“MY SHIFT ACTUALLY starts at 6:30 a.m., but I punch in at 6:25, get my coffee, and then we have a thing called ‘stand up’ where the managers talk about safety, what they expect for the day, and building announcements. They try to motivate people to pick faster. And then you’ll go to your station and you’ll start your job. In my case, it’s picking.
The screens display which item I need to pick out of a particular bin, and I’ll pick that item and put it in the yellow tote. Once the tote is full enough, I’ll set it down and replace it with another tote. That’s pretty much what I do for my whole 10-and-a-half-hour shift.
We get a 30-minute break at 10 a.m., after four and a half hours. Our next break is from 1:30 p.m. until 2. And then we work until 5 p.m. Yesterday I picked 1,300 items the first period. Second period I picked over 900 items.
It feels like a modern-day sweatshop to me. You’re very limited if you need to get a drink of water or use the facilities to relieve yourself. Everything is based on time, pretty much. If you’re not doing your job, they call it ‘time off task,’ and you’re penalized. Once the clock starts, you don’t stop until your break time. It’s just continuous work.
One of my grandmothers was Baptist and one was Pentecostal, so I kind of fluctuated between them both. Both taught me ‘treat others as you would like to be treated.’ Would you want someone to mistreat you, use you? You wouldn’t like that very much. I don’t think anyone would. So basically, treat me the way you would want to be treated, respect me like I respect you. I don’t think we are treated as such at Amazon.”
William Fellows spoke with associate editor Betsy Shirley about working in a warehouse for the online retailer.
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