[Hitch]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

You call it "punishment".

I call it "fundamental reality of life".

And here's the REAL insult on top of injury: some people not only think it's reasonable that Amazon was forced to implement (at their expense, no doubt!) such draconian security measures, but then should ALSO have to pay the employees for the privilege of ensuring that they, those self-same employees, don't STEAL FROM THEM.

I mean, really?

Amazon should be the party penalized, because the employees are thieves? By PAYING those employees? For the honor of what--because the employees stole so much that they had to take security measures? So that the thieving behavior should be REWARDED?

"Oh, gosh, employee Jane Doe, we're sorry that you and your fellow workers stole so much merchandise from us that we had to spend [a hundred thousand] bucks, train security people, pay them, etc., to stand here and scan you, to prevent you from stealing from US. But don't you worry, we're going to REWARD you by paying for you to stand in this line, the one that exists to keep you from stealing!" Irony much?

Oh, hells, no. That's wrong on so many levels it's hard to discuss. It's AMAZON that was stolen from, and its customers. It's AMAZON that had to pay for the equipment to screen for thieving employees. It's AMAZON that has to pay, train, etc., the security employees to carry out the security tasks. It's AMAZON that has to eat the costs of all the theft that happened that was the trigger for this in the first place. Why on EARTH should Amazon now have to eat the costs of rewarding those employees--the same ones that stole so much that this ever even HAPPENED--to stand in a line that is the DIRECT result of their own actions? This is grown-up world, folks. Cause and effect. Bad behavior, meet consequence.

Precisely; I would just add, that that does not make it "punishment".

Agreed. PUNISHMENT would have been if Amazon had fired the entire subcontractor, because s/he hired "bad employees" and EVERYONE lost their job. Now, THAT would have been punishment. Having to stand in a line for a few minutes a day, INSTEAD of losing their jobs? Seems like a perfectly reasonable trade-off to me. If it were me, and my job, and my fellow workers' behavior had jeopardized MY job to that extent, I would have a) turned them in, or b) turned them in, AND called the cops. I certainly wouldn't have the nerve to bitch, or try to SUE, because I got to KEEP my job, but was slightly inconvenienced as the quid pro quo for keeping that job.

Hitch