Like the rest of you, we have always pictured Amazon’s magical packing and shipping department as a pleasant oversized igloo on the moon full of merry little elves scurrying to and fro among piles of strawberry bon bons and gold ribbons. As it turns out, however, a newspaper investigation reveals that it is actually, hahahahahaha, just a perilously overheated warehouse in Pennsylvania crammed with sweaty, exhausted, dehydrated temporary employees who work deliriously until they drop so they can be carted out on waiting stretchers and wheelchairs and replaced by the next job applicants waiting in line. Capitalism Jesus is so proud!
The Morning Call reports after interviewing 48 former workers:
Workers said they were forced to endure brutal heat inside the sprawling warehouse and were pushed to work at a pace many could not sustain. Employees were frequently reprimanded regarding their productivity and threatened with termination, workers said. The consequences of not meeting work expectations were regularly on display, as employees lost their jobs and got escorted out of the warehouse. Such sights encouraged some workers to conceal pain and push through injury lest they get fired as well, workers said.
During summer heat waves, Amazon arranged to have paramedics parked in ambulances outside, ready to treat any workers who dehydrated or suffered other forms of heat stress. Those who couldn’t quickly cool off and return to work were sent home or taken out in stretchers and wheelchairs and transported to area hospitals. And new applicants were ready to begin work at any time.
The article goes on to note that this system works pretty well for Amazon, since there are no actual laws on workplace temperatures and the high turnover rate means they rarely have to pay any benefits to workers since they are not permanent hires, to avoid socialism. [The Morning Call]
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{ 211 comments }
Ick! Someone got their perspiration on my diamond studded ben wa balls in the shipping department at Amazon?
That's not perspiration, Barb.
Yes, but in a strange twist of fate, I was also ordering cases of Gatorade from Amazon. If only the sweaty Bettys knew what was in those cases!
On another note, has anyone been able to find Ben & Jerry's newest flavor "Schwetty Balls" in their grocer's freezer?
Yes I have located Ben & Jerry's newest flavor. But it's way overrated. The schweat on the balls has completely frozen.
Thank you for your ice cream review. I got some B&J's Peanut Butter World today.
WIN! For Ben Wa. Many years ago in San Francisco I had a bumper sticker made for my girlfriend – "Ben Wah For Mayor."
She immediately put it on her car.
Yeah, that's bad and all…but I just saved 35% and got free super saver shipping!
No sales tax, either!
Motherf*ck. I just ordered Dignity from Amazon and if I see ONE DROP of Pennsyltucky Mexican sweat on that book, Imma send the motherf*cker back for a full refund.
Don't worry, I live in Philadelphia and can assure you that the people from central PA are mainly mouth-breathing dimwits who would like nothing better than to shoot you in your book-learned homo librul face.
To be fair, son of privilege Bob Casey would also like to shoot us in the face.
i'd be upset, but I wouldn't want them to take away "my recommendations."
I somehow assumed that the Amazon warehouse was pretty much fully automated. Conveyors, robot arms, and the like. Why the heck don't the have a.c., at least to protect their stock if not the workers?
Amazon are a Seattle-based company; A/C is a foreign concept. They probably think that summer means that it's a pleasant 80-degrees in the warehouse.
They are, however, compulsive about dehumidifiers, I'd imagine.
No. Being good marketers, they sell mildewed tomes as factory-direct vintage.
The computers controlling the conveyor systems are in a climate controlled room, like the offices are. The stock is kept dry with the heat system, which also drys out the employees. How much you want to bet no one gets to take a water bottle out on the floor?
They'll get my Nalgene when they pry it from my calloused, sweaty hands.
Surprisingly if they were fully automated it would be air conditioned since the robots and computers can't take extreme heat.
That's probably eventually what they'll do-replace most of the humans with robotic picking options, THEN add AC to the building, to protect their new investment doncha know.
Oh, non-job-producing workers, stop your whinging, think of those more unfortunate among us who have to feed their families on only 600 thousand a year, like poor John Fleming.
Poor Fleming. If he makes another $400k, his taxes might go up (for any $ over 1M). Gotta be tough.
Exactly — Rep. Flemming needs those discounted prices on luxury goods to stretch his paltry 'left over' $400,000 and maintain his 'job creator' lifestyle.
He may not even be able to afford his own personal aircraft yet.
Buck up, employees! Winter's coming!
snark off–This makes me glad I just do the e-book thing on my iPad, but if everyone did that then all these fine folks would be out of a job. It's a quandary.
Eh, apparently they'll all be out of a job pretty soon anyway.
Not really a quandary. They could end up working for the company that makes the e-book. You're not eliminating demand you're shifting it.
The Kindle is an immense pain in the ass to create e-materials for, so I hate the thing on that principal alone. Yay iPad, Nook, generic E-Readers–anything but that fukkin' Kindle.
What you say of the Kindle the world said of Apple, pre-iPod. I mean, do you remember ClarisWorks?
This is a former DHL warehouse, and if anyone knows how to build workhouses that squeeze the most labor from the workers, it's the Germans.
like this?
http://youtu.be/F-oomS4awqY
Sam Peckinpaw safety training.
you know who else…oh, um…too soon?
I hear Work Will Set Me Free…true?
Oh and LOL–fucking Klaus. I swear I worked with that idiot. It sure looked like the warehouse. And the blood splatter on the work bell looked familiar.
So what you're saying is that working at Amazon is a lot like working in the Amazon?
Or being captured by the Amazons. But not like in the sexy fantasies. Mean, unattractive Amazons. Who don't give lapdances.
It's a dry heat. Picture Phoenix in the shade…
Fewer poisonous snakes in Pennsylvania, thankfully.
But without the surrounding lush natural beauty…unless you count the yeast culture growing on Carl's neck.
"So what you're saying is that working at Amazon is a lot like working in the Amazon?"
But with less snoo-snoo.
Oh, wait.
That's working *for* Amazons.
My bad.
The Koch brothers own Amazon?
No. The Koch brothers own America…
which is where the Amazon factory is…
Shit.
Bezos finances right wing nuts, too.
His contributions are pretty bipartisan, but yeah, Bezos is a schmuck. http://www.newsmeat.com/billionaire_political_don...
Greek, I'm guessing? Malaca to him, then.
No; an American "job creator" owns Amazon.
No, a rival cabal of robber barons. Different but not better.
Does this mean every time I use my Amazon Prime account (free 2 day shipping!) another Amish on Rumspringa dies of heatstroke?
Hunh… the warehouse is in Pennsylsconsin.
(…a little piece of Scott Walker's Wisconsin in Pennsyltucky.)
Dare I ask who pays for the ER visits?
All of us pay… it's just like what Walmart does, and what could be more American than that?
What's good for Amazon is good for the syndicate, and everyone has a share.
This time Milo had gone too far. Bombing his own men and planes was more than even the most phlegmatic observer could stomach, and it looked like the end for him. … Milo was all washed up until he opened his books to the public and disclosed the tremendous profit he had made.
Milo was a job creator.
Ah, good ole fashioned American socialism. You know, the nation that uses socialism as a last resort when it's at its most expensive.
How sad, instead of little, happy elves it's oompa-loompas dying of heat exhaustion. WTF, Amazon? Did you get bought out by Walmart?
The pigs and the farmers are pretty much the same!
Amazon can afford to discount new releases by 45% but not air conditioning? Fuck that shit.
Weal, yeah; "manual laborers treated like shit by employers" has been the norm since the Reagan years; this isn't news, this is the horrific normal state of modern America, and completely expected. The only surprise would have been if even one single laborer at Amazon's warehouses was ever treated humanely, with one single ounce of compassion.
Man Bites Dog indeed!
Since books are my religion (no lie, I actually put "books" on a hospital admission form in the blank for religion), I had thought of Amazon as having a slightly higher standard.
I'm such a big silly sometimes.
Welcome to Ron Paul's America!
Awesome…more amoral fucksticks. Christ on a Super Saver deal…is there anything I can buy that's not helping to fuck over some schlub? I'd throw my Kindle (and yes…I'm sorry I bought the fucking thing now) against a wall, but at least the books I buy aren't helping someone die of heatstroke.
This is an interesting trick in the warehousing business: Supposedly by heating the interior it drys it and makes the climate inside drier (better for the goodies) and more liveable (again, supposedly) for the employees. I have heard of it being used in distibution centers in many places in the south. The emphasis is on keeping the product dry and free from the effects of humidity. Merchandise tolerates dry heat better than people do. I suppose some idiot in management figured a little works, a lot would work better. Oops. From what I have seen of Distro center work, it isn't as bad as picking lettuce, but kissing close. And yes, they go through employees like poop through a goose, not only because it is one way to avoid paying them any benefits, but it also is a fine humanitarian gesture on their part to teach kids coming into the job market, and adults that may still be living in the past, that they are disposable and not really *of* the human race, just a fungible temporary asset to be tossed when broken or not performing to "standard". (It isn't just Amazon, it is any retail operation, particularly those with high mix shipments like WalMart, KMart, Target, etc.). Happy shopping everyone! (edited to add-They probably can write it off as a benefit since it could be considered an employee sauna)
Heat makes books decay quicker. Serious academic libraries, esp. with antique books, keep them as cool as they can, to make everything last longer.
Very true, but Amazon is not a library, the shelf life of anything there is less than a month. If they dealt with antiquities I have no doubt they would have one section devoted to them that was temperature controlled as they do frozen peas and things of that nature. But the bulk of what they sell deals quite well in the short term with dry heat, hot enough to make a human sick, but well within tolerances for a flat screen television or computer or book to live in for a few weeks, waiting to rotate out from the pallet, onto the conveyor, and off to the dock to the UPS or FedEx trucks.
"You're no one. … You have no thoughts, you have no feelings. You work and that's all you do — until you get too old and we throw you away." — Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 3, Episode 1 (way back in 1998 when such things were horror instead of just the norm).
yeah but what impact will this have on christine o'donnell's dildo and majicks page?
huh. maybe i'm glad i don't have a job.
O/T, but because Two Broke Girls has gotten good reviews and looks like it might be worth watching, I just caught the last few minutes of Two and a Half Men. How does something so horrible and unfunny get watched by anyone, let alone become the most popular comedy in America?
How much toot did Charlie Sheen do?
Enough to kill two and a half men.
See HL Mencken on "ways in which no one ever went broke"
It's not like the Tea Baggers can afford satellite & they sure as hell aren't going to watch PBS.
Wait'll you see the spinoff, starring Chris Christie: "Two and a Half Tons"
Come on, man. This is the nation of WalMart.
See. We are catching up to the Chinese.
Nah, still behind. In China the ambulance would charge them for the ride and stretcher rental. That's job creation!
Thank God we are not going to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans. I'm sure they will use their money to by some squirt bottles to help cool down the wealth producing members of society who they pay $8.00/hr to.
they just send their hellish offspring down to the warehouse to spit on the employees. cheaper than water and fun for the kids.
This is Republicans we're talking about, so they'll probably piss on the employees…mostly, because it has the consequence of getting the pissers off.
unless, of course, the employees were on fire.
Touche.
I think I'll just leave a space below in case I can think of anything at all funny to say about this later.
——————————————————————————————
So what you're saying is, Amazon is hiring.
Gotta love those job creators.
Constantly…
I had a summer job like that when I was a college kid in NC. There were senior citizen types very close to retirement working in there for like five bucks an hour. I do recall one or two of those poor old gals barfing and passing out cold in the heat. Jobs. So awesome they are.
You had to do that for a full summer? Ouch. I had a job like that for about a week and a half, before luckily getting a better office temp job; although I was already liberal that experience briefly going through a small part of what the truly poor have to deal with daily; along with talking to some of the real underclass when the "no chit-chat; more work!" manager was far away; probably fully turned me into a commie-socialist.
And because of the timing of that thankfully brief job, when someone asks me where I was on 9/11, my honest answer is "working in a sweatshop". And after about fifteen minutes, one of the managers found out what was going on and stopped threatening to fire people for using their cell phones.
i have a recurring 'you are a hero' fantasy wherein i subject myself to some horrific trial by fire and then get to expose it and am a HERO.
but then i realize i would have to, you know, undergo that horrific trial by fire.
My stepmother once worked in an over-all factory (in Storm Lake, Iowa, S. King's home, it occurs to me!). The formaldehyde (or whatever) were so over-powering that the women workers regularly passed out and had to be hauled outdoors and laid on the grass to recover! This was in the '60s and '70s, when supposedly things were better for working people. Cthulhu only knows how bad things are now. Probably no more over-all factory at all now, only IBP's horrible packing plant operation.
UPS had this act down in its hubs decades ago. Plus, they could use the working conditions to justify not having anyone work a full time schedule (too hard on the poor people, don't you know) so no one got healthcare to deal with the back problems/carpal tunnel syndrome/knee blowouts, etc.
Yeah, UPS (originally a Seattle company, like Amazon) owns this shit. When I was in college, I was living with my cousin, who was was a distribution warehouse worker on the graveyard shift at UPS while I was a night bellhop at a the Pacific Plaza hotel a couple miles away in downtown. He was making 9 bucks an hour and I was making 7 (plus tips). We'd see each other in the morning when we both got home at about 8am.
Me: "What's you do last night?"
Him: [holds up bleeding hands]
Me: "I got high with the night auditor, watched MTV and fell asleep in the lobby until the morning shift woke me up."
Oh boy, you were such a douchebag, weren't you?
My son worked at UPS…he fell and messed up his knee in one of the trucks he was loading it took 9 months and.threat of a lawsuit to get them to, pay up for all the medical bills.
UPS treats its workers like shit, expects ridiculous, unrealistic efficiency rates and doesn't give a rat's ass about safety. They never have and in this country there's certainly no incentive for them to change.
And they are the model the USPS is supposed to shift towards to get competitive (or Fedex – same shit, different corporate bullwhip).
In one place I worked a summer job at in the food processing industry they had a running pool on which one of the newbies would be the first to pass out on their first night. I worked in rooms full of 375 degree coconut oil deep fryers and giant ovens. then you went into the packing room which was about 50 degrees cooler. When I came in the bet was 3 days before I quit, I survived the summer. But you would watch these kids get pale as copy paper, hit that cold air just past the insulating curtain in packing and they'd hit the deck like someone clubbed them. It wasn't just a job, it was an adventure
I almost never buy from Amazon, preferring Powell's (Portland hipsters!) and local indy bookstores anyway.
Looks like now it's time to get rid of that "almost" .
i always thought powell's was a chicago (hyde park) invention.
but i am often wrong. and frequently drunk.
1 out of two ain't bad.
You mean Starbucks didn't start in Chicago?!
If it weren't for the U of C and Magic Johnson, Starbucks would have never discovered that black folks will pay for overpriced coffee, too.
And they even have benefits for their employees…who'da thunk it.
Those interviewed say turnover at the warehouse is high and many hires don't last more than a few months.
Bless you, short-term Amazon employees, you are the job creators!
Kirsten:
Just what is it about the Amazon operation that made you think they would treat employees as anything other than completely disposable parts?
The internet business strategy that works is to become the lowest-cost provider. No matter where firms start, that is where they end up because that is THE way to make a buck on the WWW.
I always assumed the owners were fuck'em harder and deeper type libertarians!
Speaking of which, if SOMEBODY doesn't start cranking out articles at a more Gawker-like pace…well, Mexicans will snark at a quarter of the cost, is all I'm saying.
CLASS WARFARE!!!!!
Sounds like a country club!!!!
True capitalists would work these people until they dropped DEAD – and then burn their corpses to heat the place.
Sheeeeesss, thanks OSHA for destroying America!!!
Wait, you forgot the part where they take out life insurance policies on the employees and then the "job creators" collect the insurance monies on the dead, for fun and profit!
Oh, and since we're unhappy with our online mail-order overlords, there's this email a lot of us got today:
Dear Doktor Zoom,
I messed up. I owe you an explanation.
It is clear from the feedback over the past two months that many members felt we lacked respect and humility in the way we announced the separation of DVD and streaming and the price changes. That was certainly not our intent, and I offer my sincere apology. Let me explain what we are doing…
And then the stupid shithead goes on to explain that not only are the price increases not being rescinded, they're actually going to make using the two now completely separate parts of the service less convenient (as a couple of bloggers pointed out, this may be a means of making it less obvious that the stuff on the streaming service is far more limited than the stuff on DVD).
Wow. I frickin' love these job creators.
Dear Dr. Zoom: Fuck you – and by the way – fuck you again!!!!!
Your friends at Amazon
They say the problem is "we lacked respect and humility " but I say "an increase by about 50% out of the blue for no clear reason".
Somehow I managed to get through that whole tortured post-break up apology email.
After the first price increase I was pretty much ok with it considering how much use I was getting out of the service. Many people have access to my account and watch instantly and my really young sisters (with whom I don't live) get all the disney movies their hearts desire. I was always terrible at turning in movies anyway. Win-win-win.
But Qwikster? Really?
Ah, shit…I thought it was just me.
If it's any consolation, I just cancelled the 'one-dvd-out-at-a-time" portion of my service and gypped them out of an entire $7.99/mo. Little Suzie's gotta have her streaming Inspector Gadget (the Don Adams animated one, not that Matthew Broderick crap) and Yo Gabba Gabba.
Plus, better to give Netflix $7.99/mo than to give DirectTV/Newscorp $100/mo…
But it's a fun and crazy Rock 'n Roll atmosphere.
Please recycle the Pieces of Flair on the corpses!
Bring out yer dead! Bring out yer dead!
Is this a Pennsylvania thing, like scrapple? Didn't Hershey's or someone just get outed as being nasty to Europeans on temporary work permits? For all their whining about alleged socialism, corporations are almost getting away with murder. I think they like this lingering recession, what with all the surplus cheaper hands and all.
No, you're wrong; corporations aren't "almost getting away with murder", you have to take out the "almost".
How about we split the difference with the polite phrase, “on occasion”?Wait, don’t hit me…
Yeah. I think it was in Sweden – I heard it on NPR.
You heard NPR in Sweden? Amazing…Hey, did you see the glaciers while you were there?
Wi nøt trei a høliday in Sweden this yer? See the løveli lakes… The wonderful telephøne system…And mani interesting furry animals, including the majestic møøse.
Oh, you'll just love this:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904...
But the [60%] tax doesn't appear to be doing anything to dim the enthusiasm for the local start-ups
It actually is a great deal like scrapple, yes.
Somebody needs to get up on a table, all Norma Rae-style, and organize these folks. *whistles "Union Maid"*
Are there no workhou….oh, wait.
Here in Oklahoma, your injuns, blacks, and whitetrash are EXPECTED to work for minimum wage in INHOSPITABLE conditions. What PART of REICHT TO WORGK do you NOT understand?
I saw a severely crippled man today, crawling with his walker, out of his BEAT UP OLD Izuzu pickup, with all these slogans pasted all over: Get out of the UN. Progressive equals slavery, etc, etc. It was SO out of line that even the Birchers were gawking at it. But, i MET THIS OLD MAN. He was a full-blooded retard. Couldn't even speak. I helped him pick out dish washing liquid. Pitiful what the repubtards are terrorizing for votes.
You know who else kept sweaty, exhausted, dehydrated temporary employees in cramped, overheated workspaces, working them deliriously until they dropped?
Willy Wonka, founder and CEO of Wonkette?
WIN
No, I don't! And neither do any of YOU, if you know what's good for you…
John D. Rockefeller?
Andrew Carnegie?
Cornelius Vanderbilt?
J. P. Morgan?
Henry Ford?
Howard Hughes?
Hugh Hefner?
Lee Iacocca?
Bill Gates?
Steve Jobs?
Mark Zuckerberg?
So, uh….all of….
yeah.
Richard Gere?
You leave the gerbils out of this!
Ahmed Gerbril?
Khalil Gerbilran?
Walt Disney?
Ron Jeremy?
The Founding Fathers?
Santa?
Ol' Sammy Walmart?
And the best part is there are no taxes on internet purchases. Get out of the way government.
Stupid libruls donnot recognize a lamestream media story when it sees one. Amazon is all roboty and electrics. I see it on my own commuter screen every day. If it has a whorehouse in Pennsylvania, it is a side business, and the girls shoulddnot be working there anyway. So, there.
There are two Amazon Warehouse nearby and this fits with what I've hear about them. I've know several people who worked there that said the place was a "meat grinder." While I have heard some of the management say the pay is pretty good, they say the corporate environment is awful.
Well, if they turn on the air conditioning, then the books would only be 34% less than at a brick-and-mortar instead of 35%, thereby taking 1% longer to run that brick-and-mortar out of business. And that's not capitalism, people.
I would think they would have A/C to at least protect the merchandise.
Actually, I've always pictured Amazon's warehouse as a depressing place staffed with sardonic, depressed, 90's grunge-era rejects. The saddest little elves in town.
OT: Watching the Charlie sheen roast. These things are usually brutual, but fuck if this ain't the most brutal one I've seen. It makes the Trump roast look like a tea party, you know, the actual ones, not the bitter, violent American movement.
Was O'Neal kidding (well, he's a comedian..but still) ? He seemed really pissed at some of the other roasters. Yeah, it was mostly cringed laughter .
I really don't think he was. He was genuinely pissed, and I did understand it, though, I think he could have been more subtle in how he responded and won the night. I think he forgot or doesn't know that Shatner is a Jew.
Well this is exactly how the Russian Revolution started out. Low paid workers having to work extra extra hard or get fired and a line of applicants outside.
OT, but since a good soul in the Breitbart (ptoooey!) thread reminded me that today is Talk Like A Pirate Day, here are some steampunky Airship Pirates for ye scurvy dogs and booty-seekers.
Well, it's as simple as this: no Christmas presents from Amazon for any of the Jukes family. No Hershey's candy in their stockings either. (Or in trick or treat bags, either, and I'm always especially generous with the neighborhood kids on Halloween. Nestles it it, unless you tell me something horrible about them in the coming month.)
Happy to oblige.
(Actually, I was once labeled a Very Bad Person and a Corporate Lackey and a Threat to "The Movement" by a classmate in the 80's, when I brought fun-sized Nestle Crunch bars to our the women's studies class; he'd thoroughly derailed the class the week before with a completely off-topic rant about the boycott, which was far more of a current thing then. He was one of those guys who tries to out-feminist all the women in a women's studies class, where I was one of those guys who took the subject seriously enough but still snickered at anyone who though that spelling it "womyn" would bring The Revolution.)
(And I wore an onion on my belt, 'cause that was the fashion in those days.)
Well, I guess I have no choice except to give the kiddies drugs.
And I thought two of my summers spent working at Hooker Chemicals and Plastics Corporation (think Love Canal) was a shit hole. That seems to be Shangra La compared to this bullshit.
Also, seeing those guys in their early 50's all dying from cancer from years of working in that shit hole did a lot to shape my opinion of the scumbags running corporate America.
Oh, I have similar fond memories of working in a grey iron foundry. Starting at age 14.
You think mountains of books and assorted frippery make an unconditioned warehouse hot? Um, I have some 3000F degree molten iron I'd like you to meet. When we passed out, which in summer was fairly frequent, we just hoped someone would push us off the steaming molding dirt (also, chemical laden…solidarity B-Wolf!) we'd just fallen into.
But seriously, Hooker? For olds like me, that rings true as a genuinely evil pit. Oofa.
Pretty soon you can hide your special purchases from your spouse by shipping them to an Amazon Locker. Also: at least some delivery guy won't have to shlep OMG IN THE OPPRESSIVE HEAT OMG all the way to your house to deliver your sex toys; instead dropping them at an anonymous location so you can pick them up on the way home from work. Good on you, Amazon.
http://agreatbigcity.com/amazon-lockers-appear-in...
New workers arrive in
Choose a shipping speed:
-FREE Super Saver Shipping (5-8 business days)
-FREE Two-Day Shipping with a free trial of Amazon Prime –get them Thursday, September 22 (Learn more)
-Standard Shipping (3-5 business days)
-Two-Day Shipping –get them Thursday, September 22
-One-Day Shipping –get them Wednesday, September 21
I suppose it would take a day or two tacked on to those times to get the ones from India or China?
Yuck, I've been buying shit off these guys. Yuck.
A long time ago, I was thinking about buying used car stereo equipment at a price that could only imply they were stolen. I told an older and wiser friend about what I thought was a cagey streetwise and savvy purchase. He rebuked me. He pointed out that by purchasing such merchandise, I was contributing to the sullying of my own town.
This is now how I feel about Amazon.
Just buy the used stuff from the marketplace. Books that used to cost $35.00, now $1.61 plus postage, plus, you're not dealing with people who toil in that sweaty Pennsylvania warehouse.
Of course, you may be dealing instead with a creepy used bookstore proprietor who lures minors into his shop with promises of ragged old paperbacks of classic science fiction and then molests them in the "Human Sexuality" section in the back of the store. But at least he's not exploiting them for profit!
This explains the hand-written note that I found with my latest purchase, signed by someone named "Packer #49." It simply said "Help me!!!!!."
Imagine what the poor shlubs who work at the Netflix warehouse have to go through.
Netflix workers will be relieved of their burden soon enough, by the imminent implosion of the business.
Oh boo hoo, cry babies. This is the american life, you stupid obamabot leftie commie sex freaks. Kiss ass and shut up. Welcome to my world, And pray that the Texas drought ends and you get some tips.
God is clearly punishing Texas for Dick Perry.
So, on Morning Joe, Joe is currently bitching about how the poor, persecuted business community and how they feel Obama is being so mean. And he's the "reasonable" conservative on television. **facepalm** Have these fuckers no shame? Can't we shed tears for the real and actual victims in this class war? You know, most workers in this country who've been ground under by their unforgiving Wall Street steamroller and astroturfer?
Talk about misplaced sympathies. It's like being present during the sinking of the Titanic, and bitching about how the rich women in the lifeboats are getting their dresses ruined by the saltwater while the steerage class is literally trying to find debris to prop themselves up on while they are crying out and freezing to death in the water.
Marie Antoinette doesn't have nothin' on these bastards. They make her look like Mother freakin' Teresa.
the outsourcing company is called "Integrity Staffing Solutions",
you know, there was some people in Germany who make labor worked until they collapse and called it a "Solution"
"Are you tired of trying one temp agency after another, and getting inadequate help each time? No more of the revolving door! Integrity Staffing gives you final solutions"
And they had SS in their initials too! Coinkydink?
This One Weird Old Tip Will Get You Books For Free! – Why Amazon Hates Me. Did you know there's a place where you can get your books for FREE? Yes, it's true. And it's staffed by cheerful little older ladies who are happy to work there. Sometimes, you can get even get them to actually PURCHASE a new book for you. Just send me $20, PayPal accepted, and I'll fill you in on this amazing little secret.
That's Ben Franklin socialism, right there.
I posted this story to my FB page and one of my "friends" (seriously…I never met the woman…how does that happen?) laughingly said "so that's how I get my orders so fast". To which I responded, "I too like my orders scented with sweat and despair" and that gave me an idea. These sweaty downtrodden workers should wring out their shirts and bandanas into each package. That will give us 600k-ers a real scents of their dilemma.
Looks like I'm going to have to totally return the Barbara Ehrenreich book and "Harlan County U.S.A." DVD I just ordered.
Amazon has re-invented the 19th century worker experience, updated with computers to make sure no one stops working for 30 seconds.
I live in a retail-deprived region of US America, if you can imagine such a thing, where Amazon always seemed like the obvious alternative to our only shopping option: Walmart. With two days' forethought, so I thought, I could avoid buying lead paint toys made by Indonesian children. I suppose we could look on the bright side (?) — at least these are American adults that are being exploited, and not brown children?
Nope. No bright side. We're all doomed.
Warehouses can get brutally hot in the summer like a giant oven, but 'responsible' companies can take steps to keep workers cool and healthy.
Book lovers should buy books from people who love books:
<a href="http://www.TatteredCover.com” target=”_blank”>www.TatteredCover.com
<a href="http://www.Powells.com” target=”_blank”>www.Powells.com
Both also wonderful brick-and-mortar stores. Not sure about Powell's, but the Tattered Cover is an employee-owned cooperative that — imagine this — shares its profits with the people who work there. They also have comfortable chairs all around the store where you can sit and read books for as long as you want.
It made sense to give Internet merchants a tax break when they started out, but Amazon is now a giant crushing local merchants all around the country. That's okay, but they should collect and pay sales tax just like every other mail order merchant has always done. And they should quit fucking around in California initiative politics (admittedly way too temptingly east to do).
Powells is not employee owned – but is privately held and they treat their employees like human beings – at least from what I have heard.
That works too. Great store(s), but could use more chairs.
They definitely let their employees show their peronalities (at least as long as that personality is Portland weird). I don't know how they are treated, but that alone makes them better than a lot of places in the marketplace.
… *gasp*… but… *pant*… what does it cost *cough*… with my employee discount…*keel*?
If the workers are illegal, they can be threatened that going to hospital will get them deported.
Wow. About 20 years ago I worked in a manufacturing facility that had to allow us to stop all work when the temps soared above @102 degrees. It may have been a loud, smelly, dirty, carcinogen-filled workplace, but at least we had that. Look at all the Republican progress we've made! They can be so proud!
I imagine if I worked there now, they'd just dump our bodies into the caustic tank after we fainted and let it dissolve us.
BTW, is Amazon still supporting dogfighting by selling videos of same? I think so. The Dollar Rules! USA,USA!
Scott Walker is so jealous.
wait a second, are they working in the Amazon?
Here's one more thing wrong w/Amazon: got a Kindle as a gift, and left it in the seatback in front of me on a flight from somewhere to somewhere. Oh well, not that big a deal, and it was terrible at showing books with any kinds of pictures or tabular data. Then it occurred to me that whoever found it could use my account to order books at will. So I wrote to Amazon and said (1) cancel my account, and (2) tell me who's got my Kindle. They did (1) but not (2). I said, "Why won't you tell me?" They said, "We won't," and that's as far as that got, although after a while they finally refunded me the value of the "books" I'd bought for the Kindle.
"we have always pictured Amazon’s magical packing and shipping department as a pleasant oversized igloo on the moon full of merry little elves scurrying to and fro among piles of strawberry bon bons and gold ribbons."
Really?
Personally, I've always pictured them as sliding down batpoles and going down a hallway with a series of high-tech doors that open with a fingerprint as James Bond movie-type music plays in the background, and eventually arriving at the secret underground lair filled with books (!!!), but maybe that's just me.
Can they at least give them Brawndo or something?
It's got what people treated as less important than plants crave.
The Amazon Jungle
By Upton Sinclair?
The least Amazon could do is add some humidity so it'll actually feel like the Amazon.
My Amazon Prime renewed Monday. Read this on Gawker last night. Cancelled and got refund for Prime today, stated I would not order from Amazon anymore. I trust fully that the Indian call center worker will pass my complaint on and within days the warehouse will be air conditioned and comfortable. Also, fuckin' go Morning Call, broke a national scandal story! Not bad for my old stomping grounds.
Oh, but hey, trade unions and OSHA is teh evil! We don't need communists or gubbmint interfering in the market place. The "job creaters" might send our jerbs over teh China or India!
Hmm…I can only see the first couple sentences, but you obviously have a subscription…should we trust so-called "Wonketteers" who can read full-length WSJ articles, O running-dog lackey of the imperialist oppressors?
User of Owls? Or CAPITALIST EXPLOITER of Owls?
Morey Hamsterdam?
none of these individuals sound like Jerboa Creators. not like Ermine Cain or John Lemming.
They tirk err JERBLS!!!
Or like Newt Gingrich.
Sometimes, the names just write themselves.
DIRKA DERRRR!!!
OK, that one's really a stretch. You can't just throw in any random collection of phonemes–absurdly funny though they may be– and pretend it's a name.
The key with Schweddy Balls is to lick them. So, it would almost be best to serve the flavor on a cone.
Chef? Is that you?
OK, then — Darryl Strawberry.
Well that's bloody odd. If you use that link above, you do in fact get the proletarian half-paragraph. But if you go through Google News search, as I did last night while I occupied Wall Street and stuffed rags into Molotovs, out poops the whole fascist-generated article.
They're fucking with me. Again.
oh, weird. A google search on the bit you quoted does indeed bring up the full article. Ah, the glories of the Paywall.
OK, you can rejoin our Revolutionary Cell. But I expect you to practice extensive self-criticism until you are cured of your bourgeois backsliding.
And don't be ridiculous– they're not fucking with you. That gaslight never dims at all when I'm here.
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