Quote:
Originally Posted by NVash
Working at Amazon is terrible. Its glorified slave labor and the slightest thing can get one fired. The pay is nice but one barely gets enough time to eat, sit down during break or even sleep at home because its right back to work again. In the long run one finds themselves asking if its all worth it.
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by NVash
No, but around Christmas its 12 to 13 hour days 6 days a week. For some theres more because you factor in traveling to and from your home, getting something to eat, sitting down for a few minutes, youll be surprised how little time 12 hours really is. Most people seemed to get 6 hours of sleep a night if they were lucky. That day off is nowhere near enough time to rest when you worked so hard all week.
Best part is that you shouldnt get comfortable. Chances are youd be laid off due to Lack Of Work or fired some time in January. How what they do in Amazon isnt illegal Ill never know.
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Every bit of this is true. I know, because I just quit from an Amazon facility after being hired as a "seasonal associate" last month. This is the blog post I wrote after I got hired (I was so young...so innocent...so blind of the horrors that would await me.
)
http://healyhq.com/post/1598016192/amazon-card-key
Anyway, the point is, I was excited to be working there. I originally took the job because I wanted the extra pay, which was going to completely cover Christmas for the family this year. The keyword there is "was."
I can honestly say, it really was the
worst job I have
ever had. And I've worked at factories before, so I knew what to expect. But, oh, man, the work they had me doing was beyond what my body was capable of. Like, seriously, I have no idea how they could possibly expect us to ship as much product as they were quota-ing us for.
I worked in what they called the "SLAM." I'm not sure if that's an acronym or what, but apparently (I found out after I resigned from fellow co-workers) that's without a doubt the worst possible position you can have there. Just my luck that's where I ended up.
They are incredibly strict on pretty much everything. But of course, this is to be expected in a factory setting. As I said, I've worked in one before (Plastic Products Co., Ltd. was my previous employer before Amazon. Worked there for about 6 months (November 2009 - May 2010), but was a passenger in a car accident in which I received a concussion and temporary amnesia. Sort of put a damper on my ability to work, that's for sure.
But I digress...), but the Amazon facility took strict to a whole new level.
I have no doubt that woman getting fired for being sick. Now I'm not sure if that's because she came to work sick, or she missed one day, but it really doesn't matter. During the "holiday rush" (Thanksgiving/Black Friday/Cyber Monday/Christmas/etc.) they will pretty much fire you for, as NVash put it, "the slightest thing." Doesn't matter about any point system. You are nothing but a number to them, and you are
very easily replaced. You leave, there's two people ready to take your place the next day. (They hired over 3,000 "seasonal associates" when I started in Mid-November, and there were plenty more being processed.)
So yeah, they really have no incentive to cater to any problem you may have. You miss a day? You're terminated. An hour late? You're terminated. Not working fast enough? You're terminated.
In my case, I worked there for three weeks. I have never felt more overworked and stressed out in my entire life, and it showed. I couldn't take working in the "SLAM" line anymore, so I resigned. I don't ever intend on going back.
Now, I'm not the kind of person who quits, ya know? In every job I've had, I've always been there for at least half a year. I'm never late. I never take days off. I even do voluntary overtime. I'd like to think I have a pretty good work-ethic when it comes to my jobs. So I really can't stress enough, that this really was the worst job I ever had. Especially to make me quit before I was even there for one month.
The hours were terrible. Working six days a week, and then random mandatory overtime days, sometimes making that into seven days a week, 12/+ hours a day. The traveling, as NVash mentioned, also has to be taken into account, an hour to and from the facility. It's easy to see that, you really don't have much time out of a day for yourself at all. By the time you get home, you're totally wore out, so you go to sleep. And then you wake up, just in time to take your journey back to Amazon again.
So not much sleep if you decided to stay up even a little after you got home.
The clock-in/clock-out times were incredibly strict (as noted in the article). Your lunch break was incredibly strict. (It takes about five minutes just to get from the "SLAM" line (and even longer for Gift Wrappers) to the lunch area. Factor in the long walk back (this place is HUGE (both all round you, AND up and down (lots of floors!))) and you see that you don't get as long a lunch break as you're really supposed to.) That REALLY sucks. I don't think they should be allowed to factor in the time it takes just to walk to the lunch area and back as part of your actual lunch break. That's ridiculous. But you're under Amazon's roof, so you gotta play by their rules.
In the grand scheme of things, it mattered not that I quit now, since I would of been laid off after Christmas anyway (as NVash said, "Don't get comfortable"). That's what "season associate" means. It's a 'temp' job. All those thousands of people? Most will be laid off after next week. They use you for a couple months, and then throw you away. That's it. I knew this going into it -- that's what I had planned. This was just a way to earn Christmas money this year. Well, that didn't end up happening. Gonna be a more conservative Christmas than I had planned. Oh, well. C'est la vie. It was NOT worth it.
Which brings me...to the pay: Amazon does not actually hire people themselves. They work exclusively with a contracting/ "temp" agency. This means that you're working at Amazon through the agency, not FOR Amazon themselves. This agency is a middle-man. That starting pay? Yeah, that $12/hour that looked like a good deal? You don't get that. You have to sacrifice a chunk of your paycheck to the staffing agency. And that's after taxes had already been taken out. By the time you factor all that in, your making little above minimum wage.
It's highway robbery, really. But it is, unfortunately, legal. This is probably another way Amazon cuts costs somehow, by using this middle-man.
Anyway, I'm getting stressed out just thinking about all of this again, so I'm gonna stop this rant right here. Sorry for subjecting you to this giant wall of text, but I thought you'd be interested in hearing from someone with real first-hand experience working at one of these facilities. Do yourselves a favor: never work at Amazon.
Your bodies, your minds, and your
sanity, will all thank you.
