It's just one random data point but one of my personal friends said: «I still have many friends & family working in Amazon fulfillment centers across the country, and every single one of them says it’s the best job they’ve ever had.» https://twitter.com/chadloder/status/1154275824951943168
There's an Amazon warehouse near me. My neighbor works for USPS. Amazon is poaching tons of their employees and it's really hurting USPS because Amazon is so much better. If he wasn't holding out for one more year to get full retirement from USPS he would have jumped ship too. Instead, he's hoping to work for Amazon part time during retirement.
I'm not suggesting that there aren't problems with Amazon warehouses, but I think a lot of the reaction is from highly educated wealthy liberal types who don't know what it's like to work hard labor jobs.
I can't speak for others, but I have never worked for a warehouse job until now, and it isn't as bad as I thought. I was considering working for UPS, but after recently giving birth, I couldn't lift the minimum weight they required for me. So I thought Amazon would be a viable option. I make more than I would at UPS, and it's very easy compared to it. I know because my husband works there. I honestly don't understand why some people would complain about Amazon but to get media attention. That's my opinion.
By what metric? I have friends that have been working warehouses in Ohio since the early 2000s and they have vented frustrations to me about how Amazon is causing a race to the bottom for warehouse labor.
I've heard a lot of horror stories about Amazon warehouses. I'm sure a lot of it is FUD or whatever, but it seems that even Walmart has better conditions.
Have you ever been in a real warehouse? One that's baking in the sun in the summer, no AC because it's too costly, probably 100 degrees inside, no ventilation, pallet dust everywhere and you get a nice inhale when something is moved on the floor, not being in a technologically present company where machines break constantly and you need to do a lot of manual work in these conditions lifting a 35lb box every 8-12 seconds for 12 hours....
Yes, this was my first job as an 'employee' of a staffing company. They took $11/hour and gave me $7/hour to re-package and re-palletize boxes of P&G products. Literally we would open a box of 4 shampoo bottles, take the bottles out and then repackage then into a box of 6 bottles and stack them back up on a pallet. To open the boxes we put them on a conveyor belt that went through an oven to melt the glue on the box. I had to stand at the exit of the oven and grab the scalding hot glue and rip the tape off the boxes as fast as I possibly could. The scalding hot glue would stick to your hands while hot air was blowing in your face out of the oven. No AC. 8 hour shift 7 to 3 with no lunch break, only two 15 minute breaks to use the bathroom (couldn't go otherwise). No AC in the warehouse in the hot summer in the midwest.
Another fun job was to re-palletize boxes. A forklift operator would lay an empty pallet on the ground, then put a row of 25 full pallets next to it in a long row. You had to unstack the 2nd pallet onto the empty one using a new stacking pattern that was more stable. Then the 2nd pallet would be empty. Repeat the process down the row as fast as you can go getting cuts on your hands from the cardboard boxes, leaning over your back lifting heavy boxes without AC in a hot warehouse.
My plastic factory issued Kevlar gloves, which prevent cuts from cardboard boxes and actually let you work faster due to not having to be careful. A good example where my happiness and business success were linked. Sorry it didn't work out in your case.
I would like for those kind of jobs are staffed by a staffing company so people can cycle through them rather than having to do it full time. I can put up with a lot for a few weeks at a time.
This is an important question when deciding whether it's a good idea to boycott Amazon over warehouse conditions.
If true, and if you still buy the same stuff from other retailers (because you still need a coffee maker, for example), the effect is to force warehouse workers into worse jobs.
I'm an Amazon Fulfillment Center worker. I've worked here for two years. Part of my job right now is social media but I assure you that these opinions are my own. I'll answer the twelve questions about my job:
1. Do I know what is expected of me at work?
-Expectations are very clear. It's hard to complicate warehouse work I suppose.
2. Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right?
-Usually, though sometimes day shift doesn't return the hand scanners and I have to look for one, and that sort of thing.
3. At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?
-My managers have made an effort to place me where I am most useful. I was slow at one job so they moved me to a more detail-oriented, slower-paced task. (From stow to count, for those who have worked here. After a few months in count, I learned to pick, though I still count sometimes.)
4. In the last seven days, have I received recognition or praise for doing good work?
-I regularly receive feedback. Amazon has "e-swag" which is a point system for doing things well and hitting productivity goals. Points can be redeemed for things like T-shirts. I use my points for grocery store gift cards.
5. Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a person?
-My managers have been very friendly. A former manager transferred back to my building yesterday after living in a different state for awhile, and he made an effort to stick around and say hi to me after his shift. My current manager and I like to meow at each other like cats in passing.
6. Is there someone at work who encourages my development?
-People are generally encouraging and uplifting here. We talk to each other and recommend applying for positions that open up, and give helpful tips so people can do their jobs better.
7. At work, do my opinions seem to count?
-This is the area that I think Amazon should improve on most. The chain of command is difficult to navigate for an entry-level worker who wants to recommend a change in policy. Lots of opinions and suggestions don't seem to make it to the people who are in a position to act on them. But my immediate supervisors tend to be very responsive to suggestions within their power to act on.
8. Does the mission/purpose of my company make me feel my job is important?
-I feel like I'm doing honest work here, getting orders out to the customers. I see it as a valuable, necessary contribution to society and I take pride in my job, though I do not see this as my vocation.
9. Are my co-workers committed to doing quality work?
-Many of them are, but Amazon will basically hire anyone. The people who stick around make an effort to do their jobs well.
10. Do I have a best friend at work?
-There are many people I look forward to seeing at work every day! I'm always making new friends here!
11. In the last six months, has someone at work talked to me about my progress?
-I feel like this is the same as #4. We get regular productivity feedback. There's not a lot of room for "progress" when you're doing the same thing every day, besides when the opportunity arises to learn a new task.
12. This last year, have I had opportunities at work to learn and grow?
-Amazon regularly trains people to do different tasks around the facility. They also offer opportunities for advancement, as well as career skills classes on-site. I'm on an interest list for a CDL class and I just submitted an application to be a trainer. I also had the opportunity to do this social media job!
But, at the end of the day, it's still warehouse work. I haven't worked in a different warehouse but a few coworkers have. The combined pay and benefits seem to be above average.
Quillette does not feature a centrist perspective.
See Media Bias Fact Check’s overview, in which they’re considered “Right” and to feature pseudoscience and poor reporting [1]. Also see the Wikipedia page on Media Bias Fact Check for citations to show that they’re reputable [2].
See also AllSides' overview, in which they’re considered to “lean right” [3].
Media Bias Fact Check is NOT reputable. Your own Wikipedia link says the following:
> The Columbia Journalism Review describes Media Bias/Fact Check as an amateur attempt at categorizing media bias and Van Zandt as an "armchair media analyst."
> The Poynter Institute notes, "Media Bias/Fact Check is a widely cited source for news stories and even studies about misinformation, despite the fact that its method is in no way scientific."
I read through the Media Bias Fact check article on Quillette and it makes bold claims about Quillette having poor sourcing or featuring pseudoscience but it provides weak or cherry-picked examples from a much larger body of published articles. For example, it mentions 'hereditarianism' as pseudoscientific, even though there is peer-reviewed published research supporting it that is referenced in the Quillette article they are critiquing. It also tries to discredit Quillette based on association - it mentions a couple people who have written articles on Quillette and discusses _their_ reputation, rather than directly factually refuting specific points.
If anything, this write-up on Media Bias Fact Check is itself super biased.
AllSides is more reputable but they have also rated Quillette as Center for long periods of time previously. AllSides also mentions this about Quillette alongside their current "lean right" rating:
> Worth noting: some on the team thought Quillette deserved a Center or Lean Left media bias rating. This is because Quillette features classically liberal arguments, but classically liberal ideas are now more commonly associated with the Right. Our confidence rating for Quillette's media bias rating is "Initial or Low."
Also, AllSides's methodology is US-centric - which is different from centrism more broadly.
> The AllSides Media Bias RatingTM reflects the average judgment of the American people. We don't use a convoluted mathematical or artificial intelligence model, but instead have regular people representing the broad spectrum of Americans blindly rate the bias of articles. That produces a fair, verifiable bias rating.
Centrism also means neutral or truth-seeking to some people, whereas to others it refers to a relative position on a political spectrum. I find Quillette to be generally centrist in that it is neutral/truth-seeking because they are willing to take controversial positions and discuss them logically, in depth, with substantial evidence. By and large, Quillette features high quality articles and significant sourcing. No journalistic outlet is perfect and it wouldn't take me long to pull out examples in the NYT, WaPo, WSJ, or other big publications to try and paint a negative image of them as Media Bias Fact Check did.
And to get back on point, no one has refuted what this particular article claims. Amazon has higher pay, better benefits, and better conditions than other warehouse jobs. There is even a comment in this very HN discussion from an Amazon warehouse worker that says "I'm part of the career choice program which pays for 95% of my college tuition, fees, and books for an IT program (which I chose)." And this isn't the only comment in this discussion from an Amazon warehouse worker. If there are claims otherwise, that other warehouse jobs are better, name them and cite evidence.
on twitter, @amazonnews tweeted a link to that and they got ratioed so hard that they deleted the tweet a few hours later. that is ... not a good piece.
