Amazon apparently treats its employees really badly

[88keys]

FWIW, if people want better treatment, they need to demand it. If 1/3 of retail employees had the balls to go on strike, shit would change overnight. Enacting real change in the world takes courage and sacrifice. Voting for the black guy isn't good enough, you need to take action yourself.

 

[waggy]

Locals around here are only slightly higher in price, and the glacial turnover rate speaks for employee happiness.

You first say they have shitty cs, then in the next sentence say they know what they're doing. Which is it? IME, their knowledge(which is what cs is) is adequate at worst, and usually pretty damned good.

I've never had an issue with returns in my life, but I've been jerked around by online retailers. Maybe not Amazon, but given a choice without knowing who I'm dealing with, I'll buy offline every time.

CS has more to it then just knowing the product line. Before we got BB and lowes going into local stores we would be treated rudely more often then not.

the local camera shop and appliance store though are top notch. though both only catered to the high end. i think that's why they are still around. i really don't need a $1500 stove..

 

[Gunbuster]

Such news! I always thought the workers strolled around in a temperature controlled mall like environment, Pina Colada in one hand while they pulled video cards and vibrators off the shelf with the other.

Now you are to try and tell me it's really a back breaking scutwork for not so great pay?

 

[Franz316]

It sounds like a pretty miserable place to work. But none of it should be surprising since workers nowadays have minimal to no leverage. We are in a race to the bottom for wages and work conditions. They've got most people in a spot where they are merely "happy to have a job." While the bar continues to be lowered we are told that it's "just the way it is."

 

[Jeff7]

Then management will be complaining that the over-worked engineers aren't fixing the over-worked robots quickly enough.

"Why do these things keep breaking?"

"You haven't performed any preventative maintenance on them."

"Unacceptable. That costs too much money. Make them work without any manner of maintenance."

"Despite the fact that moving to robots has cut your operating costs by 65%. But hey, fine. Your service warranty period will be reduced from 1 year to 2 weeks."

<fired>

It sounds like a pretty miserable place to work. But none of it should be surprising since workers nowadays have minimal to no leverage. We are in a race to the bottom for wages and work conditions. They've got most people in a spot where they are merely "happy to have a job." While the bar continues to be lowered we are told that it's "just the way it is."

Yup.
Meanwhile more and more money keeps being shifted towards the top, to the illustrious gods in upper management.

 

[Imp]

Amazon + employee treatment is old news. All the local major chain stores appear to be shifting over to the Amazon model of offering everything online including drop-order items to expand variety.

I just bought stuff from Amazon that I was going to get from at retail stores. However, it's effing cold as hell this week and the travel time sucks. I could have bought from those retail stores online, but their shipping has been unreliable (i.e. usually require me to go pick up at depot an hour out of my way). Amazon was not cheaper for any of the items.

 

[Miramonti]

A lot of smart@ss comments from people about this type of ruthless capitalism that I bet couldn't last a week in an Amazon warehouse, physically or psychologically.

 

[jpiniero]

an Amazon warehouse

For some reason, I read this as "Amazon whorehouse". I wonder if you can get Prime shipping for that?

 

[Naer]

I feel kinda guilty for ordering now

 

[Miramonti]

For some reason, I read this as "Amazon whorehouse". I wonder if you can get Prime shipping for that?

That's humorous because I almost decided to type that but thought discretion would be the better part of valor on this day.

Now for something completely different...

” After working six months at Amazon, he was told, without warning or explanation, that his target rates for packages had doubled from 250 units per hour to 500.

Zweifel was able to make the pace, but he saw older workers who could not and were “getting written up a lot” and most of whom were fired. A temporary employee at the same warehouse, in his fifties, worked ten hours a day as a picker, taking items from bins and delivering them to the shelves. He would walk thirteen to fifteen miles daily. He was told he had to pick 1,200 items in a ten-hour shift, or 1 item every thirty seconds. He had to get down on his hands and knees 250 to 300 times a day to do this. He got written up for not working fast enough, and when he was fired only three of the one hundred temporary workers hired with him had survived.

Holy motherfvcking cattle prod. 13 to 15 miles daily??? No wonder they're temp workers - there's no way Amazon could afford to pay for the insurance to take care of all the destroyed feet and knees.

 

[Imp]

A lot of smart@ss comments from people about this type of ruthless capitalism that I bet couldn't last a week in an Amazon warehouse, physically or psychologically.

I'd probably get fired because I'm OCD about "perfection" -- seriously, it's OCD and not because I think I'm so damn good, in fact, it's the opposite and a show of a lack of confidence.

I'd be checking and rechecking product codes to make sure I don't pick up the wrong item. However, from what I've seen on Undercover Boss, they have machines that auto-check UPCs nowadays.

 

[rh71]

BTW, anyone who plays Candy Crush Saga - they stole the game and adds insult to injury... boycott that too.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidth...ns-furious-open-letter-to-candy-crush-makers/

 

[Muse]

However, from what I've seen on Undercover Boss, they have machines that auto-check UPCs nowadays.

Of course, it's part of the new efficiency.

 

[LTC8K6]

http://www.ecommercebytes.com/cab/abn/y14/m02/i13/s02

 

[Fritzo]

Really? I thought I just read how they were one of the best places to work in the US. Huh...not sure who to believe.

 

[Ichinisan]

One of my online friends works for Amazon. He doesn't complain about it.

 

[melchoir]

I can't speak to the treatment of FC workers, but from what I do know, the environment for IT staff is quite nice.

 

[Miramonti]

I can't speak to the treatment of FC workers, but from what I do know, the environment for IT staff is quite nice.

Amazon competes with other IT giants for their resources, so I imagine its a far different culture between it's white collar and blue collar jobs. I think the perception is Amazon is a white collar company, a perception Amazon would probably like to keep milking.

 

[nageov3t]

it doesn't sound significantly worse than any other warehouse job in a non-union shop that I've heard of.

hopefully the warehouse guys are saving their dimes so they can get trained/educated and eventually move into a job that literally any monkey off the street couldn't be trained to do competently in 5 minutes.

 

[KeithP]

Basically a union shill complaining that Amazon is evil because it wants its workers to work as efficiently as possible and that they aren't unionized enough and bending over backwards to meet union demands.

Same old crap that Walmart has had to deal with. I guess since the Unions aren't having much success there they have moved on to another target.

-KeithP

 

[OverVolt]

When their profit margin is 0.5% it doesn't take a genius to figure out how they treat their employees (hint: about 0.5% human 99.5% robot)

 

[OverVolt]

Really? I thought I just read how they were one of the best places to work in the US. Huh...not sure who to believe.

The warehouses are a different company, but you know... just put stuff into smiley face boxes. That say Amazon.

 

[KlokWyze]

Amazon can't use this strategy if no one are willing to work for them. I do find it odd when I see people busting their ass @ McD's for like $7 an hour. Damn bro, your job is 10x harder than mine. Why are you doing this??!?!!?!!?!

 

[mikeford]

If your job is to put something in a box, your training consisted of reading two ten page pamphlets on personal hygiene with one page on how to put things in a box, plan on working hard for little pay no matter where you work.

Amazon provides jobs for the low skilled. In order to employ low skilled workers with all the regulations and minimum wage laws, all those you employ must work hard.

Many of those jobs are just a couple minimum wage hikes away from being automated.

 

[SsupernovaE]

The real assault on the middle class is coming from Google and Amazon in the forms of automation.

I wonder what will happen to the hundreds of millions of Chinese, Indian, and Bangladeshi workers as automation rises.