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And what do you expect them to do with their piss? Drink it? How jaded to human suffering must one be to report something as minor as this to a company known fo

And what do you expect them to do with their piss? Drink it? How jaded to human suffering must one be to report something as minor as this to a company known for having awful labor practices…

alistairSH 6y ago
Keep it in the bottle until the shift ends? Dump it in the woods? Lots of choices that don't include dumping directly in front of a customer's home.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- munk-a 6y ago
  If they take a detour maybe they'll end up with a demerit for deviating from the optimal driving route and be docked pay - if they come back to distribution with a bottle of pee the company may also dock them for something like... I dunno "storing human waste in a vehicle used for transporting food stuffs" then dock their pay or fire them. Amazon is strongly motivated to discourage drivers from coming back to their shipping centers with bottles full of pee since either labour organizers or reporters might jump on that to use against the corporation. All this could just be communicated through pretty innocuous sounding employee guidelines (maybe, "there can be no open bottles of liquid of any kind when a vehicle is in motion") or just word of mouth. A manager mentions to a senior driver that there will be some bonuses if nobody gets caught with a bottle of pee and that causes the initiative to disseminate through all the drivers. There may be far fewer choices here than it appears and the best choice is probably to get OSHA involved and maybe get some new worker safety and rights legislation through congress.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
Rule35 6y ago
That driver was a contractor, deciding to pee in his own bottle. He chose to take more packages than he could deliver and is rushing to cut corners. As well as conspicuously dumping piss outside customer houses he probably speeds through school zones. Contractors don't get a wage, that's key to this whole discussion. And if contractors don't make a profit they shouldn't take the contract. This kerfuffle is in the middle of big cities, not some tiny company town in the outback. They have all the same options anyone else does, it's not like they're forced to drive for Amazon.
- munk-a 6y ago
  What if that level of "too many packages" is the only way the driver could avoid getting a demerit for under performance? What if a livable wage is only possible if you quote more packages than is reasonable due to the intense pressure amazon has on the contract delivery market?
  - throwawaysea 6y ago
    What if 80% of drivers don’t do this? Maybe the other 20% need to just get a different job if they aren’t able to avoid under performance without resorting to time saving tricks.
    - munk-a 6y ago
      I think the percentages need work since if 20% of the tens of thousands of drivers you employ/contract do a thing then clearly your hiring policies are pretty terrible. If you worked as a dev and 20% of your co-workers end up committing corporate espionage then the place you work is almost certainly Los Alamos. But I get your point - the issue, I think, is that under-performance in a job role should be a rarity. You should be hiring people that are likely going to comfortably exceed your minimum expectations and compensate them appropriately. If someone isn't a fit for a position it's most optimal for the company to never hire them (to avoid the cost of training and any capital costs associated with the new employee) but, barring that, it's optimal for both parties to break off the arrangement ASAP since the employer isn't getting the value they expect for their cost and the employee is going to be getting a whole lot of stress. If it's the case where a significant portion of drivers are marked as underperforming then you're either 1) being dishonest about the job expectations in an effort to penalize decently efficient employees wrongfully or 2) presenting the position in a misleading or confused manner and not properly screening employees - either way it's on the employer, not the employee, if the issue is widespread. It really seems like the issue with strict performance requirements in warehouses and with drivers is pretty widespread so I'd first look to attribute this to amazon rather than the folks they are hiring and, with assistance from inference along with lots of personal biases, I'm pretty certain Amazon is using artificially inflated performance targets as a way to minimize paid compensation while cycling through the glut of available labour knowing that, in a lot of states, being accepted to a position after submitting an offer and refusing it will result in a discontinuation of unemployment and a constant stream of applications is required to maintain unemployment checks. A business can essentially hold you hostage with the US unemployment system by under-selling the actual job expectations and then using the threat of being fired with cause for performance reasons to complicate your chances of getting back on insurance.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

And what do you expect them to do with their piss? Drink it? How jaded to human suffering must one be to report something as minor as this to a company known for having awful labor practices…

alistairSH 6y ago

Keep it in the bottle until the shift ends? Dump it in the woods? Lots of choices that don't include dumping directly in front of a customer's home.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
munk-a 6y ago
If they take a detour maybe they'll end up with a demerit for deviating from the optimal driving route and be docked pay - if they come back to distribution with a bottle of pee the company may also dock them for something like... I dunno "storing human waste in a vehicle used for transporting food stuffs" then dock their pay or fire them. Amazon is strongly motivated to discourage drivers from coming back to their shipping centers with bottles full of pee since either labour organizers or reporters might jump on that to use against the corporation. All this could just be communicated through pretty innocuous sounding employee guidelines (maybe, "there can be no open bottles of liquid of any kind when a vehicle is in motion") or just word of mouth. A manager mentions to a senior driver that there will be some bonuses if nobody gets caught with a bottle of pee and that causes the initiative to disseminate through all the drivers. There may be far fewer choices here than it appears and the best choice is probably to get OSHA involved and maybe get some new worker safety and rights legislation through congress.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

Rule35 6y ago

That driver was a contractor, deciding to pee in his own bottle. He chose to take more packages than he could deliver and is rushing to cut corners. As well as conspicuously dumping piss outside customer houses he probably speeds through school zones. Contractors don't get a wage, that's key to this whole discussion. And if contractors don't make a profit they shouldn't take the contract. This kerfuffle is in the middle of big cities, not some tiny company town in the outback. They have all the same options anyone else does, it's not like they're forced to drive for Amazon.

munk-a 6y ago
What if that level of "too many packages" is the only way the driver could avoid getting a demerit for under performance? What if a livable wage is only possible if you quote more packages than is reasonable due to the intense pressure amazon has on the contract delivery market?
- throwawaysea 6y ago
  What if 80% of drivers don’t do this? Maybe the other 20% need to just get a different job if they aren’t able to avoid under performance without resorting to time saving tricks.
  - munk-a 6y ago
    I think the percentages need work since if 20% of the tens of thousands of drivers you employ/contract do a thing then clearly your hiring policies are pretty terrible. If you worked as a dev and 20% of your co-workers end up committing corporate espionage then the place you work is almost certainly Los Alamos. But I get your point - the issue, I think, is that under-performance in a job role should be a rarity. You should be hiring people that are likely going to comfortably exceed your minimum expectations and compensate them appropriately. If someone isn't a fit for a position it's most optimal for the company to never hire them (to avoid the cost of training and any capital costs associated with the new employee) but, barring that, it's optimal for both parties to break off the arrangement ASAP since the employer isn't getting the value they expect for their cost and the employee is going to be getting a whole lot of stress. If it's the case where a significant portion of drivers are marked as underperforming then you're either 1) being dishonest about the job expectations in an effort to penalize decently efficient employees wrongfully or 2) presenting the position in a misleading or confused manner and not properly screening employees - either way it's on the employer, not the employee, if the issue is widespread. It really seems like the issue with strict performance requirements in warehouses and with drivers is pretty widespread so I'd first look to attribute this to amazon rather than the folks they are hiring and, with assistance from inference along with lots of personal biases, I'm pretty certain Amazon is using artificially inflated performance targets as a way to minimize paid compensation while cycling through the glut of available labour knowing that, in a lot of states, being accepted to a position after submitting an offer and refusing it will result in a discontinuation of unemployment and a constant stream of applications is required to maintain unemployment checks. A business can essentially hold you hostage with the US unemployment system by under-selling the actual job expectations and then using the threat of being fired with cause for performance reasons to complicate your chances of getting back on insurance.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]