10 Rules That Can Get You Fired From Amazon

[Gwen Morse]

Originally Posted by luqmaninbmore

Unions are good. They are not a panacea. While benefits for the workers no doubt played a part in the financial problems of those companies, a greater role was played by the incompetence of the management and the rapid change in environment that accompanied Reaganite deregulation. If it were not for unions and other forms of working class organization, the majority of us would not enjoy the protections against work place hazards or exploitation that we enjoy today. And we wouldn't have a weekend or many other benefits. Again, they are not perfect. And the farther they get from the rank and file membership, the worse they get. But they are good and have been a powerful force historically for creating a more just and human society.

Agreed (although not many people seem to, these days). Unfortunately, the most entrenched unions seem to be the ones that can be held up for their negative examples (the moderate unions seem to have all been eliminated), but the fundamentals of unionization are a good thing (for the workers and management both).

It's too bad that management is being taught to downsize, outsource, and otherwise churn their way through workers. The importance of a stable, skilled, internally-promoted work force seems to have been eliminated from university business classes.

[kindlekitten]

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.

and you know this how or why?

[alyxie]

Originally Posted by RoboRay

I have had someone work with me or for me that justifies every single one of those "silly" rules.

The thing about rules are that you can't selectively apply them. If one single employee has to be told he can't have a cup of Pepsi on the assembly line because he keeps dripping it on packages and leaving a stain, then nobody can have it. As usual, 1% of the population screws everything up for everyone else.

Yeah, I used to work for a call center and they have bad free food and 3 hour only sleeping quarters. I heard from old timers that they used to have very nice food and unlimited sleeping quarters but people started living in the call center, doing 16 hour days(one meal for every 8 hours) so they can have free lunch and dinner and sleeping in the sleeping for 8 hours in the sleeping quarters.

[NVash]

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

and you know this how or why?

I know many people that used to work for them and have heard quite a few tales.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by luqmaninbmore

And this is why unions are a good thing. Two frickin' years till you get sick leave? And rules that aren't rules because they can be ignored by the employer at will? I wonder how much America will back slide into Dickensianism by the time my youngest comes of age.

Not Sick Leave. Vacation days. There is no Sick Leave, you either take a point or use a Vacation day. The factory is part of the Steelworkers Union and hubby is a member. You can try to use the Family emergency medical act if it's falls under those guidelines but other then that if you have no Vacation days you have to take a point.

[DavidI]

I work in the healthcare industry and the rules we have to follow aren't that different from Amazon's, and you better not be sick more than 6 days a year, or more than once in a month, where I work. We also have the 7 1/2 minute leeway on punching in and out (they don't want to pay overtime and that's why the rule is in place). Since I work for a lab we have rules that might look strange to others, e.g. we can wear jeans to work, but they have to be white jeans (so you can see if there is any blood on them).

[DavidI]

P.S. We also used to have no sick days as they were included in our vacation days, although you were still limited on how many days you could be sick. However, new management seperated the two. I'd prefer just vacation days, because by seperating the two I basically just got screwed out of a weeks vacation.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by NVash

...or even sleep at home because its right back to work again.

Do they require you to work 16 hour shifts?

[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.

[Over]

12$/hour? That's more than what a nurse earns here.

[kindlekitten]

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.

where the hell do you live!?

[Xanthe]

The rules didn't seem crazy to me at all. Seemed to me that the author of the article was making a lot of assumptions based upon information provided by a single source, and was trying to give the impression that those rules applied to all workers.

It appears that the "crazy" rules apply to the temporary workers that are hired over the holiday season - ones that come from staffing companies. Not to knock those people who work through staffing companies, because a lot of good workers go that route, but a lot of people who can't for one reason or another hold a steady job often get jobs via the temporary staffing companies. Those might not necessarily be the people Amazon would hire if they were vetting all their employees on their own for permanent jobs.

There doesn't seem to be any basis for the "can't wear what Amazon sells" allegation. No lipstick makes sense because then there's no chance of lipstick smears getting on any of the merchandise. Less chance of a temp worker "sampling" the merchandise, too. Drinking water means that if it spills, it's less likely to permanently damage the merchandise; clear bottles allow verification of what the liquid is (I know someone who used to carry vodka and orange juice in a thermos).

Wrapping presents incorrectly wastes time. Getting written up because you work slower than others is SOP in most businesses. I'm sure there's no rule about not being allowed to get sick. The employee mentioned, given the premise of the article, was probably a temp hire. We don't know what the conditions of employment were, but perhaps she denied any health problems at the time of hire. What company wants to hire a temp worker during a high-selling period who is going to be out sick frequently? The point of the hire is that they are going to be able to be present to do the work.

I had a 3 minute buffer on my job for signing in and out. 7 minutes seems generous. The reason why signing out later would be noted would be because working over tour comes into play, i.e. possible overtime pay would be involved for unauthorized work time.

They are temporary workers, hired to expedite the shipping backlog; they weren't hired to make friends with their coworkers and chit-chat beyond normal work-related conversations.

Not wearing a watch makes sense. It's too easy to walk out with a watch that you didn't walk in with.

Re no excuses for being late, temp workers again. Amazon doesn't need to know the reason they are late because they're not permanent employees and their rules of employment are probably different. They are probably being paid through the staffing companies, and the late points provide justification and documentation for advising the staffing company that the person they recommended for the work is unsatisfactory.

As someone who filed my fair share of grievances against my employer over the years, I don't see anything in Amazon's rules that are "crazy" given the specific situation of temporary workers during the holiday season.

[Elecman]

Wow. Makes me appreciate my job even more. I think I'm going to send this link to my boss.
... and makes me just a bit less likely to buy from Amazon if only to be one less customer that indirectly exacerbates this kind of working environment. I'd be willing to wait another couple days for my order if it means Amazon workers would be happier.

[HealyHQ]

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.

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.

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.

[kacir]

Originally Posted by Blossom

Not Sick Leave. Vacation days. There is no Sick Leave, you either take a point or use a Vacation day. The factory is part of the Steelworkers Union and hubby is a member. You can try to use the Family emergency medical act if it's falls under those guidelines but other then that if you have no Vacation days you have to take a point.

Holy $DEITY!
That is incredible.

Here, in Europe it is VERY different. Now I am starting to understand why things cost as many Euros here as Dollars out there.

Here, nobody limits your sick days. You are sick/ill/need to visit doctor (even dentist), you just get paper from the doctor that you are sick/ill for certain number of days and you bring the paper to work. That is it. You get limited pay (some percentage from your average wage) for your "sick" days. It comes from special tax we pay to state.
I get 25 vacation days per year. Yep. Entire five weeks. Some 10 years ago I took one month vacation. Went by bus from Central Europe to Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Israel, Cyprus, Rhodos, Greece, Italy ... . 10 thousand kilometres. Organised by a specialised travel agency.
And they have even more liberal laws and rules in Germany!

When you get really ill, or have a severe accident, and you are several months in hospital, and later at home, they CAN NOT fire you while you are ill. The same if you get pregnant. You get 6 month paid maternity leave and another 2.5 years of parental leave (for those 2.5 years even father can take care of child, if mother has better job and they decide to switch, but that is very rare) and you get paid some money. And they have to keep your place - they aren't allowed to sack you. From the age of three children go to Kindergarten. Vast majority of population can afford Kindergarten for their kids if they wish to start working.

Employer has to provide you with 30 minutes for lunch and you get vouchers for lunch in cafeteria (you pay fraction of cost) or some equivalent (like vouchers usable in restaurants in town). Lunch in cafeteria is: warm soup, main course (warm, cooked meal, usually meat) and perhaps a dessert (usually paid extra). All of that decent quality.

Nobody has to worry about medical bills here. You get sick, you go to doctor. You get all necessary generic medicals for a symbolic fee. Insurance company will pay. You only pay for fancy tooth fillings (ceramic ones, amalgam (silver mixed with mercury) is paid by insurance, you only pay symbolic fee, like 3 euros), fancy dentistry work, cosmetic surgery, or if you want to have private room in hospital.

As I said, very different here ...