5 ms·

It seems likely to me that the use of algorithmic quotas and whatever is not helpful. Fear of the unknown quota might be, which is why this law is good. But ba

It seems likely to me that the use of algorithmic quotas and whatever is not helpful. Fear of the unknown quota might be, which is why this law is good. But basically... let's assume tasks come to the warehouse on some sort of random poisson distribution, each with a value, and a time they must be completed by. Everything must be completed. If these parameters are highly differentiated, a really smart system might be able to prioritize tasks such that high value things get done quicker than lower value things. But this isn't something that the worker should be figuring out. If the parameters aren't highly differentiated, all you really want to do is move stuff through the queue faster. There's just one master metric in the "perfect" system which is, "how long did it take you to move this item through the queue vs. the expected time to move it through the queue". But to be a FAIR system, you need to be able to parse out what portion of the time to move distribution is based on random chance vs. individual agency. Delays are likely to be long skewed right. That is, most items will pass through with minimal delays but some items will have big logistical problems that completely slow down the process to no fault of the worker. Measuring this is likely to be incredibly difficult and mostly picking up on noise. It could likely catch people who are truly slacking off. But... so could a human manager with basic observational skills.

raxxorrax 5y ago
Before defining technicalities, which are of course even more complicated, we should ask ourselves if we want to work this way. It would get a clear 'no' from me. Also the worker doesn't profit in any way if he works faster. Sure, there is very like some form of bonus, but in the end throughput doesn't matter to him. So why the haste?
- jasode 5y ago
  >Also the worker doesn't profit in any way if he works faster. [...] So why the haste? Yes, it's true that they're not paid piecemeal per box so working "faster" seems pointless but some workers still hustle because they want to keep their jobs. A worker having a defiant attitude of "I don't get paid to work any faster" is fine -- up until the point they are replaced by another worker who is faster -- which means they're unemployed and make $0.
  - raxxorrax 5y ago
    Why am I not allowed to fire that worker that refuses to suck my dick?
    - jjk166 5y ago
      If you can fire a person for refusing to suck your dick, that means sucking your dick is a job requirement, which means you are paying someone to perform sexual acts, which is prostitution, which is illegal.
    - dang 5y ago
      Please don't do this here.
- spywaregorilla 5y ago
  Your wording to me implies you assume the bonus is trivial. The whole point of incentive structures is to make the desires of the business match the rewards of the employee. > It would get a clear 'no' from me Seems kind of entitled to assume this view generalizes. Sure, I too have a cushy job and would prefer more time / less stress instead of more money. But that's a privileged place to be. It's a view derived from circumstances, not wisdom, even if a lack of wisdom may permit you to fail to realize this.
  - raxxorrax 5y ago
    > But that's a privileged place to be. All too true but I think sharing is caring. I am aware of what a worker needs to achieve to be competitive in a first world nation. This has nothing to do with that, on the contrary, it just worsens working conditions for no discernible reason and surveillance software is unproductive baggage, but most importantly you imply that this productivity tuning would exempt the wage of workers being subject to market forces, which is quite a huge assumption and unproven I would say. The success of Amazon certainly didn't rely on that.
  - kahrl 5y ago
    Yes, I'm sure the sweat shop workers enjoy working in a sweat shop. We're privileged, so who even knows if the poors know about holidays. Best to leave them to their hellhole.
    - spywaregorilla 5y ago
      The working conditions of the poor and their low wages aren't especially relevant as to general idea of aligning compensation incentives to outcomes. It's fully possible to believe working conditions should be improved, base pay should be improved, AND that incentives for performance are reasonable.
    - jjk166 5y ago
      If they chose to work in the sweat shop and are free to quit at any time but choose not to, then they probably do enjoy working in the sweat shop, or at least prefer it to the other options they have reasonable access to. Without understanding the nuances of their current situation, it is impossible to say what changes will actually improve the situation, and it is easily possible that well intentioned changes can make things substantially worse.
- kodah 5y ago
  > Before defining technicalities, which are of course even more complicated, we should ask ourselves if we want to work this way. It would get a clear 'no' from me Oh, we don't already? There's a graph on my companies VCS that displays my own velocity, along with a subgraph that differentiates reviews, code writing, etc... Velocity is literally the speed at which we move items through the queue. We were the guinea pigs, they just took the illusion of choice (priority) away from Amazonians.
  - consp 5y ago
    > Velocity is literally the speed at which we move items through the queue. Like adding lines of useless code when measured by the LOC you will surely start to add useless items to the queue if you have any control over that?
  - spywaregorilla 5y ago
    Velocity for knowledge work is probably a lot more difficult to measure, but also more.. real? Like the difference in capabilities of devs is likely to be much more varied than the varaiation among warehouse workers.
Closi 5y ago
> But to be a FAIR system, you need to be able to parse out what portion of the time to move distribution is based on random chance vs. individual agency. Delays are actually accounted for in these systems - generally in multiple ways: * In the case for instance that there is an out of stock, or you need to go to another picking location, the system re-calculates the required distance/time considering the out of stock and this is accounted for in your score. * If there is, for instance, a mechanical issue or something stopping you from being productive, you move onto an 'indirect task' where your time is no longer tracked as productive time. > It could likely catch people who are truly slacking off. But... so could a human manager with basic observational skills. We are talking about observing staff in a 1 million sqft warehouse across 5 floors of mezzanine, in a maze of aisles, and also the manager and associates shift patterns could be different - it's just impossible. I was a department manager (not for Amazon) and it's just impossible to eyeball picker performance in any sort of fair way, you have to look at data. Additionally, dependent on the laws in your region, disciplining/firing someone because 'a manager observed them being slow' likely isn't good enough if it comes to a tribunal. I've got direct experience with how these performance management systems are configured and work, so if anyone has any questions let me know!
- sixothree 5y ago
  > In the case for instance that there is an out of stock, or you need to go to another picking location, the system re-calculates the required distance. There have been reports from workers to the contrary. I don't mean to refute your arguments. I'm just suggesting workers don't (or haven't) believe this to be the case.
  - Closi 5y ago
    I believe this is a misconception, just because we used to have the same mis-understanding with staff where I worked. The misconception comes from being given a target-time which is based on a calculation assuming the task can be completed successfully with no delays, however afterwards the target-times are recalculated to account for the additional movement. A common assumption is that performance is (Time it took / Initial target time) - especially because the users see the target time - however it is really (Time it took / Recalculated target time accounting for additional movements). I'm not aware of Amazon's exact implementation - but all performance management suites I'm aware of will re-calculate afterwards based on 'actual' task rather than 'forecast' task.
withinboredom 5y ago
I’ve written picker software and did something like this. No one (including the managers) could see their individual score, but each picking team could see their team score in real time. Many of them eventually worked out how to game it, which was entertaining but still made it hard to slack off unless the team worked together to cover them (I worked closely with these picker teams to implement the software). The owner was thrilled that metrics looked great and productivity increased. The teams were happy they had immediate feedback on their score and “picks per minute” to see how they were doing. The managers sent people home once they hit their target — with pay as though they were there the whole day. It’s a shame that CDs and DVDs went out of style and they went out of business. It was a fun place to work.
gentleman11 5y ago
I worked in factories and warehouses once. I don’t give a shit whether you eggheads think warehouse workers are lazy. Stop micromanaging and tracking people and subjecting them to mistreatment like this. The engineering world is morally sick for being so keen to support this. Factory and warehouse workers are mistreated enough as it is
s1artibartfast 5y ago
Time an volume take care of nearly all of those these concerns. Instead of looking at a per package performance, you simply look at the average over time. If the average target is move 100 packages per hour, you are looking at the average of 16,000 samples for one month of work.

raxxorrax 5y ago

Before defining technicalities, which are of course even more complicated, we should ask ourselves if we want to work this way. It would get a clear 'no' from me. Also the worker doesn't profit in any way if he works faster. Sure, there is very like some form of bonus, but in the end throughput doesn't matter to him. So why the haste?

jasode 5y ago
>Also the worker doesn't profit in any way if he works faster. [...] So why the haste? Yes, it's true that they're not paid piecemeal per box so working "faster" seems pointless but some workers still hustle because they want to keep their jobs. A worker having a defiant attitude of "I don't get paid to work any faster" is fine -- up until the point they are replaced by another worker who is faster -- which means they're unemployed and make $0.
- raxxorrax 5y ago
  Why am I not allowed to fire that worker that refuses to suck my dick?
  - jjk166 5y ago
    If you can fire a person for refusing to suck your dick, that means sucking your dick is a job requirement, which means you are paying someone to perform sexual acts, which is prostitution, which is illegal.
  - dang 5y ago
    Please don't do this here.
spywaregorilla 5y ago
Your wording to me implies you assume the bonus is trivial. The whole point of incentive structures is to make the desires of the business match the rewards of the employee. > It would get a clear 'no' from me Seems kind of entitled to assume this view generalizes. Sure, I too have a cushy job and would prefer more time / less stress instead of more money. But that's a privileged place to be. It's a view derived from circumstances, not wisdom, even if a lack of wisdom may permit you to fail to realize this.
- raxxorrax 5y ago
  > But that's a privileged place to be. All too true but I think sharing is caring. I am aware of what a worker needs to achieve to be competitive in a first world nation. This has nothing to do with that, on the contrary, it just worsens working conditions for no discernible reason and surveillance software is unproductive baggage, but most importantly you imply that this productivity tuning would exempt the wage of workers being subject to market forces, which is quite a huge assumption and unproven I would say. The success of Amazon certainly didn't rely on that.
- kahrl 5y ago
  Yes, I'm sure the sweat shop workers enjoy working in a sweat shop. We're privileged, so who even knows if the poors know about holidays. Best to leave them to their hellhole.
  - spywaregorilla 5y ago
    The working conditions of the poor and their low wages aren't especially relevant as to general idea of aligning compensation incentives to outcomes. It's fully possible to believe working conditions should be improved, base pay should be improved, AND that incentives for performance are reasonable.
  - jjk166 5y ago
    If they chose to work in the sweat shop and are free to quit at any time but choose not to, then they probably do enjoy working in the sweat shop, or at least prefer it to the other options they have reasonable access to. Without understanding the nuances of their current situation, it is impossible to say what changes will actually improve the situation, and it is easily possible that well intentioned changes can make things substantially worse.
kodah 5y ago
> Before defining technicalities, which are of course even more complicated, we should ask ourselves if we want to work this way. It would get a clear 'no' from me Oh, we don't already? There's a graph on my companies VCS that displays my own velocity, along with a subgraph that differentiates reviews, code writing, etc... Velocity is literally the speed at which we move items through the queue. We were the guinea pigs, they just took the illusion of choice (priority) away from Amazonians.
- consp 5y ago
  > Velocity is literally the speed at which we move items through the queue. Like adding lines of useless code when measured by the LOC you will surely start to add useless items to the queue if you have any control over that?
- spywaregorilla 5y ago
  Velocity for knowledge work is probably a lot more difficult to measure, but also more.. real? Like the difference in capabilities of devs is likely to be much more varied than the varaiation among warehouse workers.

Closi 5y ago

> But to be a FAIR system, you need to be able to parse out what portion of the time to move distribution is based on random chance vs. individual agency. Delays are actually accounted for in these systems - generally in multiple ways: * In the case for instance that there is an out of stock, or you need to go to another picking location, the system re-calculates the required distance/time considering the out of stock and this is accounted for in your score. * If there is, for instance, a mechanical issue or something stopping you from being productive, you move onto an 'indirect task' where your time is no longer tracked as productive time. > It could likely catch people who are truly slacking off. But... so could a human manager with basic observational skills. We are talking about observing staff in a 1 million sqft warehouse across 5 floors of mezzanine, in a maze of aisles, and also the manager and associates shift patterns could be different - it's just impossible. I was a department manager (not for Amazon) and it's just impossible to eyeball picker performance in any sort of fair way, you have to look at data. Additionally, dependent on the laws in your region, disciplining/firing someone because 'a manager observed them being slow' likely isn't good enough if it comes to a tribunal. I've got direct experience with how these performance management systems are configured and work, so if anyone has any questions let me know!

sixothree 5y ago
> In the case for instance that there is an out of stock, or you need to go to another picking location, the system re-calculates the required distance. There have been reports from workers to the contrary. I don't mean to refute your arguments. I'm just suggesting workers don't (or haven't) believe this to be the case.
- Closi 5y ago
  I believe this is a misconception, just because we used to have the same mis-understanding with staff where I worked. The misconception comes from being given a target-time which is based on a calculation assuming the task can be completed successfully with no delays, however afterwards the target-times are recalculated to account for the additional movement. A common assumption is that performance is (Time it took / Initial target time) - especially because the users see the target time - however it is really (Time it took / Recalculated target time accounting for additional movements). I'm not aware of Amazon's exact implementation - but all performance management suites I'm aware of will re-calculate afterwards based on 'actual' task rather than 'forecast' task.

withinboredom 5y ago

I’ve written picker software and did something like this. No one (including the managers) could see their individual score, but each picking team could see their team score in real time. Many of them eventually worked out how to game it, which was entertaining but still made it hard to slack off unless the team worked together to cover them (I worked closely with these picker teams to implement the software). The owner was thrilled that metrics looked great and productivity increased. The teams were happy they had immediate feedback on their score and “picks per minute” to see how they were doing. The managers sent people home once they hit their target — with pay as though they were there the whole day. It’s a shame that CDs and DVDs went out of style and they went out of business. It was a fun place to work.

gentleman11 5y ago

I worked in factories and warehouses once. I don’t give a shit whether you eggheads think warehouse workers are lazy. Stop micromanaging and tracking people and subjecting them to mistreatment like this. The engineering world is morally sick for being so keen to support this. Factory and warehouse workers are mistreated enough as it is

s1artibartfast 5y ago

Time an volume take care of nearly all of those these concerns. Instead of looking at a per package performance, you simply look at the average over time. If the average target is move 100 packages per hour, you are looking at the average of 16,000 samples for one month of work.