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One of the biggest issues seems the problem with bathroom breaks and time lost doing so. Why does Amazon not put more bathrooms in the warehouses, so it doesnt

by kerng 7y ago

One of the biggest issues seems the problem with bathroom breaks and time lost doing so. Why does Amazon not put more bathrooms in the warehouses, so it doesnt take 10 minutes just to walk there and back? That's like a distance of more then half a mile... Not drinking any water during ones shift doesn't seem a healthy solution.

sebazzz 7y ago
Yet again we see that the true cost not the listed price is. I wonder who approves these conditions in the company, or whether it is just some general company management culture embedded in the system.
- cultus 7y ago
  It's not even the culture, it's 100% intentional. Everyone up to Jeff Bezos is fully aware of all of this and makes the decision to maintain these conditions in order to slightly raise profits. Fulfillment center employees also searched for theft after their shift every day. Not only is this dehumanizing, but they don't hire enough security people. This results in 20+ minute lines. The employees are unpaid while waiting. There was a lawsuit about this that went all the way to the Supreme Court, and Amazon won.
  - BuckRogers 7y ago
    In that case the results should be one hour worth of wages should be deducted from every government employee’s paycheck including the Supreme Courts Justices until private market employees are paid for their time standing in line at the end of the day. If working at Amazon means your time is free for corporations, then it should apply to everyone until it’s fixed.
  - erikpukinskis 7y ago
    Wow, I had to look it up, but this is all true. I guess companies can hold you on premises as long as they like without pay, so long as you’re not working. Strange. I’m not totally sure what it is about waiting in a security line that makes it “not working”. Supposedly cleaning chemicals from the plant off your body does count as work. But participating in a workplace compliance process like a security line is not work. But I assume the screeners are getting paid? I guess it’s because screening is part of their job description. I guess I’d have to read the opinions to find out where that line is. It’s not obvious to me. “Am I free to go” would seem like a more obvious line... although then the chemical showers wouldn’t be billable. Since you’re free to leave dirty. I can see the legal dilemma. All of this isn’t really any constitutional issue though, it’s just federal employment regulations. So good regulators in the executive could fix it.
    - krapp 7y ago
      >Strange. I’m not totally sure what it is about waiting in a security line that makes it “not working”. They've already clocked out, but not yet left the premises. Technically speaking, they're choosing to wait in the security line on their own free time.
      - erikpukinskis 7y ago
        They aren’t choosing.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
bin0 7y ago
Because it's often about the "piece of paper" cost. What I mean by this is explicit costs and savings are preferred by management: they can point to their bosses, wave a sheet of paper, and say, "See, I saved twenty-six dollars here!" In reality, it may have cost fifty dollars, but that doesn't matter. It's the same reason why we have open offices, "hot desks", and improper tools: the incentive structure is wrong.
- mcny 7y ago
  At this one company, the developers have pretty decent HP desktop machines on Windows with Intel eighth generation processors, 8 GB RAM, ... and a $19 500GB hard disk drive. Why? I am sure someone somewhere got a pat in the back for saving the company money while every single npm operation takes at least an order of magnitude of time more.
krapp 7y ago
>Why does Amazon not put more bathrooms in the warehouses, so it doesnt take 10 minutes just to walk there and back? That's like a distance of more then half a mile... Amazon reduces costs by only having the minimum number of bathrooms legally required regardless of the size of the warehouse.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
agumonkey 7y ago
It's so typical I'm almost laughing. Every workplace I've seen makes it just too hard to work at peak efficiency and invent all the wrong answers to the simplest of problems. Let's not buy pens, let's not buy a table, ... Is there a formula for non adversarial job structures ?
pardavis 7y ago
The reddit AMA author seems to have worked at a ‘traditional’ FC where there are miles of bookshelf or pallet style storage. In this layout it is difficult to place optimized restrooms as one pick worker may cover half of a million sqft building in a shift. Newer, robotized FCs have much more tightly packed, human-inaccessible storage zones and have restrooms a reasonable distance from static pick workstations.
metaphor 7y ago
> Why does Amazon not put more bathrooms in the warehouses, so it doesnt take 10 minutes just to walk there and back? Not my industry, but I wonder if building code requirements for contracted facilities construction has anything to do with this. Would be interesting to hear perspective of civil engineers on this, in particular, those involved with standing up fulfillment centers. For example, a few observations from the 2017 Florida Building Code[1]: Minimum 1 lavatory per 100 and 1 drinking fountain per 1,000 in occupancies classified for storage (per Table 2902.1). Natural inquiry that arises in my mind is what the specified occupancy of the fulfillment center in question is. In occupancies other than malls, lavatories normally located not more than 1 story above/below the target space, path of travel not to exceed 500 feet (per 2902.3.2). However, there's a possible exception for factory and industrial occupancies which allow this requirement to be waived with approval. I wonder if Amazon has pursued this exemption when contracting the construction of their fulfillment centers. [1] https://codes.iccsafe.org/content/FBC2017/chapter-29-plumbing-systems https://codes.iccsafe.org/content/FBC2017/chapter-29-plumbin...

by kerng 7y ago

sebazzz 7y ago

Yet again we see that the true cost not the listed price is. I wonder who approves these conditions in the company, or whether it is just some general company management culture embedded in the system.

cultus 7y ago
It's not even the culture, it's 100% intentional. Everyone up to Jeff Bezos is fully aware of all of this and makes the decision to maintain these conditions in order to slightly raise profits. Fulfillment center employees also searched for theft after their shift every day. Not only is this dehumanizing, but they don't hire enough security people. This results in 20+ minute lines. The employees are unpaid while waiting. There was a lawsuit about this that went all the way to the Supreme Court, and Amazon won.
- BuckRogers 7y ago
  In that case the results should be one hour worth of wages should be deducted from every government employee’s paycheck including the Supreme Courts Justices until private market employees are paid for their time standing in line at the end of the day. If working at Amazon means your time is free for corporations, then it should apply to everyone until it’s fixed.
- erikpukinskis 7y ago
  Wow, I had to look it up, but this is all true. I guess companies can hold you on premises as long as they like without pay, so long as you’re not working. Strange. I’m not totally sure what it is about waiting in a security line that makes it “not working”. Supposedly cleaning chemicals from the plant off your body does count as work. But participating in a workplace compliance process like a security line is not work. But I assume the screeners are getting paid? I guess it’s because screening is part of their job description. I guess I’d have to read the opinions to find out where that line is. It’s not obvious to me. “Am I free to go” would seem like a more obvious line... although then the chemical showers wouldn’t be billable. Since you’re free to leave dirty. I can see the legal dilemma. All of this isn’t really any constitutional issue though, it’s just federal employment regulations. So good regulators in the executive could fix it.
  - krapp 7y ago
    >Strange. I’m not totally sure what it is about waiting in a security line that makes it “not working”. They've already clocked out, but not yet left the premises. Technically speaking, they're choosing to wait in the security line on their own free time.
    - erikpukinskis 7y ago
      They aren’t choosing.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

bin0 7y ago

Because it's often about the "piece of paper" cost. What I mean by this is explicit costs and savings are preferred by management: they can point to their bosses, wave a sheet of paper, and say, "See, I saved twenty-six dollars here!" In reality, it may have cost fifty dollars, but that doesn't matter. It's the same reason why we have open offices, "hot desks", and improper tools: the incentive structure is wrong.

mcny 7y ago
At this one company, the developers have pretty decent HP desktop machines on Windows with Intel eighth generation processors, 8 GB RAM, ... and a $19 500GB hard disk drive. Why? I am sure someone somewhere got a pat in the back for saving the company money while every single npm operation takes at least an order of magnitude of time more.

krapp 7y ago

>Why does Amazon not put more bathrooms in the warehouses, so it doesnt take 10 minutes just to walk there and back? That's like a distance of more then half a mile... Amazon reduces costs by only having the minimum number of bathrooms legally required regardless of the size of the warehouse.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

agumonkey 7y ago

It's so typical I'm almost laughing. Every workplace I've seen makes it just too hard to work at peak efficiency and invent all the wrong answers to the simplest of problems. Let's not buy pens, let's not buy a table, ... Is there a formula for non adversarial job structures ?

pardavis 7y ago

The reddit AMA author seems to have worked at a ‘traditional’ FC where there are miles of bookshelf or pallet style storage. In this layout it is difficult to place optimized restrooms as one pick worker may cover half of a million sqft building in a shift. Newer, robotized FCs have much more tightly packed, human-inaccessible storage zones and have restrooms a reasonable distance from static pick workstations.

metaphor 7y ago

> Why does Amazon not put more bathrooms in the warehouses, so it doesnt take 10 minutes just to walk there and back? Not my industry, but I wonder if building code requirements for contracted facilities construction has anything to do with this. Would be interesting to hear perspective of civil engineers on this, in particular, those involved with standing up fulfillment centers. For example, a few observations from the 2017 Florida Building Code[1]: Minimum 1 lavatory per 100 and 1 drinking fountain per 1,000 in occupancies classified for storage (per Table 2902.1). Natural inquiry that arises in my mind is what the specified occupancy of the fulfillment center in question is. In occupancies other than malls, lavatories normally located not more than 1 story above/below the target space, path of travel not to exceed 500 feet (per 2902.3.2). However, there's a possible exception for factory and industrial occupancies which allow this requirement to be waived with approval. I wonder if Amazon has pursued this exemption when contracting the construction of their fulfillment centers. [1] https://codes.iccsafe.org/content/FBC2017/chapter-29-plumbing-systems https://codes.iccsafe.org/content/FBC2017/chapter-29-plumbin...