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The World Socialist Web Site reports
Injured Amazon worker Shannon Allen spoke to the International Amazon Workers Voice about the conditions at the DFW-7 fulfillment center in Haslet, Texas. Shannon described brutal working conditions, authoritarian-style surveillance of workers, and management demands to maintain frenetic rates of speed.
Shannon, 49, lives in Azle, Texas, a small town on the western outskirts of Fort Worth. She was injured while working at Amazon, returned to the job, and was injured again at the same workstation. Physically unable to continue work, Shannon now faces homelessness on top of her injuries, but she is determined to "fight or die".
[...] To maximize her income, Shannon volunteered for the overnight shift on Saturday through Thursday. The shift begins at 6:30 at night and ends at 5:00 in the morning. However, once Shannon received her first paycheck, she realized that her pay was $13 per hour for the weekend shifts, not the $13.50 that had been promised.
[...] Shannon worked as a "counter", whose job was to check the work of the pickers and stowers. Fail to catch a mistake, and become a target of a punitive system of "quality errors" and "write-ups".
Not long after starting to work at Amazon, Shannon began to recognize what she called the "dirty secrets". "These are the things they don't tell you about when you're hired."
Every time workers leave the facility, they are subjected to an invasive search. "You wait in line with a bucket like at the airport", she said. A worker is required to take off belt, shoes, and hat. Bags are sent through a conveyor belt and the worker goes through a full body scan. "If you set it off, you have to go through a second search, and they wand you front to back."
In a 10-hour shift, workers are permitted two 15-minute breaks and one 30-minute break for lunch. To go outside on a break, workers must submit to the search and go through the security line. "The lines to get outside on your 15-minute break are 20 to 30 deep on each line, and there are only two lines." Meanwhile, the breaks are timed from "scan to scan" at a worker's station, and workers are admonished, "Not one second more."
[...] "The heat is sweltering." Shannon described fans here and there, pointing down the aisles where workers walk to get to their stations, but not toward the workers to help them cool off. "Whoever thought of that design was a complete idiot", Shannon said. "Because we get no relief from the heat with them pointed down the aisle."
Temperatures reached 80, 85, and 90 degrees Fahrenheit. "In the summertime, it gets over 100 degrees in there", Shannon said. "Here is another genius idea. They have these signs hanging down that have our station numbers on them. These signs are probably as big as a 19-inch TV. They are in front of the fans and it blows the sign constantly. And we get no relief from the heat."
"July and August are the absolute worst", Shannon continued. "It was nothing to see an ambulance up at Amazon four to five times a night." Workers dropped at their stations, physically unable to continue working. "On my shift", Shannon said, "we were picking people up from heat exhaustion."
[...] In addition to having "expectations of the human body that are unrealistic", Shannon said the company expected workers to manage with faulty equipment and constant demands to meet strict time limits. Attempting to work at high speeds around faulty equipment was a common cause of injury.
(Score: 4, Touché) by loonycyborg on Thursday May 10 2018, @12:36PM (39 children)
I imagine if I worked in 100 degrees heat I'd boil. Literally. Because I don't grok Fahrenheit scale.
(Score: 3, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday May 10 2018, @12:40PM (38 children)
Which is odd. Fahrenheit is scaled to what humans can reasonably exist in rather than something arbitrary and useless in daily life like the freezing and boiling points of water.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10 2018, @12:55PM (2 children)
"Fahrenheit is an obsolete scale invented by a visceral lunatic, based on salty water and 'blood heat', with 64 degrees between blood and iced water only because it was easier for him to draw the little marks that way. When something's based on laziness, a hot body and salty fluids, it's porn, not science."
-- Luke McKinney, Cracked.com
(Score: 3, Funny) by VLM on Thursday May 10 2018, @03:18PM (1 child)
Hmm how come the (((professors))) at college and uni hate imperial units of measure and are all metric? Something to do with the French Revolution and Metric being more important than mere pr0n positivism, probably.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10 2018, @03:52PM
Piss off back to the basement. Who let you out??
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10 2018, @12:58PM (20 children)
"The lower defining point, 0 °F, was established as the temperature of a solution of brine made from equal parts of ice, water and salt (ammonium chloride). [wikipedia.org]"
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday May 10 2018, @01:04PM (19 children)
What is used for a constant reference point is irrelevant and arbitrary. What the scale fits usefully to is what matters and human habitability is several orders of magnitude more relevant the freezing and boiling points of water to the majority of humanity.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10 2018, @01:25PM (16 children)
Keep telling yourself that.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday May 10 2018, @01:28PM (15 children)
I will, thanks. Unless you're a chemist or a fisherman, I doubt you've measured the temperature of any water in the past ten years.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10 2018, @02:16PM (4 children)
how about a geek that water cools his computer?
or grows hydroponically and is controlling the temperature of the water?
or has an aquarium and needs to keep the fish from turning into stew?
(Score: 3, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday May 10 2018, @03:45PM (3 children)
1) Are the freezing and boiling points relevant to any of those?
2) Wouldn't a finer-grained scale be of more utility in all of them?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Dr Spin on Thursday May 10 2018, @05:49PM (2 children)
Can you guess the temperature to the nearest 1 degree F? I doubt it.
OTOH, most of my family can guess it to one degree C with a very high success rate.
When younger (she is now 92) my mother could do it to one degree in either, but I never met anyone else who could.
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday May 10 2018, @08:42PM (1 child)
Yes, indeed I can between 50 and 90F all year round. During the winter I'm better at spotting a one degree change below that range and during the summer I'm better at spotting one above it. You get out of practice at the extremes because they're not there to experience most of the time.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 11 2018, @12:11AM
Well, looky what we have here, boys! A human thermometer! I think we should test him out at some temperature extremes. Just for "calibration" purposes, mind you.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10 2018, @02:33PM (9 children)
Disclaimer: I might be disqualified because I'm a scientist.
The temperature scales are arbitrary, so it shouldn't really matter unless your math skills are so poor that you can't handle numbers with a decimal point (if you even need that level of precision). Non-science related measuring: yogurt making, beer brewing, bread making, precision cooking (e.g. with an immersion circulator), baking, and food Pasteurization (for babies, the elderly, or immunodeficient).
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday May 10 2018, @03:22PM
The whole argument is very boomer; older generations had to pick up a slide rule and do some mental addition or subtraction so they whined about the labor being forced upon them, whereas younger generations click a checkbox in LabView or check a localization setting on their PC/phone and the topic no longer matters because its effortless. Or for the lazy, "Alexa" ba ding "whats 70 degrees farenheit in celsius" "70F is blah blah point blah C" or very similar dialogue
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday May 10 2018, @03:47PM (7 children)
As far as that goes, you're exactly correct. I'm just saying that having the first hundred degree span for the most commonly used temperature measurement purpose as opposed to one used several orders of magnitude less often is probably the way we should go.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10 2018, @04:32PM (4 children)
I don't actually really get why so many people get bent out of shape over the temperature scales (besides laziness and resistance to change). I doubt that the graduation of whole numbers on temperature scales really matters that much, since people either have a precise target in mind (e.g. 130F steak, 37C yeast starter) or precision is ignored (reporting outdoor temperature without specifying if it is current/high/average, where/when it was measured, humidity, wind speed or other factors that substantially change how it "feels").
I care a lot more about distance, weight, and volume since conversions and scaling are a pain when using the imperial system (e.g. 1.3 miles in feet, 17 teaspoons in cups/gallons, 1.2 pounds in ounces).
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday May 10 2018, @04:48PM (3 children)
Oh, I don't actually care much at all. I just like arguing with people who think theirs is better because of reasons that make no sense whatsoever. That's me, fighting willful stupidity one idiot at a time.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday May 10 2018, @05:40PM (2 children)
Metric makes it easier to do the math, and to unambiguously communicate with 95% of humans.
The daily usage is a matter of habit. I seamlessly switch between the two systems to accommodate whomever I'm talking to, but I'll convert to metric if I have to do math, then give them the result in their preferred units.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday May 10 2018, @05:48PM (1 child)
Not with temperature it doesn't. The Kelvin scale has a fair claim to that because when they say zero, they mean zero and you don't have to deal with negative values outside theoretical physics. Celsius has no better claim than any other system though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday May 11 2018, @04:12PM
Kelvin is better for really-cold/really-hot science.
Since it uses the same equations and constants, but without carrying the extra 273.15 in every number, Celsius is easier for everyday stuff.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 11 2018, @01:05AM (1 child)
here last year the température got to -32c and +33c (40 with humidex) . -25F and 95F dont look more useful to me .
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday May 11 2018, @01:22AM
That's because you fail to grasp the significance of 0F being pretty fucking cold and 100F being pretty fucking hot. Yes, we can exist and function beyond them but they are round about where efficiency starts going to shit and significant precautions need to be taken to avoid death.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Friday May 11 2018, @12:28AM (1 child)
Farenheit:
- zero degrees equates to a pointless arbitrary temperature, originally thought to be 'absolute zero', that has no significance in daily life. Very few people in the world find themselves outside in that temperature, and other figures (e.g. 10F) are only marginally less dangerous
- 100 degrees equates to human body temperature. Useful for knowing if it's dangerously hot outside, but irrelevant to the majority of the world's population, whose climate doesn't reach that temperature
Celcius:
- zero degrees equates to freezing point. Useful for knowing if it's more likely to rain or snow, likelihood of frost etc. Very common environmental experience for much of the world's population
- 100 degrees equates to boiling point. Not particularly useful in day-to-day life, however far less arbitrary than 0F.
Give up on the 'arbitrary measurement' argument for Farenheit TMB. It just makes you look stupid
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday May 11 2018, @01:30AM
All temperature measurements are arbitrary. Yes, even Kelvin. And no, none are any more or less arbitrary because they are all entirely arbitrary. I think you need to look up the definition of the word.
As for relevance? The human body starts getting into significant risk of death unless noteworthy precautions are taken outside the 0-100F range. That seems quite relevant to humans to me. But then I'm not trying to justify a measurement system just because it's associated with the metric system, even though it shares absolutely none of that system's useful qualities.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by loonycyborg on Thursday May 10 2018, @01:15PM (7 children)
Well boiling point of water is important to me because I'm boiling water for tea every day. So it makes sense to have it as round number 100. It's basically most consistent particular temperature I encounter. Outside weather is a lot more variable.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday May 10 2018, @01:20PM (1 child)
Are you at sea level and using pure water though? Or even measuring the temperature of the water? I just turn the stove on and wait for the pot to whistle.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10 2018, @10:31PM
Whistling cookery? Ariel is that you? You're a beautiful mermaid/human, why go around acting like a douchey neckbeard?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10 2018, @03:22PM (4 children)
This is the dumbest justification ever for Celsius superiority.
Water boils at 100 C! I could never remember any other number!
Does it challenge you to remember your year of birth? No? Then I can assure you you can handle learning a different temp for the boiling point. It's 212 F. There, learn it and never live in ignorance from this point forward. If you still complain that you don't know it, then you are only proving you are of sub-retarded intelligence.
BTW, 100 is an arbitrary number too. You had to memorize that at one point. Fahrenheit is no different.
Celsius as a temperature scale is no better than Fahrenheit. Not one bit better. You ought to be using the Kelvin scale for temperature anyway; that's the SI standard and replacement for the outdated Celsius scale. The Kelvin scale was invented after we learned what temperature really is. Why don't you? Sheer tradition and inertia. Just like everyone else.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10 2018, @03:40PM (3 children)
What's amazing to me is all you dipshits with your Murkin Imerialist units can't even promote the one virtue it has!
I guess I'd better tell you what that is. The number 12 is divisible by 2, 3, 4, and 6. 10 is only divisible by 2 and 5. I would not mind if metric were reformulated base 12.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10 2018, @06:09PM (1 child)
Since you called me an ignorant dipshit, I must point out your ignorance: Americans don't use Imperial units, you retard.
Some Imperial units are equal to American units, and some aren't.
Imperial units are or were used by the UK and its grovelling colonies who didn't gain independence until the 20th century.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10 2018, @07:13PM
Fine fine, you win on pedantry.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday May 10 2018, @08:29PM
I too wish the duodecimal society had succeeded.
I once saw a book of mathematical tables in duodecimal. Yes, base 12 logarithms and sines and cosines and the like calculated to about twelve duodecimal places. Published in the early 1900's, therefore all calculated by hand.
A huge effort.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10 2018, @04:47PM (3 children)
There is a certain class of Eurotards that hold the metric system to be the be-all and end-all system for all time because they like how they can move decimal places around. They'll piss on you as an ignorant fool because you cannot quickly tell them how many inches are in a mile while in their heads they can easily convert kilometers into centimeters. They never consider the fact that except for some VERY specific situations, nobody would ever need to know how many inches there are in a mile or centimeters in a kilometer, and in fact, if you are doing something where being off by a centimeter or less over a kilometer matters, you had better be doing your calculations on paper an not in your head anyway.
What the metric snobs fail to realize is that the old Imperial units came about because, as you allude to in other comments, they are based upon actually useful things. The metric system is almost completely useless for relating to real-world scenarios, particularly for volumetric measurements, and especially for area measurements. Metric is very useful for where it has always been useful, as a standard measurement language in the sciences, engineering, and commerce. But for real-life stuff, it is absolutely horrible. Eurotard metric snobs, unless they are scientists, engineers, or involved in international commerce, can only really justify their strong feelings on the topic to their psychological need to feel superior over others.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by lentilla on Thursday May 10 2018, @06:10PM (1 child)
Perhaps. Here you reference distance measurements - notice how the imperial measurements use a variety of units? Metric uses one - the metre. Note also that those variety of units aren't consistent - thus I can't tell you off the top of my head how many inches in a mile, but I certainly can tell you how many centimetres are in a kilometre. Don't be so quick to discount that - even in an everyday context.
Internal consistency is also useful, especially when converting between types of measurement. For instance: a cube with sides 0.1 metres long holds a litre of liquid - we can derive a volumetric measurement from a distance measurement. Now go ahead and tell me what size cube holds a gallon?
I like ordering my beer in pints, but what exactly is a pint? Yet another benefit of metric - a litre of beer is the same no matter which country you are in, and it doesn't matter if the year is 1900 or 2018.
You are conflating precision with magnitude, and both measurement systems are equally likely to suffer those errors.
Indeed - that is quite correct. I'll grant you that Fahrenheit makes good sense for human-related measurements, and a mile is particularly well suited to a "reasonable distance to walk" where the walking part is secondary to the outing's purpose - but these advantages are the imperial system's only saving grace. Don't feel sorry for people in metric countries - they think in metric easily, plus they get very significant benefits (like consistency and conversion) thrown in "for free".
Don't fear metric. With the exception of a few hundred million people, the entire world thinks in metric without a problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 11 2018, @09:28PM
The fact that the metric system uses only one unit for measurement is precisely why it is not terribly useful for real world things. I know you can certainly tell me how many centimeters are in a kilometer, but as it was noted, that is entirely useless except as a not-interesting fact to throw out in a trivia contest. I am quick to discount those kind of conversions because they are artificial in an everyday context.
Your internal consistency argument is artificial as well. I can easily tell you the size of a gallon because a gallon is a very useful measure to distribute liquids such as milk. Can I quickly tell you the exact size if I were to fashion a container in the shape of a cube? No, but that is entirely useless in everyday life. I can very easily get the dimensions to within 10% because the container for a common gallon of milk is about as wide as it is tall. Now if I am constructing something where that dimension matters, I am pulling out a calculator because we have now left the everyday needs into specific needs.
The same with a pint. I am not a regular world traveler, but I have been to a number of countries around the world. The pint is useful because it is a reasonable amount of liquid to quaff, and the difference between a US and Imperial pint is not too terribly bothersome to me because I know when I order a pint that I know I'm getting a certain amount of beer. Besides, if I were to be a very frequent traveler and received roughly the same number of Imperial and US pints, they average out to about a half liter anyway.
I don't feel sorry for people in metric countries, I feel sorry for people who get on their high horses about the innate superiority of the metric system because moving decimal places is largely useless for everyday life. I also note that some places like England, who converted to metric a long time ago, still use miles and miles per hour when driving. You can't blame that on they're still getting used to metric units; they're just using units that are better suited to the what they're applied to. Again, non-metric units are more natural because they describe things that you experience every day, whereas metric completely flips that relationship around. Instead of giving a name for a container that has historically been used to dole out wet or dry goods, you now are forced into redefining the size of your containers so that they can now defined to be some "nice" unit of a metric unit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10 2018, @06:15PM
The thing is, Americans use metric where it matters.
For science, medicine, electrical devices, international trade, treaties, what have you.
It seems to make some foreigners mad merely to read American units in a story that takes place in America. It must be because they can't instantly grok it so they take it out on the entire nation in the comments. Jesus, if you care, Google will give you the converted answer.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Thursday May 10 2018, @09:29PM (1 child)
Are you implying that liquid water is useless in daily life? Why don't you get back to me on that after spending a week without liquid water, including the liquid water in your body?
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday May 10 2018, @11:50PM
No, I'm flat out stating though that very few humans on the planet measure the temperature of any water, much less need to know its boiling or freezing points, on a daily basis. Work on your reading comprehension.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.