In my experience, it is a tedious job with long hours in a noisy environment. A lot of the DCs are run more like high schools, where employees are expected to know nothing and are not allowed to do anything without asking for permission unless it is during the normally scheduled time. I would not call it difficult work, but it certainly isn't fun.
That said, they are not all as terrible as this experience. It seems to largely depend on the mentality of the supervisors, as they have a great deal of authority over large numbers of people in the warehouse. Once you get above the supervisor level, management typically does not know or want to know about what is happening on the floor as long as the numbers are being hit and the conveyor keeps running.
Sounds like they have a few terrible managers/shift leaders there to say the least.
Those environments are taxing to work in, poor benifits, lack of dignity given to lower level employees, and i thought it was a great podcast to be released on black friday weekend as we all buy things online.
I was actually just discussing Amazon with my wife from the consumer side of this. I have Amazon Prime, but everything I just ordered online around Black Friday is intended for Christmas. I really don't need it delivered in two days, certainly not at the human cost we read about. However, I don't see any real (other than moral) incentive not to order it as a Prime shipment, and that is the default option.
I wonder what impact it would have if Amazon were to not set 'Prime' as the default shipping option, or offer discounts on non-prime shipments for Prime customers.
