Posted on 11/12/2013 3:13:48 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
“Every day is now an Amazon delivery day.” So says Dave Clark, Amazon’s vice president of worldwide operations and customer service, announcing a deal with the United States Postal Service that will allow the delivery of Amazon purchases on Sunday.
Clark is guilty of some exaggeration. To qualify, you must be a member of Amazon’s $79-a-year Amazon Prime program. And when the service begins on Nov. 17, it will only be available in New York and Los Angeles, though there are plans to gradually expand to other cities. But the gist is clear: Amazon’s message to everyone who has lived through the hell of waiting until Monday for delivery of a purchase is straightforward: Your nightmare is over.
Maybe so, but my nightmare is just beginning. Some may cheer the news that Amazon’s commitment to ultimate consumer fulfillment will not be denied by any so-called “day of rest.” But the spectacle of Amazon Sunday also manages to capture, in a tidy package delivered right to everyone’s doorstep, both the ongoing collapse of government and the subservience of everything in our society to the unnecessary satiation of consumer desires. Sound the heretic alarm! Guess what? We don’t need Sunday deliveries. We really don’t. But we do need a functional government.
Wasn’t it just the other day we were hearing that the USPS would cease deliveries on Saturday? (Congress, for the moment, has squashed this idea.) Now here’s Amazon to the rescue! Terms of the deal haven’t been released, but you’d have to guess that Jeff Bezos is paying a tidy sum to get mail carriers out and about on Sundays. The lesson offered is pathetic. The U.S. government can no longer adequately fund the postal service. But Amazon can!
I suppose it’s not quite accurate to lambaste the provision of a new delivery option as yet another example of the relentless ongoing privatization of public services. But it is still unsettling. Amazon’s obvious goal is to get more Amazon Prime signups. What Sunday deliveries by the USPS really mean is that a government service is being co-opted as part an Amazon marketing campaign. I don’t think this is what Ben Franklin had in mind.
But we get packages on Sunday, so it’s all good, right? Because what the consumer wants is best, right? Because success in the current era of capitalism is fundamentally predicated on consumer bliss, right?
Well, what about the workers? The Wall Street Journal reports that the USPS won’t have to hire any new workers to provide Sunday deliveries.
"…[O]fficials have been working for more than a year on a “flexible” workforce that could be asked to clock in on Sundays. “We’re ready for Sunday in the current markets,” the spokeswoman said. “If this were to expand, we would look at staffing levels and adjust accordingly."
OK. So postal workers now don’t get Sundays off so that we can get new backpacks for our kids in time for Monday morning school. Fair trade!
In Brad Stone’s recent book on Amazon, he makes it abundantly clear that, by and large, working for Amazon sucks. Why not spread that model throughout the entire economy? In the future, there will be two economic classes. The people accepting their Sunday morning Amazon deliveries, and everybody else, slaving to make sure that the doodads get there on time.
I will almost certainly take advantage of this new service. As a red-blooded American I am all about instant wish fulfillment. And in the not-so-distant future, when I am 3-D printing my online purchases after instantaneous digital download, this whole notion of waiting even for a Sunday delivery will no doubt seem quaint.
But we’re losing something here. There are precious few moments in our lives right now when we are allowed to rest, when we can bask in the knowledge that the clock is off. Our smartphone-enabled, super-connected lifestyle has been chipping steadily away at the notion that there is any solid demarcation between work and play, or any refuge from digitally delivered pressure.
Once upon a time, Sunday was a space in which that frenetic assault backed off.
No longer. Just imagine. You could be lying in bed, listening to this and get interrupted by a knock on the door from your U.S. Postal Service Amazon sub-contractor.
“Watch out, the world’s behind you.” Indeed.
a government service is being co-opted as part an Amazon marketing campaign.
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FedEx, UPS, and the USPS are already more business partners today than they are competitors. FedEx and UPS very much don’t want the responsibilities that they would be saddled with if the monopoly were lifted, the playing field were perfectly level and they were charged with providing universal service to all parts of the country, even in areas that may not be profitable. Not only do these courier services not want it, they couldn’t do it. From an economic and operational standpoint it seems they have each figured out how to share resources to get good value out of a set-up that makes sense for them. What they do, they do well. But they don’t do what the Postal Service does.
And if Mr. Postman injures his back lifting Amazon's Sunday packages, who pays his doctor bills?
And while Mr. Postman is delivering Amazon's stuff, whose truck is he driving?
And when Mr. Postman retires, who pays for his pension?
Sounds like a sweet deal for Amazon, not so sweet for taxpayers.
The author IS aware that the USPS is required by law to run itself like a business, right? Never mind.
It’s funny that you mention that. I sat down with a microsoft employee yesterday who “bad mouthed” (to be fair it was simply the truth and not bitterness) their company. This is a first for me, and I’ve met a lot of microsoft employees. They usually sound like borg that couldn’t wait to re-join the collective as soon as they were done talking to the impure technical people that work with more than one technology.
I don't know whether to start crying for the poor downtrodden work force, or figure out a way to replace them machines. While machines won't appreciate having a job in this economy they sure won't complain about it either.
I have had my share of tough jobs and there is no great trick to handling it. You do the best job you can while finding another job.
One thing to think about...
Amazon _almost_ has an alternative currency system going with its “Amazon Bucks”.
You can buy almost anything THROUGH Amazon, if not ON Amazon. And with exchanges of Amazon Bucks, you have a alternative (read: competing) currency system.
“FedEx, UPS, and the USPS are already more business partners today than they are competitors. “
True. It’s surprising the amount of stuff that gets shipped, say Fed Ex, and turns up at your house delivered by USPS. I didn’t realize it myself before I spent a lot of time shipping and monitoring deliveries for work. They hand-off to one another when it suits their model and makes $ sense.
It seems to me that this rant is calling for a return to the “Blue Laws” that were so prevelant a couple of generations past in some areas of our country. I’m certain that the entire Salon universe would rise up in horror over that idea, but that is the gist of it.
In my young adulthood, I saw an epic example of this law at work in South Carolina. A major local retailer, “Sam Solomon”, as a Jewish-devout retailer, wanted to close on THEIR day of rest, Saturday, and open on Sunday! I wish I had HL Mencken’s ability to describe the knots that the state and local governments went through to resist, it was most amusingly illogical!
Heaven forbid! Why, they might actually do it efficiently!? Gasp! And what!? Horror of horrors, the government might actually shrink by some small amount! Arrrrggghhh oh the (lost) bureaucracy!!!
But it is still unsettling.
You say unsettling, I say refreshing and long overdue.
Amazon’s obvious goal is to get more Amazon Prime signups.
Duh! Paging Capt. Obvious...
What Sunday deliveries by the USPS really mean is that a government service is being co-opted as part an Amazon marketing campaign. I don’t think this is what Ben Franklin had in mind.
I'm pretty sure Mr. Franklin wouldn't have been a fan of the utter monstrosity and intrusive giant the government has become. I'd guess he would applaud anything that took a chunk out of the beast, even a small one.
I’ve been a “Primer” for years.
Agree they are not always cheapest, that’s why we have the internet to compare.
While I’ve been attacked on here for dealing with Bezos, I don’t find ANY of the nationwide retailers are pure by FR doctrine.
Amazon has always given me superb service. I don’t even have any remorse over bringing UPS guy, because my next door neighbor runs a business and they pick up product there every day.
I’ve been a “Primer” for years.
Agree they are not always cheapest, that’s why we have the internet to compare.
While I’ve been attacked on here for dealing with Bezos, I don’t find ANY of the nationwide retailers are pure by FR doctrine.
Amazon has always given me superb service. I don’t even have any remorse over bringing UPS guy, because my next door neighbor runs a business and they pick up product there every day.
That's exactly right! As Milton Friedman would remind us, the real power of free markets is consumer choice. The consumer drives the economy by their choices of who to patronize and who not to patronize.
And can we please stop using the word "workers?" It's a Marist term.
I thought FedEx offered a few years ago to deliver to every address in the country if the USPS monopoly on first-class mail was eliminated. USPS was opposed, not surprisingly, and so the proposal went nowhere. Now, I doubt that FedEx or UPS would be interested in such a deal since first-class mail is going the way of the carrier pigeon.
You get your purchase quicker, and a postal carrier gets to keep his job. Why is this not a win-win?
http://blogs.findlaw.com/free_enterprise/2013/10/amazon-sued-over-employee-security-checks.html
This is the practice at every warehouse and Amazon will loose this suit(there is precedence). In addition they commonly run off employees after their 55th birthday. That suit will be filed shortly.
Definitely. The relationship with FedEx has improved the quality of USPS’s airmail service while saving it money over operating its own fleet. And if it is Prime service Surepost deliveries won’t sit at the post office for days although they probably will arrive a day later than they would with UPS.
Amazon can also set up a website that works well
I’m missing something here. The Post Office has long threatened to stop Saturday delivery. If they do so, it would seem to make sense that Amazon make a deal with them for Saturday and Sunday delivery.
Sunday is actually a more cost effective delivery day, because there is less traffic. The USPS still has to do its behind the scenes transport on Sunday, anyway, so there will be mail to deliver on Monday.
I see some more potential here as well. If other companies take advantage of package delivery on Sunday, it would significantly improve volume efficiencies. That is, just delivering mail during the week would take a lot of pressure off home deliveries.
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