[bigbob]

Welcome to the world dof work, Gabe, where the basic principle is: if you don’t like how things are done, go work somewhere else.

If sufficient people would not do the job as it is at Amazon, things would change. Not because of reading your drivel in the Federalist.

[Renfrew]

While reading this I thought this was from The Nation not The Federalist.

No matter what you think of Amazon it is one of the most innovative companies in the world and at the forefront of doing things better, faster, and cheaper to the benefit of consumers.

The one part that I do think has potential implications for society is that so many employees are no longer working for a human but rather an algorithm. From Amazon to Uber modern work is a program on a phone telling you what to do, deciding your hours and compensation, and measuring your performance.

[edwinland]

I think the author’s overall point, that no human interaction = alienation is well presented.

But two problems:

(1) snarky comments about overpriced tofu mark him out as disgruntled rather than experienced.

(2) 70% of Amazon Bessemer employees voted NOT to unionize. I don’t know what that says (maybe they realize that unions can make their jobs even worse?) but the way the author treats this event is totally duplicitous:

First he says that the bad working conditions at AMazon are “why close to 30 percent of Amazon employees in Bessemer, Alabama sought to unionize.”

OK so if 30% of employees voting for the union = Amazon bad, what does 70% of the employees voting against the union mean?

Then he writes:

“The union was struck down in Alabama.”

Struck down? Like, by the Supreme Court? No: 70% of workers voted against it.

Then he adds:

“Employees said Amazon’s environment “works against building solidarity and a willingness to invest in that employer and that job.” “

Is that supposed to be a reason the union lost the vote? Maybe he means that the environment is so fragmented people don’t build the solidarity that voting yes would entail?

I don’t know, and I don’t like Amazon, but this guy sounds like he had a bad time there and now he wants to get them back. Like a diner who writes a three-page negative review on Yelp.

[Tell It Right]

Not even close to as difficult as the full time work I was doing in a hot warehouse during my college years. Instead of "shopping" and picking up items like a normal customer, I had to pick up cases and load them onto trucks so they could be stocked onto grocery store shelves. And I had to do it at a quota (150 to 225 cases per hour, depending on what part of the warehouse I worked that day).

And I hated the union. I had to pay them monthly dues so they could keep me from getting raises for my hard work unless all the lazy workers got one too.

My version of if-I-don't-like-it-go-work-somewhere-else was to use my off days to finish college with a degree worth the time and money so I could make much nicer money in an A/C environment. Because my degree isn't majoring in blame-the-whiteyism from a liberal farts college, I have no old student loans to pay off and I make really good money.

[AppyPappy]

There is no level of service because the software is written overseas. They test as little as possible and write code that is quick to produce and quick to break. Asking for fixes or enhancements is like asking them to go on the Bataan Death March. “There is nothing wrong with the code, you are using it incorrectly”.

[Mariner]

The author is emoting, not thinking.

Anyone who says Amazon stifles innovation is stupid.

Amazon is the most advanced logistics organization in the history of man.

Created through innovation.

[TexasKamaAina]

Thank you for posting this. I doubt working for Amazon is as bad as its most severe critics describe nor as good as Amazon itself might portray it. But there is enough information out there to make me think I wouldn't want my son or daughter to be working there.

Of course, as some have posted, people that don't like their job can (and should IMO) leave it. And that's what the article's author did. The issue that the article raises, for me, is not that Amazon is evil but the seductiveness of technology and how it is increasingly pushing genuine human interaction to the fringes across all aspects of our culture, not just in the workplace. Witness Tinder. As conservatives we should be concerned about this trend.

[Sirius Lee]

employees feel they're treated like robots

Funny you should say, because robots WILL be taking over a lot of jobs that these humans are doing now. This is the way it is.

I'm sure there where teams of accountants that felt like robots as they sat in big rows and yanked on an adding machine and wrote in ledgers. Now it's one guy with an excel spreadsheet, and all the others are free to pursue other accounting opportunities.

Also, those guy with the spreadsheets are being robotized out of a jobs, too.

There is going to be a lot of surplus population soon. No wonder the Georgia Guidestones recommend a 500 million total human population.

[clearcarbon]