AMAZON on BBC1 Undercover

John1993_2

dktreesea wrote: »

Punctuality doesn't of itself mean a lot./QUOTE]

Well no, it's necessary but not sufficient.

The rest of your post was just weird, as though creative people are unable to turn up on time, or punctual people cannot be creative.

Do you honestly think that people who turn up on time are "jobsworths"?

piglet25

Going get me a job at Amazon to see if the walking will succeed where a hundred diets have failed!
On a serious note, I don't think its an excessive distance to walk during a shift which is indoors. In my job I am community based and we are expected to cover a distance of five miles on foot during a six hour shift if the roads are impassable or too dangerous to drive on due to snow and ice. , I have my snow grips at the ready. . .

Atidi

dktreesea wrote: »

It depends what people are used to. A lot of people wouldn't put up with a job where the boss gets shirty if you turn up 2 minutes late.
...

Just to let you know, I've seen your post but I'm not biting.

However, I agree there are a lot of people of whom you speak. Those of us who do go to work and arrive on time can often spot them on our daily commute in their trackie bottoms and fake ugg boots often congregating outside a Lidl store :cool:

Zelazny

makeyourdaddyproud wrote: »

Remember that their worldwide profit affords huge bonuses for the very people that are allowed to be late without reproach, and walking into work with coffee and oodles of small talk to narrate to fellow executives.

Actually, the Amazon business model doesn't involve making huge profits. It always annoys me when people just take the tabloid press at face value and don't look into things. Amazon pays very little corporation tax because it basically doesn't make any money - all of it's revenue is plowed into further growth.

For example, in 2012 their net sales were $61bn (globally) and they made a net loss of $39m

Hence, no corporation tax was due. They're not tax dodging - in fact they probably pay more in payroll taxes than 99.9% of other businesses, but they pay no corporation tax because they currently make no profit.

Sinhanada

Zelazny wrote: »

Actually, the Amazon business model doesn't involve making huge profits. It always annoys me when people just take the tabloid press at face value and don't look into things. Amazon pays very little corporation tax because it basically doesn't make any money - all of it's revenue is plowed into further growth.

For example, in 2012 their net sales were $61bn (globally) and they made a net loss of $39m

Hence, no corporation tax was due. They're not tax dodging - in fact they probably pay more in payroll taxes than 99.9% of other businesses, but they pay no corporation tax because they currently make no profit.

That's an interesting spin on things and one I'd not previously heard. However, without looking at their books I cannot take your word at face value either.

For everyone else complaining that Amazon are quite right - I find it abhorrent that you get points for being ill. I always thought that you were entitled to sick pay. The thought of being able to work without being ill is inherently wrong.

Secondly the simple fact that not all PIR (Person In Room) lights are functioning correctly, this is a breach of Health & Safety regulation. The correct response would be I am not going in a darkened corridor with ineffective lighting, but I suspect this would be another point.

RichardD1970

Sinhanada wrote: »

That's an interesting spin on things and one I'd not previously heard. However, without looking at their books I cannot take your word at face value either.

For everyone else complaining that Amazon are quite right - I find it abhorrent that you get points for being ill. I always thought that you were entitled to sick pay. The thought of being able to work without being ill is inherently wrong.

Secondly the simple fact that not all PIR (Person In Room) lights are functioning correctly, this is a breach of Health & Safety regulation. The correct response would be I am not going in a darkened corridor with ineffective lighting, but I suspect this would be another point.

Every company has a sickness policy that is triggered by excessive time off due to sickness and no one is automatically entitled to sick pay (only SSP if the correct conditions are met).

I think, and from personal experience, that the points system at Amazon is quite reasonable, 3 instances of sickness or 6 lates in a 3 month period is quite high for most able bodied people. Any employer would be concerned with that level of absenteeism.

As for the PIR (passive infra-red sensor ) lighting, the images shown in the TV program were filmed with a very small, hidden, fixed aperture camera which had no ability to alter it's exposure. The corridors would not have appeared half so dark to the human eye which is capable of adjusting to different light conditions.

Things break and can take time to be fixed.

Nowhere was it mentioned that the "worker" reported the lack of lighting or, if they did, what the response was. Now why would you think that may have been, when the program was actively looking for things to complain about?

dktreesea

safestored4 wrote: »

The trouble with your analysis is that many jobs, including Amazon pickers, don't require, or can accomodate, the so called creative person who can think outside the box. Nice trendy Islington phrases but pray tell us in practical terms what they mean, and how they apply to the sorts of job being discussed here.

If people are getting blisters on their feet, then the targets set by Amazon are both unachievable and threatening/impacting on the health of their workers. They need to lower the targets a bit, and treat their low paid staff like human beings, not human substitutes for robots. If they wanted a robot workforce, which may well be more efficient, then they should have invested in one. Human beings aren't designed to work like robots.

What's more, work is what a lot of people spend a good deal of their working hours doing. It should be fun, not drudgery.

As for thinking outside the box, those people working for Amazon couldprobably think of quite a few things that could improve their own day and maybe even Amazon's bottom line. I wonder if they are encouraged to speak out? i doubt it.

dktreesea

John1993 wrote: »

dktreesea wrote: »

Punctuality doesn't of itself mean a lot./QUOTE]

Well no, it's necessary but not sufficient.

The rest of your post was just weird, as though creative people are unable to turn up on time, or punctual people cannot be creative.

Do you honestly think that people who turn up on time are "jobsworths"?

I think managers who focus on punctuality at the expense of the quality of work done by the person in question are jobsworths. It's work, for goodness sake, not the army.

It's possible to walk, at a reasonable pace, 10 miles a day, day in day out, without ever getting blisters. What kind of employer thinks it's okay to hobble their workforce? Not to mention lay them off if they then can't walk?

John1993_2

dktreesea wrote: »

I think managers who focus on punctuality at the expense of the quality of work done by the person in question are jobsworths. It's work, for goodness sake, not the army.

Er, again, no-one is saying that it has to be at the cost of any other quality or practice. Why are you inventing these weird conditions that no-one was arguing for? Why can't a manager want puctuality AND the other qualities that matter too?

John1993_2

dktreesea wrote: »

If people are getting blisters on their feet, then the targets set by Amazon are both unachievable and threatening/impacting on the health of their workers.

Or, to take it another way, some workers have chosen some inappropriate footwear for work.

You do seem to be confusing the workplace with some sort of creche or support group, and not to understand that a person is employed to carry out a function, not to be made to feel like a special little princess.

Not all jobs are media collectives in Islington, run by Tarquin from college's dad, who just wants everyone to have a ruddy marvellous time, and let's not worry about the bottom line.