Hacker News Reader

Comment by auntad | Hacker News Reader

"The reporter, Alan Selby, reportedly saw some staff members “asleep on their feet, exhausted from toiling for up to 55 hours a week.” Toilet breaks were timed, and workers were admonished by supervisors for stopping to catch their breath.

Conditions are so dire, a recent poll of 100 Amazon warehouse workers from labor advocacy group Organise showed that more than half suffer from depression, and eight percent had contemplated suicide."

While I acknowledge it's not a totally fair comparison, I find it interesting that you could replace "55" with "90+" and "Amazon blue collar workers" with "Lower level financiers and consultants on Wall Street" and get probably the same statistics. Maybe even true for some spaces in tech/entrepreneurship.

Is this an Amazon problem, or a modern world problem?

View on HN

>While I acknowledge it's not a totally fair comparison, I find it interesting that you could replace "55" with "90+" and "Amazon blue collar workers" with "Lower level financiers and consultants on Wall Street" and get probably the same statistics. Maybe even true for some spaces in tech/entrepreneurship.

I believe the difference is, the wall street guys are in it voluntarily (they could probably take up a lower paying white collar job and still survive), and have a massive reward to look forward to after spending a few years there. While the warehouse workers are picking between unemployment\hunger and working in Amazon warehouses.

I'd like to see some statistics comparing Amazon to other retail jobs. Low-skilled retail jobs are often physically exhausting and not fulfilling. Many amazon workers might feel depressed, but would they feel better if they worked at Walmart instead?

I can't comment on Walmart specifically, but from my experience working in a warehouse for a couple months it seems that Amazon is totalitarian in a way your average crappy low-skill job isn't.

it's true of many doctors as well. the difference is both doctors and bankers do it for a few years at the beginning of their careers, and in exchange are promised a path to a real reward -- they get promoted, and their pay increases in a job where they can work more reasonable hours.

these Amazon warehouse jobs don't lead to being a millionaire. they don't even lead to a decent career. i doubt you could even get promoted to Amazon low-level management out of one of these jobs. it is pure exploitation.

Fair response, appreciate your thoughtfulness. Your point about lack of advancement is compelling.

Doctors, financiers, etc prove that people are willing to go through life phases that tear them down mentally and physically (could easily argue that for them it can be worse than "peeing in a bottle"), but you're right, they'll all justify it saying "it won't be like this 5 years from now".

I'm curious as to how Amazon would respond to a question like, "what opportunities for advancement do your lower level workers have?"

I know they offer advancement programs like this one: https://www.aboutamazon.com/working-at-amazon/career-choice

Where they pay for your tuition.

Are the lower level financiers and consultants on Wall Street working for roughly 1.8x Amazon warehouse pay?

It's a "paid by the hour" problem.

If, as a company, you pay someone by the hour to complete a task, it's in your best interests to employ only people that do the most work per hour, and then to treat them in a way which gets more work done (to an acceptable quality) per hour.

If instead workers were paid for getting the work done to an acceptable quality, then the workers could decide for themselves what quality of life vs income they wanted.

Salaried work with performance based bonuses are somewhere in between, and perhaps strike a good balance.

You probably should also consider that below some productivity it's probably not worth hiring anyone, even if they're willing to be paid very little.

You've got to be kidding me. THATS what you take out of it? Are wall street bankers being forced to pee in bottles to avoid getting fired?

Both are also self medicating up or down.

Two high pressure jobs. One voluntary, one not so much.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com