The Warehouse by Alessandro Delfanti;

Author:Alessandro Delfanti;
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Lightning Source Inc. (Tier 3)

SYNCHRONIZING WITH THE WAREHOUSE

It may take 4,000 collective hours of work for a shift of 500 outbound associates to pick, rebin, pack, and ship the 100,000 orders assigned to the warehouse on a certain day. But this type of counting obscures a variety of more complex labor demands. Warehouse workers are not only required to provide their labor time—that is to say, the time they spend directly working in the warehouse. They are also expected to actively and continuously synchronize with the fulfillment center. Their productivity, or the number of tasks workers perform per hour (items picked, or boxes prepared for shipping), is important. But merely counting the hours they put in or the number of tasks they complete per hour does not fully reflect the nature of Amazon work.When they perform this work, to what extent they synchronize to the rhythms of the warehouse is as important. So, warehouse workers face a demand to get in step with the highly contingent and variant cycles of consumption that the company both fosters and depends upon.

The warehouse’s hunger for such flexible work is reflected in the unpredictable scheduling many Amazon workers must deal with. Workers subcontracted through staffing agencies are the go-to resource for this, as they can be called upon or sent home with little warning. But this life-disrupting flexibility is a major concern for full-time associates too. For both, planning one’s life can become difficult, if not impossible. Sitting and chatting with workers in coffee shops, they would invariably raise the problem of the unpredictable nature of work, which bleeds into their entire lives. “Normally we work the central shift, which is supposed to be 10–6, but can be 10–8, 9–5, 9–7, 9–8, up to ten hours,” explained Sofia. She apologized for having postponed our meeting a number of times.

A shift change is communicated on [messaging app] WhatsApp, with a totally approximate schedule. This week we were signed up for Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and instead we worked Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. We were supposed to work tomorrow but we got a text saying that we are not working tomorrow.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.