"I briefly amuse myself by mashing the Help and Please buttons"

April 4, 2019 1:50 PM

“The ten hour shifts can be pretty grating on your mind. What worked for me was trying to completely zone out — think about nothing — and let my cerebellum take over.” Advice given to a new Amazon warehouse employee. In his own words, Postyn Smith recounts the roll-out of games on the warehouse floor designed to help keep workers "engaged" and lower turnover. Not to be confused with the similarly dystopian game that came out earlier this year where you play as an Amazon warehouse worker, created by Australia's ABC News.
posted by Snacks (37 comments total)

No aspect of various shitty jobs I had in the past was more demoralizing than when employees were asked - or in some cases required - to pretend that unpleasant duties and/or the job itself was “fun.” Ostensibly it was supposed to be improve morale but really it was what the author of TFA describes; a display of power and dominance by the managerial class on behalf of the ownership class.
posted by The Card Cheat at 2:12 PM on April 4, 2019 [51 favorites]

I'm surprised Amazon hasn't coughed up for some MeFi accounts that roll into threads extolling the virtues of working at such a fantastic place, like they do on Twitter
posted by slater at 2:38 PM on April 4, 2019 [8 favorites]

Cripes. I've worked a few entirely shitty jobs (phone bank interviewer, security guard) and some often shitty jobs (cafe clerk, soldering iron monkey, tutor.) I've always been lucky in two ways. First, I never expected the jobs to be permanent. My parents have worked shity jobs for most of their lives; looking ahead to three months of insulting nonsense vs. sixty years really makes all the difference. (I'm looking at you, Barbara Ehrenreich.)

Second, all of my direct supervisors never pretended that we were doing something that wasn't slightly degrading, incredibly boring, and a task that no human would sign up for if they didn't need to do so in order to eat. The phone bank was actually among the most fun, 'cause the managers were the snarkiest and most disenchanted corporate employees I've ever met. They constantly praised me for my careful work and then told me they'd have pretended to lose the call after a minute. (Much of the work involved interviewing people who'd recently visited a large US for-profit hospital company. I've asked hundreds of elderly widows if their very recently deceased husband enjoyed the meals during his last day of life. I'm not proud of this.) The work was stultifying, but the fact that literally nobody in a 90 person cube farm pretended that it wasn't made a big difference.

This sounds like hell. I'd happily quadruple the handling charge I pay on Amazon goods if they treated their employees like humans.
posted by eotvos at 2:47 PM on April 4, 2019 [32 favorites]

As a ux designer I could really see myself working on one of these games and actually hoping I was doing SOMETHING to help those poor people down there. (And I mean poor as an expression of sympathy like "oh that poor guy" rather than "a poor person") Just like, trying to make something awful slightly less awful if possible. It could be that it's not possible. Imagine Bezos forked over even a tiny percentage of his hoard of gold to hire the actual number of people required and pay them a comfortable wage. The work probably would be bearable and either it wouldn't need this gamified bullshit or the gamified bullshit could actually be appreciated.
posted by bleep at 2:55 PM on April 4, 2019 [1 favorite]

But also as someone who works in tech this is why I will never ever work for Bezos.
posted by bleep at 2:57 PM on April 4, 2019 [6 favorites]

I'm surprised Amazon hasn't coughed up for some MeFi accounts that roll into threads extolling the virtues of working at such a fantastic place

I've always assumed that the mods were always looking for sock-puppetry and nipped it in the bud before I ever saw it. looking at the deleted metafilter posts, there's plenty of shilling that has been posted and deleted.
posted by Dr. Twist at 3:07 PM on April 4, 2019 [3 favorites]

It's like these fuckers have never even heard of the French Revolution.
posted by saladin at 3:11 PM on April 4, 2019 [33 favorites]

I wonder how much it cost Amazon to make those games, and whether it would be a significant amount if just distributed directly to the warehouse workers as a raise instead. Probably not.
posted by biogeo at 3:23 PM on April 4, 2019 [3 favorites]

True Bay Area mindset would be to salve your conscience with the idea that somehow sometime soon these jobs will all be done by robots.
posted by vogon_poet at 3:33 PM on April 4, 2019 [10 favorites]

I have a 5000 word outline for a book about the promise and (mostly) perils of gamification, but I can’t bear writing it because it's all so depressing. I've spent the last eight years making some of the most successful and widely-cited forms of gamification, but I've long stopped calling it gamification because of manipulative shit like this – games that you have no choice to play, games that will punish you if you play badly.
posted by adrianhon at 3:53 PM on April 4, 2019 [23 favorites]

Same as it ever was....
40 or so years ago, I worked in a UPS warehouse for Cmas rush. All we did was move packages from the endless trucks arriving to conveyer belts (which were then sorted/moved to delivery trucks).

There was an "electric eye" counter on the belt, and every 15m a boss with a clipboard would come by, write down the number, and usually tell you to go faster or pick it up a bit.

It was backbreaking mind-dead work for slightly above minimum wage.

It sounds like 40 years later, it's the same thing with robots instead of conveyer belts and apps to count things instead of roving managers.
Same as it ever was....
posted by CrowGoat at 3:58 PM on April 4, 2019 [10 favorites]

As a ux designer I could really see myself working on one of these games and actually hoping I was doing SOMETHING to help those poor people down there.

For someone who's seen the movie Us and read a great many analyses of "what this movie is saying about society" your use of the phrase "those poor people down there" has an unexpectedly chilling nuance.

One thing that occurred to me - haven't corporations always flirted with some form of gamification or another? You know, a trophy to the team that does the most deals, a steak dinner to the guy who makes the most widgets this month, stuff like that?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:19 PM on April 4, 2019 [4 favorites]

EmpressCallipygos: It's an old strategy to be sure, but the level of monitoring and surveillance we have these days takes it to a whole new level. It's possible for every minute and second of your working life could be tracked and gamified, now.
posted by adrianhon at 4:25 PM on April 4, 2019 [1 favorite]

Remember, folks, tip your Amazon warehouse workers
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 4:36 PM on April 4, 2019 [1 favorite]

Well
posted by The Whelk at 4:37 PM on April 4, 2019 [4 favorites]

"No aspect of various shitty jobs I had in the past was more demoralizing than when employees were asked - or in some cases required - to pretend that unpleasant duties and/or the job itself was “fun."

TOFUTTI BREAK EVERYBODY YAAAAAAAH!
posted by symbioid at 4:45 PM on April 4, 2019 [5 favorites]

Third prize is...you're fired.
posted by maxwelton at 4:48 PM on April 4, 2019 [4 favorites]

Third prize is...you're fired.

gunning for third this week – i've got a good feeling
posted by murphy slaw at 5:17 PM on April 4, 2019 [4 favorites]

A big tech company, like Amazon, would naturally assume that video games (more technology) could be the win-win solution they are looking for.

Look, go read Ben Hamper's Rivethead.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 5:36 PM on April 4, 2019 [6 favorites]

It's like these fuckers have never even heard of the French Revolution.

And/or the 1917 Russian Revolution.
posted by msjen at 7:48 PM on April 4, 2019 [4 favorites]

Workers are so blatantly infantilized now at every level. This is the new "whip harder" line except with fun interactive FC Games to increase engagement. Seriously half of human resource management now is about abusing human psychology on us poor workers to make us ever more productive without paying us more.

- Warehouse gamification
- Ping pong in the office that no one ever plays but conveys a youthful energetic culture
- Free food at the office (as long as it's healthy!)
- Referral rewards for doing recruiting for them
- Tracking phone location and computer usage to make sure you're actually working at all times
- Service days and teambuilding

As if the job wasn't grueling enough, it's another kick in the face when management infantilizes the workplace because they acknowledge its shittiness but condescend to you like a gullible sucker.

I'm surprised they aren't straight up lobotomizing workers yet, to save all the trouble.
posted by hexaflexagon at 7:59 PM on April 4, 2019 [4 favorites]

One of my workplaces doesn't have this (yet) but I expect something like this will eventually show up (after it's been proven to not work, but upper management has to make themselves useful.)

Presently, they try the:
-referral rewards for recruiting since they got rid of HR in the stores,

-food events when (whatever) metrics are met - always on a day I happen to not be there,
-occasional t-shirt or ball cap reward,

-community service events that are not paid (on our own free time), but employees are to wear the company t-shirt and corporate takes credit for it,

-special corporate self-congratulations for hiring former military and seemingly basking in the glow of said employee's military service for which corporate did nothing but hire an available employee bot,

-the "fun committee" has about given up doing anything but occasionally does "family fun" things,

-intense tracking of "engagement" for how many employees are doing all the traceable computer-oriented training/responding to missives/even reading said missives. Be sure to check into [thing] several times a day because corporate is tracking such engagement,

-suckering employees into loading a special employee app on their phone "to make it more convenient to check our (ever-changing) schedules", (no, surely not used for anything else by corporate; no siree),

The more that corporate tries to implement this type stuff and the less they try and make the workplace actually survivable (hiring enough people and providing real monetary reward) the lower morale goes. And, gosh, could they even respect workers as real adult humans?

Have pity on any retail worker you encounter in your life. Please fill out all the "chance to win$ for responding to our surveys" because if there are not enough surveys filled out, demerits, and if the score is not perfect 10's, then the lower score is included as a zero in the average: not even kidding.)

When corporate wants to know how the shipping/packaging/service was - always tell them 100% wonderful rainbows and unicorns, the clouds parted and angels sang, unless there was something egregiously wrong.
posted by mightshould at 4:50 AM on April 5, 2019 [8 favorites]

Wonder if we’ll get any new sea shanties out of this.
posted by Melismata at 5:13 AM on April 5, 2019 [4 favorites]

We so desperately need workplace democracry like yesterday
posted by The Whelk at 5:20 AM on April 5, 2019 [4 favorites]

I wonder how much of this deadly boredom could be helped by just cross-training everyone and rotating them to a different station three or four times a day. It would still be endless tedium but it would be different endless tedium.
posted by jacquilynne at 5:47 AM on April 5, 2019 [2 favorites]

I own a wholesale distribution company with four warehouses. I do everything I can to give my employees a sense of agency and empowerment. I don't mince words when I talk to the warehouse crew, acknowledging the work is difficult and often thankless. We let those who are closest to the work make the decisions about how things get done, so long as it doesn't break our software system. We try to pay the best wage we can, which is difficult when our net income hovers around 0.1% of revenue, as well as paying annual bonuses and spot bonuses. We're also very flexible with scheduling, letting workers come and go when they need for family and personal reasons. As a result we have a very low turnover rate and what I hope are happy employees. It can be very difficult to find that balance, but I feel it's a moral obligation to treat people as well as I can while maintaining the financial health necessary to keep the lights on and the doors open.
posted by slogger at 6:52 AM on April 5, 2019 [14 favorites]

It's like these fuckers have never even heard of the French Revolution.

And/or the 1917 Russian Revolution.

Sure they have, but those events only came about after centuries (or millennia) of brutal exploitation. They figure the odds are on their side.
posted by Sangermaine at 8:02 AM on April 5, 2019 [1 favorite]

Look, go read Ben Hamper's Rivethead.

Seconding this recommendation. Personally I'm not a fan of Michael Moore so I'd just skip the foreward that's in my edition, but the book itself is great. The author's descriptions of the GM assembly lines are... well:

I was assigned to the Cab Shop, an area more commonly known to its inhabitants as the Jungle. Lifers had told me that on a scale from one to ten—with one representing midtown Pompeii and ten being then GM Chairman Roger Smith's summer home—the Jungle rates about a minus six. [...] The noise level was deafening. It was like some hideous unrelenting tape loop of trains having sex.

Pure poetry.

I hope somewhere, somebody at Amazon is doing the same for this generation, although they'll probably have to dictate the thing into their phone while picking junk out of bins. I doubt Amazon is as lenient about letting people double-up as GM apparently was.
posted by Kadin2048 at 8:19 AM on April 5, 2019 [3 favorites]

One large employer vs. many easily replaceable employees creates a huge power imbalance - unless the employees can join together and negotiate with the employer on a more even footing.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 8:32 AM on April 5, 2019 [1 favorite]

Re: boredom

That was a big part of the Lordstown auto strike, the strong union gains meant hires where looking at a job for 30 years ....that was increasing automated and repetitive and demanding unsustainable production speed. They banded together for more control of their workplace, the ability to set production goals or change focus or decide what to automate, stuff auto workers in other countries had.

Management then realized the new state of the world meant they should shift all this work overseas and they broke the back of the union over it.

Now Amazon can’t outsource distribution work, so it’s in a prime place for some sit down strikes or production line disruption, it relies on a just in time model anyway. Jane McAlevey has a great interview on The Dig about this.


Hell, imagine if workplace democracry meant the workers could decide to adopt more carbon neutral practices, maybe calling for a ban on plastic packaging?

Workers of the world Unite and all that.
posted by The Whelk at 8:44 AM on April 5, 2019 [2 favorites]

I vaguely remember some work on workplace structure and unionization which talked about the importance of workers being able to talk to each other in order to build the trust needed to create unions. Is that a true thing? Will it have an impact on unionization efforts at Amazon warehouses?
posted by clawsoon at 9:03 AM on April 5, 2019

Yeah trust among workers is a big step, it’s why bosses try to prevent it as much as possible
posted by The Whelk at 9:05 AM on April 5, 2019 [3 favorites]

So give them games to play so that in the few minutes they might have available to talk they play a game instead?
posted by clawsoon at 9:12 AM on April 5, 2019 [2 favorites]

Or are trained to view work as a place of competition rather than cooperation
posted by The Whelk at 9:13 AM on April 5, 2019 [3 favorites]

Imagine if Marx were brought back to life today.
posted by notreally at 5:48 PM on April 5, 2019

@Kadin2048, most warehouses I'm aware of ban cell phone possession past the security check in
posted by Jacen at 9:03 PM on April 5, 2019

adrianhon: please keep me updated on your work. I'm a firm believer in the idea that "Gamification" (particularly the manipulative sort you're talking about) has led to an increase in stress and poor work-life balance because rests are punished and people are always chasing higher scores.
posted by divabat at 6:02 PM on April 6, 2019 [3 favorites]