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Check out the Amazon Flex Drivers subreddit[0], there are tons of people saying they were paid for the day of deliveries without delivering any packages and tol

Check out the Amazon Flex Drivers subreddit[0], there are tons of people saying they were paid for the day of deliveries without delivering any packages and told to go home. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/AmazonFlexDrivers/comments/rb3ggn/im_not_messing_with_amazon_flex_today/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AmazonFlexDrivers/comments/rb3ggn/i...

authed 5y ago
I read many comments and didn't see one that was saying that but you might be right as I was too lazy to read everything.
- tyingq 5y ago
  <ctrl-f>home<enter> finds them pretty quick for me.
  - authed 5y ago
    there was a couple comments that matched this search filter.... not that many, but thanks.
EarlKing 5y ago
Wouldn't surprise me. I mean, DSPs wouldn't be able to scan packages to pick them up without being able to access the flex app, so unless there's a procedure in place to allow packages to be picked up and manually marked as having been picked up... they wouldn't be able to do anything. Moreover, even if they could pick anything up, they wouldn't have any way to navigate, drop packages off, snap photos, and otherwise record all that offline for later upload... because drivers probably can't even sign in. What's worse, though, is that this also implies that even if an outage is localized to a particular region, data for deliveries to that region isn't multihomed, so you can't just failover flex app service to another region and keep delivering. For a service that lives and dies on being able to deliver everything faster than everyone else... that seems like a massive oversight... but also completely in-character for Amazon.
- GenerocUsername 5y ago
  It happened once. My expectation of Amazon is that it would be fixed before it became a trend.
  - midasuni 5y ago
    Nov 25 2020 https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/aws-us-east-1-region-suffers-errors-and-outages-impacting-its-status-page/ https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/aws-us-east-1-reg...
- laluser 5y ago
  Failing over to another AWS region is actually pretty difficult for stateful services. Especially if you can't even access data in the primary region at all. Most teams probably don't have the bandwidth to solve this problem given the amount of outages you see in a year (1 or 2). Also, this would be a problem many teams would be solving, so most teams probably just wait and see what leaders have to say about it and well, nothing ends up getting done.
  - mdavidn 5y ago
    A one-day outage in December can be crippling for retail. I don't doubt that many functions are difficult to failover, but a bare-bones minimum seems straightforward. For example, evidence of delivery is append-only and only needs to be globally consistent later, after a dispute.
    - hef19898 5y ago
      I totally understand why Amazon halted everything. Sure, one could deliver shipments off-line and sort them out afterwards manually. And at a lower scale Amazon might have tried it (at least it would have been on the table when I worked there a couple of years ago). But what then? You had a complete loss of traceability of shipments and operations, once you regain it, a junk of shipments isn't there anymore where there are supposed to be. No you have not one potential root cause for this, the outage, that could be resolved by retriggering those shipments (not loss, as you didn't deliver anything to customers) but two: the outage and some off-line shipments. In case it was just one FC, sure that would be doable. If the whole network in a complete region goes down, no way to handle that. It is much easier and safer to just stop operations until the outage is resolved, re-route orders to other regions in the meantime, and then work through the backlog. Amazon's ops are good at that, specifically because they have almost complete transparency on their material flows. Going off-line would have jeopardized that transparency, making a quick recovery after the outage all the harder.
slimsag 5y ago
It's official[0] Amazon is sending out emails to Flex drivers informing them Flex is down and they'll be paid for scheduled blocks without deliveries. Apparently even some warehouses were ghost towns today without anyone sorting packages[1] Here in Phoenix, I've had two packages supposed to be delivered today now delayed. Also, delivery on items just went from overnight delivery to 3+ day delivery as the quickest option. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/AmazonFlexDrivers/comments/rbf8ti/just_right_now/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AmazonFlexDrivers/comments/rbf8ti/j... [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/AmazonFlexDrivers/comments/rbbnwa/yall_get_ready_for_some_crazy_volume_the_next/hnnt30l/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AmazonFlexDrivers/comments/rbbnwa/y...
SLWW 5y ago
That's actually pretty nice though; even though people are missing out on packages at least Amazon won't leave them out in the cold for today.
- smilespray 5y ago
  My inner cynic says Amazon paid Flex drivers because A) they still need drivers available during the christmas run-up and B) screwing drivers would put Amazon in an Ebenezer Scrooge-like PR disaster.
  - dvtrn 5y ago
    Amazon in a PR disaster involving corporate greed and avarice? Oh no. Anyway. No really, I would not be surprised if Amazon has several playbooks upon playbooks involving commercials of how Amazon helped some warehouse worker get through college or some medical bill as their means of a public mea culpa.
  - karmasimida 5y ago
    As long as their action is reined in line. Corporate words are worthless anyway.
  - dwighttk 5y ago
    Paying them only to avoid the PR disaster is fine. Kinda what PR disasters are “for”
gumby 5y ago
Wow, I would have expected Amazon to have stiffed them. But I guess Amazon really needs them for the last mile.
- hiptobecubic 5y ago
  High turnover right before the Christmas boom would not be good for Amazon.

authed 5y ago

I read many comments and didn't see one that was saying that but you might be right as I was too lazy to read everything.

tyingq 5y ago
<ctrl-f>home<enter> finds them pretty quick for me.
- authed 5y ago
  there was a couple comments that matched this search filter.... not that many, but thanks.

EarlKing 5y ago

Wouldn't surprise me. I mean, DSPs wouldn't be able to scan packages to pick them up without being able to access the flex app, so unless there's a procedure in place to allow packages to be picked up and manually marked as having been picked up... they wouldn't be able to do anything. Moreover, even if they could pick anything up, they wouldn't have any way to navigate, drop packages off, snap photos, and otherwise record all that offline for later upload... because drivers probably can't even sign in. What's worse, though, is that this also implies that even if an outage is localized to a particular region, data for deliveries to that region isn't multihomed, so you can't just failover flex app service to another region and keep delivering. For a service that lives and dies on being able to deliver everything faster than everyone else... that seems like a massive oversight... but also completely in-character for Amazon.

GenerocUsername 5y ago
It happened once. My expectation of Amazon is that it would be fixed before it became a trend.
- midasuni 5y ago
  Nov 25 2020 https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/aws-us-east-1-region-suffers-errors-and-outages-impacting-its-status-page/ https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/aws-us-east-1-reg...
laluser 5y ago
Failing over to another AWS region is actually pretty difficult for stateful services. Especially if you can't even access data in the primary region at all. Most teams probably don't have the bandwidth to solve this problem given the amount of outages you see in a year (1 or 2). Also, this would be a problem many teams would be solving, so most teams probably just wait and see what leaders have to say about it and well, nothing ends up getting done.
- mdavidn 5y ago
  A one-day outage in December can be crippling for retail. I don't doubt that many functions are difficult to failover, but a bare-bones minimum seems straightforward. For example, evidence of delivery is append-only and only needs to be globally consistent later, after a dispute.
  - hef19898 5y ago
    I totally understand why Amazon halted everything. Sure, one could deliver shipments off-line and sort them out afterwards manually. And at a lower scale Amazon might have tried it (at least it would have been on the table when I worked there a couple of years ago). But what then? You had a complete loss of traceability of shipments and operations, once you regain it, a junk of shipments isn't there anymore where there are supposed to be. No you have not one potential root cause for this, the outage, that could be resolved by retriggering those shipments (not loss, as you didn't deliver anything to customers) but two: the outage and some off-line shipments. In case it was just one FC, sure that would be doable. If the whole network in a complete region goes down, no way to handle that. It is much easier and safer to just stop operations until the outage is resolved, re-route orders to other regions in the meantime, and then work through the backlog. Amazon's ops are good at that, specifically because they have almost complete transparency on their material flows. Going off-line would have jeopardized that transparency, making a quick recovery after the outage all the harder.

slimsag 5y ago

It's official[0] Amazon is sending out emails to Flex drivers informing them Flex is down and they'll be paid for scheduled blocks without deliveries. Apparently even some warehouses were ghost towns today without anyone sorting packages[1] Here in Phoenix, I've had two packages supposed to be delivered today now delayed. Also, delivery on items just went from overnight delivery to 3+ day delivery as the quickest option. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/AmazonFlexDrivers/comments/rbf8ti/just_right_now/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AmazonFlexDrivers/comments/rbf8ti/j... [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/AmazonFlexDrivers/comments/rbbnwa/yall_get_ready_for_some_crazy_volume_the_next/hnnt30l/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AmazonFlexDrivers/comments/rbbnwa/y...

SLWW 5y ago

That's actually pretty nice though; even though people are missing out on packages at least Amazon won't leave them out in the cold for today.

smilespray 5y ago
My inner cynic says Amazon paid Flex drivers because A) they still need drivers available during the christmas run-up and B) screwing drivers would put Amazon in an Ebenezer Scrooge-like PR disaster.
- dvtrn 5y ago
  Amazon in a PR disaster involving corporate greed and avarice? Oh no. Anyway. No really, I would not be surprised if Amazon has several playbooks upon playbooks involving commercials of how Amazon helped some warehouse worker get through college or some medical bill as their means of a public mea culpa.
- karmasimida 5y ago
  As long as their action is reined in line. Corporate words are worthless anyway.
- dwighttk 5y ago
  Paying them only to avoid the PR disaster is fine. Kinda what PR disasters are “for”

gumby 5y ago

Wow, I would have expected Amazon to have stiffed them. But I guess Amazon really needs them for the last mile.

hiptobecubic 5y ago
High turnover right before the Christmas boom would not be good for Amazon.