I was an Amazon warehouse worker, ask me stuff (Prime Day edition)

[Pargon]

Thanks for always making sure I get my lube on time.

Honestly, though, this sounds like hell. I did retail (floor sales) and package thrower (unloading trucks for a major national parcel shipper) and this smells like some kind of hellish chimera of both. That you did this for longer than a week makes you a stronger person than me by several degrees.

 

[Pol Pots Pooter]

Amazon built a giant warehouse in Ottawa, but not really *in* Ottawa exactly. It's in Carlsbad Springs, which is in the rural outskirts southeast of Ottawa where there's no public transit and Amazon's too exceptional to pay for their own transit for potential workers, many of whom can't afford to own a car.

Sounds about right. Here, they strike deals with local public transport so you can use it with your Amazon employee badge at no cost to yourself...but that's still a 60-90 minute bus ride depending where you live, and fuck you if you can't make the bus or the bus is late.

Do you think anything will come out of the prime day strike?

Nope. It's going to take a lot more bad press and attention from the feds than that. But...

I didn't work at corporate, so I'm more than a few degrees of separation away from what went down the day the board decided on the corporate minimum wage. But I can tell you the day that went down, nobody outside a Seattle boardroom saw it, heard about it, or had the faintest idea it was coming. Certainly nobody in my warehouse's management structure, up to and including regional. Literally the first anyone heard of it, was on the news that morning; we had tier 1 employees more "in the know" than our higher-ups in management.

Management had to call emergency all-hands meetings to announce and answer questions about it as best they could, considering they had little to no information on it and were completely blindsided. It was such a clusterfuck, the new tenure-based pay scale they announced was so out of whack we were looking more at a dollar-per-hour cut in total compensation initially. It was so bad I actually felt a twinge of empathy for the poor vest-wearing bastards, considering they were actually getting boo'ed by their own employees for announcing a nominal pay raise, had no information to give employees, and damn near faced a walk out over it on the spot. It took two weeks before they could call another all-hands to actually give us the information we needed as employees, and during that period it was complete fucking chaos.

What I kept hearing from the meagre contacts I had higher-up, was Sanders' anti-Bezos act, the bad press over the Seattle head tax killed, ongoing bad press over worker treatment and pay, increased calls for FTC investigation and anti-trust hearings, and Trump pushing hard against Bezos along with the anti-immigration stuff, had the brass really spooked and they needed a major PR win. Therefore, they announced a corporate minimum wage and pay increase that was actually anything but, considering they revoked stock options and monthly bonuses to do it.

Thanks for always making sure I get my lube on time.

After a while you get desensitized to it, but butt lube never really stops being funny. I used to make a sport of stowing really fucked up and weirdo sex toys next to shit like Bibles. One of my crowning achievements was getting a bin full of nothing but Qurans and pork rinds.

Honestly, though, this sounds like hell. I did retail (floor sales) and package thrower (unloading trucks for a major national parcel shipper) and this smells like some kind of hellish chimera of both. That you did this for longer than a week makes you a stronger person than me by several degrees.

Funny enough, package throwing and jobs like it are privileged positions in Amazon, because you don't have to worry about individual rates. As long as your team is meeting collective expectations, if you're not obviously fucking around or being a liability you're good. The downside of it being, management is constantly looking to consolidate and eliminate "indirect" functions as they're seen as overhead, and they're really stingy about bringing additional people into indirect function as needed.

 

[JosephStalin]

A year or two ago posted a review on Amazon of a book about people living in vans who work at Amazon. Mentioned the terrible working conditions at Amazon in my review. Not long after that found I couldn't post product reviews on Amazon. But I could shop on Amazon, of course.

 

[Pol Pots Pooter]

A year or two ago posted a review on Amazon of a book about people living in vans who work at Amazon. Mentioned the terrible working conditions at Amazon in my review. Not long after that found I couldn't post product reviews on Amazon. But I could shop on Amazon, of course.

Nomadland? Haven't read it, I keep hearing it's actually pretty good.

 

[Megaroad]

I came dangerously close to working at the warehouse in Kent, WA many years ago. I remember the buttery little spiel about how great the company was, ect.

Nevermind the cafeteria was full of sad faces and we had to turn over most of our personable belongings to security.

I've done warehouse work for other companies in my teens and I never seen such tight security. Not even military bases I've worked at is as tight as a Amazon warehouse.

 

[crocodilian]

Do you suppose Prime Day will ever provide deals on anything that isn't Amazon-produced, shoddily-made garbage?

 

[DK 699]

On second thought, maybe capitalism wasn't a good idea after all...

 

[NOT Sword Fighter Super]

What the grossest item somebody has ever tried to return?

 

[Pol Pots Pooter]

I came dangerously close to working at the warehouse in Kent, WA many years ago. I remember the buttery little spiel about how great the company was, ect.

Nevermind the cafeteria was full of sad faces and we had to turn over most of our personable belongings to security.

I've done warehouse work for other companies in my teens and I never seen such tight security. Not even military bases I've worked at is as tight as a Amazon warehouse.

Based upon my own experiences and those of more-tenured employees than me, part of me wonders if Amazon is a victim of its own success, and the runaway egos and demands for greater profits from its executives and shareholders. I'm not going to lie, if you were tenured and accustomed to the work, it actually used to be a pretty bitchin' place.

Then, depending upon FC, in the last five to seven years it's gone completely to hell and it is what it is today. As far as Amazon as an online retailer, it's had to expand and optimize to meet consumer demand to the point any value or principle other than maximum growth has completely fallen by the wayside. That doesn't excuse Amazon's business practices nor the choices made to diversify and integrate, but the impact it's had on its core business can't be ignored.

As far as security goes, most of it's theater, and based on my experiences, intended more towards keeping electronic devices out than it is loss prevention.

Do you suppose Prime Day will ever provide deals on anything that isn't Amazon-produced, shoddily-made garbage?

Nope. Here's the truth about Prime Day:

First, it's inventory clearance for peak. People who don't work at Amazon rarely have an idea how truly colossal peak is. It takes months' worth of stocking to meet peak demand: an inbound department may process half a million units per day, but outbound's processing a quarter million daily off-peak, and once peak hits, it'll process a million units per day. Outbound peak lasts from Black Friday to Christmas Eve, inbound peak lasts from Prime Day to Christmas Eve.

That means shit that isn't likely to sell during or before peak has to go, to make room for shit that will. Prime week is basically Amazon's annual rummage sale.

Second, it's a stress test for Amazon's peak processing capacity. Basically nothing on the software side is handled locally at any FC, which means the network and software infrastructure has to be sound and of sufficient capacity to handle expected load. Meanwhile, each FC's supply chain, hardware, and conveyance has to be up to the task. And if anything's going to fuck up, they need to know it's going to fuck up, and with enough advance warning to fix it or at least figure out a workaround.

What the grossest item somebody has ever tried to return?

Used dildo that still had somebody's shit stuck to it. #2 was a...defiled...fursuit.

 

[geewizz]

What was the saddest thing you witnessed on the job?

 

[Pol Pots Pooter]

What was the saddest thing you witnessed on the job?

Baby clothes was another commonly-stolen item.

 

[I ain't having it]

I currently work for Amazon it might be because we're probably at different facilities but I have no problems with going to the bathroom. I literally go from one side of the facility to the other just to use the bathroom ( because for some reason they think it's a good idea to only have one bathroom with multiple stalls in the Warehouse side of the facility). I'll be there for 20 30 minutes and the managers can't say or do anything because people have to use the bathroom I think it's against the law to fire someone for going to the bathroom.

I don't get the hate towards the company the Works easy and Mindless I'm literally thinking about a book I'm trying to write the entire time I'm working there without paying any attention to actually doing. The only problems I have with the company is that they decided for some reason to order way more products than we have room for so now everybody of the facility who is stolen is only making like 20 to 30% of their actual rate because every bin is full . my other problem is that I have flat feet so it hurts like a bitch to stand up and I'm standing 10 hours a day 4 days a week sometimes 5 or 6 depending on overtime which they been calling a lot lately

Also I forgot to mention I'm frequently in the top 10% of my facility sorry for the double post it was a newfag moment I accidentally replied instead of edited

 

[Glad I couldn't help]

How has working at Amazon affect you politically? Do find yourself more left or right wing? Do you think unionizing Amazon would improve things?

 

[JosephStalin]

Nomadland? Haven't read it, I keep hearing it's actually pretty good.

Yup. Pretty good, well worth reading.

 

[Pol Pots Pooter]

I currently work for Amazon it might be because we're probably at different facilities but I have no problems with going to the bathroom...

Your facility probably has specific TOT rules for bathroom breaks, or your AM's and ops are pretty forgiving in writing off lost time for bathroom breaks. My facility (one of the monster legacy facilities with multiple stow mods and dual level mezzanine pack/AFE) had nine sets across the entire building, which meant we actually received no dispensation for restroom breaks. Real pain in the ass if you exited the mod only to find out the bathroom you were going to was shut down for cleaning.

I don't get the hate towards the company the Works easy and Mindless I'm literally thinking about a book I'm trying to write the entire time I'm working there without paying any attention to actually doing.

How many peaks you been there? Amazon workers tend to not start getting really salty until they've been there one, maybe two, full peaks.

The only problems I have with the company is that they decided for some reason to order way more products than we have room for so now everybody of the facility who is stolen is only making like 20 to 30% of their actual rate because every bin is full .

Site management actually has little control over that. Assuming your FC has its own receive department, FBA vendors send what they're going to send, and Seattle remotely controls vendor freight. About the best management can do, is andon and reroute/trans out to other FC's. 2017 peak was a monster clusterfuck because Irma and Harvey fucked out the JAX, DFW, and FTW hubs and forced the rest of NAFC to pick up the slack, for example. Everybody got a nice big piece of the shit cake that year.

But yeah, peak inventory is a real mess due to overstocks. I'm guessing your site management waited a bit too long to push temporary bin space, if they can at all?

my other problem is that I have flat feet so it hurts like a bitch to stand up and I'm standing 10 hours a day 4 days a week sometimes 5 or 6 depending on overtime which they been calling a lot lately

Get some Sketchers or other gel-sole running shoes. Basically anything nurses recommend, is what you'll want to look for. A good pair of insoles works too -- get good ones, not Wal-Mart Dr. Scholls trash. Diabetic compression socks really helps too, and failing that, get good padded walking socks.

How has working at Amazon affect you politically? Do find yourself more left or right wing? Do you think unionizing Amazon would improve things?

I'm already a nutso left winger, and the only opinion working at Amazon changed is my stance towards work visas. I used to believe they should just be heavily regulated, now I believe they need to be completely eliminated and corporations with histories of work visa abuse fined. What's funny is, for as much as Amazon loves to put forward this woke capitalist, progressive face, and I'm sure that's true in Seattle, most people who work there are redpilled as fuck.

The day after Trump was elected was truly a sight to behold. It was either that day, or inauguration day, we got this corporate-wide email from Bezos crying over the election outcome, how horrible it is, and how Amazon will protect its immigrant workers. Nearly pissed myself laughing, in the top five of richest men on the planet, so rich he can't even spend his money in his own lifetime, and here he is whining to 500,000 employees about the outcome of an election. Not too long after that, we got a cry-off email from Jay Carney too.

Which, speaking of, Amazon is how I realized Trump would be the next President back in 2015. I heard Trump announced his candidacy and laughed it off like everyone else, and didn't think anything of it until late fall that year. Then out of nowhere, despite moving thousands of units of MAGA merch daily, Amazon just could not keep the shit in stock. It was gone from bins almost as soon as it was stowed. Utterly fucking surreal.

Meanwhile, Hillary merchandise just would not move and a good amount of it had to be returned to vendors.

Unionizing Amazon? Doubt it'll happen. Like Wal-Mart, Amazon is rabidly anti-union and I'd expect them to go so far as to shut down entire FC's, inventory management/routing shenanigans, or resort to mass firing/rehiring, before they admit unions. It'd take a network-wide general strike to get a serious push towards it, and good luck with that.

Whether or not it would improve things? Well, things couldn't get a whole lot worse.

 

[I ain't having it]

Your facility probably has specific TOT rules for bathroom breaks, or your AM's and ops are pretty forgiving in writing off lost time for bathroom breaks. My facility (one of the monster legacy facilities with multiple stow mods and dual level mezzanine pack/AFE) had nine sets across the entire building, which meant we actually received no dispensation for restroom breaks. Real pain in the ass if you exited the mod only to find out the bathroom you were going to was shut down for cleaning.


How many peaks you been there? Amazon workers tend to not start getting really salty until they've been there one, maybe two, full peaks.


Site management actually has little control over that. Assuming your FC has its own receive department, FBA vendors send what they're going to send, and Seattle remotely controls vendor freight. About the best management can do, is andon and reroute/trans out to other FC's. 2017 peak was a monster clusterfuck because Irma and Harvey fucked out the JAX, DFW, and FTW hubs and forced the rest of NAFC to pick up the slack, for example. Everybody got a nice big piece of the shit cake that year.

But yeah, peak inventory is a real mess due to overstocks. I'm guessing your site management waited a bit too long to push temporary bin space, if they can at all?


Get some Sketchers or other gel-sole running shoes. Basically anything nurses recommend, is what you'll want to look for. A good pair of insoles works too -- get good ones, not Wal-Mart Dr. Scholls trash. Diabetic compression socks really helps too, and failing that, get good padded walking socks.


I'm already a nutso left winger, and the only opinion working at Amazon changed is my stance towards work visas. I used to believe they should just be heavily regulated, now I believe they need to be completely eliminated and corporations with histories of work visa abuse fined. What's funny is, for as much as Amazon loves to put forward this woke capitalist, progressive face, and I'm sure that's true in Seattle, most people who work there are redpilled as fuck.

The day after Trump was elected was truly a sight to behold. It was either that day, or inauguration day, we got this corporate-wide email from Bezos crying over the election outcome, how horrible it is, and how Amazon will protect its immigrant workers. Nearly pissed myself laughing, in the top five of richest men on the planet, so rich he can't even spend his money in his own lifetime, and here he is whining to 500,000 employees about the outcome of an election. Not too long after that, we got a cry-off email from Jay Carney too.

Which, speaking of, Amazon is how I realized Trump would be the next President back in 2015. I heard Trump announced his candidacy and laughed it off like everyone else, and didn't think anything of it until late fall that year. Then out of nowhere, despite moving thousands of units of MAGA merch daily, Amazon just could not keep the shit in stock. It was gone from bins almost as soon as it was stowed. Utterly fucking surreal.

Meanwhile, Hillary merchandise just would not move and a good amount of it had to be returned to vendors.

Unionizing Amazon? Doubt it'll happen. Like Wal-Mart, Amazon is rabidly anti-union and I'd expect them to go so far as to shut down entire FC's, inventory management/routing shenanigans, or resort to mass firing/rehiring, before they admit unions. It'd take a network-wide general strike to get a serious push towards it, and good luck with that.

Whether or not it would improve things? Well, things couldn't get a whole lot worse.

I've done Three Peaks

 

[NOT Sword Fighter Super]

Used dildo that still had somebody's shit stuck to it. #2 was a...defiled...fursuit.

I currently work for Amazon it might be because we're probably at different facilities but I have no problems with going to the bathroom. I literally go from one side of the facility to the other just to use the bathroom ( because for some reason they think it's a good idea to only have one bathroom with multiple stalls in the Warehouse side of the facility). I'll be there for 20 30 minutes and the managers can't say or do anything because people have to use the bathroom I think it's against the law to fire someone for going to the bathroom.



I don't get the hate towards the company the Works easy and Mindless I'm literally thinking about a book I'm trying to write the entire time I'm working there without paying any attention to actually doing. The only problems I have with the company is that they decided for some reason to order way more products than we have room for so now everybody of the facility who is stolen is only making like 20 to 30% of their actual rate because every bin is full . my other problem is that I have flat feet so it hurts like a bitch to stand up and I'm standing 10 hours a day 4 days a week sometimes 5 or 6 depending on overtime which they been calling a lot lately


Also I forgot to mention I'm frequently in the top 10% of my facility sorry for the double post it was a newfag moment I accidentally replied instead of edited

Just delete the post you don't need.

 

[Billy_Sama]

Any horrible workplace accidents at Amazon like on the South Park episode?

 

[Pol Pots Pooter]

Any horrible workplace accidents at Amazon like on the South Park episode?

Yes, including a couple major incidents at my FC which didn't result in fatalities. Somehow.

Then you had the two bear mace incidents where kiva robots punctured the cans and released the gas into the warehouse.

But in terms of fatalities, Amazon's body count last I heard, was five linked directly to workplace activities. Two people were smooshed by forklifts, another by a pallet loader, one in a trailer yard while trying to decouple a trailer from its tractor, and one dragged and crushed by conveyance. That's over the last six years.

In my experience, Amazon's safety culture is sorely lacking. An incident, however minor, happens, and management goes completely overboard for a month or two on the safety issue directly linked to the incident. At that point, awareness fades and it's back to usual until the next incident. Safety call-outs, unless it's a major showstopper incident, tend to go completely unheeded until there's an incident.

The lion's share of the problem is their safety culture is based upon liability mitigation, not harm or risk reduction. The priority in any safety incident, no matter how minor and whether or not there is an injury, is to blame and discipline the associate to divest potential liability. I've seen, and been subject to, coachings and write-ups over safety issues that were in no way the associate's fault, and the manager dug (often for days) to find some excuse to cite the associate. Even in situations where managers make unsafe calls which put associates in harm's way.

Not every manager who works there is a fuckstick, of course. But, that's the culture.

PIT safety is the biggest ongoing problem in my experience. Inbound, freight's under SLA and trucks have to be unloaded as quickly as possible; outbound, CPT's (critical pull time) have to be met for trucks to go out on time. Shit gets real on receive and ship docks, and when pressure's on (especially during peak with highly fatigued workers) PIT safety slips something fierce as operators are pressured to load/unload quicker. Especially when you're involved in anything that involves cross-dock operations and have to manually move pallets through PIT lanes, or cross PIT lanes.

Research done correlating health risks and substance abuse and energy drinks is relatively new, but at least based on my experience in my FC working in and around outbound dock workers, it can't come soon enough. I knew one individual, a tier 3, on outbound dock who'd pound a five-hour energy at start of shift, a monster on first break, a second five-hour energy during lunch, and another monster at last break. Just to keep up with his workload, and he'd end up in the hospital about twice a year for stomach, liver, and gallbladder problems. Ridiculous.

I will say, the one thing Amazon does not tolerate under any circumstance are TDR and yard fuck-ups. Which is the way it should be, but the problem is TDR and PIT personnel don't get pay differentials which means you avoid the job like the plague if you know what's best for you.

 

[JosephStalin]

Your facility probably has specific TOT rules for bathroom breaks, or your AM's and ops are pretty forgiving in writing off lost time for bathroom breaks. My facility (one of the monster legacy facilities with multiple stow mods and dual level mezzanine pack/AFE) had nine sets across the entire building, which meant we actually received no dispensation for restroom breaks. Real pain in the ass if you exited the mod only to find out the bathroom you were going to was shut down for cleaning.


How many peaks you been there? Amazon workers tend to not start getting really salty until they've been there one, maybe two, full peaks.


Site management actually has little control over that. Assuming your FC has its own receive department, FBA vendors send what they're going to send, and Seattle remotely controls vendor freight. About the best management can do, is andon and reroute/trans out to other FC's. 2017 peak was a monster clusterfuck because Irma and Harvey fucked out the JAX, DFW, and FTW hubs and forced the rest of NAFC to pick up the slack, for example. Everybody got a nice big piece of the shit cake that year.

But yeah, peak inventory is a real mess due to overstocks. I'm guessing your site management waited a bit too long to push temporary bin space, if they can at all?


Get some Sketchers or other gel-sole running shoes. Basically anything nurses recommend, is what you'll want to look for. A good pair of insoles works too -- get good ones, not Wal-Mart Dr. Scholls trash. Diabetic compression socks really helps too, and failing that, get good padded walking socks.


I'm already a nutso left winger, and the only opinion working at Amazon changed is my stance towards work visas. I used to believe they should just be heavily regulated, now I believe they need to be completely eliminated and corporations with histories of work visa abuse fined. What's funny is, for as much as Amazon loves to put forward this woke capitalist, progressive face, and I'm sure that's true in Seattle, most people who work there are redpilled as fuck.

The day after Trump was elected was truly a sight to behold. It was either that day, or inauguration day, we got this corporate-wide email from Bezos crying over the election outcome, how horrible it is, and how Amazon will protect its immigrant workers. Nearly pissed myself laughing, in the top five of richest men on the planet, so rich he can't even spend his money in his own lifetime, and here he is whining to 500,000 employees about the outcome of an election. Not too long after that, we got a cry-off email from Jay Carney too.

Which, speaking of, Amazon is how I realized Trump would be the next President back in 2015. I heard Trump announced his candidacy and laughed it off like everyone else, and didn't think anything of it until late fall that year. Then out of nowhere, despite moving thousands of units of MAGA merch daily, Amazon just could not keep the shit in stock. It was gone from bins almost as soon as it was stowed. Utterly fucking surreal.

Meanwhile, Hillary merchandise just would not move and a good amount of it had to be returned to vendors.

Unionizing Amazon? Doubt it'll happen. Like Wal-Mart, Amazon is rabidly anti-union and I'd expect them to go so far as to shut down entire FC's, inventory management/routing shenanigans, or resort to mass firing/rehiring, before they admit unions. It'd take a network-wide general strike to get a serious push towards it, and good luck with that.

Whether or not it would improve things? Well, things couldn't get a whole lot worse.

Very interesting re Trump and 2015. Any idea how the MAGA merchandise is moving these days?