The Secret Lives of Amazon's Elves

gizmodo.com

28 points·cwan··5 comments

I am always fascinated by footage of assembly lines, factory floors and the process that brings us our products, from raw materials to shop floor or letterbox and all the tiny details in between. It's a shame most places have to operate under a 'no video' policy. I hope someone archives some recordings for future viewing at least.

That video of the Amazon facility would be extra special if this were true (from the article): "When we told people were going to do this, someone said 'Whenever I click the order button on Amazon, I always imagine a chorus of happy, singing Oompa-Loompas riding around on Segways and shipping my stuff.'

More seriously, the idea of using traveling RV nomads as workers definitely qualifies as a hack. Who would have known that they'd make reliable employees given that based on the article you'd think they're effectively being paid an amount that would make them volunteers compared to their previous jobs? As an aside have you seen the systems made by http://www.kivasystems.com/? They have a number of videos on youtube.

I believe that $10 an hour is decent pay for relatively unskilled itinerant labor. My wife says she made about that much working in an actual bookstore. And it's apparently more than the average full-time position at Wal-Mart will pay unless you're a department manager:

http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Employer=Wal-Mart_Stores...

It's not easy work -- you're on your feet all day -- but no harder than the rest of retail. Plus you don't have to actually deal with the general public during the holiday season, which is worth a lot right there.

Watch Food, Inc.

How It's Made has tons of videos of stuff like this.

http://science.discovery.com/fansites/howitsmade/howitsmade....

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