11 ms·

I worked at Amazon to see if anything's changed

163 points by vanilla-almond 11y ago

kbart 11y ago
"My name is spelt wrong on my badge, mate," I told him "Oh, that's fine, nobody cares about your name here anyway; we just need your barcode – that's all." Sounds like something written by G. Orwell.. Still better than sweatshops in China or 3rd world countries I guess.
- vermooten 11y ago
  The nurse echoes Alec Baldwin's character in Glengarry Glen Ross when he says: "If you don't like it, leave."
- rdlecler1 11y ago
  Oddly enough, While flying back from Shanghai in 2006, the Caucasian woman next to me had a son that worked on the line in one of their sweatshops and had done it for over a year. They were from a prettywealthy family that produced things in China and the son decided he wanted to start at the very bottom. She said he insisted on sleeping in the dorms, would not take a special AC unit offered to him, ate with the rest of the workers, and even had a girlfriend. I asked how long he was going to do it for and she said she didn't know. That he seemed quite happy having such a simple and hard working life. Also a quote to keep in mind from Chris's Rock, "If Bill Gates woke up tomorrow wit Oprah's money he'd kill himself."
  - CaptSpify 11y ago
    It's easy when you have a fall-back plan though. Obviously I know nothing about him or their family, but I'm guessing he could just quit, and rely on their resources while he looked for a new job. A lot of people don't have that option
    - RankingMember 11y ago
      Yep, there's a world of difference between being rich and working a shitty job for the fun of it and working that same job to survive.
  - phillmv 11y ago
    That sounds like he was job training to be a manager/owner later. I strongly doubt a fluent, well educated westerner in China was going to be stuck with working on the factory floor as a career plan.
hoorayimhelping 11y ago
Skip the overly dramatic Orwellian outrage porn and go straight to the banal conclusion: >What became apparent over my time there was that, whatever the dramatisation of previous investigations, working at Amazon is just shit – but no more shit than any other mundane, badly-paid job.
- roymurdock 11y ago
  Also note that the article is written by a guy in the UK who is hired for seasonal warehouse work. Not a middle manager/higher salaried employee as was the case in the NYT article that sparked the outrage.
  - darkerside 11y ago
    Also, at least part of the outrage needs to be directed at the hiring recruiting agency, not at Amazon itself.
    - harry8 11y ago
      Not really. The hiring recruiting agency is acting as an agent for amazon and amazon are completely and totally responsible for the actions of their agent. There is no "not us, our contractor" defence for this kind of thing.
  - aaronharnly 11y ago
    Two different kinds of outrage – the warehouse employees being worked to the bone predated the white-collar outrage. Examples: * "I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave": http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-free-online-shipping-warehouses-labor http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-f... * "Brutal Conditions In Amazon's Warehouses Threaten To Ruin The Company's Image": http://www.businessinsider.com/brutal-conditions-in-amazons-warehouses-2013-8 http://www.businessinsider.com/brutal-conditions-in-amazons-... * "True Stories of Life as an Amazon Worker": http://gawker.com/true-stories-of-life-as-an-amazon-worker-1002568208 http://gawker.com/true-stories-of-life-as-an-amazon-worker-1... * "Inside Amazon's Warehouse": http://www.mcall.com/news/local/amazon/ http://www.mcall.com/news/local/amazon/
jordigh 11y ago
> In fact, everything was completely by the book. Huh? According to the same article, the book said that he should have been given a copy of his contract and a daily list of goals. The book also said that there should be a careful point system to judge employee performance, not "late twice and you're sacked". Furthermore, are 11-hour shifts really by the book? Does the book say three of those hours have to be paid overtime?
- flatline 11y ago
  "The books" in this case are likely referring to local employment laws. They are doing the bare minimum required, all that other stuff is window dressing on a shit job, and it is pretty clear that nobody takes it seriously or really gives a shit. Can you blame them? I doubt the local managers are raking in the dough either. You show up and do as you are told and get paid, or you don't work there. It is not great, but it is not illegal or egregiously unfair.
- asuffield 11y ago
  > Furthermore, are 11-hour shifts really by the book? Yes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_Time_Directive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_Time_Directive is the relevant set of rules. The key one is "there must daily rest of 11 consecutive hours per 24-hour period", which an 11-hour shift complies with. > Does the book say three of those hours have to be paid overtime? No. They're just paid time like any other shift. (Before somebody jumps up to wave their hands about opting out of the working time directive: as noted on that page, there is only one rule that you can opt out of, and that's the rule about a 48-hour maximum working week. There is no opt out for any of the other rules.)
TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
> my recruiter, Angniezka, Presumably Angnieszka?
- Twirrim 11y ago
  It can be spelt both ways. You can even spell it Agnieszka or Agniezka :)
  - kgabis 11y ago
    Nope, there's only one spelling: Agnieszka.
- dsjoerg 11y ago
  "Oh, that's fine, nobody cares about your name here anyway; we just need your barcode – that's all."
- TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
  Muphry's law: I meant Agnieszka. I hadn't noticed their extra 'n'.
js8 11y ago
I think it's great articles like that get posted here - it's a window to employment conditions that techies would never accept. It's a good reminder of privilege.
- kbart 11y ago
  Agree. It's a typical low paid, manual labor job in UK (and I guess elsewhere in western part of the world). The name "Amazon" is just to attract an attention, situation is pretty similar everywhere in this type of jobs. I'm from Eastern Europe (where the most immigrants and low level workers are from in UK) and have a lot of relatives/friends doing such jobs, and same or even much worse stories are not uncommon. The bright side of the story is, that for many, such jobs are temporary while achieving greater goals (i.e. studying or saving money to start their own business).
- marknutter 11y ago
  > it's a window to employment conditions that techies would never accept. I absolutely would accept those employment conditions if I didn't have any other options and needed to make money to survive. I would also spend my free time learning a skill so I could get a better job at some point in the future. > It's a good reminder of privilege. It's not a matter of privilege, it's a matter of ability. In tech more than any other field, because you don't need a college degree to get a good paying job. You just need to have the desire and ambition to learn.
  - kdazzle 11y ago
    Man, and here I thought social Darwinism was dead
  - lucisferre 11y ago
    > free time What makes you think those people have free time after 12.5 hour days and a commute out to the middle of nowhere?
    - rdtsc 11y ago
      > What makes you think those people have free time after 12.5 hour days and a commute out to the middle of nowhere? I think that's what the OP called the "privilege". Those that have it, don't see why others can't do the same. It comes from having a completely different world view and priorities. That's why it is common to hear "how come they don't sit down learn to code and become full stack developers, that would be so easy."
kartan 11y ago
> "At the end of the day, nobody is forcing anyone to work here." This erroneous logic justifies a lot of abuses. And it is used as much by employers as by employees. This statement eliminates the circumstances that make you work there, that can be out of your control. And it is easy to turn it around: "If you could choose any job, you will chose that one?". Probably not. So there goes all your choosing. > "I can't quit now, because the cost of getting to the agency for the interview and drug test – and getting here today for just five hours' pay – means I'll have made a loss." Talking about circumstances this is a bad one.
threatofrain 11y ago
It's silly to blame Amazon for what we think is immoral behavior, as if we were going to shame Amazon into decency. Amazon is following the law here. It is the law which is indecent. We must think not about why Amazon is indecent, but rather how Amazon is lawful. In sum, Amazon should be mechanistically compelled into socially harmonious behavior, not shamed into it.
- outside1234 11y ago
  Taking that point further, this is exactly what you would expect an efficient firm to do. They are maximizing productivity and minimizing costs within a regulatory framework. Its the regulatory framework that needs changing if we want to see broad improvements in the blue collar worker's plight. Almost any improvement will be at the expense of cheap goods, so get be prepared to pay for that improvement too. I believe this is the key reason we never see anything done about immigration in the US or pollution in China: at the end of the day, we care more about the cheap goods than the workers or pollution.
  - geodel 11y ago
    Absolutely true. That super efficient customer service and package delivery also comes at cost of low paid workers.
- rifung 11y ago
  Well, I think shaming Amazon into decency might work if the negative publicity makes it difficult for them to hire. I'm not too sure it really worked though as it seems there's always going to be someone who is in need of a job and can't find it elsewhere. Perhaps they will have a harder time finding talented developers though?
- ceejayoz 11y ago
  Public shaming of prominent abusive companies is frequently what triggers those changes in law. I don't see any reason companies should be exempt from criticism for legal-but-immoral actions.
- 11y ago
rdtsc 11y ago
My nephew worked for Amazon in Kentucky and during a snowstorm they refused to let him stay home. He didn't feel it was safe to drive (and it wasn't). They told him he is fired. Someone even called to apologize later, but he already found work some other place. On the "good" part of Amazon at AWS, I had a laughably terrible hiring experience (I know I've told my story multiple times, sorry). They forgot to call me back on the scheduled phone interview day, my future manager who was supposed to interview me wasn't there the day they brought me in, they forgot about me during lunch, sat in a conference room for an hour, then went wondering around, thinking, nah, this can't be happening. After that I got a little snippy with them parroting back leadership principles. And then later it took them 3 weeks to call back (but at that point I wasn't surprised). However, I like them as a amazon.com customer. I guess to make things awesome on the outside, those on the inside have to suffer...
- lucisferre 11y ago
  > I guess to make things awesome on the outside, those on the inside have to suffer... Or, the two things don't necessarily have to be related.
- CaptSpify 11y ago
  > However, I like them as a amazon.com customer. I guess to make things awesome on the outside, those on the inside have to suffer... I've never understood this logic. Amazon is making a ton of money (rightly so, imo), they could afford to trim down quite a bit. Why should those on the inside be forced to suffer?
  - rdtsc 11y ago
    I am just saying what the popular explanation for this is. Amazon's own official explanation is probably something along the lines of "frugality" (hey isn't that a leadership principle..., see I learned something from the interview after all!)
  - ikeboy 11y ago
    Their profit margins are tiny. Look up earnings for recent quarters.
bluedino 11y ago
At the core of operations, Amazon is no different than Walmart.
- chrisra 11y ago
  I'm not sure about warehouse conditions, but from my experience in the home office, this sounds completely untrue. I'm not going back, but there were a ton of friendly people there. They treated interns really well, I think. My coworkers were a really good bunch.
  - daxfohl 11y ago
    FYI you left no way of determining whether you meant Walmart or Amazon or ....
Practicality 11y ago
When this "job" is replaced by robots, everyone will be better for it. Of course, these people will need to be provided for, and there are several solutions to discuss, but this job screams for automation.
- CaptSpify 11y ago
  I have no idea what the people in the warehouse do, so forgive my ignorance, but wouldn't this be a prime spot to test out drones? I'm guessing if you are in an enclosed area, the air-space rules that Amazon keeps fighting don't apply?
  - ikeboy 11y ago
    http://time.com/3605924/amazon-robots/ http://time.com/3605924/amazon-robots/
  - Practicality 11y ago
    One of my previous jobs we automated a warehouse using a crane and mini-RVs that drove around a picked up pallets. The whole warehouse only* required a couple of fork truck drivers to load the trucks and that was only because of legal restrictions on loading trucks with an automated conveyor. * It also required 2-3 just out of high-school "technicians" making about $15/hour who oversaw the whole operation as well as a "maintenance" crew of about 3 people (to repair machines). I think there were a couple of managers thrown in as well. Still, much cheaper than the 100 employees we replaced and I am pretty sure those employees were happier doing something else.
    - karambahh 11y ago
      I can see how you did if the picked products were of similar weight/size and stored in cardboard packaging, but did it also work for "flexible" items such as clothing or for instance a blanket packed into plastic? AFAIK picking is very hard to automate because it's very hard to match the dexterity and eye-hands coordination of a human being. [edit: grammar]
6stringmerc 11y ago
Having been a seasonal employee on several occasions, this article does a good job of portraying the casual attitude large companies seem to take with expendible labor forces. I've seen it first-hand even in smaller situations (ex: an indie movie theater for summer staffing), and while most were a bit better organized (better forms, personalised off-site testing), it's still pretty understandable. If Amazon isn't sympathetic to the transportation plight of the workers, I don't think I can fault them - that's pretty common for most jobs in my experience. It's definitely a personal thing, but after all sorts of job roles, I'd probably think the quiet, repetitve tasks and 'timing' aspect of the hourly job actually kind of okay. Gives me time in my head without having to make small talk. Or deal with bad customers. I guess what I'm saying is that I'd still rather take the Amazon job than one where I had to work directly with customers in service or retail. Especially if said customers trend toward elderly...sure, moving boxes in a hurry can be stressful, but I'd prefer that to trying to explain/sell to a confused, sometimes impatiently angry monied elderly person, because boxes lack emotional outbursts.
- nashashmi 11y ago
  I always wonder what causes people to be the people they are. It almost always ends up being "industry standard" practices. Time for disruption?
- tamana 11y ago
  Amazon makes workers constantly work faster. It isn't relaxing.
alttab 11y ago
What became apparent over my time there was that, whatever the dramatisation of previous investigations, working at Amazon is just shit – but no more shit than any other mundane, badly-paid job. Since there have been bosses and profits there have always been shit jobs, and until we're replaced by more efficient robots, they'll still be there for us to complain about. This sums it all up nicely.
blazespin 11y ago
I think I've probably been approached by Amazon recruiters about 20 times, each time asking them not to do so again. They still keep emailing me on linked in though.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
gdewilde 11y ago
I very much doubt it is a good idea to have "one size fits all" employment laws.
bane 11y ago
I think what's important to think about here is how the type of company we think of Amazon as (a tech company) informs our belief in how the work conditions should be. HN isn't exactly full of articles about how terrible the work conditions at Macy's or the local trash pickup service are, and that's because we think of retail or sanitation as different kinds of work. If we think of Amazon as a big warehouse fulfillment company or a retail department store, our expectations drop and Amazon starts to look more like the other companies in those spaces. Instead we should realize what Amazon is (or overlaps with), and get upset about poor work conditions in the entire sector.
tekt 11y ago
My first thought was that someone got hired as an under cover developer, which would have been kind of a novelty. Still interesting read though. Anyone heard anything about the work environment for developers recently?
tremguy 11y ago
"But it was nothing like the shops I've worked in before, obviously, as there are no customers in sight. This opens up Amazon to a whole new world of efficiency: no smiling faces, pleasant décor, snazzy lighting or a pretence that anyone's happy to be there." Well, to soften this up a bit, this is what it is like at every warehouse in the world. Of course it isn't going to be anything like a nice tidy whitecollar office job. The article sounds a bit like it was written by someone with no prior experience with this type of work.

163 points by vanilla-almond 11y ago

kbart 11y ago

"My name is spelt wrong on my badge, mate," I told him "Oh, that's fine, nobody cares about your name here anyway; we just need your barcode – that's all." Sounds like something written by G. Orwell.. Still better than sweatshops in China or 3rd world countries I guess.

vermooten 11y ago
The nurse echoes Alec Baldwin's character in Glengarry Glen Ross when he says: "If you don't like it, leave."
rdlecler1 11y ago
Oddly enough, While flying back from Shanghai in 2006, the Caucasian woman next to me had a son that worked on the line in one of their sweatshops and had done it for over a year. They were from a prettywealthy family that produced things in China and the son decided he wanted to start at the very bottom. She said he insisted on sleeping in the dorms, would not take a special AC unit offered to him, ate with the rest of the workers, and even had a girlfriend. I asked how long he was going to do it for and she said she didn't know. That he seemed quite happy having such a simple and hard working life. Also a quote to keep in mind from Chris's Rock, "If Bill Gates woke up tomorrow wit Oprah's money he'd kill himself."
- CaptSpify 11y ago
  It's easy when you have a fall-back plan though. Obviously I know nothing about him or their family, but I'm guessing he could just quit, and rely on their resources while he looked for a new job. A lot of people don't have that option
  - RankingMember 11y ago
    Yep, there's a world of difference between being rich and working a shitty job for the fun of it and working that same job to survive.
- phillmv 11y ago
  That sounds like he was job training to be a manager/owner later. I strongly doubt a fluent, well educated westerner in China was going to be stuck with working on the factory floor as a career plan.

hoorayimhelping 11y ago

Skip the overly dramatic Orwellian outrage porn and go straight to the banal conclusion: >What became apparent over my time there was that, whatever the dramatisation of previous investigations, working at Amazon is just shit – but no more shit than any other mundane, badly-paid job.

roymurdock 11y ago
Also note that the article is written by a guy in the UK who is hired for seasonal warehouse work. Not a middle manager/higher salaried employee as was the case in the NYT article that sparked the outrage.
- darkerside 11y ago
  Also, at least part of the outrage needs to be directed at the hiring recruiting agency, not at Amazon itself.
  - harry8 11y ago
    Not really. The hiring recruiting agency is acting as an agent for amazon and amazon are completely and totally responsible for the actions of their agent. There is no "not us, our contractor" defence for this kind of thing.
- aaronharnly 11y ago
  Two different kinds of outrage – the warehouse employees being worked to the bone predated the white-collar outrage. Examples: * "I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave": http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-free-online-shipping-warehouses-labor http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-f... * "Brutal Conditions In Amazon's Warehouses Threaten To Ruin The Company's Image": http://www.businessinsider.com/brutal-conditions-in-amazons-warehouses-2013-8 http://www.businessinsider.com/brutal-conditions-in-amazons-... * "True Stories of Life as an Amazon Worker": http://gawker.com/true-stories-of-life-as-an-amazon-worker-1002568208 http://gawker.com/true-stories-of-life-as-an-amazon-worker-1... * "Inside Amazon's Warehouse": http://www.mcall.com/news/local/amazon/ http://www.mcall.com/news/local/amazon/

jordigh 11y ago

> In fact, everything was completely by the book. Huh? According to the same article, the book said that he should have been given a copy of his contract and a daily list of goals. The book also said that there should be a careful point system to judge employee performance, not "late twice and you're sacked". Furthermore, are 11-hour shifts really by the book? Does the book say three of those hours have to be paid overtime?

flatline 11y ago
"The books" in this case are likely referring to local employment laws. They are doing the bare minimum required, all that other stuff is window dressing on a shit job, and it is pretty clear that nobody takes it seriously or really gives a shit. Can you blame them? I doubt the local managers are raking in the dough either. You show up and do as you are told and get paid, or you don't work there. It is not great, but it is not illegal or egregiously unfair.
asuffield 11y ago
> Furthermore, are 11-hour shifts really by the book? Yes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_Time_Directive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_Time_Directive is the relevant set of rules. The key one is "there must daily rest of 11 consecutive hours per 24-hour period", which an 11-hour shift complies with. > Does the book say three of those hours have to be paid overtime? No. They're just paid time like any other shift. (Before somebody jumps up to wave their hands about opting out of the working time directive: as noted on that page, there is only one rule that you can opt out of, and that's the rule about a 48-hour maximum working week. There is no opt out for any of the other rules.)

TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago

> my recruiter, Angniezka, Presumably Angnieszka?

Twirrim 11y ago
It can be spelt both ways. You can even spell it Agnieszka or Agniezka :)
- kgabis 11y ago
  Nope, there's only one spelling: Agnieszka.
dsjoerg 11y ago
"Oh, that's fine, nobody cares about your name here anyway; we just need your barcode – that's all."
TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
Muphry's law: I meant Agnieszka. I hadn't noticed their extra 'n'.

js8 11y ago

I think it's great articles like that get posted here - it's a window to employment conditions that techies would never accept. It's a good reminder of privilege.

kbart 11y ago
Agree. It's a typical low paid, manual labor job in UK (and I guess elsewhere in western part of the world). The name "Amazon" is just to attract an attention, situation is pretty similar everywhere in this type of jobs. I'm from Eastern Europe (where the most immigrants and low level workers are from in UK) and have a lot of relatives/friends doing such jobs, and same or even much worse stories are not uncommon. The bright side of the story is, that for many, such jobs are temporary while achieving greater goals (i.e. studying or saving money to start their own business).
marknutter 11y ago
> it's a window to employment conditions that techies would never accept. I absolutely would accept those employment conditions if I didn't have any other options and needed to make money to survive. I would also spend my free time learning a skill so I could get a better job at some point in the future. > It's a good reminder of privilege. It's not a matter of privilege, it's a matter of ability. In tech more than any other field, because you don't need a college degree to get a good paying job. You just need to have the desire and ambition to learn.
- kdazzle 11y ago
  Man, and here I thought social Darwinism was dead
- lucisferre 11y ago
  > free time What makes you think those people have free time after 12.5 hour days and a commute out to the middle of nowhere?
  - rdtsc 11y ago
    > What makes you think those people have free time after 12.5 hour days and a commute out to the middle of nowhere? I think that's what the OP called the "privilege". Those that have it, don't see why others can't do the same. It comes from having a completely different world view and priorities. That's why it is common to hear "how come they don't sit down learn to code and become full stack developers, that would be so easy."

kartan 11y ago

> "At the end of the day, nobody is forcing anyone to work here." This erroneous logic justifies a lot of abuses. And it is used as much by employers as by employees. This statement eliminates the circumstances that make you work there, that can be out of your control. And it is easy to turn it around: "If you could choose any job, you will chose that one?". Probably not. So there goes all your choosing. > "I can't quit now, because the cost of getting to the agency for the interview and drug test – and getting here today for just five hours' pay – means I'll have made a loss." Talking about circumstances this is a bad one.

threatofrain 11y ago

It's silly to blame Amazon for what we think is immoral behavior, as if we were going to shame Amazon into decency. Amazon is following the law here. It is the law which is indecent. We must think not about why Amazon is indecent, but rather how Amazon is lawful. In sum, Amazon should be mechanistically compelled into socially harmonious behavior, not shamed into it.

outside1234 11y ago
Taking that point further, this is exactly what you would expect an efficient firm to do. They are maximizing productivity and minimizing costs within a regulatory framework. Its the regulatory framework that needs changing if we want to see broad improvements in the blue collar worker's plight. Almost any improvement will be at the expense of cheap goods, so get be prepared to pay for that improvement too. I believe this is the key reason we never see anything done about immigration in the US or pollution in China: at the end of the day, we care more about the cheap goods than the workers or pollution.
- geodel 11y ago
  Absolutely true. That super efficient customer service and package delivery also comes at cost of low paid workers.
rifung 11y ago
Well, I think shaming Amazon into decency might work if the negative publicity makes it difficult for them to hire. I'm not too sure it really worked though as it seems there's always going to be someone who is in need of a job and can't find it elsewhere. Perhaps they will have a harder time finding talented developers though?
ceejayoz 11y ago
Public shaming of prominent abusive companies is frequently what triggers those changes in law. I don't see any reason companies should be exempt from criticism for legal-but-immoral actions.
11y ago

rdtsc 11y ago

My nephew worked for Amazon in Kentucky and during a snowstorm they refused to let him stay home. He didn't feel it was safe to drive (and it wasn't). They told him he is fired. Someone even called to apologize later, but he already found work some other place. On the "good" part of Amazon at AWS, I had a laughably terrible hiring experience (I know I've told my story multiple times, sorry). They forgot to call me back on the scheduled phone interview day, my future manager who was supposed to interview me wasn't there the day they brought me in, they forgot about me during lunch, sat in a conference room for an hour, then went wondering around, thinking, nah, this can't be happening. After that I got a little snippy with them parroting back leadership principles. And then later it took them 3 weeks to call back (but at that point I wasn't surprised). However, I like them as a amazon.com customer. I guess to make things awesome on the outside, those on the inside have to suffer...

lucisferre 11y ago
> I guess to make things awesome on the outside, those on the inside have to suffer... Or, the two things don't necessarily have to be related.
CaptSpify 11y ago
> However, I like them as a amazon.com customer. I guess to make things awesome on the outside, those on the inside have to suffer... I've never understood this logic. Amazon is making a ton of money (rightly so, imo), they could afford to trim down quite a bit. Why should those on the inside be forced to suffer?
- rdtsc 11y ago
  I am just saying what the popular explanation for this is. Amazon's own official explanation is probably something along the lines of "frugality" (hey isn't that a leadership principle..., see I learned something from the interview after all!)
- ikeboy 11y ago
  Their profit margins are tiny. Look up earnings for recent quarters.

bluedino 11y ago

At the core of operations, Amazon is no different than Walmart.

chrisra 11y ago
I'm not sure about warehouse conditions, but from my experience in the home office, this sounds completely untrue. I'm not going back, but there were a ton of friendly people there. They treated interns really well, I think. My coworkers were a really good bunch.
- daxfohl 11y ago
  FYI you left no way of determining whether you meant Walmart or Amazon or ....

Practicality 11y ago

When this "job" is replaced by robots, everyone will be better for it. Of course, these people will need to be provided for, and there are several solutions to discuss, but this job screams for automation.

CaptSpify 11y ago
I have no idea what the people in the warehouse do, so forgive my ignorance, but wouldn't this be a prime spot to test out drones? I'm guessing if you are in an enclosed area, the air-space rules that Amazon keeps fighting don't apply?
- ikeboy 11y ago
  http://time.com/3605924/amazon-robots/ http://time.com/3605924/amazon-robots/
- Practicality 11y ago
  One of my previous jobs we automated a warehouse using a crane and mini-RVs that drove around a picked up pallets. The whole warehouse only* required a couple of fork truck drivers to load the trucks and that was only because of legal restrictions on loading trucks with an automated conveyor. * It also required 2-3 just out of high-school "technicians" making about $15/hour who oversaw the whole operation as well as a "maintenance" crew of about 3 people (to repair machines). I think there were a couple of managers thrown in as well. Still, much cheaper than the 100 employees we replaced and I am pretty sure those employees were happier doing something else.
  - karambahh 11y ago
    I can see how you did if the picked products were of similar weight/size and stored in cardboard packaging, but did it also work for "flexible" items such as clothing or for instance a blanket packed into plastic? AFAIK picking is very hard to automate because it's very hard to match the dexterity and eye-hands coordination of a human being. [edit: grammar]

6stringmerc 11y ago

Having been a seasonal employee on several occasions, this article does a good job of portraying the casual attitude large companies seem to take with expendible labor forces. I've seen it first-hand even in smaller situations (ex: an indie movie theater for summer staffing), and while most were a bit better organized (better forms, personalised off-site testing), it's still pretty understandable. If Amazon isn't sympathetic to the transportation plight of the workers, I don't think I can fault them - that's pretty common for most jobs in my experience. It's definitely a personal thing, but after all sorts of job roles, I'd probably think the quiet, repetitve tasks and 'timing' aspect of the hourly job actually kind of okay. Gives me time in my head without having to make small talk. Or deal with bad customers. I guess what I'm saying is that I'd still rather take the Amazon job than one where I had to work directly with customers in service or retail. Especially if said customers trend toward elderly...sure, moving boxes in a hurry can be stressful, but I'd prefer that to trying to explain/sell to a confused, sometimes impatiently angry monied elderly person, because boxes lack emotional outbursts.

nashashmi 11y ago
I always wonder what causes people to be the people they are. It almost always ends up being "industry standard" practices. Time for disruption?
tamana 11y ago
Amazon makes workers constantly work faster. It isn't relaxing.

alttab 11y ago

What became apparent over my time there was that, whatever the dramatisation of previous investigations, working at Amazon is just shit – but no more shit than any other mundane, badly-paid job. Since there have been bosses and profits there have always been shit jobs, and until we're replaced by more efficient robots, they'll still be there for us to complain about. This sums it all up nicely.

blazespin 11y ago

I think I've probably been approached by Amazon recruiters about 20 times, each time asking them not to do so again. They still keep emailing me on linked in though.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

gdewilde 11y ago

I very much doubt it is a good idea to have "one size fits all" employment laws.

bane 11y ago

I think what's important to think about here is how the type of company we think of Amazon as (a tech company) informs our belief in how the work conditions should be. HN isn't exactly full of articles about how terrible the work conditions at Macy's or the local trash pickup service are, and that's because we think of retail or sanitation as different kinds of work. If we think of Amazon as a big warehouse fulfillment company or a retail department store, our expectations drop and Amazon starts to look more like the other companies in those spaces. Instead we should realize what Amazon is (or overlaps with), and get upset about poor work conditions in the entire sector.

tekt 11y ago

My first thought was that someone got hired as an under cover developer, which would have been kind of a novelty. Still interesting read though. Anyone heard anything about the work environment for developers recently?

tremguy 11y ago

"But it was nothing like the shops I've worked in before, obviously, as there are no customers in sight. This opens up Amazon to a whole new world of efficiency: no smiling faces, pleasant décor, snazzy lighting or a pretence that anyone's happy to be there." Well, to soften this up a bit, this is what it is like at every warehouse in the world. Of course it isn't going to be anything like a nice tidy whitecollar office job. The article sounds a bit like it was written by someone with no prior experience with this type of work.