Inside an Amazon Warehouse, Robots’ Ways Rub Off on Humans

With cities and states increasing minimum wages across the country and increasingly tight labor markets, many businesses are forced to make some tough decisions. As a small business owner of a commercial janitorial company in a state where the average wage for a janitor is $15.56 per hour, finding qualified labor is increasingly difficult. As a partial solution to this problem, I built my own robotic work force. The dark side of increasing wages and tight labor markets are that in many instances, automation is the only option. In my case, like in the past, automation has permanently replaced human workers. Because of easy access to powerful and inexpensive electronic components, these robots paid for themselves in weeks and now work for free. In addition to the free labor, they will never ask for a raise, call in sick, or have car problems. If interested, I would be happy to send you a short video of my robots at work. Curtis Lucas [email protected]

Many of the commentors here today think that the reporter should have written a story about horrible conditions. Sounds like the reporter based his story on what he actually saw. That seems like the definition of unbiased reporting. Amazon employs about a quarter of million people and would that be possible if the conditions were universally terrible? I'm sure that at times things are bad - just like most jobs. The truth is, with low unemployment across the country workers have options - better jobs get filled and lesser jobs do not. I'm betting that roofers, coal miners and road construction crews could describe some poor conditions that make Amazon look look like a perpetual coffee break.

On a very hot day I recently took a free tour of the Amazon Warehouse in Allentown, PA, a non-robotic facility. The bubbly, well-informed tour guide had two warehouse workers as helpers. It was a very impressive operation although I was disappointed not to see the robots. I had several conversations with the helpers, both of whom “loved” working there and said they were cross trained in “all” areas of warehouse work. As much as I wanted to reinforce my somewhat negative views of Amazon as the evil empire, the tour had quite the opposite effect (excellent PR for sure). The temperature in the warehouse was comfortable, employee safety and benefits appear to be a priority, and it was fascinating to see the process behind Amazon’s efficient delivery methods. Also, a high school diploma is all you need to get most of the jobs. A survey question after the tour asked if I was “more or less likely to shop with Amazon?” As much as I hate to admit it, my answer was “more likely.”

Wow, this story had so much potential. Instead it comes off like a puff piece. The rebellion is taking two bananas? Seriously? Such a disappointing story. To actually BE inside...and only write this.

A surprise inspection would have been better. How much can you believe what you see if you are being escorted around by the "political officer" (if you don't know what that means look it up).

i was a picker in SI FC. Let me give you some insights. Mgmt want you pick 4000 units (400UPH) and Takt time of 7 (movement speed), which means you need to perform picking Non-stop for 10 hours. British show "black mirror" has an episode where worker bikes on stationary bicycle for "credit", that's exactly the soul crushing feeling.

These people are biological robots, and corporations are developing mechanical robots. Throughout all history, the powerful wealthy few have used humans and animals as live stock -- living stock -- and now their technology has advanced to the point where they don't need to rely on families to raise children to be their workers, they can build them from non-biological materials. And let me be clear on the matter of whose technology this is: it is theirs, not ours. They developed it, they patent it, they own it, and it is hardly different from how they own the workers who rent themselves out for 8 hours per day. This is the great arc of the end of humanity. Some of you may not see it because you are blind to the trajectory and can't imagine where all this will land, but the future does not need your permission to arrive in ways that you cannot control: climate change may be bad, but robots will be more acute and worse for society. They -- and I mean they -- made these robots just like they made these nuclear weapons, and when the future comes, we will not control the consequces.

This is a decent job with decent pay and decent benefits, suitable for someone starting their working career. But you can be sure that elsewhere in Amazon, computer people are hard at work devising software, algorithms and physical machines with the ultimate goal of replacing the human workers and their currently-still-needed human judgment skills in this center with robots who don't require paychecks, health insurance or bathroom breaks.

So automating those jobs away with robots is bad because people lose jobs. But not automating them away also is bad because people have these jobs? Sounds like a reason for universal basic income to me. Stop crying at companies and fix the system. If the cost of human labor gets high enough, all these jobs will disappear. The existence of such job just shows that there is no lower bar for human labor. Universal basic income would provide one. Nobody would work these jobs if they could just sit at home watching Netflix.

What am I missing? Per the article, these jobs seem to pay well, have good benefits, seem to be pretty safe and don’t require extensive or expensive schooling. It looks like success and efforts at betterment are rewarded and struggling employees are targeted for remedial training before termination. So what’s the problem? They aren’t individualistic enough? They don’t fulfill (no pun intended) the workers? Welcome to the real world! Frankly, this sounds like a pretty good gig and opportunity for someone with minimal training and education. Due respect to Mr. Long, but a 50-60 hour workweek and productivity targets are pretty standard. Mr. Long seems to want the benefits and pay of a proper job but none of the responsibilities.

I cannot express how sad I feel about this because the English language lacks words sufficient to describe what is a nondiscursive sense of existential angst. So pile on and say to me: "Duh, all work for corporations is like this you naive snowflake!" Why aren't people learning in the first 18 to 24 years of life they are to have a dream, a vision for the gift of time they received for being alive to make the most out of their potential 80 years on earth? Why aren't they living mission-driven lives to bring their vision, their dream, into reality? Why aren't they focusing on certain goals they would have identified to pursue that mission over the decades? And for each goal, do they not have a to-do list, a compilation of measurable objectives to complete in the course of achieving the goals? What happened when they were young that prevented these people from creating the reality of their own lives? This is so sad!

I would not want this kind of labor for my children or grandchildren. Bezos doesn't care though.

I WAS a computer – in my first office job - that was my job title ! What did I do ? - computations ! - on a computation machine - press some buttons, kerchunk-kerchunk-kerchunk, and it would spit out a printout from its roll of paper which I would rip off and staple to the current form for pension payment adjustments for checking and approval by the supervisor. I like the way the current leading technology influences the words we use to describe humans. Dunno how the ancient Greeks and Romans thought about the human body - morose, muscular, someone else can fill in but in medieval times with the development of chemistry and the alchemists dream of turning base metals into gold they used to talk about putting people through the 'crucible' of fire to see if their character would come through shining like gold. Come the industrial revolution and the steam engine, metaphors for human activity took on attributes of become overheated and 'steamed' up and boiling over and exploding (I won't go into trains rushing into tunnels) then running out of steam With the introduction of electricity we started to talk of our nerves as conducting electricity and we became 'switched on' to the modern age, and got charged up, until we got turned off, or didn't have enough power. With computing we became 'calculating' with yes/no decisions, processing speed and algorithms. The internet lets us 'connect' to social media, and face time until we are swiped left.

The more things change the more they stay the same.

Welcome to the world of industrial engineering. It has been around for as long as there have been production lines.

All workplaces, including professional offices, are being ruthlessly systematised, and dehumanised. Employers so admire robots and computers that we are all expected to act hyper-rationally, eliminating any human foible or critical thought. Kraftwerk had it right 50 years ago: "We are the robots."

I wonder whether the ever-growing Amazon is teaching a tipping point where things will start to fall apart. I’ve been using Amazon for years, and they have never been perfect 100 percent of the time. But in the last half year or so I have had so many errors in my orders, poorly packed goods, and too much junk merchandise sent by dodgy vendors. Whenever there is a problem, Amazon hands out refunds right and left (they have even refunded me for all of the items in an order when just a couple were missing). How can they do that for everyone and still be profitable? I see these hyper-efficient (dehumanizing) shipping centers and have this image in my head of everything moving so fast that no one can keep up. Think of Lucille Ball in that iconic scene where she worked as an inspector in a candy factory. And she tried to cover up her failure to keep up by eating the chocolate bonbons zipping off the conveyer belt.

Everything in this story is true of manufacturing and has been for nearly 100 years. Standardized work. Repetitive work. Work divided up into small pieces. Equipment that brings the work to the workers (the Ford moving assembly line was the first to do this over 100 years ago). Lights that tell the worker which part to pick. In factories now but not implemented at this Amazon center: Voice synthesis that tells the worker what bin to pick from and what item to pick. A sensor that detects the worker's hand and assures that the worker took something from the correct bin. An AI system that recognizes what item the worker took. All this is possible and is coming. One can imagine redesigned cubbies in the moving carriers that hold items upright in known locations so that a robot can grab them. This happens in factories now. So watch out. Manufacturing is still the model for service industries to follow. Manufacturing is still ahead.

The owners of the Endicott-Johnson shoe factory had a very large, and very loyal workforce. The 'SQUARE DEAL' embraced by both owners and workers cut into profits by some measures, and increased value by others. It begins with the notion that PEOPLE MATTER. Whether they were the tannery worker stirring a vat of simmering rawhide, or the Pentagon official signing the huge contract for combat boots, Harry Endicott and George F. Johnson cared. Our quality of life as a culture depends upon corporate caring, and dealing squarely.

Wait, you mean Amazon actually expects hard work and strives for efficiency? Horrors! Let’s get back to basics. While everyone should be treated decently, the workers are there for the company — not the other way around. If the company does poorly, or simply does not keep up with its competition, many workers will lose their jobs. If the company fails, all of them will. Amazon does very well today, but it is not exempt from economic basics. And they know it.

I wonder, with the repetition of movements, whether there is a high incidence of repetitive strain injuries?

As Mr. Chase explains, the healthiest form of rebellion is to find another job - one that you prefer over the one you've left.

Maybe I missed it, but it seems you did not identify the location of the facility you toured. I wonder if that was stipulated by Amazon? Now you should do a story about the way Amazon treats its tens of thousands of third-party sellers. This hidden work-force is rarely reported on and suffers its own share of indignities. I should know because my own business is a third-party seller on Amazon.

Placing Google Glass linked to artificial intelligence on workers (recently developed in Israel) will speed things up even more. When they finally realize that Amazon and other fulfillment and production companies are valuing them less and less for their brains, and more and more for acting like "human robots", these small acts of rebellion will likely grow. Work should be a way to grow in skills, knowledge, self-esteem, and ultimately, dignity. This takes us in the other direction.

Wow, that sounds like another planet, a futuristic workplace, man and machine working side by side for efficiency, productivity, and profit. It may not be paradise, but it doesn't sound hellish, either. For a healthy young person, it could even be fun. Let's face it: Most jobs are boring and unfulfilling; mine always were. But this one pays a living wage with great benefits. Many worse jobs are available, as some Amazon workers attest here. (I worked at McDonald's in the late '90s and earned $5/hour, no benefits; and we had to work hard. All we did was clean, clean, clean.) I love Amazon. My house is stocked with their merchandise; their website is a second home to me. I never go out or even go to church. Amazon with its Prime membership has a lot to offer stay-at-homes. I just watched "Animal Kingdom" on my Prime Video Library, which is better than all the movies currently playing, and I could stay at home near my well-stocked fridge the whole time. Not bad. It's a win/win for me.

Worked in warehouses for several decades when I was younger. I was also healthier, before that. I trained other workers. I also worked pretty darn close to 100% all the time. But I did this knowing more about the process than most. My dad was a "manpower engineer" in the Air Force, folks who develop and write the standards and algorithms that form the baseline for the standard. You needed to consistently work at least 87% to make the grade. Some folks were like the worker in the article, aiming to be a top worker who then was granted various privileges or perks, by working above the standard - 110%, 120% or even higher. The problem with this is that it tends to lead to repetitive motion injuries, like carpal tunnel and lower back pain. One time a fellow came down from headquarters and confirmed what I was pretty sure of already. While the standard took account of the number of items picked and the distance traveled to do so, it completely ignored the weight of the items picked. You got the same time for a 2 lb case of sugar-free Jello as you did for a 60 lb bag of salt. Even worse is that many of the heavier items were placed in multi-pallet deep location, so that you might have to crouch a little and walk back several pallet lengths to reach that salt. I suspect ignoring weight in such calculations is standard. Reporters should inquire more closely about such things in future research. Good standards take ALL such factors into account, but it's very rare this happens.