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Comment by watty | Hacker News Reader

I admit I haven't read the article but what's disgusting about incentivizing employee efficiency with prizes?

What's weird to me is that these people aren't forced to work there. They're working there because it's their BEST option.

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Firstly, they are not prizes, they are microscopic chances at prizes. The company is cutting down on cost by playing prospect theory-based games with their employees' salary.

Secondly, it is not a reward for working efficiently, it is a reward for working the most efficiently. There is only one winner and the other participants get nothing. The company gets the added value either way of course. This is a great if you want to break up employee solidarity too.

Thirdly, the term 'efficiency' implies there is some sort of process optimization going on; the same energy goes in, more value comes out. I doubt workers are suddenly provided with better tooling during 'power hour', so 'efficiency' probably just means 'run faster, exhaust yourself'.

Finally, you can bet 'power hour' metrics are used to adjust regular productivity targets related to other 'incentives', overall making the jobs more demanding and less rewarding over time.

The whole system reeks of commoditization of labor, treating workers as mere goods that can be bought and systematically manipulated, and thinking about living, feeling humans in this way is disgusting to me.

>The company is cutting down on cost by playing prospect theory-based games with their employees' salary.

I suppose we cant expect Amazon workers to go into excel and calculate their yearly earnings from prizes?

If they did this, its a non issue.

But I suppose we can't expect Amazon workers to do this... correct?

>The whole system reeks of commoditization of labor

You say this like its a bad thing. If you can turn labor into something an unskilled/uneducated worker can do, humanity is more productive. This is the goal of creating processes.

I guess you've never worked those jobs. Try it for 6 months or a year and then tell us if you still feel that way.

It's dehumanizing, and petty to try and squeeze people out this way.

Wrong guess, I've done my time on minimum wage work.

I wasnt going to make a career out of a job that gave me a free shirt for working extra hard.

But then again, I'm an engineer, so maybe I make better decisions.

The condescending tone is likely why you’re being downvoted.

But then again, I'm an engineer, so maybe I make better decisions.

Seems unlikely. Engineers are as prone to bad decision making as anyone else. Some of them - the supercilious dickheads who believe their own hype - even more so.

The goal of creating processes is to improve. Ideally workers would be skilled, educated, and empowered at improving their own processes

Unions form to prevent a race to the bottom. Individual employees have no power at all, so employers can keep pushing them. Changing jobs is not frictionless, even in a good job market. Most people who work in low-paying positions can't afford to miss a few months of pay because they quit their job to look for something better. Since people have to work to survive, especially in the US with its poor social safety net, you get situations where people are forced to take a job no matter how exploitative it is.

>>Unions form to prevent a race to the bottom.

There is no such thing as a race to the bottom.. This is a common trope from people who don't understand economics. Union benefits are zero sum rent extraction, and in the long run, inhibit economic growth and with it broad-based wage growth.

Individual employees have a power of moving to another employer.

There are professions when skill transfer is problematic, like a railroad engineer, but warehouse worker is not one of them.

It is indeed not frictionless and requires some effort, but it's certainly doable.

> It is indeed not frictionless and requires some effort, but it's certainly doable.

You've just explained why this power isn't realistic to invoke. If you're a warehouse worker, can you afford the unemployment time long enough to find another job? Can your family?

I think yelling "I quit!" and slamming the door happens only in movies.

In real life most people first secure a new job and then resign from their current position.

To answer your question: no, my family cannot afford me not working for half a year as well. I believe this is the case for most of people not living with parents.

What’s wrong is that it’s easy to exploit human psychology with a variable ratio reward schedule using raffle tickets and prizes.

It’s a job. If you add more value, you ought to be paid for it in dollars, not raffle tickets.

what if it's the best option because it's the only option?

Are they slaves forced to work for their local lord? Probably not in this time in the US - "the only option" is not a credible hypothesis.

You're underestimating their lack of bargaining power and the power differential with the employers in the region.

At least a feudal lord had obligations to their subjects.

you say that as if the cost of getting a different job was zero, where in fact if there's only one employer around and you have a family or something similar, it's more likely to be in tens of thousands of dollars if you include future medical bills for stress-related illnesses. it's very expensive to be poor and/or out of options.

My understanding is that one of the primary differentiators between serfs and lords was that lords were able to own land.

Since many (most?) people in the US cannot afford the land and other resources necessary to provide for themselves (e.g. via farming or craftsmanship), I'm not sure that it's unfair to draw a parallel between them and serfs.

Many of the people I grew up with in the southwest own their homes (for the sake of this discussion, finance == own). Almost none of my friends in NYC own their homes. I recently moved out of NYC to a new england state and most of the people in my office own their homes.

It's really not that uncommon for people outside of major cities to own their home?

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