![[Update] I am on a field trip today to see the inner workings of an Amazon Warehouse with 4th Graders.](https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/f8db0948-3f02-4f92-89cf-a8c2d77910dd.jpeg){kind=link}
I might get to ask questions. I’ll report back later.
update
The tour was interesting.
Some dude got a little aggressive with a pallet jack and tried to muscle through our group. Not sure what his deal was (other then obviously being stuck working at Amazon) because once he got past us he was just lingering around watching us. Sounds like he is going to be in the shit as a result. According to the tour guide, upper management was already talking to the guy by the time we got back.
He did try to push a full size pallet jack through a pack of 4th graders, and we did ultimately move out of his way. The tour aids tried to get him to just wait and chill but he persisted.
It was a tight space too, so there weren’t any other places he or we could go. The kids were ultimately fine, I don’t even know that they were aware it happened. All the other workers were super chill, waving and smiling at the kids, and after that I tried my best to make the little squirts bunch up if we were stalled in place.
That situation aside: The whole thing does feel like corporate propaganda. They talked about all the break rooms. They talked about the “wellness centers”, they talked about the on site doctors, they talked about the shelters for storms, they talked about the vending machines for food or equipment.
At some point they mentioned that the people either picking or placing get to “play video games at work” and that’s when kids were like “yo can I work here?”. The video games were some kind of gamification system where you win amazon slop murch. They talked about how everyone who starts a shift does stretches beforehand and during their shifts.
They did a lot of talking about the robots which was the real showcase of the tour. That stuff was really interesting. It’s a real shame these systems are used to displace workers and monopolize the distribution of goods across the economy instead of being used to free workers from tedious labor and democratize the distribution of goods. These automated systems are wildly impressive for sure.
On the placing inventory stations you could see that the guy was being timed for each place he was doing. Tracking how quickly he can get items into the racks.
Kids asked some funny questions like “how many people get hurt here every year?” And the guide said “oh uhh you know, I’m not sure. If people are doing their stretches it’ll help keep them from getting hurt!”
Some of the girls asked the guide “do the robots have genders?” And she was like “uhhhhhhh no… No we just… Their just it, an it.” And the girls were like “uh don’t do that. Don’t call them it. Maybe Them, yeah Them, call them Them. It is not cool.” And the guide said something like “I’ll keep that in mind”.
one kid asked the guide if she knew the names of the people working here and she paused for a beat and said “No. I mostly recognize their faces.”
Someone in the comments asked if we paid to take the tour: No. They do this for free.
Yeah the most obvious metric tracking was in the inventory station where there was a timer counting how much time it took for you to put things on the racks.
The building “has cameras everywhere” though according to the guide. So who knows if they’re tracking these people that way.
They wouldn’t be using cameras and facial recognition to track people. Too server intensive. What they are used for is anything involving legal. Besides, there are easier ways of doing this.
The employees have RFID chips in their badges, which is used to track their location, how fast they are moving, how long they stay in one place, how quickly they complete their tasks, how long they spend in the bathroom, etc.
In normal factories, these RFID chips are usually used exclusively for inventory control, normally tracking pallets and products that require a continuous chain of custody for insurance (think caustic chemicals, nuclear material, or more typically, car and airplane parts).
Amazon always has to push the envelope with this technology though, applying it in new, misanthropic, dystopian ways.
Facial recognition might be too hard but simple movement tracking would be feasible. Chipotle uses cameras to track worker position behind the counter. Allegedly each are supposed to stay in invisible 4’ boxes because that’s the most optimized layout.
Simple Boolean programs like that are pretty easy. It wouldn’t surprise me if they have multiple levels of these systems running simultaneously. Amazon loves to collect extraneous data to justify their middle management.
Taylormaxxing