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The article prints Amazon's claims and vision - even their animated VR presentation about future robots - but doesn't tell us the warehouse workers' reality or

The article prints Amazon's claims and vision - even their animated VR presentation about future robots - but doesn't tell us the warehouse workers' reality or their point of view. I think it has one short quote from one worker. So we know the former, which is interesting, but we have no idea how it really works out for the employees. If someone asked your boss about your experience of your job, or someone a couple of levels above your boss (much of the article quoted "Dave Clark, the top executive in charge of operations at Amazon") and didn't ask you, how accurate a picture would they get? Can Amazon's (effective) COO really tell us what it's like to be a factory worker there? In my experience of being in the position of the interviewer, as a consultant, the boss and even the immediate supervisor usually have little idea about their subordinates' actual work, challenges, frustrations, etc. Unless you ask the person doing the work, you really have no idea what's going on. A common experience: The boss says, 'the new system works great!'; the subordinate says, 'it's awful and I just have to work around it'. But I shouldn't have to talk about consulting fundamentals here; I thought that was a journalism fundamental too.

RQJSOKJVVRPM 9y ago
I don't really have an answer, but you may be interested to know that the retail half of Amazon has a program in place whereby all employees (up to a certain level) are required to visit a one of the warehouses. This is a 3 day affair with a mix of "classroom" time and floor time. While this is obviously far from the unfiltered reality of associates, we (corporate) are at least not totally oblivious. I don't know about Clark, but I'd imagine he has a rough idea, at least of the general state of affairs. The quote about wanting associates to have less monotonous jobs rings true- I've heard that notion before, and it's good to know that it comes from that high.
- forapurpose 9y ago
  Thanks for responding. IME, the types of things you discuss are things "corporate" and executives talk about and sometimes believe, but often are not reality on the ground. Without evidence, why do you believe it? If you were given that sales pitch about something core to your job, would you buy it at face value? If corporate actually cares, why isn't this issue taken as seriously as other Amazon projects? Wouldn't they be collecting data to evaluate the results? Why is there no regular, quality, anonymous objective survey of the warehouse employees? For all I know, there is, but there's no evidence of it in the article (the NY Times dropped the ball on it too - and they are supposed to be the skeptical journalists). If not, how do I, the NYT reader and Amazon customer, know if it's not just feel-good stuff that eases hearts and minds not on the factory floor, but in the corporate offices and in the customers' homes.

RQJSOKJVVRPM 9y ago

I don't really have an answer, but you may be interested to know that the retail half of Amazon has a program in place whereby all employees (up to a certain level) are required to visit a one of the warehouses. This is a 3 day affair with a mix of "classroom" time and floor time. While this is obviously far from the unfiltered reality of associates, we (corporate) are at least not totally oblivious. I don't know about Clark, but I'd imagine he has a rough idea, at least of the general state of affairs. The quote about wanting associates to have less monotonous jobs rings true- I've heard that notion before, and it's good to know that it comes from that high.

forapurpose 9y ago
Thanks for responding. IME, the types of things you discuss are things "corporate" and executives talk about and sometimes believe, but often are not reality on the ground. Without evidence, why do you believe it? If you were given that sales pitch about something core to your job, would you buy it at face value? If corporate actually cares, why isn't this issue taken as seriously as other Amazon projects? Wouldn't they be collecting data to evaluate the results? Why is there no regular, quality, anonymous objective survey of the warehouse employees? For all I know, there is, but there's no evidence of it in the article (the NY Times dropped the ball on it too - and they are supposed to be the skeptical journalists). If not, how do I, the NYT reader and Amazon customer, know if it's not just feel-good stuff that eases hearts and minds not on the factory floor, but in the corporate offices and in the customers' homes.