I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave

[xchrom]

http://motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-free-online-shipping-warehouses-labor

"Don't take anything that happens to you there personally," the woman at the local chamber of commerce says when I tell her that tomorrow I start working at Amalgamated Product Giant Shipping Worldwide Inc. She winks at me. I stare at her for a second.

"What?" I ask. "Why, is somebody going to be mean to me or something?"

She smiles. "Oh, yeah." This town somewhere west of the Mississippi is not big; everyone knows someone or is someone who's worked for Amalgamated. "But look at it from their perspective. They need you to work as fast as possible to push out as much as they can as fast as they can. So they're gonna give you goals, and then you know what? If you make those goals, they're gonna increase the goals. But they'll be yelling at you all the time. It's like the military. They have to break you down so they can turn you into what they want you to be. So they're going to tell you, 'You're not good enough, you're not good enough, you're not good enough,' to make you work harder. Don't say, 'This is the best I can do.' Say, 'I'll try,' even if you know you can't do it. Because if you say, 'This is the best I can do,' they'll let you go. They hire and fire constantly, every day. You'll see people dropping all around you. But don't take it personally and break down or start crying when they yell at you."

Several months prior, I'd reported on an Ohio warehouse where workers shipped products for online retailers under conditions that were surprisingly demoralizing and dehumanizing, even to someone who's spent a lot of time working in warehouses, which I have. And then my editors sat me down. "We want you to go work for Amalgamated Product Giant Shipping Worldwide Inc.," they said. I'd have to give my real name and job history when I applied, and I couldn't lie if asked for any specifics. (I wasn't.) But I'd smudge identifying details of people and the company itself. Anyway, to do otherwise might give people the impression that these conditions apply only to one warehouse or one company. Which they don't.

So I fretted about whether I'd have to abort the application process, like if someone asked me why I wanted the job. But no one did. And though I was kind of excited to trot out my warehouse experience, mainly all I needed to get hired was to confirm 20 or 30 times that I had not been to prison.

[KG]

1. just quit a job kinda like that. on assembly line. lately they started using a timer that went off

every 6 min. then the new temp hires were starting at more than i was making after 2 years. that was last straw...

[tropicanarose]

31. I hope that you move on to much better things soon (if you haven't already), KG. What a nightmare!

[KansDem]

2. Kind of sounds like descriptions of third-world sweat shops.

Oh, wait...!

[OffWithTheirHeads]

3. Jesus fucking Christ! It's Upton Sinclair's Jungle all over again.

We really need a fucking revolution.

[Lugnut]

4. That sounds familiar.

Most of the employers around here are warehouses. I hear these kinds of stories all the time.

[TreasonousBastard]

5. Think about this the next time you order from Amazon.

[xchrom]

6. +1

[Auggie]

10. +2

This is horrible

[tropicanarose]

29. wow.....hard to believe that this is the way things are.

[Dawson Leery]

7. The Atlantic is also covering this story (with a fitting title).

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2012/02/american-warehouse-sounds-bad-foxconn/49192/

[xchrom]

8. This American Warehouse Sounds as Bad as Foxconn

thought i'd go ahead and post the title.

[madrchsod]

9. i worked at a place like this.

i will say it was`t as bad but close. if you lasted 3 days you were lucky.

[steve2470]

11. My son said he'd rather be homeless than work there

Needless to say, he'll never work at a place like that unless he has kids to support, etc.

[patrice]

12. Reads precisely like my experience working for a major delivery service, loading trucks, several

summers ago.

I.N.S.A.N.E.

And the shift supervisors just kept us all just scrambling and sweating and running like hell by saying stuff frequently about how GREAT it was to move up. It was a direct hire situation and they kept talking about opportunities for advancement and the conveyor belts NEVER EVER stopped, even if stuff got jammed at your loading dock, which you worked by yourself, until the BELL RANG, even past the end of your shift.

I used to go home, get out of the car, and walk over and fall fully-clothed into the swimming pool in our apartment complex.

[xchrom]

13. +1

[Sienna86]

14. A must-read

What are the answers to this situation? Buying from local stores, unionization...

[xchrom]

15. Both... & more I suspect. Nt

[yortsed snacilbuper]

16. They don't call them lumpers,

for nothing!

[lifesbeautifulmagic]

17. JESUS H CHRIST. EVERYONE SHOULD READ THIS

UNION, UNION, UNION, UNION

Where are the teamsters on this.

Loved the point about online retailers not paying any tax to use/pay for the roads they deliver all this crap on.

[Auggie]

18. And Amazon, formerly fighting sales tax on out-of-state shipments, will now profit from them:

Old news, but relevant. From the L.A. Times, November 2011:

Amazon.com Inc. for years has fought state efforts to force it to collect sales taxes from its customers. Now, instead of battling the tax man, the company is looking to profit — by hiring itself out as an Internet tax collector.

In an abrupt about-face, the company is now offering to handle sales-tax chores for merchants who sell products through its site for a fee equivalent to 2.9% of the taxes collected.

The optional service, which is set to roll out Feb. 1, will be offered to Amazon's third-party vendors in all 50 states. It's a strategy that could reap millions of dollars in new revenue for Amazon, which has been among the most vocal opponents of government attempts to tax e-commerce.

Analysts said Amazon's shift is an acknowledgment that Internet retailers ultimately will have to play by the same rules as bricks-and-mortar stores. It's also a recognition that there's money to be made in the process, said George Runner, a member of the California State Board of Equalization, the agency that administers sales tax.

LINK: http://articles.latimes.com/2011/nov/03/business/la-fi-amazon-tax-collect-20111103

[Canuckistanian]

19. Jesus.

Here's the line that gets to me the most:

I feel genuinely sorry for any child I might have who ever asks me for anything for Christmas, only to be informed that every time a "Place Order" button rings, a poor person takes four Advil and gets told they suck at their job.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

32. I was gonna post that too

she actually made me lol a few times, I didn't expect that. I worked for temp agencies over 10 years ago, and it was getting really bad then. How many times I wished I could bust thru that fire door and just walk away!

[Canuckistanian]

47. I worked for a temp agency a few years ago

I was "between jobs" as they say. The job was dead easy, but the pace was NOT.

But what struck me most was the way they treated people - as easily replaced cattle, with tight deadlines and lots of pressure. And any transgression was dealt with swiftly and brutally. I never understood why they needed to treat people like that - especially people who were ALREADY motivated to keep a job because of extreme need for a paycheck, ANY paycheck.

I couldn't WAIT for a chance to get out of there.

[MarianJack]

20. It also sounds like what I went through at call centers.

PEACE!

[IamK]

21. Most jobs suck, thats why they pay you to come to work.....

If it was all fun and games, they would charge admission at the door...

[xchrom]

22. sorry...most jobs may be unpleasant ... but they don't abuse you like that. nt

[tropicanarose]

30. Wchrom, you are right. Yeah, it is work and they have to pay you to do it, but this is abuse rop

which is not acceptable at all under any circumstances.

[rurallib]

23. so this kind of treatment of human beings is OK?

[IamK]

24. Its a job, its not prison. If you don't like it, leave.

some of this article is true, some is BS....

[xchrom]

25. ...

cause, you know, workers have all the fuckin flexibility in the goddamned world, right?

they should expect hard times, abuse at work, lack of ability to make ends meet after 8 or more hours.

[Duer 157099]

26. If you don't like it, leave

become homeless, get arrested for being homeless, then go live in prison.

Right?

Sounds like a rock and a hard place.

[Javaman]

33. truly, unbelievable.

it's comments like yours that make sweat shops possible.

[IamK]

36. no it's people leaving places like this that prevent sweat shops from making money..

[xchrom]

37. what bullshit. if you're in a job like that to begin with -- you probably don't have the money in

the bank to jump from job to job.

more an employer like this is probably one of the biggest employers in the area.

[IamK]

38. maybe... or your just too lazt to look... could be either...

[steve2470]

40. Too lazy to look ?

Either:

1- you've never needed a job badly

2- you're rich

3- you're (something I can't say because it's forbidden on this site)

or

4- you have no compassion for your fellow man or woman.

I'm aghast. People don't take back-breaking jobs like this for fun. They take them because they are desparate and can't move 3000 miles away for a better one. Not everyone can pick up and move to a new state or new country for a job.

I hope you never lose your job and are desparate for one.

[xchrom]

41. there it is -- i was waiting for it

you have some fuckin chutzpa -- asshole.

[Javaman]

48. Oh I see, you are a member of the Horatio Alger fan club.

that explains everything I need to know about you.

you're answers are simple and laughable without a shred of reality.

[steve2470]

34. I've worked in places like that

I guess you never needed a job very badly ? I believe every word of it.

By the way, Che Guevara is your avatar ?

[IamK]

39. my favorite Che Quotes...

"Work Harder, not Smarter"....

"My feet hurt from all this marching, I wish I had Doc Martens....."

He did not say these quotes as often, but even today they still have meaning...

[steve2470]

42. You obviously have no idea what Che stood for

I would suggest replacing your avatar.

[xchrom]

43. your favorite must be 'corporate ass-licker'. --nt

[patrick t. cakes]

45. Sock puppet

remove your avatar, you're a disgrace

[Javaman]

49. +1 nt

[Bertha Venation]

27. Don't end up like Brian.

"The gal conducting our training reminds us again that we cannot miss any days our first week. There are NO exceptions to this policy. She says to take Brian, for example, who's here with us in training today. Brian already went through this training, but then during his first week his lady had a baby, so he missed a day and he had to be fired. Having to start the application process over could cost a brand-new dad like Brian a couple of weeks' worth of work and pay. Okay? Everybody turn around and look at Brian. Welcome back, Brian. Don't end up like Brian."

[xchrom]

28. stunning, right? nt

[rosesaylavee]

35. My job has goals like this

and the result is that people stop being innovative, stop thinking of better ways of doing things because there is no reward if you do make the goal or do better than the goal. It's not in your favor to achieve more than an average as the bar keeps getting set higher and higher then.

Ridiculous work place. Mine is insane but I am not abused like these poor sots. All the more reason I think for buying locally.

[Doctor_J]

44. It is really hard to tell the US from a 3rd world country at this point

the founders are rolling in their graves.

[Mopar151]

46. This is why I keep advocating for mental health evaluations, starting with HR and middle managers

It's been my experience that if you could prove a 10% savings in direct labor by treating people with respect and decency, it would not matter - many in management are so personally invested in beating the n*#@%^*( that they'd fight 'til their dying breath to continue.