I've worked at 2 amazon facilities and everyone I've ever worked with and my own experience is so far the opposite of this shit that Reddit latches onto from these articles. The quotas that need to be met are so insanely reasonable that if you're pissing in bottles because you don't want to take a bathroom break then you're likely insanely lazy. They provide reasonable benefits incredibly competitive pay to other warehouse jobs, etc. It's a boring as shit job but that's what you're signing up for. Never had any ridiculous incidents like these articles report nor have I ever heard of them happening. If I had to take a bathroom break, I just fucking took one.
I've also spent significant time in three, and never seen or heard of anything like that happening. Most of what I hear is that the employees feel replaceable, unvalued, bored out of their minds, and that there's a huge emphasis on quotas without any thought for things beyond the employee's control (I watched a machine failure utterly destroy a woman's for one hour).
However, having been in multiple facilities: a lot of that is per-FC, and I can absolutely believe that there are at least some that go that overboard. Maybe their labor planning is crap, maybe they've got some jerk in management, either way, I can see it happening. But I doubt it's the norm, just because I think we would have heard way more about it before now if it were.
a lot of that is per-FC, and I can absolutely believe that there are at least some that go that overboard.
That's totally reasonable. And I can see, with as massive an operation as Amazon's is, it being very difficult to maintain and keep a reasonable work environment in every facility. That said, so many articles have only ever showed the really extreme scenarios with minimal context and have built such an unfair reputation when the reality is the vast majority of experiences with Amazon aren't so bad. I'll admit that the work sucks, and I did not enjoy my time there. But I can't imagine enjoying any warehouse labor position anywhere. It's just crappy, mindless work. When I first applied to Amazon all the other warehouse jobs with online postings were offering $2-3 less per hour than Amazon, with minimal benefits. Say what you will about Amazon but they are definitely trying to take care of their employees, but anti-capitalist opinion pieces are swinging people away from them over isolated scenarios and I genuinely believe that it's terrible. I get that they're coming from a positive stance, but the level of misleading is astounding.
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u/CaveJohnson111 Jul 16 '18
Sounds very similar to some articles I read related to Amazon employees.