Deceptive, Bureaucratic Cesspool Thriving From Slave Labor
Pros
healthcare benefits, stock purchase place and 401K
Cons
During the recruitment process you're asked to answer a survey about your desired shift. If you select part-time they will hire you and won't inform you that you're full-time until the first day. They phrase it as "Reduced Time" because it's 36 hours, (3-days, 12 hour shifts) instead of 40 (5-days, 8 hour shifts). But that doesn't matter because you stated that you only wanted to work 24 hours maximum per week. Then they try to pressure you into staying. They don't care that you purposely wanted to be part-time because you're in school full-time, already have another full-time job, kids and a family. All they care about is themselves and keeping employment as a revolving door. You get lured in with wage differential shifts at rates of $17-18 overnights and weekends but what they don't tell you is that the intensity of the labor and the rate at which you're expected to perform said labor isn't worth it. Truly everyone in stowing should be making at least $25/hour its the toughest job in the warehouse. Also, when you're hired, they don't tell you which jobs are available and assess your skill level or experience, they just assign you to a post and you take it or quit. They say you can move around and try other positions later but there's a 30 day waiting period and you have to have a certain amount of UPT (unpaid time) in the bank to show that you're responsible. You can't have your phone with you on the warehouse floor for "safety" reasons. If you challenge the validity of that statement they say "It's also to protect proprietary information and the company." Mind you everything we perform and the machines and systems we use has been debuted on prime time news outlets and on YouTube by Amazon for publicity. So it's not to protect proprietary stuff. It's so if conflict arises or you want to document working conditions you can't and then its just your work against theirs. They claim we also can't have phones on the warehouse floor because they fulfill cellphone orders. I seriously doubt that security wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a new phone and a newly stolen phone. First of all, one can't be activated and the other already has service, photos, phone numbers, etc in it. Bathrooms and water fountains are super far from work stations. You have less than 10 minutes to get to the bathroom and use it and return to your work station or your metrics drop. The metric system for time is so unfair. The 1/2 mile, 10 minute foot commute to and from the time clock and through security metal detector checkpoint is apart of the actual break period. So your 30 minute break could essentially become a 15 minute break. If you get to the time clock and punch back in 1 minute too late you're assessed 1 whole hour of UPT (unpaid time). You only get 20 hours every quarter (once every 4 months). If you're working only 12 hour shifts that's not even 2 days off if you have a family emergency or illness. PTO is is worse. Amazon outsources their leave requests to a third party -The Reed Group. Requirements to qualify for unpaid leaves are sketchy. God forbid you have an HR issue. Site HR persons will tell you to go online to the HR portal and will flat out refuse to help you. The automated response you get from some person or bot online directs you back to site HR. It's a big circle and vicious cycle of passing the buck. The performance metrics for stowing are unreasonable and cause fatigue. You have to move 300 units per hour at a rate of 10 seconds between each item you place on a shelf in a pod. Most of the pods are stuffed and overflowing so there's nowhere to stick the items or it takes longer for you to maneuver other items around that are already in the pod to make room for your items. You also have to place empty bins aside so that takes away from your Tackt time (10 second max) which might move you up to 30 seconds. The compliance metrics are even more insane because if decanters make a mistake on their counts it reflects poorly on you as an overage or shortage, because they don't do QA compliance or tracking in decant. The Working Well program and stretches performed during stand up before your shift are a joke and don't work. AmCare is to placate employees to return to work injured instead of seeking real medical care.
