7 ms·

I worked for Amazon in what was then a brand new warehouse for a few months in 2015. I worked 10 hour shifts, from 20:00 to 07:00 (the extra hour was for lunch

by dzmien 7y ago

I worked for Amazon in what was then a brand new warehouse for a few months in 2015. I worked 10 hour shifts, from 20:00 to 07:00 (the extra hour was for lunch and breaks). My job was picking orders. It seemed easy at first (and it was, but mentally, not so much). All I had to do was stand in one place while robots brought me pod after endless pod of products. There was nothing to it, and that was the problem. The pods were divided into indexed bins containing their random assortment of products and the computer told me to get product X from bin Y. Again and again and again. I was literally just a robot arm with a human brain attached to it, and for what? To torment it [me, the head]? I was in hell. By the end of each shift I would be in a daze, wondering why the hell I thought this would be a good job, and by the end of my first month I started using heroin again (I had been clean for six months up until that point). Now I'm not saying I would have stayed clean if it wasn't for Amazon, but it definitely made relapse happen a lot sooner. And besides, the drug made me work like a machine. The 10 hour shifts that slogged by in sobriety began to blow by with blissful alacrity, and my numbers were excellent to boot. And eventually, well, I was fucking hooked on heroin again and I knew I had to stop. So I quit to focus on my recovery. It was the best decision I've ever made and I've been clean for over three years now. That might be a stupid story, but the whole time I worked at Amazon, all I could think was "they are going to automate this job someday, and thank fucking god for that. What is taking them so long?" No human should be made to do such mindless work. It sucks. And for $13.75 an hour, it definitely isn't worth it.

gdy 7y ago
"And for $13.75 an hour, it definitely isn't worth it." A billion of people around the world would be happy to work with that hourly rate.
- dzmien 7y ago
  Despite the fact that I might not be a rich man in this country, I am a very rich man in this world. I feel quite lucky and grateful to have been born in the USA. But to be fair, that was not a very good wage for where I live.
- pkaye 7y ago
  Not at the US cost of living. Nor would those billions of people be paid a that rate if their cost of living is lower than the US.
  - georgespencer 7y ago
    I think it's quite likely, but unknowable, that folks would accept the income:cost of living ratio of the US if it came with the associated sociological benefits. I think you're underestimating how disproportionately impoverished many people around the world are.
    - geodel 7y ago
      Well people here keep ranting about 1 percenters without ever realizing that >$100K earners are among one percenters in the world.
      - georgespencer 7y ago
        You're right that a few people do, although I think most people realise how deeply fortunate we all are to have won to at least some extent a genetic and [entirely separate] geographic lottery.
      - mamon 7y ago
        Actually, the threshold to be in top 1% income bracket worldwide is $32,400 https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/050615/are-you-top-one-percent-world.asp https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/05061...
        zjaffee 7y ago
        This number is both old and in nominal terms. A person making 50k USD in China is likely richer than a person in the US making 100k USD in the US. http://pubdocs.worldbank.org/en/771271476908686029/Segal.pdf http://pubdocs.worldbank.org/en/771271476908686029/Segal.pdf suggests that the number to be in the global 1% is around $50,000 PPP per person in a given household.
- geodel 7y ago
  To add further there will be billion who would do as a daily rate.
  - gdy 7y ago
    I was thinking about people moving to the US and working there at an Amazon warehouse. If we talk about working for that rate in their native country, I think it can be up to 5 billion. And a billion more will take the job without being too happy.
- dahart 7y ago
  Would you?
  - gdy 7y ago
    No, but I am not suffering from hunger, lack of clean drinking water, lack of basic medical help or violence. If that were the case, I would be happy to do anything, including relocating to the US and working as an Amazon's robot.
- salty_biscuits 7y ago
  All in countries with a lower cost of living.
- badrequest 7y ago
  "accept your scraps, peasant, there's folks with no plausible way of ever enjoying them who would"
- megaremote 7y ago
  Sure, if they could stay where they are. $13.75 buys a lot more in Bangalore than it does in the US.
- digitalsushi 7y ago
  I upvoted you because at first I decided you were a king writing this and telling us to feel more lucky and I felt angry, but then I pretended you were the poorest laborer writing this and telling us to feel more lucky, and I agreed.
  - gdy 7y ago
    That is the first time someone has thought about me as a king. Even metaphorically and for a brief moment :)
shiburizu 7y ago
I'm glad you made that decision for yourself and I think such perspectives are missing from the discourse about working-class folks dealing with addiction.
yhoneycomb 7y ago
> I was literally just a robot arm with a human brain attached to it, and for what? This is how I felt as an undergrad working in a research lab. Endless, annoying pipetting. Labeling tubes. Bitchwork that the postdoc didn't want to do. I kept thinking... there's no way they can't come up with a robot to do this. My guess is the technology to do it is there but the motivation isn't - most undergrads (me included) work in research labs for free with the hope of getting into med school. Luckily, I'm in med school now so I don't have to worry about being taken advantage of in that way. But every time I think about how the system does this to so many premeds, it pisses me off.
- shpongled 7y ago
  >Luckily, I'm in med school now so I don't have to worry about being taken advantage of in that way Lol. It's not that the motivation isn't there to get robots to do the bitchwork in science, it's that the money isn't there in an academic setting.
  - yhoneycomb 7y ago
    I think we mean the same thing but we're expressing it differently! What I meant was - the motivation isn't there because you can just get people to do your bitchwork for way less than it would cost to invest in a robot.
- lifekaizen 7y ago
  There is a pipetting robot now: https://opentrons.com/ https://opentrons.com/
  - yhoneycomb 7y ago
    This is awesome! But... PIs everywhere: “Why would I buy this robot when I could get an undergrad to do the work for free?” Although if they hated taking the time to train undergrads maybe they’d give it a shot Then again, they don’t train the undergrads, postdocs do
Yhippa 7y ago
Your story seems like it's right out of the game "What Remains of Edith Finch".
skookumchuck 7y ago
Automation and mechanization have always been about replacing dehumanizing, backbreaking, mindless toil. Maybe not intentionally, but that was the result.
throwvatars 7y ago
Too bad this can't be outsourced.
sali0 7y ago
I did this exact work as well in 2014. Mind numbing task. Seeing the robots and the overall warehouse system work was fascinating. But fuck that place, worse job I've ever had.
ak-47 7y ago
> No human should be made to do such mindless work. In the US, nobody is _made_ to do such work. However, until it is automated there will always be a price for it in the labor market. > And for $13.75 an hour, it definitely isn't worth it. Presumably the mindless nature of the work increases the wages. Do you recall the minimum wage in that region at the time? I’m trying to arrive at is a logical sequence of steps like: the less desireable work is, the higher it’s price in the labor market. It’s more profitable to automate more expensive labor. Thus, by quitting you shortened the time-to-automate.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
mercer 7y ago
Having dealt with addiction, I can confirm that particular jobs are unusually likely to incline me to go back to those addictions, or be tempted to. The closest thing to a pattern I've found is that these jobs are either boring-but-require-attention, or they're complex and emotionally draining. The former often involved Amazon warehouse type jobs, and the latter were often dysfunctional IT departments.

by dzmien 7y ago

gdy 7y ago

"And for $13.75 an hour, it definitely isn't worth it." A billion of people around the world would be happy to work with that hourly rate.

dzmien 7y ago
Despite the fact that I might not be a rich man in this country, I am a very rich man in this world. I feel quite lucky and grateful to have been born in the USA. But to be fair, that was not a very good wage for where I live.
pkaye 7y ago
Not at the US cost of living. Nor would those billions of people be paid a that rate if their cost of living is lower than the US.
- georgespencer 7y ago
  I think it's quite likely, but unknowable, that folks would accept the income:cost of living ratio of the US if it came with the associated sociological benefits. I think you're underestimating how disproportionately impoverished many people around the world are.
  - geodel 7y ago
    Well people here keep ranting about 1 percenters without ever realizing that >$100K earners are among one percenters in the world.
    - georgespencer 7y ago
      You're right that a few people do, although I think most people realise how deeply fortunate we all are to have won to at least some extent a genetic and [entirely separate] geographic lottery.
    - mamon 7y ago
      Actually, the threshold to be in top 1% income bracket worldwide is $32,400 https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/050615/are-you-top-one-percent-world.asp https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/05061...
      - zjaffee 7y ago
        This number is both old and in nominal terms. A person making 50k USD in China is likely richer than a person in the US making 100k USD in the US. http://pubdocs.worldbank.org/en/771271476908686029/Segal.pdf http://pubdocs.worldbank.org/en/771271476908686029/Segal.pdf suggests that the number to be in the global 1% is around $50,000 PPP per person in a given household.
geodel 7y ago
To add further there will be billion who would do as a daily rate.
- gdy 7y ago
  I was thinking about people moving to the US and working there at an Amazon warehouse. If we talk about working for that rate in their native country, I think it can be up to 5 billion. And a billion more will take the job without being too happy.
dahart 7y ago
Would you?
- gdy 7y ago
  No, but I am not suffering from hunger, lack of clean drinking water, lack of basic medical help or violence. If that were the case, I would be happy to do anything, including relocating to the US and working as an Amazon's robot.
salty_biscuits 7y ago
All in countries with a lower cost of living.
badrequest 7y ago
"accept your scraps, peasant, there's folks with no plausible way of ever enjoying them who would"
megaremote 7y ago
Sure, if they could stay where they are. $13.75 buys a lot more in Bangalore than it does in the US.
digitalsushi 7y ago
I upvoted you because at first I decided you were a king writing this and telling us to feel more lucky and I felt angry, but then I pretended you were the poorest laborer writing this and telling us to feel more lucky, and I agreed.
- gdy 7y ago
  That is the first time someone has thought about me as a king. Even metaphorically and for a brief moment :)

shiburizu 7y ago

I'm glad you made that decision for yourself and I think such perspectives are missing from the discourse about working-class folks dealing with addiction.

yhoneycomb 7y ago

> I was literally just a robot arm with a human brain attached to it, and for what? This is how I felt as an undergrad working in a research lab. Endless, annoying pipetting. Labeling tubes. Bitchwork that the postdoc didn't want to do. I kept thinking... there's no way they can't come up with a robot to do this. My guess is the technology to do it is there but the motivation isn't - most undergrads (me included) work in research labs for free with the hope of getting into med school. Luckily, I'm in med school now so I don't have to worry about being taken advantage of in that way. But every time I think about how the system does this to so many premeds, it pisses me off.

shpongled 7y ago
>Luckily, I'm in med school now so I don't have to worry about being taken advantage of in that way Lol. It's not that the motivation isn't there to get robots to do the bitchwork in science, it's that the money isn't there in an academic setting.
- yhoneycomb 7y ago
  I think we mean the same thing but we're expressing it differently! What I meant was - the motivation isn't there because you can just get people to do your bitchwork for way less than it would cost to invest in a robot.
lifekaizen 7y ago
There is a pipetting robot now: https://opentrons.com/ https://opentrons.com/
- yhoneycomb 7y ago
  This is awesome! But... PIs everywhere: “Why would I buy this robot when I could get an undergrad to do the work for free?” Although if they hated taking the time to train undergrads maybe they’d give it a shot Then again, they don’t train the undergrads, postdocs do

Yhippa 7y ago

Your story seems like it's right out of the game "What Remains of Edith Finch".

skookumchuck 7y ago

Automation and mechanization have always been about replacing dehumanizing, backbreaking, mindless toil. Maybe not intentionally, but that was the result.

throwvatars 7y ago

Too bad this can't be outsourced.

sali0 7y ago

I did this exact work as well in 2014. Mind numbing task. Seeing the robots and the overall warehouse system work was fascinating. But fuck that place, worse job I've ever had.

ak-47 7y ago

> No human should be made to do such mindless work. In the US, nobody is _made_ to do such work. However, until it is automated there will always be a price for it in the labor market. > And for $13.75 an hour, it definitely isn't worth it. Presumably the mindless nature of the work increases the wages. Do you recall the minimum wage in that region at the time? I’m trying to arrive at is a logical sequence of steps like: the less desireable work is, the higher it’s price in the labor market. It’s more profitable to automate more expensive labor. Thus, by quitting you shortened the time-to-automate.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

mercer 7y ago

Having dealt with addiction, I can confirm that particular jobs are unusually likely to incline me to go back to those addictions, or be tempted to. The closest thing to a pattern I've found is that these jobs are either boring-but-require-attention, or they're complex and emotionally draining. The former often involved Amazon warehouse type jobs, and the latter were often dysfunctional IT departments.