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texxgadgetAbout 2 yrs ago, Dr Who had an episode titled "Kerblam".
On the surface, it was a total send up of Amazon.
I watched it again, recently.
It was hilarious the first time, but now being part of Amazon, it was even more so.
It was Amazon, through and through, from the hi viz safety vests worn on the floor,
right down to the scanner gun we use.
While the early days might have been rough on the productivity stats, its not that bad now.
On the picking floors, the shelves come to the picker, rather than the other way around,
thanks to the Kiva robots...
I am not usually having to scan too much, so I dont have problems with getting off the "bottom scanners report".
A lot of the time, I pull a cart, scan the label, move it somewhere else, scan it to that location,
possibly a couple minutes between scans.
Once in a while, I will jump in on a conveyor that is in trouble and a week ago,
I got into the mid 700s per hr, which is pretty good.
I wear the surgical mask they offer us when we enter the building, with a cloth mask over that.
If Im on the 100 side of the building, they hand me a face shield as well.
That triple protects me. It also gets me a little warm, so I remove my watchcap.
We get thermal scanned and questioned about symptoms upon entering.
We also get lectures about stretching, staying hydrated, healthy eating,
and a significant annual subsidy to buy work shoes with.
Despite the horror stories, they take pretty good care of us.
Like all companies, they screw up once in a while, but not to often.
The Dr Who episode also raised a coming quandry about working in general.
When you are put out of work by a new technology, you get trained to master that new technology.
(If you are wise)
The move from horse and mule to internal combusion opened up far more new jobs than were killed off by the technology.
This works only so far.
We have automated far more jobs than we offshored.
The solution is to become a software engineer,
but with 1/3 of the software being written by machines in the 2040s, we have a looming problem.
I dont know what the solution is going to be, but its likely that taxes on corporations will be needed to
finance a guaranteed minimum income, and a certain amout of "make work" will be needed.
While everyone was snickering at the Dr Who episode, this topic came up in a way, in the background.
"Our workforce is 10% HUMAN!" Hows THAT for affirmative action?
On the surface, it was a total send up of Amazon.
I watched it again, recently.
It was hilarious the first time, but now being part of Amazon, it was even more so.
It was Amazon, through and through, from the hi viz safety vests worn on the floor,
right down to the scanner gun we use.
While the early days might have been rough on the productivity stats, its not that bad now.
On the picking floors, the shelves come to the picker, rather than the other way around,
thanks to the Kiva robots...
I am not usually having to scan too much, so I dont have problems with getting off the "bottom scanners report".
A lot of the time, I pull a cart, scan the label, move it somewhere else, scan it to that location,
possibly a couple minutes between scans.
Once in a while, I will jump in on a conveyor that is in trouble and a week ago,
I got into the mid 700s per hr, which is pretty good.
I wear the surgical mask they offer us when we enter the building, with a cloth mask over that.
If Im on the 100 side of the building, they hand me a face shield as well.
That triple protects me. It also gets me a little warm, so I remove my watchcap.
We get thermal scanned and questioned about symptoms upon entering.
We also get lectures about stretching, staying hydrated, healthy eating,
and a significant annual subsidy to buy work shoes with.
Despite the horror stories, they take pretty good care of us.
Like all companies, they screw up once in a while, but not to often.
The Dr Who episode also raised a coming quandry about working in general.
When you are put out of work by a new technology, you get trained to master that new technology.
(If you are wise)
The move from horse and mule to internal combusion opened up far more new jobs than were killed off by the technology.
This works only so far.
We have automated far more jobs than we offshored.
The solution is to become a software engineer,
but with 1/3 of the software being written by machines in the 2040s, we have a looming problem.
I dont know what the solution is going to be, but its likely that taxes on corporations will be needed to
finance a guaranteed minimum income, and a certain amout of "make work" will be needed.
While everyone was snickering at the Dr Who episode, this topic came up in a way, in the background.
"Our workforce is 10% HUMAN!" Hows THAT for affirmative action?
