http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jg-dRm2mN4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5olLpopZ8s
I have worked for Amazon on and off for the past few years and wanted to do a blog focused on this episode at the time but the lack of time and being partially biased to my employer put me off. Now however I've been laid off and have some time on my hands I'm going to give you the opinion of someone who worked for Amazon.
Mainly I'll focus on the individual that Panarama sent undercover, Adam Littler who is a 23 year old graduate. He first appears on the screen doing a bit of cross country running and puts over he has a history in manual jobs all of which puts over to the viewer he is a healthy fit individual.
Adam gets a job as a picker which coincidentally is also what I was doing up until recently for the past five months, therefore I have a bit of knowledge of what he went through. The first thing the show focuses on is the handheld scanner (I'll be referring to it as a gun) and the countdown that flashes on the bottom of the screen counting down to when you need to pick up the next item. This countdown is a load of rubbish, everyone ignores it and its possible to reach your target without picking an item before the clock reaches zero. In short its a piece of software that was put on when the guns were upgraded and bears no relevance whatsoever to the job. Everyone gets told this when they start so its a bit bizarre Panorama didn't show this.
Moving on, we are then told that Adam is wearing a wristband that measures his mileage. Then comes the moment of this episode that amazed me, indeed my flabber was well and truly ghasted. Readers brace yourself for this - in one day Adam had done 6 miles! Yes you read correctly 6 miles, lets get this straight I would absolutely love a shift where I only walked six miles. What an absolute lazy sod this Adam must be, for a start the average person does about 3 miles an hour - how the hell did he manage to stay employed for the month before filming started only covering six miles a shift? Lets do the maths, a shift at Amazon is 10.5 hours, with one hour for breaks, this means that he was doing 0.57 miles an hour. Wasn't he doing cross country running at the start of this? That's what it looks like on the link yet he seems to be going at the pace of an arthritic pensioner.
The show mentions that Adam is feeling the strain due to his heavy trolley. What a load of bull! If you find your trolley to heavy you can put the trolley safely in the drop zone and continue your batch on a second (and if needed a third) trolley. Again i don't see any mention of this on the show.
At this point Adam says he is now walking 11 miles now that he is on the night shift. Again lets do the Maths, now he's doing 1.04 MPH. Now as someone who did the same job as him and on top of that walked 4 miles a day into work this is still remarkably slow. Now Adam has been put over on this show as a fit and healthy young man but doesn't seem to be handling the job. I however am 5'3, weigh 9 stone when soaking wet and am marinated in alcohol yet have no problem doing the job. On top of that I've got paper work that shows I can hit target.
Adam then complains about his feet and goes to show them while peeling off one of the thinnest socks I've seen in my life. Seriously Adam, sort yourself out - get thicker socks and comfy boots.
We then get one of my favourite moments of the show, Adam is seen walking through the pick tower complaining that the lights don't work. Most of my time was spent in the pick tower, mostly you set the light off by walking into an aisle and triggering the motion sensor. When this doesn't work you just scan the ceiling with your gun - instead of doing this Adam simply complains about the dark. Why is he not using his gun to trigger the light or reporting to his AM or TL that the lights don't work?
We are then told that Adams target is 110 items to be picked an hour, the picture then speeds up to show him speeding to pick up one item per location. What isn't shown is that multiple items can be picked from one location, IE two different books or six bottles of tablets. Also not shown is the fact that sometimes targets are lowered due to lack of work - I've got a number of feedback forms that say the target is 95 however at the time of my exit it had gone back up to 110.
The show then decides to focus on the gun again, in particular the noise it makes when you scan the wrong item or location. Now when you make a mistake with the gun it makes a louder than normal beep, by mistake I mean scanning the wrong location or item. As can clearing be seen when Adam holds the gun up to the camera the location is clearly and boldly displayed on the screen - along with a description of the product to be picked at that location. Its not rocket science you see the location, you go to the location and scan its label, every now and then you may scan the wrong one through not concentrating maybe due to chatting with someone or being distracted by it nearly being break time. Adam seems to be scanning the wrong thing a lot! I mean a lot, way way way more than I've seen anyone do in 3 years at Amazon. Now I can't help wondering can Adam actually read? Surely he can, he's a graduate as mentioned earlier. This either makes me think Adam is not the brightest spark in the box (see him being unable to turn the lights on) or that he's playing up for the camera's.
Adam then complains he couldn't sleep due to the guns beeping noise going off in his head. Personally I've never had this problem, in fact I don't think the beeping is that loud. To put it into context I think the beeping when a train door opens is a lot louder.
We then go back to Adam moaning about targets, he's averaging 80 item an hour when he should be doing, which bearing in mind he travels at the pace of an ice age is actually quite remarkable. In a surreal moment he stops to ask a stower (shelf stacker) about the stowers targets, the stower then points to the lack of space on the shelves. Given that Adam is stood next to shelves shouldn't he picking some of those items and creating space for the stowers? Little bit of logistical common sense for you there.
Adam then goes into some cod philosophy that "we are all robots and don't think for ourselves." After seeing what I've seen so far I think one of the key topics Adam should be thinking is "maybe if I scan the right thing I wont have this beeping in my head when I go to sleep" or maybe something simple like "move your legs faster." This attempt to be deep is quite frankly cringe worthy viewing and makes me weep for the future of humanity.
Adam then goes to visit an expert on stress who watches some of Adams "secret filming" footage. The first focus is the stress of the countdown - which I've already said means bugger all. This expert then says that this working environment is bad for your health, well my last shift was last week and I've just been for a 90 minute jog, done a bit of job search and some shopping and am bearing no ill affects. In short I find this highly dubious.
We then go into Amazons disciplinary points system, which includes various things like a point for absence and half a point for lateness. In all honesty I'm not familiar with this system as I don't think I've ever got a point, also I'm pretty sure in an all hands meeting about four months ago we were told the point system had been changed. I'm pretty sure this part of the show is out of date but not 100% sure. Adam however has clocked up 1.5 points for being late and didn't know about one of them despite the fact that a defining characteristic of a clocking in machine is a clock. This clocking in machine can be seen at 9:59 on the first of the above videos.
Adam then resigns after encountering some illness and being unable to continue the job. During the show I was on twitter and saw a lot of tweets along the lines of "I can't believe Amazon treat their workers like that." Watching this show again the only thing I take out of this show is Adam Littler is lazy and inept. We're given the impression early on that he's a fit and healthy individual yet he obviously can't do a job that I can when I am in nowhere near decent shape and survive on a diet of chips and fried food. Adam can't grasp the concept of turning a light on with his gun or reading a screen to make sure he's scanning the right thing. In short I came away thinking three things:
- This is a shoddy piece of journalism, some people walk far in a job - big deal.
- Panorama have been conned by someone whose lazy.
- Adam Littler has made himself unemployable.
Personally I don't think Amazon is that bad a company to work for, yes they do a lot of things wrong and I think they treat some workers with a lack of respect but its nowhere near as bad as this program makes it look. I do however say this Amazon is a young company and is still finding its way, during the time I've worked there there have been a lot of changes and a lot of improvements. However I also believe a lot of work is needed to improve its relationship with the workforce, a lot more work than perhaps Amazon itself thinks.
