Meaningless Boring Report About Amazon.com (Love and Hate Relationship) ((mostly hate)) And lots of tangents from a scatterbrain Anti-Blogger who decided to use the title section for way too long to write a title, then become a budding Blogger Overnight after tea and crumpets.
One day soon, you will be sitting in your favorite Lazy-Boy chair, (that is a brand name that some how became a house hold name BTW) or one you despise because you can't afford a better chair, (one that creeks your back into new contortions never before heard of) or you could very well be laying on the floor in an empty room, since you only can afford the rent and no furniture (yet your ordering from Amazon) cause it's so overpriced and high, the rent that is. Whatever or wherever you are in your new-new house or new-old house, or old-old house, or tent in a grassy field or forest tree lined horizon living in a cave or very well a hole in the ground. Wherever you may be, soon in the future, you will have the ability to hear a ding ding on your favorite device, or one provided to you by a president or your mother, or one you stole in a Super-Duper Mart Big Box Chain Store, and you will be cordially alerted that your package will arrive on your makeshift doorstep. You step outside your humble abode and look to the stellar night sky, or day sky, and soon see a light buzzing across the air. Then a drone sweeps down and uses it's powerful jets to slow down as it approaches, and lands square within 2 feet of you, disposing your package at your feet, and giving a Thank You and texting you with surveys galore about how you should rate the service of your delivery. After picking up the package, the drone fire's it's cosmic jets up again, and blasts off into the stratosphere to fulfill yet another order to a waiting customer.
One day this will be the goal of the Faithless Father Of Global Corporations, otherwise known as AMAZON. I'am writing this blog post, because they recently opened a 'fulfillment center' in my neighborhood town space. I live in Jacksonville, Fl, which is a port shipping city, so shipments of Chinese goods are easy to obtain, and 45 minutes to the Peach State of Georgia. Prime real estate for a 'slave center' to distribute packages by foot, drone, truck, race car, horse back, plane, trains, and carrier pigeon. The city was super excited, but many local businesses and town folk had many mixed feelings of the Super Duper Amazon entity entering our city, which is the 5th most conservative city in Emerica. Another reason that Amazon had chosen this location as well. Luckily we have a Progressive Free Paper: FolioWeekly, that goes out once a week that actually tells us what's really going on in our city, since much of it is done undercover and in secret back rooms with hidden political covenant's, safe from the critical eyes of the citizens. The article told us that the city was so desperate for Sheriff Amazon to come to town, that anything they asked will be gladly given to them, and tax payer money (subsidies, grants) was one of them, otherwise Amazon will be happy to go elsewhere. At the time, our city was in need of employment very badly, so it was a big deal. Sure enough Amazoon got what they wanted, and we financed a great deal of the building and property of the 'fulfillment center.' The article fairly weighed the pros and cons of the agreement, and most of it was a con. In the end, they got what they wanted, no surprise to us, as our city has a poor track record of wasting tax payer money on dreams that crumble into a lackluster paint job, still showing area's of bondo repair. (Alltel Stadium, Super Bowl, Jaguars Football, Shahid Khan's real estate dealings) Just to name a few. Our mayors and city legislature throws money down holes and never get the promising economic boost that was projected during meetings with fancy finger food. Like vultures cleaning the meat and leaving you only the bones and a little marrow to suck on.
And this is a very well known tactic of the executives at Amazupa. The new HQ2 project is slated to receive $2.4 billion from Virginia, Tennessee, and New York. They too are bitten by the bug to have a corporation move in, right on the dime and backs of the locals, and the local governments being promised that many dollars will be waiting under the pillow, like when you were a kid with the tooth fairy. Unfortunately, one only has so many teeth to give, until you need dentures.
Amazon also is not exactly a fun place to work. A buddy I know works in our local fun-filled-ment center, and he says it close to working in the prison making license plates. But he need's the job, as $16 per hour is pretty good here in our city, when most people make $9 to $10 per hour. The managing positions are hard to work up to, they can make up to the $30 per hour mark. They are hard to get because nearly all the managers are from out of town, from other fulfillment centers, and they get moved around a lot, so new faces in management is constant. The low level worker in many case's has no room to 'grow.' To spread the wings. But to him, he does not care, he has kids and mortgage, and a car payment, so he is trapped and glad to be of service.
The fulfillment center is YUGE!! It's VERY LARGE. And the employee's must walk everywhere to do everything. One would think this super duper advanced billion dollar company would have jet boots or human conveyor belts of some kind to move people around easily, but walking like Jesus is the only way. He goes through many pairs of shoes every year, and he has calves of steel. But when he takes his 'lunch break,' it's really only about 20 minutes, 17 minutes is his lowest time. No food is allowed in work area's, so when your time comes to eat, you must walk a long way to the eating zone. But first you must pass through security, it's a very tight security perimeter to protect the goods and machines from the very people who work around them tirelessly every day. The total time to do all this, is about 20 minutes, so it also takes another 20 minutes to go back through all that, and get back to your work zone. It's even tiresome just typing about it, who would know that going to lunch everyday is like navigating through airport security check points, we all know the fun we have doing that. Workers filed a lawsuit in North Carolina in 2013 for this exact reason.
"Concentration Camp? NAHHH it's just working at Amazon dude!!"
One thing this company does utilize for technology is a computer based IOS system to track individuals time of fulfilling orders. There is a certain quota that is deemed acceptable, and it's high! The manager's jobs, slave tenders, is to belittle you and write you up, (tell on you to dad) and whip you into shape, (no actual whips are used to whip people, instead they use words, paper, pens) even if you maybe are a little slower than yesterday, but still did good, that is no excuse. The quota must be obtained, OR ELSE!!!
"Remember, you are lucky to even have this job chump, now hurry up with your 17 minute lunch and get back out there, our Lords need new Lear Jets and Luxury Boats to play on."
Amazon hires less employee's than other companies, the workload is mostly done with machine's. When hiring less workers, how is that good for our local citizens? Remember they promise this to get cities to pay big bucks for them to come to town. So job creation is there, just not the impact we expect. And they push out Mom and Pop stores, Brick and Morter salt of the earth true businesses, the ones cities should be supporting, for they recycle revenue back into our local economy, as Amazon is less likely to use local vendors for accounting and other provisions, they are even building there own Amazon Postal Delivery sector, to compete with FedsEx-o-matic, UPPS, USPS. Another example of taking all profits for themselves, like a greedy child alone with all the other kid's toy's in his gold lined sandbox, grinning from ear to ear, and eating cookies laced with caviar. Then again, the amount of product they deliver is yuge, and they want you too have it instantly, so what better way to do it then deliver it themselves. (Those other companies actually complained that Amazon was taking advantage of them anyhow, surprise, surprise.) And forget USPS, that's government run, the complaint section is filled to the ceiling with unanswered inquiries from 1977.
For every $10 Billion dollars Amazon cashes in on, it only takes 45 or so employee's to accomplish, that's staggering compared to other companies like Wal-rus-Mart who uses 57 or so. Let's put that into loose math. Let's say these 45 employee's are making $26,000 a year. (after Uncle Sam get's his cut) That means that it cost's Amazon $1,170,000 a year, plus some extra insurances and payroll taxes, and maybe a few manager slave tenders are thrown in there too, so let's be extra generous, (unlike Amazon) give or take, and to be general, $1.5 million. Would you spend $1.5 million small one's to make $10 billion big ones? It's like throwing change into a wishing well, and when you get home, your house is stack full of gold. In 2017, Amazon reported it was well past the 350,000 slave (emplop-ee) mark, up 43% from 2016 when they only had 110,000 slaves. That is truly astonishing.
We sometimes forget what a billion is, as it is a number thrown around a lot these days, (it used to be cool to be a millionaire, and million WAS the number in vogue at one time long ago, now your homeless if your just a lonely millionaire) Billions is the new rich. Now, lets think of just what is a billion? $999,999,999 million PLUS $1 dollar is $1 Billion!! That is more money than a human being can spend in a lifetime, now think of 10 of those, 20, 30, 400, it's insane to think of such astronomical dimensions. Yet the very people who make the machine roll out on demand products to your front door step, the slaves, the proles (Orwell), the muscle, only make $26,000 to $28,000 a year (after taxes). OH BUT THE BENEFITS!! Of course you get benefits, as a healthy slave will produce more than one who is sick and has no teeth. They figured out from history that you should not beat or (try to) harm your slave, those times are gone, now you get sub-par health and dental benefits. Remember, you should be even lucky and thankful to your OverLords for even that!!
To save money, fulfillment centers are also many times not air conditioned or heated, or sparingly so, and recently in New Jersey, a droid machine bot punctured a can of high powered Grizzly bear spray, causing 54 slaves to become affected, 24 slaves were sent to the hospital, a few were actually in critical condition!! Well, thank goodness for those Health Benefits!! The only problem is, when your hospitalized, your not fulfilling orders for Amazon, hence your not making any money, and your family suffers. I am sure many more of those people wanted to go to the hospital too, but sucked it up and went back to work, cause mom is sick and needs her expensive medicine, or Lord knows what. (Grizzly bear spray is nasty stuff, it takes down 1,200 pound animals from 30 to 40 feet away, to them it's like a little can of mace we use on each other) I am sure there are many more instances of accidental things that happen, we just don't hear about them, only the big doozie's.
I want to make sure the reader understands I am not using 'slave' to dehumanize the individual person, but I only addressed a few issue's here, there is MUCH more and for all purposes, the population that works for Amazon, are being treated like slaves. It's better than saying employee, as employee's are a member of a family, the business, who is cherished and paid well for giving there High Lord's there chariots and castle's.
One more little tidbit to tickle your brain buds. Amazon now sells more than %50 of all books published or self-published!! That's crazy!! In closing, this Huge Super-Duper Goliath of Retail makes box stores look like a humble corner shop in which you buy fruit and eggs, or porno, or both. This is the future of retail corporations, and Amazon is laying the ground work, or perhaps in the future We Will All Work and Buy Our Goods Only from Amazon. You never have to leave your house, except to go to work for Amazon, and you never have to wait in lines with weird people, or go to multiple stores, the landscape will then be cleared for more Amazon centers, soon they will build a Amazon City in which we live in Amazon built house's and have everything we need in arm's reach any moment we may find we need it. Just like now, but just bigger and more scary. Thanks for reading my long boring diatribe. If you actually made it this far, I commend you, and I am currently shopping online on Amazon, to send you a gift for doing so. End.
And this is a very well known tactic of the executives at Amazupa. The new HQ2 project is slated to receive $2.4 billion from Virginia, Tennessee, and New York. They too are bitten by the bug to have a corporation move in, right on the dime and backs of the locals, and the local governments being promised that many dollars will be waiting under the pillow, like when you were a kid with the tooth fairy. Unfortunately, one only has so many teeth to give, until you need dentures.
Amazon also is not exactly a fun place to work. A buddy I know works in our local fun-filled-ment center, and he says it close to working in the prison making license plates. But he need's the job, as $16 per hour is pretty good here in our city, when most people make $9 to $10 per hour. The managing positions are hard to work up to, they can make up to the $30 per hour mark. They are hard to get because nearly all the managers are from out of town, from other fulfillment centers, and they get moved around a lot, so new faces in management is constant. The low level worker in many case's has no room to 'grow.' To spread the wings. But to him, he does not care, he has kids and mortgage, and a car payment, so he is trapped and glad to be of service.
The fulfillment center is YUGE!! It's VERY LARGE. And the employee's must walk everywhere to do everything. One would think this super duper advanced billion dollar company would have jet boots or human conveyor belts of some kind to move people around easily, but walking like Jesus is the only way. He goes through many pairs of shoes every year, and he has calves of steel. But when he takes his 'lunch break,' it's really only about 20 minutes, 17 minutes is his lowest time. No food is allowed in work area's, so when your time comes to eat, you must walk a long way to the eating zone. But first you must pass through security, it's a very tight security perimeter to protect the goods and machines from the very people who work around them tirelessly every day. The total time to do all this, is about 20 minutes, so it also takes another 20 minutes to go back through all that, and get back to your work zone. It's even tiresome just typing about it, who would know that going to lunch everyday is like navigating through airport security check points, we all know the fun we have doing that. Workers filed a lawsuit in North Carolina in 2013 for this exact reason.
"Concentration Camp? NAHHH it's just working at Amazon dude!!"
One thing this company does utilize for technology is a computer based IOS system to track individuals time of fulfilling orders. There is a certain quota that is deemed acceptable, and it's high! The manager's jobs, slave tenders, is to belittle you and write you up, (tell on you to dad) and whip you into shape, (no actual whips are used to whip people, instead they use words, paper, pens) even if you maybe are a little slower than yesterday, but still did good, that is no excuse. The quota must be obtained, OR ELSE!!!
"Remember, you are lucky to even have this job chump, now hurry up with your 17 minute lunch and get back out there, our Lords need new Lear Jets and Luxury Boats to play on."
Amazon hires less employee's than other companies, the workload is mostly done with machine's. When hiring less workers, how is that good for our local citizens? Remember they promise this to get cities to pay big bucks for them to come to town. So job creation is there, just not the impact we expect. And they push out Mom and Pop stores, Brick and Morter salt of the earth true businesses, the ones cities should be supporting, for they recycle revenue back into our local economy, as Amazon is less likely to use local vendors for accounting and other provisions, they are even building there own Amazon Postal Delivery sector, to compete with FedsEx-o-matic, UPPS, USPS. Another example of taking all profits for themselves, like a greedy child alone with all the other kid's toy's in his gold lined sandbox, grinning from ear to ear, and eating cookies laced with caviar. Then again, the amount of product they deliver is yuge, and they want you too have it instantly, so what better way to do it then deliver it themselves. (Those other companies actually complained that Amazon was taking advantage of them anyhow, surprise, surprise.) And forget USPS, that's government run, the complaint section is filled to the ceiling with unanswered inquiries from 1977.
For every $10 Billion dollars Amazon cashes in on, it only takes 45 or so employee's to accomplish, that's staggering compared to other companies like Wal-rus-Mart who uses 57 or so. Let's put that into loose math. Let's say these 45 employee's are making $26,000 a year. (after Uncle Sam get's his cut) That means that it cost's Amazon $1,170,000 a year, plus some extra insurances and payroll taxes, and maybe a few manager slave tenders are thrown in there too, so let's be extra generous, (unlike Amazon) give or take, and to be general, $1.5 million. Would you spend $1.5 million small one's to make $10 billion big ones? It's like throwing change into a wishing well, and when you get home, your house is stack full of gold. In 2017, Amazon reported it was well past the 350,000 slave (emplop-ee) mark, up 43% from 2016 when they only had 110,000 slaves. That is truly astonishing.
We sometimes forget what a billion is, as it is a number thrown around a lot these days, (it used to be cool to be a millionaire, and million WAS the number in vogue at one time long ago, now your homeless if your just a lonely millionaire) Billions is the new rich. Now, lets think of just what is a billion? $999,999,999 million PLUS $1 dollar is $1 Billion!! That is more money than a human being can spend in a lifetime, now think of 10 of those, 20, 30, 400, it's insane to think of such astronomical dimensions. Yet the very people who make the machine roll out on demand products to your front door step, the slaves, the proles (Orwell), the muscle, only make $26,000 to $28,000 a year (after taxes). OH BUT THE BENEFITS!! Of course you get benefits, as a healthy slave will produce more than one who is sick and has no teeth. They figured out from history that you should not beat or (try to) harm your slave, those times are gone, now you get sub-par health and dental benefits. Remember, you should be even lucky and thankful to your OverLords for even that!!
To save money, fulfillment centers are also many times not air conditioned or heated, or sparingly so, and recently in New Jersey, a droid machine bot punctured a can of high powered Grizzly bear spray, causing 54 slaves to become affected, 24 slaves were sent to the hospital, a few were actually in critical condition!! Well, thank goodness for those Health Benefits!! The only problem is, when your hospitalized, your not fulfilling orders for Amazon, hence your not making any money, and your family suffers. I am sure many more of those people wanted to go to the hospital too, but sucked it up and went back to work, cause mom is sick and needs her expensive medicine, or Lord knows what. (Grizzly bear spray is nasty stuff, it takes down 1,200 pound animals from 30 to 40 feet away, to them it's like a little can of mace we use on each other) I am sure there are many more instances of accidental things that happen, we just don't hear about them, only the big doozie's.
I want to make sure the reader understands I am not using 'slave' to dehumanize the individual person, but I only addressed a few issue's here, there is MUCH more and for all purposes, the population that works for Amazon, are being treated like slaves. It's better than saying employee, as employee's are a member of a family, the business, who is cherished and paid well for giving there High Lord's there chariots and castle's.
One more little tidbit to tickle your brain buds. Amazon now sells more than %50 of all books published or self-published!! That's crazy!! In closing, this Huge Super-Duper Goliath of Retail makes box stores look like a humble corner shop in which you buy fruit and eggs, or porno, or both. This is the future of retail corporations, and Amazon is laying the ground work, or perhaps in the future We Will All Work and Buy Our Goods Only from Amazon. You never have to leave your house, except to go to work for Amazon, and you never have to wait in lines with weird people, or go to multiple stores, the landscape will then be cleared for more Amazon centers, soon they will build a Amazon City in which we live in Amazon built house's and have everything we need in arm's reach any moment we may find we need it. Just like now, but just bigger and more scary. Thanks for reading my long boring diatribe. If you actually made it this far, I commend you, and I am currently shopping online on Amazon, to send you a gift for doing so. End.
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