I have worked at places that have a point system. I always thought they were very fair, but not the people that would rack up points. My favorite was that we would have say a 7 minute grace period, where we can clock in up to 7 minutes late without penalty. Then they clock in 8 minutes late, and complain that they shouldn’t get a point, as they were only 1 minute late.
This is very true. You do get more than a linear relationship of production vs pay. Obviously, there are limits, as you can’t just keep paying people more and they just keep working faster, but you do get much better motivation with fairly small increases in compensation.
It also helps to prevent turnover of valuable employees. And turnover is one of the biggest obstacles to production.
Doesn’t it ever. I don’t know the best way to manage a disability system but we aren’t doing it. Fodder for a good GD thread but I keep putting off doing the research to put forth a decent OP.
You could look at that as the way the whole labor market works. Pay varies greatly. So must productivity in general or a market labor system could never sustain itself. Some people focus on the imperfections of markets or just contrast themselves to (largely imaginary) debate opponents who ‘worship’ markets. Just saying, if you think about how much pay varies across jobs, consistently and sustained, obviously the general rule in fact is that employers must in general pay more to people they can get more productivity, ‘more work’ out of.
Now in the context here the assumption might be that all entry level/un/semi-skilled etc (however you want to characterize lower tiers of the labor market) workers have equal abilities to produce value for the employer. But that’s only partly realistic. The employer might not be easily able to distinguish up front who can and will work harder, as in physically harder/faster, but still some people can/will and others don’t want to, or are equally willing to but less physically capable of it and so willing or forced to settle for less in less demanding jobs. So they’ll tend to show up late and get fired, etc from a job where you have to work hard. It’s never really a uniform workforce even if all applicants are ostensibly comparable in relevant credentials.
Warehouses are the good places/best places in our company; trust me on that one. I got friends and kin who have been at AVP.
As of this PEAK the points system still applied to anyone seasonal or alumni ------ blue-edged badges in our parlance. And even for full blue badges, those considered part-time like basically all us sorters just get UPT (unpaid time off) and no vacation or anything else and certainly nothing paid. You can get a medical leave (unpaid) if you are lucky but basically not until you have burned up your bank of UPT (20 hours per quarter and 80 hours max ion the bank) and look like a likely candidate to return. That your local HR isn’t a lot of help with; it has to go through the ERC which we call the “Employee Refusal Center” for a reason - the usual answer to anything is “no”.
Life in Da Jungle differs across the country and YMMV widely. I do know people who fit almost every horror story out there. A lady who burned her UPT dealing with her mother’s death and the aftermath left behind and was fired as a result; she can return but only as a seasonal and for a dollar an hour less. A guy with a nagging injury that never quite healed. A young lady who struck back at a person who grabbed and twisted her arm to the point of injuring it for “returning violence with violence”. Those things do indeed happen but RARELY compared to the people who just go away. Most people simply quit and/or move on at our facilkity, those fired are mostly for running out of UPT or not showing up in your use of the phrase. But even then it isn’t always that simple.
In over 3 years I can think of 6 terminations that probably should not have happened; 5 part-time and one full-time like you. Of those I actually miss only one of the people involved - our PA (full-timer) who was put on a schedule she couldn’t meet (she relied on public transportation) and then fired as a result of “tardiness”. Our full-timers have little to no say in their schedule so ----------- things happen and she probably shouldn’t have accepted the promotion in the first place. But there it is.
On another aside ------- we should have a meet-up just for all uf us from Amazon on the Dope. I know of at least 4 and I’m betting there are probably more.
I don’t see how that happened - it’s pretty much exactly what FMLA is for!
That’s pretty much everywhere. Unreasonable as it sounds, you can be fired for hitting someone that’s hit you, while on company property. My last job was in banking and we had two people fired because of a slap-fight over the breakroom microwave. :rolleyes:
That is why, I believe, they keep 90% of us as part-time; slightly different rules. UPT is a combination of sick days, vacation days, personal days and everything else combined and the associate/employee is totally responsible for the management of it all. The theory is you track each hour and resign before the bank hits “zero” and then return once the issue is settled. If your bank does hit zero you cannot return for a year and then only at a reduced wage and lower status. I ran up against the “UPT Monster” once and was lucky and aware enough to do things their way. But sometimes with a sudden death or illness people lose track. And again, since its not under any local control exceptions are national and just don’t happen. The average employee is either seasonal for some random period of 11 months or “full part-time” like me and basically treated as a sort of subcontractor. Your fate is totally your own.
And its also the reason for this terrific torture device called the HUB. But that in and of itself almost could use its own thread. The problem is no-one who hasn’t used it would ever believe it.
Our case was actually a little worse because the young lady was basically just trying to break the grip of what was clearly an attacker. Yes, today it isn’t all that unusual when zero tolerance means absolute zero. But it still hurts when it happens to someone you know.
I know it all sounds cold and heartless but for something this size on an international level, as odd as it reads, it works more often than not. I may be a total freakazoid doing this as long as I have but I love the comp[any and what its brought into my life – all the people I’ve met and the things I’ve been able to do. But like life its not always rosey.
A few weeks in at Amazon, they had a followup meeting with my group and told us less than 1% of terminations were for productivity. Most of us were worried about “making rate.” I had some warnings pile up at the beginning but after a “retraining” and some informal coaching I never had an issue again. There are some frustrating things when it comes to that, as far needing to find out tips and tricks on your own or only learning them after you feel close to losing your job, but for the most part people will go out of their way to help you keep your job if you show up every day ready to work. The biggest complaint I hear now is “not enough VTO” which means people want more unpaid time off, for a fulltime job that is 4 days a week. They’ve been offering it every night the past 2-3 months and I have co-workers on my team I’ve only seen a handful of times since New Years because they take every night off they can get.
Where I work some of what you’ve described seems to be the opposite, as far as composition of ft/pt/seasonal. When I applied only full-time or “reduced time” positions were available and I don’t think I’ve ever seen pt jobs advertised. It seems like the vast majority of workers either work 10 hours Sun-Wed (nights or days) or 12 hours Thurs-Sat. The “reduced time” get paid more per hour but do accumulate time off in a different/slower way.
A lot of the horror stories online also deal with the staffing agencies (ISS here, which I always read as ISIS for some reason) and I’ve read blogs and accounts that seem to imply that’s the only way to get your foot in the door. Not so in my circumstance. Amazon hires directly and from what I can tell I see no reason to go through the staffing agency unless you are not a high school grad. I could be wrong, but I think the staffing people might not have that requirement but for one of their employees to be moved up to “blue badge” they would have to meet Amazon’s direct hire requirements, which mostly have to do with have a diploma and passing a background check.
I’m not cheerleading for the Amazon powers that be. I think there are a lot of legit criticisms of the way they do things and handle employees, just that a lot of the issues are not Amazon-specific and come down to a matter of policies that are clear and upfront.
This addresses what I thought was the biggest problem at the fulfillment center where I worked - the training was really poor. At first I thought better training would help with the turnover rate but with the chief cause of turnover being attendance, I can see why they don’t invest in it. And a huge amount of people simply quit - during peak one of the trainers (“ambassadors”) said it was common for lots of people to quit by lunchtime, deciding it wasn’t for them.
A related question for Amazon employees: is there a body frisk when you leave work, to prevent theft?
A couple years ago, I remember reading about a massive class-action lawsuit being prepared to sue Amazon , because the employees were required to line up and wait for a body frisk before leaving the building. Waiting in line took about a half hour, and it was done after the employee had clocked out.
It this true?
I ain’t no lawyer, but it seemed to me like a pretty cut-and-dried lawsuit. Every minute during which an employee is prevented from leaving the employer’s premises, is time “on the clock” for which he must be paid. And 30 minutes a day for 10’s of thousands of people for several years would add up to a big bunch o’ bucks.
Where I worked, no. You had to go thru a metal detector, and anything you carried out would be searched, but that was it. So the annoying thing was the people that held up the line because they didn’t mind this - people that brought giant lunch bags into the facility rather than leaving them in the refrigerators before passing the metal detectors, or people wearing belts and/or chains that they had to remove for inspection every single time they went out.
I walk straight through the metal detector at both of my breaks and on the way home. There is really no wait. One time the arm of my shirt somehow set it off. So I had to go to secondary screening. I decided to never wear that shirt again. At most, I carry keys and go through the key-only lane. Other times I just walk right through and do not carry anything on me except things that you are allowed to carry through like gloves and water bottle. Don’t wear a belt and don’t wear steel toe shoes or carry any bags and there is no hassle.
They dropped the detectors for us a couple years back; we’re handling sealed boxes (for the most part) and Loss Prevention decided the hassle and extra security personnel were not worth the cost. The only people getting checked on a more regular basis are those assigned to “problem solve”. When we did have it, it was just for exit (at breaks for smokers and just at the end of shift for the rest of us) from the building. It took time; two “stations” for 100+ people, many of whom did not plan and think ahead (I always had my keys and wallet in my hat to speed my way through), and you sometimes were 5-10 minutes getting out. And we had people with implants who had to get wanded every time. But all in all few of us considered it a big deal.
The part that people hated was not being allowed their cell phones on the floor. Those were “registered assets” and only leadership could get off the floor without being written up for having one. No exceptions, don’t even think about it, three offenses and you get promoted to customer. Now, especially with VTO all being through the Hub and all, almost everyone has a phone on the floor and too many people are CONSTANTLY playing with the damn things. And our bosses make no attempt to regulate it until after someone causes an accident or someone is actually injured and then basically just for the next shift. Make me really miss the Old (3 year ago ) Days.
The part that struck all of us as odd was it was only on exit. If someone wanted to bring in an Uzi and take us all out, or a knife to settle a specific score no problem!!! And someone did pack a knife in to threaten his ex-girlfriend with. But try to take the company box-cutter out the door with you and Katie-bar-the-door! We aren’t having any of that stuff – you get at least a first written warning.
Belt buckles reminds me; new workers at our place tend to drop a lot of weight at first. SCs can be a real gym-grade work-out. People pulling out their belt for security and dropping their pants became such a common thing that we didn’t even notice much. I cheated — belts with snap-secured buckles. I could pull the buckle fast, toss it in my hat, hold up my pants, and then put the buckle back all in about 5 seconds. Our chief guard at the time actually complimented me on my dexterity. I told him it was due to an interesting set of teen years and active glands.
I like the current system, shopping at home, and then when I want to visit a bog box store I do, both highly competitive with each other. BTW Walmart kills those others, Amazon just put the final nail in the coffin.
Some yes, some have rebuilt themselves as high end shops. It’s a change in tyhe business cycle, some adapt and make it, others go extinct. Don’t blame Amazon, blame Darwin.
May be true or not, doesn’t matter that’s just corporate accounting, par for the game, even single persons who have sub-S corporations can play that game, doesn’t mean shit either way.
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They do pay the same (also maintain their fleet of trucks*), they get a price based on the volume, but also their ability to shift deliveries based on available resources. You do the same amount of shipping and can accommodate the needs of the post office system and you can get those rates too.
Amazon’s fleet of delivery trucks have the others shaking in their boots, if Amazon goes forth with rapid expansion then can crash the others, including USPS, who have build themselves up to deliver all the more packages, a good percentage from Amazon, and has altered their delivery model to allow overall cheaper delivery costs due to volume and the ability for Amazon to back fill space. If that disappears because Amazon self delivers delivery costs across the board will go up and service will go down.
We have 2 break rooms, one main one on the first floor just outside the detectors. So, if you want to go to the main break room or the locker and coat area, you have to pass through. Then you have badge controlled turnstile doors and then a breezeway and exit. We get 2 breaks and most people go to the break room or parking lot.
The metal detector on exit and not entrance thing is something a lot of people bring up, especially on the VOA board. To be completely honest I’m one of those people who doesn’t like “security theater” and I try to live with the idea that you can never be perfectly safe and if you could a lot of the trade-offs just aren’t worth it. So I don’t really fear for my own safety, but I certainly understand why others do. I think their official explanation is that you need your badge to enter, people have gone through background checks, etc. So it’s not like anyone can just access the building, and our AAs are all awesome good people and all that good stuff. The cynical (or probably just realist) take on it is: Amazon cares a lot more about their property going out than something dangerous going in.
I don’t mind leaving my cell phone in my locked glove box for my entire shift. I’ve been connected to the internet and had a cell phone for longer than anyone I know and at times worked online 16-18 hours a day and I don’t miss it. Also an introvert who gets anxiety with too much communication and accessibility. In a way working in an Amazon warehouse is a low key therapy for me. Also helps with boundaries with my family, which I’ve had a hard time with the previous couple years while I was running a small business fulltime and dealing with a lot of health issues.
The VTO thing is a hassle, because they send the notices sometimes while we are at work, which makes no sense unless the intent is to prioritize giving it to people who are already off. We have computers at our stations which have the ability to log in and check it, but we are not supposed to use it.
The problem solvers can sort of get around the disconnection by going online on their computers while they are working. My friend who does it is always on Twitter and Youtube and whatever, also watching sports online, while pushing around his cart.
I lost weight in the beginning, and fortunately had some tighter/smaller clothes my wife kept insisting on giving me, and acquired drawstring pants/shorts. Any pants with a waist a little too big, I would add an extra “moisture wicking” type undershirt tucked in or anything I could do to avoid wearing a belt. My weight loss stopped but I eat a lot just to maintain - 4 full meals per day when I’m working and whatever I feel like on my “weekend.”
) Days.