as IaaS and these are completely different. AWS has some PaaS offerings now and is leading the way in an even lighter abstraction with FaaS/serverless. Azure and GCP definitely have unique products but AWS still has plenty of leading tech and I think it's rather misleading to say they don't have anything better. In several instances they're the best simply because there isn't even any serious competition for that niche.

The design of a webpage for companies doing 100s of billions in revenue will be rather subjective and hard to change without materially affecting that revenue so I'm not sure how valid that comparison really is, or what it has to do with "better software".

I will say that building the infrastructure to power such an efficient ecommerce empire along with AWS is not trivial and you're likely vastly underestimating the quality of their systems based on what seem to be rather surface-level observations.

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

#522

Post by bbddg »

djrogers wrote: post #513
bbddg wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you believe there should be minimum standards for working conditions?

That's a specious question - there are minimum standards for wrking conditions. What people upset at Amazon really want is to change those standards, which is a completely fair standpoint. Let's not muddy the waters by papering over 100 years of accomplishemnts of US labor...

I was just questioning the ideology of the person I replied to, not making a statement on the current situation. I'm trying to get people to see that the current situation is the result of organized labor, not some natural condition we happen to find ourselves in.

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

#523

Post by throwaway2048 »

ythn wrote: post #387
aisengard wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not a good analogy to something like Uber, because there's no profit motive. What you described is essentially a government works program, which is a great idea! But that's not what anyone seems to be talking about.

You're right, the analogy is not good. I was more thinking about making an app for fun that solves some problem, makes you and your users a little money on the side, mostly intended for teenagers/college students, etc., but then the masses move into to squeeze every last cent out of it and I get demonized and accused of exploiting workers, etc, when it was never meant to be a life-sustaining employment opportunity to…

this mentality becomes a problem when its pushing real jobs that people rely on out, especially when we are talking about the founders getting immensely rich off this.

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

#524

Post by frgtpsswrdlame »

fastball wrote: post #511
frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Overall I think the point is who cares what caused an increase in labor supply? It doesn't matter from where Marx's reserve army originates, just that capitalists desire and ensure that it exists to the detriment of the working class.

You really think that women as a group qualify as a reserve army?

Again, the composition of the industrial reserve really isn't the point. They're the able to work and unemployed. Whether we have at times integrated previously unused reserves on the basis of race or gender or class is basically irrelevant. The point is the fact of the reserve - that it exists. Look at 2008 on, we've had quite a substantial reserve with quite a diverse composition. But it's there, ensuring that wages won't rise (or rise much) during the boom times.

Perhaps we might have a better discussion if you told me what it is you're actually driving at because I'm not quite sure I see it.

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

#525

Post by NoodleIncident »

Pezmc wrote: post #18

If everything is based on performance metrics alone, surely there's a feedback loop here? Employee A starts peeing in a bottle, so their performance numbers go up, then at the end of the week they have better performance numbers and everyone else's targets are increased to be more inline with employee A. So more people start using bottles and taking shortcuts and the problem just increases over time!

http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/

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

#526

Post by manigandham »

Lionsion wrote: post #479
manigandham wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon is about convenience and variety first, followed closely by price. If you want to drive to Costco and buy the bulk-version of the few choices they have then yes they will be much cheaper.

> Amazon is about convenience and variety first, followed closely by price. If you want to drive to Costco and buy the bulk-version of the few choices they have then yes they will be much cheaper. I feel like that's pretty revisionist. For a very long time, shopping at Amazon was about price first, variety a close second, and convenience a very distant third. I doubt so many people would have developed a habit of sho…

You don't have to revise history to say that it's true today. They definitely had a price advantage for a long time because internet commerce didn't have sales tax and they gained a massive following by the time that was legislated away.

I find it hard to believe that free 2 day shipping and free customer-first returns did not sway opinions though since it basically pushed the entire industry forward.

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

#527

Post by tomlor »

njarboe wrote: post #477
rland wrote: post #424

Is this worth it? Is this worth having the ability to pick between 10,000 different toasters via internet and have them delivered to your doorstep in 2 days? Sometimes I look at society as a complete organ, with a hypothetical ability to make cohesive decisions for itself. And I think, it is making extremely self-destructive choices. All for the sake of satisfying the urge to buy more, at lower prices, with more conv…

And for some reason one can only buy two sizes of socks. For shoe sizes 6-12 (regular) and 12-16 (large). A sock that fits 6 through 12 shoes sizes? Capitalism failure.

I thought the same thing until I discovered H&M socks. Say what you will about their labor practices - at least they make socks that fit my feet.

www.hm.com/us/product/92297

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

#529

Post by jonknee »

Lionsion wrote: post #498
jonknee wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they bring the products to your door...

> But they bring the products to your door... That's being presented as some giant perk nowadays, but I don't really get the appeal. You're buying something sight-unseen and hoping what you'll get in a few days will match the mental images formed from the pictures. You can't size up the item in person, you don't get an excuse to leave the house, and you have to wait longer. If you don't like it, you have to go throug…

Depending on where you live it's a big pain to get to a store (rural people need to go far while in the city traffic makes going across town a huge pain). Not to mention not having to wait in a checkout line.

I actually looked at my Amazon order history, it's beyond boring: soap that was out of stock last time I was at a physical store, washing machine cleaner, an OXO cutting board and a cheese grater, Anker USB charger, etc. I would never choose to go to a store and compare for any of these items and was quite happy to have them show up downstairs. If I do need to return I just print off a piece of paper and take the same box back downstairs (from my perspective way easier than having to go back to a store and wait in line).

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

#530

Post by jacquesm »

rectang wrote: post #441

We can't. Labor and capital need each other, but they are forever at odds. Good wages and working conditions can only be won through negotiating from strength. Modern America favors capital. Elections have consequences.

Of course you can. Modern America may favor capital but there is no reason why it can't change to some reasonable middle ground.
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