I had heard it was bad working for Amazon, and recently decided to learn how bad. I am shocked.:
Here is a shorter story on the hellish day of an Amazon warehouse worker:
The above journalist also worked at Convergys (giant call center) and McDonald's. They all sound bad,. but the most frightening thing is Amazon and others like them is they electronically track how you use your every second, as if you are a machine and not a person.
From the article just above:
"The work in factories and minimum-wage facilities hasn’t exactly got harder in recent decades, Guendelsberger says. It’s that the jobs have become unreasonably more stressful, mostly due to advanced monitoring technology that meticulously tracks every second of every day for many employees.
The reason, weirdly enough, is that their productivity is being compared to robots.
Because of automation, human workers increasingly have to compete with computers and algorithms, Guendelsberger writes. But robots are still lacking when it comes to fine motor control and empathy. So many industries want a workforce that can “think, talk, feel and pick stuff up like humans — but with as few needs outside of work as robots.”
These so-called “cyborg jobs” demand that low-wage laborers “crush those un-useful human parts of themselves down to atomic size.” And this type of employment is becoming increasingly common, with Oxford University estimating in 2013 that cyborg jobs could account for 47 percent of the US workforce."
When I looked up and found these articles it was due to the thought that crossed my mind that I might want to do Amazon part-time at some time, since it seems it will be work readily available for some time, so I should read to see what they say what actually goes on there. I'd imagined myself packing boxes or picking, and I am efficient at doing things. But I would listen to myself if my back, my mind, any part of me got tired or stressed and take short 5 minute breaks to revitalize my energy. A a simple walk to a nearby bathroom can be refreshing in order to return to efficiency. I might work fast and hard 3 hours, then take 15 minutes of normal paced work, while carrying on a conversation, before returning to "fastest" work. So I imagined myself taking normal energy adjustments I felt I need to take, and I would be confident that I would be among the efficient workers, and I would be able to take pride that I had put in a full days work for a full days pay. I have always been a fast, productive worker.
No. At these places there is no listening to your self, it is fastest work ALL the time, nonstop. TO be electronically monitored, how fast you actually work every second, is inhuman.
It's sickening that this is what the world has come to.
It has been (still is) a concern that they younger generations seem to be open to socialism, Marxism, and communism, actually seeing things as a good instead of the evil that they are. (I am viewing socialism as the entry door to those other things). The same folk are anti-capitalism. Capitalism done right is a GOOD thing, about the best we can do (other than have someone like Louis IX for a King!). To throw out all of capitalism because of gross misuse of it is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. (Private property, is a GOOD thing i.e.). So until I read these articles on the life of low-wage workers, I did not understand at all anti-capitalism sentiment. Now I do. If this is you work experience, it really must seem that certainly some other system would save you from such horror.
This is not a good place we have come to. It is horrible.
If anyone has any other employment horror stories, pleased share. It must not be only Amazon....
Also, this poor family is in my heart, having lost their Dad at Amazon. The husband, wife and kids all look truly happy together. How truly sad for all of them there is no husband and father any more. https://highline.huffingtonpost.com/...h-amazon-temp/
I buy from Amazon a lot because of time. Also education/teaching is a morning to bedtime/ 7 day a week job these days, and I wonder what I would do without Amazon. But I must start weaning myself from Amazon, until they can start treating their workers with some human decency. Meantime I need to start making care packages for, and leaving tips, for the delivery guys.....