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Amazon treats their workers like shit. Nearly all low-wage (and yes, Amazon is still "low-wage" given the work involved) employers do. In Amazon's case they the

Amazon treats their workers like shit. Nearly all low-wage (and yes, Amazon is still "low-wage" given the work involved) employers do. In Amazon's case they then hire armies of corporate apologists to swarm social media and astroturf any time anyone tries to talk about the shitty way workers are treated. All of this is well established fact at this point. I'm glad the author is doing well. But these are not good jobs. They are not stable, sustainable, safe or high paid enough. A person could have, presumably, led a pretty good life as a writer for a national magazine like SI. It would not destroy them physically. It would probably not destroy them mentally. They would not be forced to carefully regiment their bathroom breaks, or pee in bottles. They would not be forced to work in stifling hot warehouses. They would not be forced to compete with robots and automated processes and suffer when they inevitably failed to be as fast. Writing for SI is (was) a job. Working for Amazon is exploitation. If you can't see the difference, you either haven't taken the time to read about what Amazon jobs are like, or you're arguing in bad faith, possibly because Amazon is paying you to do so.

jozzy-james 5y ago
I worked at a UPS hub before Amazon was much of a thing, and I can say that what you're describing is nothing new or specific to Amazon. Logistics companies, especially in the warehouse/sorting areas, are abjectly horrid to work for. edit: and that was a union gig.
pmoriarty 5y ago
There's a good book on such jobs called "Nickel and Dimed"[1] by Barbara Ehrenreich, who went "undercover" and worked a bunch of such low-paid jobs. A quote from the book: "When someone works for less pay than she can live on ... she has made a great sacrifice for you ... The "working poor" ... are in fact the major philanthropists of our society. They neglect their own children so that the children of others will be cared for; they live in substandard housing so that other homes will be shiny and perfect; they endure privation so that inflation will be low and stock prices high. To be a member of the working poor is to be an anonymous donor, a nameless benefactor, to everyone." [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel_and_Dimed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel_and_Dimed

jozzy-james 5y ago

I worked at a UPS hub before Amazon was much of a thing, and I can say that what you're describing is nothing new or specific to Amazon. Logistics companies, especially in the warehouse/sorting areas, are abjectly horrid to work for. edit: and that was a union gig.

pmoriarty 5y ago

There's a good book on such jobs called "Nickel and Dimed"[1] by Barbara Ehrenreich, who went "undercover" and worked a bunch of such low-paid jobs. A quote from the book: "When someone works for less pay than she can live on ... she has made a great sacrifice for you ... The "working poor" ... are in fact the major philanthropists of our society. They neglect their own children so that the children of others will be cared for; they live in substandard housing so that other homes will be shiny and perfect; they endure privation so that inflation will be low and stock prices high. To be a member of the working poor is to be an anonymous donor, a nameless benefactor, to everyone." [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel_and_Dimed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel_and_Dimed