Its unstimulating, repetitive, menial work. if you make most primates do that they go nuts after a relatively short while. Anyone who thinks it isn't going to happen to humans is kidding themselves.

Well they are clearly walking a lot so meeting the governments 10 000 steps a day target.

Over here, they Re striking again, because they want to be paid as shop workers, not warehouse workers - it means higher pay and higher rates if they have to work after normal shop closing times...

They are working in a bloody warehouse and have no contact with customers. On the other hand, the imported 'slave' workers that they ship in from Spain and the Eastern Block and put up in old holiday chalets and force them to work for lower wages than promised (they are offered a good wage at home, have a flight paid for to get them to the site in Germany, then the actual pay is less, but if they don't sign, they have to pay for their own way back home). Okay, it isn't Amazon doing this, it is the employment agencies they use to take care of the staffing for them, but it is still disgusting, which is why many people boycott Amazon.

But the public can't have it both ways, it can't be dirt cheap and the workers paid well... Personally I'd be prepared to pay more for the good, if I knew that the workers were treated well - that goes for those involved in the manufacture of the goods as well as the supply chain.

Hoo-rah.

I think people are waking up to the cost of low priced goods. Someone, somewhere is cutting a corner to keep those prices low, and at some point those corners involve people.

I don’t think this is the first time we’ve heard of Amazon’s warehouse practices, nor will it be the last.

I don't get it, what exactly is the issue here? That they have walk a lot? Or that the job isn't stimulating? Or that they don't get paid "enough"? Not everybody is bright enough to get a job that they will love, some people have to do manual jobs otherwise the world will starve. It doesn't take a genius to figure it out.

Don't like your job? Then get the one you want. We can't be all equal in everything, some are better (brighter) than others so they will make more money, sometimes with even less effort.

People will always complain that the world owes them something, no matter how well they are doing. They want more money for less work. On the other hand I know people making far more money than avg person and they hate their jobs too, so it is not all sunshine and rainbows in white collar jobs either. But I don't hear them bitching and moaning, they get on with it or they get a new job. Nobody is forced to work anywhere, not even at Amazon.

Meanwhile, on Planet Earth...


It may be hard for you to believe, but not everything in life is fixed by having more money. If they were being paid 10 times what they are, the psychological effects of the actual tasks their job consists of would be exactly the same. The problem is you have a conflict here ; the most efficient way for the job to be done is actually very bad for the people doing it, and more money won't change that. So really the choices are you either change the job to make it more 'human friendly' at a cost of reduced profit for the business but better welfare for the workers, or you automate it entirely and they all have to find something else to do. Which may be a better or worse thing. Right now, probably worse.

Or if you're entirely callous as a corporation, you think "[LIFTED] 'em" and carry on burning through human beings as if they are a disposable resource.

What psychological effects? That they are bored? My heart bleeds for them! Most people are bored in their jobs, regardless of what they do, it's hardly a secret.

I think it's that they are bored, and under closer supervision than most of us (by some gadget that beeps if they don't shove items into a basket quickly enough), and no doubt they are constantly assessed according to the same metric. So very bored, a little overworked, slightly stressed, and with achy feet to boot. Conversation is probably lacking too.


Koli is also right though, this is work that some are well suited to and others not. Everybody places themselves at increased risk of mental illness if they stay in a stressful, boring job to which they aren't suited. I doubt very much that anyone signing up for a couple of months of Amazon's Xmas special night shift is really exposing themselves to an unacceptable risk, and I am sure that the courts will shortly test whether they are at the tough end of what is legally permissible, or are overstepping.

You're an idiot.