Amazon Tells Warehouse Workers To Close Their Eyes and Think Happy Thoughts - Sl...

Posted by msmash

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    Let me guess... Some smart-ass did a comparative statistical analysis. One group with happy thoughts and one group without. Efficiency was 5% higher in the happy group. Now everyone has to think happy thoughts to increase profit or get fired for innefficiency... Probably the real situation is not that crude, but I bet it get's close.

• I have to shrug my shoulders: Why is this a problem?

  I work at a very much non-Amazon-style company. They more or less say the same thing here, but call it meditation. It's encouraged. They even provide classes that emphasize mental imagery of pleasant places as a key aspect to it. Seems to do really good things for health and well-being both short and long-term. Why shouldn't it work at Amazon as well?

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    The problem can be summed up thusly, "CLOSE YOUR EYES AND WATCH THE TIMER!" It has HR monkey written all over it. Reality need not apply.

    • Yeah, it should have read "close your eyes and watch the timer and watch out for the forklift"

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    haven't you been paying attention in the last decade. Amazon is bad mmmkay? anything about amazon warehouse workers also probabky bad or good depending who saying it.

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    Business Plan

    1. Create unhappy working environment.
    2. Confirm your intent by making workers pretend they aren't unhappy.
    3. ???
    4. PROFIT!!!

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    I'm willing to bet that at your workplace it's a bit of a perq. I also suspect that you and your co-workers aren't worked until they almost drop; aren't subject to a many-times-higher rate of workplace injuries than those in other similar workplaces; and aren't under constant threat of losing their jobs for some incredibly minor deviation from what's expected.

    In your workplace, meditation is something to make people more productive by enhancing happiness. At Amazon, it's the cheapest-possible means to shave

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    "Seems to do really good things for health and well-being both short and long-term."

    ROFL. I can only assume you work in HR. There is no aspect of HR or anything relating to psychology or emotional well being in a corporate environment that serves any useful purpose but annoying staff and liability protection. You don't need to tell employees about measures meant to make them happy and they don't need to do anything to make them work but all such measures are counterproductive to the bottom line.

    But hey, if

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    I went from working at a shitty company to working at an amazing company and find myself asking the same question, but rhetorically. It's hard because you can describe what both are doing by using the same words in the same order, but it's as if the tone or the reasons behind it are all wrong at the shitty company. Think how wildly different the statement "you look good today" could be meant and/or interpreted depending on tone of voice, relationship between the speaker and listener, and general context. Sa

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    If the only thing you can do to keep your workers from lighting midlevel management on fire is to tell them to imagine not being at work, they're not the problem. You are.

• Happiness is a lie that needs to be stopped. It doesn't exist. So you cant obtain it. Nor can you find it.

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    uh oh, somebody failed at life. my condolences.

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      I think he just needs a cookie and a nap.

• After all the blowback from the Amazen booths [youtube.com] I'm surprised that the company is playing psychologist again. Or should that be playing 'propagandist, or maybe 'gaslighter'?

  I guess they just don't care what people think. They sure as hell don't care about their warehouse employees, beyond whatever cheap and hollow 'be happy' shit they can shovel down their throats in a vain attempt to squeeze that last little bit of self-sacrificing productivity out of the poor bastards.

• I've had jobs I hated too. It's a fact of life. There is no inherent responsibility of an employer to make a shit job palatable. There's a reason they are paying someone to do it, and it's because they aren't doing it themselves. Many times that could be because the job sucks. It's still a pay opportunity. What next, are we going to bitch that sewer workers don't like their jobs either? GTFO

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    No, there is no responsibility to make a job palatable. But then they suffer retention issues, worker discontent, apathy, low morale, disloyalty, burn out, violent outbursts, medical issues and all that. So Amazon can treat its staff like shit and suffer the consequences. Or it could attempt to address the issues and have a happier workforce. But as they're micromanaging dicks they probably won't. Therefore the best course of action would be for workers to unionize and force change.

• Right in the middle of the sorting facility they should stop, close their eyes and savour a happy thought. Then when their next performance meeting comes up telling them they are under performing because they were 27.263 seconds behind the optimum delivery schedule they should sue their company for sending mixed messages.

  On a serious note mental health and happiness is a thing that needs to be addressed. My company does this too, but the difference between them and Amazon is that I am actually expected to t

• All I see now is some silly Google crap on the right of the link bar. Where'd it go?

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    same here

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    Same here. Someone took a savored moment at Slashdot and hit the wrong button.

• Who is the genius who put the try google cloud advertisement over the login button?

• "Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens" for the modern era.

  "When the robot-dog bites...."

  Of course, in an Amazon warehouse, you've got lots to choose from when it comes to "your favorite things."

• This reminds me so much of the starting room in Portal 2. Contemplate this art, listen to some smooth jazz, back to hibernation.