
Brutal life working in Amazon warehouse - rohanshah
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/timed-toilet-breaks-impossible-targets-11587888
======
pkaler
Brutal? Sounds like a regular blue collar job.

I worked as a sparkwatch at a plywood plant in high school. Basically, a
welder’s assistant. This is what regular blue collar jobs look like. You work
12 hour shifts. The machinery is hot. There is constant dust in the air. You
are on your feet the entire time. It’s 30ºC in the summer. It’s -20ºC in the
winter.

People in Sillicon Valley and especially the press are just completely out of
touch with how the rest of the world works and live.

~~~
noam87
> Brutal? Sounds like a regular blue collar job.

Which is to say: brutality is regular.

While of course the current move towards exposing harassment in the office is
important, I don't hear much recognition that the people getting the most
benefit are those whose prospects are already cushy to begin with... how much
of this is actually "tricking down" to people working in often dehumanizing
conditions?

I worked minimum wage until my mid-20's, and most of my high school friends
didn't do college (or even graduate high school, in some cases); my parents
(who both hold degrees) also worked in warehouses and stuff like that for a
while when we first immigrated. In many jobs, being treated like trash,
bullied, etc. is the norm. Being constantly talked down to and treated like a
child is certainly the norm. And the sexual harassment stories are also much
more frequent, and much worse. But people at the lower rungs don't have the
social capital to take to Twitter safely, jump ship to a different company,
etc. Doing so risks losing next month's bills, losing a good reference, etc.
So it's just the way it is.

And I'm talking here in Canada where we have _much_ better worker protection
laws, so I can only assume it's even worse in the US.

Same with workplace safety. Sure, _on paper_ you have the right to refuse
unsafe work. But don't be surprised if all of a sudden you start getting less
hours or get reprimanded for "not being a team player" or some crap.

~~~
JBlue42
Things like this are why I love seeing articles / comments on HN telling kids
not to go to college, to do trades, etc. Or when you overhear someone at a
dinner party saying how they wish they could quit they're good-paying desk job
to go work i a restaurant kitchen full-time. The grass looks greener but it's
certainly not easier and your body can take a beating.

------
FC_Associate
I’m currently working at one of the largest Amazon delivery stations in the US
and seeing as there probably aren’t too many low level FC associates hanging
out around these parts I’d be happy to answer any questions anyone might have.

Keep in mind that I’m at a delivery station, this is a huge warehouse where we
receive packages and sort them for delivery, and not one of the warehouses
were products are packaged for shipment. Also, I just ended my night shift so
I might fall asleep but I’ll be happy to return later to answer any questions.

Edit: I should add that I really enjoy working here but when I was first hired
I was unemployed and homeless, and I’m currently semi-homeless, so I probably
have an overly positive outlook on working here. I’ll try and not paint too
rosy a picture though.

~~~
dforrestwilson
What has surprised you most about the job versus your expectations going in?

~~~
FC_Associate
There have been quite a few surprises, let me give you a quick rundown.

1\. Based on the stories I had heard I was expecting a much more aggressively
micromanaged workplace and much stricter metrics on performance. Overall the
warehouse managers have been pretty accommodating about allowing us a grace
period to get up to speed on what’s expected of us and really aren’t hovering
over our shoulders all the time. So long as you get your work done we are
mostly left to our own devices. I was expecting a much more “authoritarian”
culture.

2\. Many things are run surprisingly inefficiently. To be frank, whatever
opinion I previously held about Bezos has certainly gone down, and it isn’t
because of the way employees are treated. There are a host of things that seem
really poorly optimized here and that were apparent to me within a few weeks
of starting, and I have zero previous warehouse or logistics experience, and
I'm not a smart person. I’ve heard stories that Bezos is extremely hands on
but I can’t imagine he would like some of the problems going on.

A few examples for you: the devices we use for stowing packages(this is the
process of taking them off of a conveyor belt and placing them inside large
bags or shelves for the drivers to pick up) are constantly suffering from
hardware and software errors. In fact at the moment, due to the number of
people we having working the night sort, I think it’s around 180-200 right
now, we often don’t have enough scanners to go around. The conveyor belts are
also constantly jamming resulting in work having to stop. We are starting to
do so much volume, last night we did around 82k packages from 10pm to 5:45am,
that we literally are running out of space to put things in our aisles, and
running out of bags to stow into.

There are also some issues regarding the payroll and HR systems. Our shifts
are frequently changing due to the warehouse needing more man hours and this
isn’t always reflected accurately in pay or time off accrued. When this
happens you need to pay a visit to HR, which btw has always handled things
quickly and professionally, but we are told to stay clocked in during this
time, as we should be. Sometimes I’ll end my shift and see 20-30 people queued
in line for HR. Amazon is paying for this time and it seems to be the result
of really poorly implemented back end systems.

3\. It’s the freaking night shift at Amazon and like I stated earlier, I
myself was unemployed and homeless when I first started, and I was definitely
surprised by the quality of my coworkers. Most of us are coming from areas of
south LA like Inglewood, Compton, Hawthorne, it doesn’t seem like many of us
have any education beyond high school, everyone seems to be living paycheck to
paycheck, I'm fairly certain I'm not the only one living out of their car, and
many people are working multiple jobs. One of my close coworkers usually
arrives after his shift at Walmart ends. Yes, there are slackers and down
right mean people, but most people just show up and do a competent job. There
is however a rather large group of people who really work their asses off. I
suppose it might be down to human nature but when you see your coworkers
working hard it makes you want to work hard as well, if for no other reason
than so they don’t have to pick up your slack. Really many of us could be
taking things a bit easier, management wouldn’t be the wiser imo, but we work
so that the guy next to you that has to take his kid to school in the morning
gets done on time. I’m somewhat embarrassed to say that things like that
surprised me.

4\. The free coffee and hot chocolate that comes out of a vending machine is
much better than I had anticipated.

------
fpisfun
When an Amazon warehouse opened in my area relatively recently it seemed that
many people were scrambling like crazy to try to get a job there. These seemed
to be people who are poorly educated and low skilled but clearly the Amazon
job represented a step up for them. I'm not saying that there aren't issues
but clearly working for Amazon is still a better alternative than their other
options. I personally know of someone who was basically skipping out on child
support payments before starting work at Amazon and now is making the
payments.

~~~
krapp
You'd be surprised, though.

I work at an Amazon fulfillment center near Austin and I wouldn't say that the
people working there seem poorly educated or skilled, at least not less so
than average. They're mostly working at Amazon for the benefits and
possibility of extra cash during peak. Also bear in mind that, because of what
Amazon pays at the bottom tiers, many of these people also have a second job
as well, so it's not necessarily the case that this is the only job they
_could_ have. There are just too many people working in these jobs for that to
be the case.

~~~
burntrelish1273
Cool.

How are working conditions: organized, chaotic or brutal?

Are there reasonable accommodations for the reality of life's un/certainties
like doctors appointments, family/dependent emergencies and similar?

Are workers paid a living wage for the area?

And what's the prevalence or seasonality of CamperForce workers?

~~~
krapp
>How are working conditions: organized, chaotic or brutal?

Chaotic, and something less than brutal. The first two months I worked there
were the most painful of my life, but now I find it more tedious than
physically strenuous. Dehydration and repetitive stress injuries are a
problem, as is environmental noise, at least where I am.

I wouldn't discount anyone's horror stories about working at Amazon, though.
It's a big network, and I'm in a large, modern facility with partial
automation so I'm probably in a better position than a lot of people.

>Are there reasonable accommodations for the reality of life's un/certainties
like doctors appointments, family/dependent emergencies and similar?

Not always. They allow for emergency time off, sick days, etc like any other
company, but they will also sometimes not give much forewarning about
mandatory extra time, since that's determined by "business need," and can last
indefinitely if Amazon decides. I've seen many complaints from employees with
children/other jobs/obligations about it.

>Are workers paid a living wage for the area?

Amazon pays below the cost of living here, but higher than some other entry
level jobs, and justifies that by claiming the other benefits they offer make
them competitive. As a result (and very likely by design), many employees are
forced to work voluntary overtime to make ends meet, or find a second job.

>And what's the prevalence or seasonality of CamperForce workers?

I've never seen them, but I've only ever worked in one location.

------
atonse
Is it just me or is Amazon turning out to be even more evil than Walmart ever
was?

It's just cuz they're an "innovative" tech company, that we let them get away
with it?

~~~
jrs95
Were they ever very innovative? Their initial success was pretty much based on
having a bunch of investment capital and using it to kill their competition
and grab market share without making profits for many years. Is it really very
difficult to become an 'innovative' giant corporation when you've captured a
huge part of the market like that?

~~~
wils1245
For me, their innovation was that they were the first online retailer that
inspired rock solid confidence in their delivery. If I order something on
Amazon, it’s at my door in two days. Every time. I don’t need to check my
shipping status, and with their pricing model obscuring shipping costs, I
don’t need to think about the practicalities of shipping at all.

As the article demonstrates, this luxury comes with a high social cost.

~~~
hinfaits
From about 100 packages, I've had a handful come past the "guaranteed date",
one that was entirely wrong (someone else's items), and worst of all, one that
was missing an item that took a huge argument with a CSR to get a refund over.

I wouldn't call them rock solid. Even if they were, it's not something that
has to, or justifies, mistreating employees.

------
michaelbuckbee
Setting aside how needlessly brutal some of this seems - these jobs aren't
going to be around for long.

Amazon's really working hard on automating them away as well - the specific
picking job described in the article is part of their well know Amazon
Robotics Challenge:

[https://www.amazonrobotics.com/#/roboticschallenge](https://www.amazonrobotics.com/#/roboticschallenge)

------
dopamean
You know what would be awesome? If tech was used to not just "revolutionize"
how consumers get their products but also how employees were treated at these
companies. So often it seems lately that tech giants are built in a super old
fashioned way: on the backs of cheap labor.

~~~
user5994461
Treating their employees well is how Google/Microsoft/Facebook are built. It's
easy for them, it's office workers who bring super high margins. The business
is more valuable by treating people well.

Businesses based on grunt work, like Amazon, can't do that. Their existence is
based on infinite cheap labor, to execute as much grunt work as cheap as
possible.

~~~
Asooka
So why can Costco afford to treat their employees humanely?

~~~
user5994461
Costco doesn't deliver millions of package a day for free to the door of their
customers, does it?

~~~
Asooka
Maybe Amazon should retire the one-click same-day offer as well, if it
requires this level of human misery to fulfil. Personally I've never received
a package in less than two weeks and I still shop at Amazon since they have
the best availability and prices.

~~~
jjeaff
There is no additional labor involved in shipping a package in 1 day vs 7
days. It's just that the stores that take 7 days to ship operate Perpetually
behind schedule. To get products out in 1 day, you need enough slack to handle
the times when things get busy so you don't get behind. There is no inherent
need to abuse employees to do that.

I have an online store and we always ship within a few hours of receiving the
order. It's not hard at all. After it's shipped, it's up to the carrier
anyway.

~~~
user5994461
Bullshit. It takes crazy amount of labor to ship in one day instead of the
usual 2-3 days.

It requires employees on shift every night to handle any package immediately.
It requires employees to work on Saturday and Sunday to cover week end orders.
It requires employees to do longer hours to complete any burst of orders at
any time.

What do you think happen to items that are not in the vicinity? They have to
be transported overnight across hundreds of miles to a closer distribution
center. Again, night and high pressure work.

------
token_throwaway
This job sounds shitty but have you ever spoken to someone in a domestic role?
A postal employee? A trucker? A janitor at your office building? Kitchen staff
at a restaurant who do not even have time to take a piss without dropping the
ball, let alone timed pee breaks? Lots of jobs are hard. Extremely hard. And
often, jobs that are very very hard pay hardly anything. There is a two-way
transaction happening here, though - you pick a job that you are qualified
for, and you work at it in exchange for money. And if it's not worth the money
to you, you find a different job that you're qualified for. As long as people
are willing to do this job for this amount of money, it will probably not get
better unfortunately. And as companies get bigger, they always morally regress
to the mean. Instead of going after companies (playing whack-a-mole), I think
empowering people to learn employable skills is a better investment.

Also I'm going to remember the fuss about Amazon when their warehouses are
100% robotic, and everyone is mad that it's not creating enough jobs.

~~~
zemo
this is extremely, extremely tone-deaf.

> As long as people are willing to do this job for this amount of money, it
> will probably not get better unfortunately.

child labor didn't stop because parents stopped being willing to sentence
their kids to labor, it stopped because of laws. The free market does nothing
to guarantee that working conditions are livable or humane. Any suggestion to
the contrary is at best naive, at worst malicious.

> I think empowering people to learn employable skills is a better investment.

That's nice, but where does a single parent working wage labor have the time
to learn new skills? Who is paying a livable wage for people to learn new
skills?

~~~
fredgrott
not really..come on either you want to take a risk and make something and sell
it to get higher income or take no risk and go for that low paying warehouse
job. Tell us all what risk did any one take in getting a warehouse job?

Gee life is hard...really?

~~~
zemo
> you want to take a risk and make something and sell it to get higher income

no, almost nobody does that. People who work in an Amazon warehouse have no
option to take a risk to make something, they are selling their labor because
it is the only way to feed themselves. Almost nobody has the ability to "take
a risk and make something". Your comment shows a complete ignorance of how the
vast majority of people experience the world. The vast, vast majority of
people in the world do not control the means of production or have the ability
to do so, they sell their labor because they have no other choice.

This attitude, that everyone being exploited is doing so because they made a
choice is endemic to our industry and it is the literally reason that our
industry is increasingly seen negatively by those outside of our industry.
People who work in Amazon warehouses did not one day decide or not decide to
take a risk: the vast majority of them are working any job they can get to
avoid going hungry.

If you make something and sell it, you are in control of the means of
production; you are not selling your labor, you are selling a product. People
who work in an Amazon warehouse are not selling a product, they are selling
their labor. The vast, vast majority of people on Earth sell their labor.

you are defending inhumane working conditions. You are defending subjugation
in the name of business interest.

This attitude and people like you make me sick of the software industry. I am
disgusted by how common the attitude of utter indifference is in our industry.

------
GuiA
_One asked: “Why are we not allowed to sit when it is quiet and not busy? We
are human beings, not slaves and animals.”_

That’s because Amazon would much rather have robots instead of human beings.
In the meantime, it is falling back on humans, but still expecting them to
behave as robots.

------
lichenwarp
Try loading trucks at UPS and you'll think this is nothing.

~~~
Asooka
And children in Africa suffer from parasites that literally eat their eyes
out. Somebody always has it worse (maybe except children in Africa), that in
no way means we should refrain from trying to make things better locally.

~~~
lichenwarp
Perspective, I gotcha.

------
supermdguy
More readable version:
[https://gist.github.com/superMDguy/3d8b2cef1a41d49bc8ad6c454...](https://gist.github.com/superMDguy/3d8b2cef1a41d49bc8ad6c454846cdc0)

------
nemo3141
I recently started working as a associate full-time at a large warehouse in
US. I have a college degree and have worked as a junior Front End Developer in
the past but my work permit expires next year so I stopped looking for a
"real" job. I can answer any questions you guys might have as I don't thing
there are any warehouse associates to answer directly in this thread.

~~~
krapp
I don't have any questions, because I'm in more or less the same situation -
working at an Amazon FC to pay off my programming degree because it's more
stable than trying to get a job in tech right now.

But... don't look too closely at the internal tools like the stow app or
bintools. You'll weep.

~~~
nemo3141
I don't know what those are. I have been working as a packer mostly and our
place has a minimum of 200 items per hour.

~~~
krapp
Ok. I've been stowing, decanting and problem solving so I've used them. Never
mind then.

------
holydude
This is on countries like the US and the EU to set a world standard on how the
employees should be treated. Everyone competes with everyone and make no
mistake the wester europe is not some wonderland paradise where even your
average joe is treated well. Western Europe makes hefty profits out of abusing
Eastern European labour and markets.

------
emjoes1
Just had to chime in and say this was how it was when I worked in a Frito Lay
warehouse. Lost 10lbs in my first week (probably water weight) because of the
heat and labor required. Also same experience when working at Dixie warehouse.
That is par for warehouse work.

------
tryingagainbro
_> >I found staff asleep on their feet, exhausted from toiling for up to 55
hours a week._

What's brutal is their salary, £8.2 an hour, but 55 hours in the busiest
season is called brutal? Please.

~~~
DanBC
55 hours is very long for Europe.

European working times directive limits the maximum hours to 48 hours a week,
although people can opt out of that.

------
peterwwillis
_" My own story of how I became a human robot could not have been darker.
Shifts began in the gloom at 7.30am and ended at 6pm, long after the sun had
gone down."_

Oh, heavens. That almost sounds like a high school teacher's schedule.

 _" Two half-hour breaks were the only time off my feet"_

Kind of like working in a supermarket?

 _" toiling for up to 55 hours a week"_

The horror??

 _" [the warehouse] is so vast that just walking to the toilet could take more
than five minutes"_

Ok, this is actually absurd, and I would expect against some kind of
regulation. If they don't have adequate facilities how can they expect
efficient work, anyway?

~~~
brianwawok
Is 5 minutes absurd? I worked at random factories in the day, 5 minute walk to
the crapper was about right.

Now the difference was I didn't get fired because my productivity went down
.1%, which is the problem with the hyper data Amazon warehouse worker...

~~~
peterwwillis
Yeah, that is the main problem. If it takes you even 10 minutes to get to the
crapper, fine, as long as the employer is willing to compensate you for that.
It's unethical to force workers to choose between taking a crap and keeping
their pay or their job. You can't just choose not to take a crap.

------
nvarsj
If you ever need a counterpoint for your capitalist loving friends, this is
it. It’s also why regulation is so necessary.

------
stevenj
As a customer, Amazon is wonderful. But it needs to treat its employees
better.

Fix this, Jeff.

~~~
taway_1212
If he fixes it, the prices will rise, making Amazon less wonderful.

~~~
stevenj
I'm probably in the minority but I'd pay higher prices for better treatment of
employees and better quality of product/service (which I do think Amazon needs
to improve upon as well in terms of its third party seller operations).

I also like going to restaurants where there's a required 20% gratuity that
gets distributed to all staff and helps pay for employee benefits. I think the
overall service, interactions, and experience are far better at those
restaurants and I'm happy to pay for it.

~~~
scarface74
I can't think of anything I spend money on regularly that price is the
deciding factor. Quality and convenience mean a lot more to me.

------
rotub
This does not surprise me.

------
wmu
There were similar stories from the warehouse located in Poland.

------
dsschnau
jeff is a punk-ass nerd

