Amazon employees work in shitty conditions, BBC investigation reveals
72 replies, posted
My old boss works as a real estate agent for the apartment building across the street from the amazon headquarter + other amazon divisions .He was saying that if you join them as a programmer they have you sign a contract for 2 years, 100k a year and a 25k sign on bonus and they work the 100k out of you. He was saying they work on a floor with no windows and usually 12+ hour days and if you quit before the 2 years are up you have to return the 25k. For the interviews they usually bring you in 3 times and if you live anywhere other than the seattle area you have to fly out there and pay for your trip in full. This isn't so bad until you consider that they hire from all over the world, so if you're across seas, spending huge amounts of money for a job that you might not get/like just suddenly doesnt seem good.
[QUOTE=Aide;42973093]They shouldn't have to walk. Im sorry but that's unacceptable to have a facility 11 miles and pick an order every 33 seconds. Warehouse environments almost always involve some type of transportation for the worker and goods.[/QUOTE]
Well, the timing makes sense. It's purely a logistical thing, and it appears to work. After all, there are a lot of people in the warehouses. Why would you highlight walking as a bad work condition though? It's good for you, and there are a ton on jobs that don't involve sitting down.
Uhhh this is pretty much all warehouse jobs.
If every customer ordered all their items in separate one-item orders, would the labor be split evenly between all works, or would the extra walking to the drop-off point just increase the workload?
Warehouse jobs aren't bad if your willing to work hard, I was offered 14 dollars a hour /w benefits and usually will do 12 hour shifts and you work only 4 days.
The thing cool about warehouses is the product can't be moved by customers, It's set. So literally when orders are placed they use or should be using the same system we use during inventory where we scan inventory when it's placed so we can find where it is on the map.
Since I'm in a retail store (Which we have a small warehouse in the back like other retail stores), The map on the sales floor is good for about a month, Then it's useless as product moves around on shelves from reorganization or just regular movement and product changes and doesn't account for shrink etc. Our warehouse though usually always stays accurate. Our cage which is our expensive items located in warehouse is a locked room that only employees can access with the key, That room will never be adjusted and 99.99% of the time unless we put an item from there on the floor, will be where it was scanned last in our every few month inventory.
Aka, Finding shit is easy. It's just the labor of hauling shit around all day. Our warehouse crew is responsible for web-order pickups in our store so they travel around the store all day looking for items. When it comes to water-cooling barbs or small crap it's really hard to find and they generally end up having to decline or partial complete the order cause items like that are impossible to keep track of because of stealing and misplacement by customers.
All it takes is one customer to pick it up and put it somewhere across the store, The associate puts it in a bin and that bin gets moved around the store when people put away product from it and it may fall out of it or get tossed in warehouse cause it was a misnoticed product in the bin.
Summary: It's easier to find shit when people outside of the employement don't move it around.
Sounds exactly the same as what I do, except it's for one of the biggest natural foods distributors. Have to pick cases as fast, or faster than that too.
I enjoyed warehousing work more than retail. Had less job security and pay but overall more hours and better colleagues. Was overall a better employment for me. If I had gone for forklift training could have tripled my earnings easy too.
I worked as a picker once. I had gotten a job as an IT specialist at a shipping company originally. Not that I'm an IT specialist, but compared to the fifty year old redneck that they originally employed there, I might as well have been Bill Gates himself.
"IT specialist" there pretty much meant being able to type words without having to look at your keyboard. Anyway, I fixed every single problem they had on their system in a matter of a week and thus made myself obsolete. So they employed me as a picker instead.
Never again.
Holy crap, what a mindnumbing job. You get a little device strapped around your wrist, and it basically becomes your manager. You are managed by a machine. It tells you where to go, it tells you how to walk there like some kind of navigator, and then it tells you how much to pick out of the box and scan on your wrist device. There is no freedom at all, none. I quit after a couple of days, because I couldn't handle it. I can't understand there are people who can. You really go insane.
I have a headset that tells me which row, rack, and slot to pick from. I say the number, it tells me how many items to pick, anywhere from one, to the most I've ever picked being 180. The largest department has 34 rows, 36 racks each side, big enough for two pallet jacks to drive past each other. Quota is 115 cases per hour.
$13.25 an hour.
I assumed that Amazon warehouses would be ran by robots, like these:
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KRjuuEVEZs[/media]
[QUOTE=V12US;42974642]I worked as a picker once. I had gotten a job as an IT specialist at a shipping company originally. Not that I'm an IT specialist, but compared to the fifty year old redneck that they originally employed there, I might as well have been Bill Gates himself.
"IT specialist" there pretty much meant being able to type words without having to look at your keyboard. Anyway, I fixed every single problem they had on their system in a matter of a week and thus made myself obsolete. So they employed me as a picker instead.
Never again.
Holy crap, what a mindnumbing job. You get a little device strapped around your wrist, and it basically becomes your manager. You are managed by a machine. It tells you where to go, it tells you how to walk there like some kind of navigator, and then it tells you how much to pick out of the box and scan on your wrist device. There is no freedom at all, none. I quit after a couple of days, because I couldn't handle it. I can't understand there are people who can. You really go insane.[/QUOTE]
Hilariously enough, I work for a company that manages a product that does exactly this. Nothing like knowing the result of countless hours of my time is driving someone out there nuts. :v:
After reading this, I am not really shocked, The same thing applied here at Louisville, Kentucky... At the old Zappo's Warehouse. Amazon bought out Zappo's, and it's still slowly converting. I am a picker as well and I just started working there. The pay is good, but I fear I will not keep the job for long. We have a unit per hour ratio to keep up and they expect us to have 60 units picked per hour, It's alot of walking, alot of cart pushing and alot of scanning on objects that sometimes won't just scan properly.
This job is my first 10 hour shift job, plus during the peak season, we will have a black-out day where people can't take any vacation days on these week, and sunday's is our mandatory overtime during these picks 50's. We work on holidays like Thanksgiving but we won't work on chrismas... The good thing about working on holidays is that we get a time and a half pay, It's good money but honestly... I'm a computer geek who sit down all day playing video games all day with a very little social life.
Most warehouses are like this, I used to do 12 hour shifts with no lunch breaks so I'd would literally be walking for 12 hours a day, 16 hours at Christmas. After a while your feet go temporarily numb so walking around stops hurting but it took me like 6 months to get the feeling back. Basically fuck understaffed warehouses
[QUOTE=V12US;42974642]Holy crap, what a mindnumbing job. [B]You get a little device strapped around your wrist, and it basically becomes your manager.[/B] You are managed by a machine. It tells you where to go, it tells you how to walk there like some kind of navigator, and then it tells you how much to pick out of the box and scan on your wrist device. There is no freedom at all, none. I quit after a couple of days, because I couldn't handle it. I can't understand there are people who can. You really go insane.[/QUOTE]
you mean the FUCKING PIPBOY?
[img]http://i.imgur.com/hXDFKDA.jpg[/img]
WITH FINGER-STRAPPED LASER ATTACHMENT?
[QUOTE=V12US;42974642]Holy crap, what a mindnumbing job. You get a little device strapped around your wrist, and it basically becomes your manager. You are managed by a machine. It tells you where to go, it tells you how to walk there like some kind of navigator, and then it tells you how much to pick out of the box and scan on your wrist device. There is no freedom at all, none. I quit after a couple of days, because I couldn't handle it. I can't understand there are people who can. You really go insane.[/QUOTE]
So Skyrim was a super realistic Picker Simulator the whole time.
[I]I knew it[/I]
[QUOTE=Loofiloo;42975288]you mean the FUCKING PIPBOY?
[img]http://i.imgur.com/hXDFKDA.jpg[/img]
WITH FINGER-STRAPPED LASER ATTACHMENT?[/QUOTE]
Yes, that thing. My god do I loathe it.
Do not by fooled by it's awesome appearance. It is the devil in a machine, and it will turn you into one as well.
[editline]25th November 2013[/editline]
[QUOTE=Viper202;42975358]So Skyrim was a super realistic Picker Simulator the whole time.
[I]I knew it[/I][/QUOTE]
If the quest items you were collecting were small tubes and boxes, there were no skills, weapons or enemies, and Skyrim itself looked like a dusty old building with endless rows of cabinets lit by sickly white light.
[QUOTE=V12US;42975547]
If the quest items you were collecting were small tubes and boxes, there were no skills, weapons or enemies, and Skyrim itself looked like a dusty old building with endless rows of cabinets lit by sickly white light.[/QUOTE]
I'm sure there's a mod for that
It will get even more crappy for them since i just ordered some really nice stuff from black-friday sales. Sorry guys..
[QUOTE=V12US;42975547]If the quest items you were collecting were small tubes and boxes, there were no skills, weapons or enemies, and Skyrim itself looked like a dusty old building with endless rows of cabinets lit by sickly white light.[/QUOTE]
So Fallout 3?
Give them roller skates. No, lumber they can roll around on!! No, wait, give them boats! YES LET THE PEOPLE NAGIVATE THE SEVEN SEAS! WE HAVE HAD IT WITH YOUR OPPRESSION, AMAZON! [B]GIVE US OUR BOATS!! STAOB[/B]
I'm really surprised they don't use little golf cart type things.
[QUOTE=mac338;42976382]Give them roller skates. No, lumber they can roll around on!! No, wait, give them boats! YES LET THE PEOPLE NAGIVATE THE SEVEN SEAS! WE HAVE HAD IT WITH YOUR OPPRESSION, AMAZON! [B]GIVE US OUR BOATS!! STAOB[/B][/QUOTE]
I'm serious why dont they use roller skates it could boost productivity 10 fold.
I'm a picker at Amazon Fullfillment, average shift I walk 11-16 miles, I have two 15 min breaks, and a 30 min lunch break. It's beyond a fuck ton of walking but I wouldn't say I work under shitty conditions.
[editline]25th November 2013[/editline]
[QUOTE=mastfire;42973052]i work at amazon
I walked more than 11 miles per night as a picker but they don't say about the benefits if amazon hire you from the temp agencys. $1200 in stock options etc.[/QUOTE]
I was told about benefits, I was hired through Integrity Staffing Solutions.
[QUOTE=V12US;42975547]Yes, that thing. My god do I loathe it.
Do not by fooled by it's awesome appearance. It is the devil in a machine, and it will turn you into one as well.[/QUOTE]
I dunno man, I used one for like 7 months and I think the pipboy was my favorite part of the job. I just hated it because all my fellow employees tended to be idiots and/or ex-cons (not all bad people, but still) and the management had retarded priorities when it came to enforcing rules, and they kept terrible track of inventory, making my job harder.
These inventions and work methods are strangely fascinating.
It's like watching the transition into everything being mechanized and automated.
A few of my friends just picked up jobs at Amazon doing this.
6pm to 3am, mandatory overtime on some days
I don't get to see them as often, but hey, they've been able to get a small apartment with the money they're pulling.
[QUOTE=Mad.Hatter;42978348]I'm serious why dont they use roller skates it could boost productivity 10 fold.[/QUOTE]
It would also boost workplace accidents 10 fold unfortunately.
People like to be dumb with roller skates. Not paying attention, bombing down aisles, etc.
[QUOTE=valkery;42973209]I think that would be pretty nice, in all honesty. At least I'm not sitting on my ass all night, I can listen to music or text as long as I keep on task, I'm getting in some cardio, and It's like one giant game of hide-and-go-seek that lasts for hours.[/QUOTE]
The epitome of "glass half-full"
Must be nice for that BBC guy to reach the end of his "investigation" and go back to his real job with rights, benefits, and reasonable working conditions.
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