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The human costs of Black Friday, explained by a former Amazon warehouse manager

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Re: The human costs of Black Friday, explained by a former Amazon warehouse manager

#81

Post by drharby »

rchaud wrote: post #58

"Amazon never trained us in how to communicate with associates. We weren’t trained to be understanding of their struggles or communicate with them. It was all about mechanics." I wonder if part of the reason a military vet was hired for the floor manager's job was the expectation that they'd act like drill sergeants towards the employees, while the tracking systems acted as a real-time sword of Damocles-type apparatu…

No, its not. They picked up military vets because they understand the nature of communicating and effecting mission needs when they are performed under difficult circumstances.

No one active duty yells at people like a drill sergeant outside of a training environment, except marines bc rah

Re: The human costs of Black Friday, explained by a former Amazon warehouse manager

#82

Post by Alex63 »

sergiosgc wrote: post #77
Alex63 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both your proposals seem likely to result in increased automation, thereby reducing overall employment. To be clear, I'm not saying it's a good thing that some people feel they have to work a 12+ hour day, but isn't it better that they have that choice than that their job is automated out of existence? Also, if you mandate higher costs for suppliers (through limited hours and minimum wages) then you will create incen…

> Both your proposals seem likely to result in increased automation, thereby reducing overall employment. To be clear, I'm not saying it's a good thing that some people feel they have to work a 12+ hour day, but isn't it better that they have that choice than that their job is automated out of existence? That is not a bug, it is a feature. I prefer to never have people in medieval working conditions. Pushing society…

Hmmm. Lots to unpack here, but I'll focus on your comments about globalization. I suppose you could implement regulations to prohibit importation of goods/services from jurisdictions that don't have acceptable standards in place. By doing so, you would probably destroy the economies of India and China. Without a cost advantage (due to lower labour and environmental standards), the shipping costs would pretty much ensure that you would always buy from local suppliers. Wouldn't the destruction of emerging economies result in more victims than would poor labour/environmental standards?

Re: The human costs of Black Friday, explained by a former Amazon warehouse manager

#83

Post by abledon »

sergiosgc wrote: post #71
unreal37 wrote: post #60

"Jeff Bezos is obscenely rich, and in any moral society, he would not have that much money." There's the rub. Buried near the bottom. The guy thinks people should not be allowed to be too rich.

> The guy thinks people should not be allowed to be too rich. Or the fact that people get that rich points to a systemic flaw in the system. Bezos earns 4 million per hour, no matter if he's asleep or awake. It's pretty wild to assume he personally creates that much value. The only other justification is that society is distributing wealth in a skewed fashion. The fact that capitalism is the best resource allocating…

I think a funny thing is all this tech and pleasantries modern life gives us -- order anything from home, buy everything you need and not leave house for 2 months and you can live comfortably watching netflix etc.. -- all of this makes us more apathetic to vote or go protest to change the system. atleast in north america, europe has better mobilization I think, e.g. the protests today in amazon warehouses.

Re: The human costs of Black Friday, explained by a former Amazon warehouse manager

#84

Post by aangjie »

sergiosgc wrote: post #71
unreal37 wrote: post #60

"Jeff Bezos is obscenely rich, and in any moral society, he would not have that much money." There's the rub. Buried near the bottom. The guy thinks people should not be allowed to be too rich.

> The guy thinks people should not be allowed to be too rich. Or the fact that people get that rich points to a systemic flaw in the system. Bezos earns 4 million per hour, no matter if he's asleep or awake. It's pretty wild to assume he personally creates that much value. The only other justification is that society is distributing wealth in a skewed fashion. The fact that capitalism is the best resource allocating…

> The fact that capitalism is the best resource allocating framework we found, for managing society, shouldn't prevent us from discussing its flaws.

The thing that people forget is that democracy is inefficient, but it has less flaws than anything else we have tried in the past. I suspect Capitalism is similarly the least flawed system we've found so far. (don't know enough economic distribution history to be sure).

A lot of people claim socialism is much better, but I am not sure it works well at big scales, looking at say a country like India.

Re: The human costs of Black Friday, explained by a former Amazon warehouse manager

#85

Post by n4r9 »

Alex63 wrote: post #75
n4r9 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a general criticism of the system. Highlighting Amazon's particular behaviour is useful as a demonstration of how/where the system fails, and may produce short term wins if it incentivises amazon to stop being inhumane.

I sincerely don't want to oversimplify your argument, but it seems like the logical end-point would be a global socialist/communist society. Is that your desired/intended outcome?

That's a deceptively complex question. I don't necessarily agree that that's the logical endpoint to my reasoning: it might be that we have to continue to appeal to basic human greed/power drives - in a regulated way - in order to progress and develop as a species. It might be that a global socialist society can't do that. I'm not sure. I just think that right now, many developed countries could certainly do with reinforcement of labour rights.

To answer from another perspective, a society resembling something like socialism or anarchism is what I personally would prefer to live in. I have doubts about whether we can move towards that from the current situation or whether it's workable, full stop. But it sure would be nice.

Re: The human costs of Black Friday, explained by a former Amazon warehouse manager

#86

Post by Alex63 »

Alex63 wrote: post #35
hedvig wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know that its specific to Amazon but more generally comes from a core ideology of abiding by concepts of free market rules to the exclusion of concepts of humanity.

Just to be clear, in this case "free market rules" include: 1. Most customers choose to buy from the seller with the lowest price. 2. Employees are free to leave their employment if they find the conditions intolerable. Which of these rules do you want to change?

As a side note, I'm curious about what down votes mean in this context. Are people registering their feelings about the free market? Are they suggesting that the content of my comment is in some way inappropriate or offensive? Or that I have not followed the rules of HN?

Personally, I'm not too concerned about HN karma, but I'm curious about the incentive system that it creates. Does the karma system simply promote adherence to the majority/popular view, or does it improve the quality of discussion?

Re: The human costs of Black Friday, explained by a former Amazon warehouse manager

#87

Post by stcredzero »

onetimemanytime wrote: post #48

>> The former Amazon employee, a US Air Force veteran, requested anonymity for fear of professional repercussions....I was an area manager, inside a new facility that had about 1,000 associates. I oversaw the packers, managing about 55 associates. My salary was $80,000...I said I wouldn’t accept anything less, since I had a master’s. Oh yeah, anonymous. People want their packages the next day or before Christmas. Ama…

I mean this is the job, like a job that requires you start at 12am.

I had a temp job like that once. Two twelve hour shifts starting at midnight. I feel asleep at the wheel in the middle of the day on the 2nd day. I lucked out and didn't hit anything, woke up to put my foot on the brakes and rolled to a stop in a parking lot.

Re: The human costs of Black Friday, explained by a former Amazon warehouse manager

#88

Post by defertoreptar »

rchaud wrote: post #64
onetimemanytime wrote: post #48

>> The former Amazon employee, a US Air Force veteran, requested anonymity for fear of professional repercussions....I was an area manager, inside a new facility that had about 1,000 associates. I oversaw the packers, managing about 55 associates. My salary was $80,000...I said I wouldn’t accept anything less, since I had a master’s. Oh yeah, anonymous. People want their packages the next day or before Christmas. Ama…

> Amazon has no problems finding workers, or else they'd pay $30 an hour. There isn't a market solution for every problem. Labor rights abuses are rampant in apparel manufacturing. Are those problems "not serious" enough because people continue to pursue employment there?

Don't you fault the country's laws and enforcement of laws for that? USA has strict labor laws surrounding child labor for example.

If Amazon is doing things legally, and we're not happy, then we need to be upset with Congress, if anyone.

Re: The human costs of Black Friday, explained by a former Amazon warehouse manager

#89

Post by [deleted] »

johnchristopher wrote: post #69
intopieces wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will you be more specific on the moral aspect here? Because from the article, it seems like the individuals working in the warehouse are compensated at a rate they agreed to (not being cheated of wages), are safe (no unsafe work practices are revealed here), and are given clear guidelines about their work tasks and standards (not being fired for discriminatory reasons). I don’t want to put words in anyone’s mouth, so…

18 hours of work is unsafe whatever the job is.

[deleted]

Re: The human costs of Black Friday, explained by a former Amazon warehouse manager

#90

Post by MRD85 »

drharby wrote: post #81
rchaud wrote: post #58

"Amazon never trained us in how to communicate with associates. We weren’t trained to be understanding of their struggles or communicate with them. It was all about mechanics." I wonder if part of the reason a military vet was hired for the floor manager's job was the expectation that they'd act like drill sergeants towards the employees, while the tracking systems acted as a real-time sword of Damocles-type apparatu…

No, its not. They picked up military vets because they understand the nature of communicating and effecting mission needs when they are performed under difficult circumstances. No one active duty yells at people like a drill sergeant outside of a training environment, except marines bc rah

Anecdotally, I've been in the Army close to 10 years now and I cannot recall the last time I heard yelling in a non-jovial or non-combat manner. I've also had multiple experiences where people were stunned after I how I reacted in difficult circumstances. I can definitely see how certain employers would value these traits.
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