Amazon Employees Cry At Their Desk And Practically Combust

Megalith

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"I would see people practically combust." "Nearly every person I worked with, I saw cry at their desk." With quotes like these, I can't help but get the impression that working at Amazon may not be entirely healthy.

At Amazon, workers are encouraged to tear apart one another's ideas in meetings, toil long and late (emails arrive past midnight, followed by text messages asking why they were not answered), and held to standards that the company boasts are 'unreasonably high.' The internal phone directory instructs colleagues on how to send secret feedback to one another's bosses. Employees say it is frequently used to sabotage others.
 
More like "incredibly bad". I must say that having read that gives me pause with regard to the sheer amount of stuff I buy from Amazon annually.
 
It seems like such a cutthroat work environment that treats employees like trash isn't really sustainable long term.
 
think about it how long do people last at call centers? What 4 years tops before they go mad?
 
think about it how long do people last at call centers? What 4 years tops before they go mad?

I've worked in a call center that had 100% turnover (average) in just under six months. Anyone there for multiple years was more often than not a team lead or worked in an escalation queue.
 
It seems like such a cutthroat work environment that treats employees like trash isn't really sustainable long term.
Sure it is, as long as the qualified applicants outnumber the jobs available, you can abuse employees indefinitely.
 
And then, the first time someone cracks and goes "Postal++", people will stand around going WHY? WHY WHY WHY?
 
Wow, talk about one giant bucket of "hell no."

I'm not one to pitch and/or promote the whole EQ idea, but this type of behaviour is downright toxic to the core ideas of teamwork toward a common goal.
 
Wow, talk about one giant bucket of "hell no."

I'm not one to pitch and/or promote the whole EQ idea, but this type of behaviour is downright toxic to the core ideas of teamwork toward a common goal.

Amazon's common goal is making sure I get my $5.99 pack of kitchen sponges in less than 48 hours after I order.

There are always going to be better and worse jobs. What happens at Amazon doesn't sound too inhumane compared to other warehouse jobs. I have some friends that have worked in retail distribution centers, the work isn't glamorous. They don't have AC either, and they need to bust their ass to hit performance goals.
 
Sounds like every single job I've ever worked. While none of them outright encouraged backstabbing, gossip and political bullshit, it happened anyhow. The only way around it is to make yourself bullet proof. Don't ever send me an email you don't want held against you. I save, organize and archive every single office communication for a reason.
 
This appears to really only apply to their corporate branch and innovation department. I know several people who hold jobs like Robotics repair, Line employee, and Customer service and have had that job for several years at amazon.

I personally don't hold any misgivings about it, they just want new ideas, and whats the best way to do that? Use more people.
 
I've never met anyone that was actually happy they worked at Amazon, but some did really thrive on the challenge. Personally, I need a balance between challenging work and being able to live my life, but whatever drives people good for them. No mater how hard a white collar worker goes, they still don't work as hard as people that work one or two minimum wage jobs doing manual labor just to get by.
 
Sounds very similar to other tech companies when you are a call center worker and not a software developer or higher up. I've heard very similar experiences at Apple and Google.
 
The amazon warehouse near here has a HUUUUUGE turnover rate., especially for the seasonal work wher ethey hire a bunch of people, lots don't even last the whole time.
 
The amazon warehouse near here has a HUUUUUGE turnover rate., especially for the seasonal work wher ethey hire a bunch of people, lots don't even last the whole time.
Logistics work during seasonal turnover is always crazy high some show up for 1 day and that's it. It's hard trying to keep moral anywhere good during such times.
 
I work for Amazon here in Phoenix & all I can say is they are customer obsessed. Not employee :confused:
 
This will sound flippant, but welcome to almost every major games publisher in North America. Been there done that have way too many scars.
 
The amazon warehouse near here has a HUUUUUGE turnover rate., especially for the seasonal work wher ethey hire a bunch of people, lots don't even last the whole time.

I can't imagine that this type of employee will be needed for much longer.

Someone, probably Amazon, will soon perfect the ability to dump shit in one end of a dark, people-less warehouse, have it all automatically mechanically sorted and staged, and spit back at the right time in the right order onto trucks at the other end.
 
It seems like such a cutthroat work environment that treats employees like trash isn't really sustainable long term.
So long as the job market remains trash you'll see such policies continue or even be made worse over time.

The guy who owns Amazon hates even the idea of worker welfare or fair pay and believes competition is supposed to automagically solve all problems so why not create a work environment where you have to competition harder everything will work out and better since its automagic right?
 
There are always going to be better and worse jobs. What happens at Amazon doesn't sound too inhumane compared to other warehouse jobs. I have some friends that have worked in retail distribution centers, the work isn't glamorous. They don't have AC either, and they need to bust their ass to hit performance goals.
Just because other jobs suck and treat their workers badly for low pay doesn't make it alright for other companies to do the same.
 
Logistics work during seasonal turnover is always crazy high some show up for 1 day and that's it. It's hard trying to keep moral anywhere good during such times.
Amazon is known to use management tactics to keep their warehouse workers depressed and arbitrarily increases quota demands to unreachable levels until they can fire workers to make an example of them and/or increase stress on workers since they believe it improves production.

http://www.ibtimes.com/amazoncoms-w...happy-new-employee-model-internet-age-1514780

they’re told by Amazon and outsourced managers to meet productivity goals designed to be unattainable for most in an effort to keep them in a perpetual state of insecurity about their continued employment. If they give up or are fired, there’s a legion of temp workers -- recruited by subcontracted labor recruiters who have offices inside the warehouse facility -- waiting to take their turn processing hundreds of packages per hour.
...
“If it takes three minutes from the moment the bell rings to get to the break room, now you've only got 12 minutes left to rest. But then you have to use three minutes to get back to your work area before the next bell rings, so your break is really nine minutes,” Heimbach told International Business Times. “And they constantly monitor you with supervisors that look at computer screens.”
...
Amazon hires were forced to work in dangerous summertime heat conditions, temps as high as 110 degrees. In fact, so many workers ended up in the local hospital that an attending physician reported the case to federal workplace safety regulators.
...
source who went undercover at an Amazon sorting center in California for eight weeks this summer as part of academic research into warehouse working conditions told IBTimes that Amazon wanted its employees to pack about 240 boxes per hour. A floor manager, with experience at multiple logistics firms, conceded to this source that the industry standard was only about 150. The source spoke only on condition of anonymity because his research is ongoing.

Amazon doesn’t publicly disclose the number of packages per hour its warehouse workers are expected to process, but Heimbach’s estimates matched what the source claimed: About 250 larger packages per hour and “nearly 500” for smaller packages such as books and CDs.

“If you’re 85 or 90 percent within their plan, you’re considered on the border,” Heimbach said. “The reality of it is they’re primarily concerned about getting product out the door at the fastest rate possible.”
...
Moreover, Amazon’s productivity numbers are apparently purposely designed to be unattainable for most workers so that the employees feel that they are falling down on the job and push harder to hit the impracticable levels. This strategy, known as management by stress, was described in the book “The New Ruthless Economy: Work and Power in the Digital Age,” by Simon Head, a fellow at the Rothermere American Institute at the U.K.’s Oxford University, as "one in which a significant minority of workers are operating at the margin of inefficiency, so that supervisors can bear down and get them to work faster.”

Indeed, the California undercover warehouse worker told IBTimes that his Amazon floor manager admitted to him that the packages-per-hour goals were set higher than was expected from them. This came up because the worker was able to pack only about 210 boxes per hour, above industry standards but below Amazon’s.

These practices haven't stopped and in fact have only gotten worse over the years. More reading here: http://www.salon.com/2014/02/23/wor...t_history_of_ruthlessly_intimidating_workers/

Amazon is a pretty awful company that no one should be defending no matter how many people they hire or how much they profit since nearly all the people they hire are treated horribly and most of the profits they make go almost exclusively to a select few.
 
Its sounds pretty terrible.. I am not sure its sustainable?, 'accomplished' employees comments sound like they have stockholm syndrome.
If I was amazon I would not be so sure of myself as company with those practices.. they have not really been tested as company, they are just now being started to (Walmart.com, others have site to store, and crap like that)
 
I might cancel my Prime membership after reading all of this stuff. I mean I know corporations practically live off of the upper management pretending they're actually necessary or skilled, meanwhile constantly pretending the little ants that they aren't... but this is kind of ridiculous.
 
I just renewed my Prime membership and bought a Fire HDX, after reading that im gona feel like a vegetarian eating a steak dinner everytime i use it now.
 
So long as the job market remains trash you'll see such policies continue or even be made worse over time.

The guy who owns Amazon hates even the idea of worker welfare or fair pay and believes competition is supposed to automagically solve all problems so why not create a work environment where you have to competition harder everything will work out and better since its automagic right?

The horrible dungeon that is suppose to be Amazon, I started to wonder if it is a PR campaign against Amazon's owner, probably because he doesn't have the right politics. Then I start to think that's a little paranoid, then I read posts like this and don't feel paranoid anymore.
 
I've never met anyone that was actually happy they worked at Amazon, but some did really thrive on the challenge. Personally, I need a balance between challenging work and being able to live my life, but whatever drives people good for them. No mater how hard a white collar worker goes, they still don't work as hard as people that work one or two minimum wage jobs doing manual labor just to get by.

You know this comparison is interesting.

I ended up washing residential windows for a summer since I got out of school pretty much less than a year before the IT bubble collapse.

I could easily work a good 12-16 hours washing (and be exhausted) before working 12 hours in a white collar job.

There is something soothing about doing physical repetitive labor. Physically tiring yes... but I just found I could reach that "Its been 12 hours?" stage vs white collar office work.

Could be mentally taxing jobs wear you out so you can't focus anymore... Could be you are staring at a clock in the task bar all day? Dunno.

There are some days where I feel more tired after a day at the office... probably my age:)
 
There have been articles like this one about Amazon's working conditions published for years. Each time I read them and felt bad for the people who work there, but kept on buying.

I let my Prime subscription lapse a couple weeks ago primarily for a different reason: I got tired of computer parts and other electronics getting smashed in transition due to poor packaging.

...Wait, maybe those aren't unrelated issues after all! :p
 
They just built a Amazon warehouse south of here didn't know about he high turnover rate in them.
I suppose they say do this and it's no help to anyone.
 
I ditched the job scene years ago because of the invisible slave prison corporations create. Seeking approval from others to feel successful.

Becoming my own boss was a decision of a lifetime.
 
Son of an associate works at Amazon and is pretty high up on the corporate side. Hes paid like a prince and treated like one (has rare and very in demand skillset). He has said he probably will leave once he finished out his first employment contract because he sees just how badly amazon treats the rest of the workforce.

I am actually curious if he keeps to his plan or decides to stay due to the gobs of money they are throwing his way. Last I heard he was making 250K a year or so for a 40-45 hour a week workweek...
 
Amazon Prime-Now is about to roll out into my fair city of Portland.

Makes me feel sorry for the folks who'll be rushing around making deliveries. Incredible headache for crappy pay? Blegh.
 
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The air conditioning thing is fucked up and irresponsible.
It would be fun to watch them get penalized with higher liability insurance or something.

But the article mentions many things that are simply not important.
Employees have to pay for their own food and gas? Welcome to the real world.

There is a growing culture of 'quality of life' enthusiasts. They are often at odds with another group, those wired as workaholics. I will say this the only way I know how; either you are wired that way or you aren't. That type of environment is the exact wrong place for the former group.

Lastly, I will speculate that the majority of people sympathetic to this article will bemoan amazon today and happily received their amazon prime crap in the mail next week.
If you don't agree with Amazon: don't support them. Then and only the will they start to take you seriously.
 
Son of an associate works at Amazon and is pretty high up on the corporate side. Hes paid like a prince and treated like one (has rare and very in demand skillset). He has said he probably will leave once he finished out his first employment contract because he sees just how badly amazon treats the rest of the workforce.

I am actually curious if he keeps to his plan or decides to stay due to the gobs of money they are throwing his way. Last I heard he was making 250K a year or so for a 40-45 hour a week workweek...

Work two years retire sounds good to me hard work pay off unless your health is at stake.
 
I might cancel my Prime membership after reading all of this stuff. I mean I know corporations practically live off of the upper management pretending they're actually necessary or skilled, meanwhile constantly pretending the little ants that they aren't... but this is kind of ridiculous.

If you knew what some people at FedEx go through when they own their own truck and route you wouldn't even want packages brought to your house. I don't know how bad UPS gets, but owning a FedEx truck and router can be an absolute nightmare.
 
Amazon Prime-Now is about to roll out into my fair city of Portland.

Makes me feel sorry for the folks who'll be rushing around making deliveries. Incredible headache for crappy pay? Blegh.

Incredible headache for crappy pay is how most people across all markets would describe their job.
 
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