Would the Internet Lie to You

[xoxoxoBruce]

Would the Internet Lie to You, it's oldest and dearest friend... if it didn't involve sex or money?

We see these pictures with attached "Facts"/description, all the time.
Here is one example.



This guy objected. I've been following his site for years, and think he's a straight shooter.

As a former employee of an Amazon warehouse, I cannot possibly believe this.
This was the most safety and health focused place I have ever worked. They made us stretch out before each shift.
We weren’t allowed to catch anything, ever. If a $2000 drone fell off the shelf, we were not allowed to catch it. They’d rather have any item break than risk someone pulling a muscle.
We were NOT allowed to put out fires. If a fire started, we were to exit only. Only the fire crew could put out a fire.
They tested our hearing before we were hired, and then every six months after that to make sure we weren’t losing any due to the workplace.
They called us in for meetings and gave us lessons on dangerous movements such as twisting.
Unlike some production environments, there were no penalties for stopping the line. If you had to clear a jam, or reach over the conveyor for any reason, you shut it down, no questions asked.
They had free, unlimited safety gear. It was like a vending machine stationed in every department, with gloves, earplugs, eye protection, cut protection sleeves, etc. But there was no charge, you just pushed a button and selected what you wanted.

You weren’t allowed to enter loud areas without earplugs, and there were dispensers located next to the entrances. Once I noticed that a dispenser was empty, and I reported it and it was filled instantly. They held meetings to teach us the proper way to put in earplugs.
This warehouse was located in the Nevada desert. In the summer, it did get hot. They brought in huge swamp coolers to fight the heat. Amazon DCs are over one million square feet, difficult to air condition to say the least.
If anybody was hurt for any reason, even soreness from repeated motion, they held and investigation, interviewed you, changed the work station, or reassigned you. Coaches came by once a week and asked if you had any soreness.

Employees were held responsible for the unsafe behavior of other employees, if they witnessed something unsafe but didn’t stop or report it.
You had to have a special badge and certification training to climb a ladder.
If you got cut, you were instructed to stay in place to prevent slip and biohazard dangers from drips of blood. The first aid would be brought to you.
Anything you could possibly bump your head on was padded and wrapped in hazard tape.

All forklift/mobile equipment operators were drug tested regularly, including for alcohol, and any area with mobile equipment was marked off.
There were areas you weren’t allowed to enter, and then if there was a pedestrian crossing, the mobile equipment had to stop and honk their horn, even if nobody was there.
They also had to stop and honk at every intersection.

They were proud of the fact that it was safer to work in an Amazon warehouse than it was to work at Wal-Mart.

Look, I’m not some big Amazon devotee, but as someone who’s worked their whole lives in dangerous warehouses, this was the absolute safest industrial setting I’ve ever been in and there’s no way this graphic is true.

[Clodfobble]

I just stopped in to say that this thread title reminded me that episode 3 of Would I Lie To You series 9 is on the BBC site now. Hooray!






Oh, okay, fine. Relevant to the thread topic: I read a whole thing about how Amazon's filing system is completely random, just like a computer's RAM. Stick something in the first open slot, record that slot in the computer system, now we know where it is. Shampoo next to books next to cat collars next to dildoes next to different books, we don't care.

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

...
Oh, okay, fine. Relevant to the thread topic: I read a whole thing about how Amazon's filing system is completely random, just like a computer's RAM. Stick something in the first open slot, record that slot in the computer system, now we know where it is. Shampoo next to books next to cat collars next to dildoes next to different books, we don't care.

That would be inefficient. Most distribution centers have the most commonly picked items in the place where it takes the least time and effort to pick. For example the most popular item in the place will be first row, on the aisle, waist high.

[Sundae]

Supermarkets are currently facing problems of efficiency/ best use of floor space.
Over here, internet shoppers pick your order from the shop floor, and the items primarily selected via the internet do not conform to the store layouts which have been honed for years by field marketing re yield, impulse buy, connected sales etc.

There was an Amazon "expose" over here which suggested it is not a good place to work, but AC was never mentioned as an issue. I think the only safety issue raised was that of the lighting, which is motion sensitive, meaning you could lose serious picking time as blown bulbs are only picked up when someone tries to use/ pass through said section.

Don't even start on the whole taxes issue either...

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

That would be inefficient. Most distribution centers have the most commonly picked items in the place where it takes the least time and effort to pick. For example the most popular item in the place will be first row, on the aisle, waist high.

According them, it has improved efficiency. Because it's not just about picking the items, it's about stocking them in the first place. If you're low on shampoo, you have a ton of wasted shelf space in the "shampoo" section, multiply that by a hundred thousand products and your warehouse has to be much larger to accommodate your standard holding. If you have extra shampoo, every single thing on the rest of that aisle has to be shifted down to make space for it.

Meanwhile, the picking really isn't being done by humans at all. You get on your Segway-equivalent, scan the barcode of the first item that's been printed on the packing slip. Segway tells you "That's section 42, aisle 8, shelf C" and drives you there. You grab it, get back on, and scan the next item. Meanwhile your computer already knows that was the last widget in that crate, and marks that pallet slot as empty for the next delivery of who-cares-what. Amazon sells too much of too many things for there to be "commonly picked" items in any meaningful sense of the word.

[Gravdigr]

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

That would be inefficient. Most distribution centers have the most commonly picked items in the place where it takes the least time and effort to pick. For example the most popular item in the place will be first row, on the aisle, waist high.

The warehouses I worked in both put the most-picked items in the aisles that were in the center of the warehouse, that way, you don't have to go to the farthest ends of the warehouse to get them.

Of course, the layout (where shipping/receiving/picking/packing areas are) of the warehouse will have some determination in this.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Speaking of Amazon, it has critics and defenders.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

Oh, okay, fine. Relevant to the thread topic: I read a whole thing about how Amazon's filing system is completely random, just like a computer's RAM. Stick something in the first open slot, record that slot in the computer system, now we know where it is. Shampoo next to books next to cat collars next to dildoes next to different books, we don't care.

In my previous life bringing good things to life we early adopted an automated picker than operated the same way, except the carousel system was cheesey and a catastrophe. It moved all the materials in one of three carousels to get a tote in which resided temporarily a particular item. Somehow that was going to be the future of materials handling. Anybody who tells you corporations are efficient never worked for one.

[xoxoxoBruce]

But a robot would have no trouble.

[xoxoxoBruce]

I've noticed many of the graphic on the net don't give much source information. WaPo does quite av few, but an awfull lot of them come from dadaviz.

[Gravdigr]

I've never heard of Chris Hardwick (hard wick, snicker) or Grace Helbig.

[xoxoxoBruce]

I guess that's why they were googled.

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by Gravdigr

I've never heard of Chris Hardwick (hard wick, snicker) or Grace Helbig.

Seriously?

I love him! He's the Nerdist and Taikng Dead guy. Also has a late night panel show - @Midnight.

Hardwick is a stand-up comedian who also does really great podcast interviews and gets really awesome guests. He's involved at various levels in a whole bunch of stuff.

The Nerdist (and several others of the Nerdist.com stable of podcasts) is one of my favourite podcasts. Has a massive following.




from 2012:




The Nerdist podcasting empire:

http://nerdist.com/

I highly recommend both the Nerdist and the Nerdist Writers Panel podcasts. The guests they get are just fantastic. NWP gets really indepth with screen writers and showrunners, filmmakers, novelists and comicbook writers (though there's now a separate Comic Writer's Panel podcast). NP interviews all sorts of people.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Podcaster and Talk Show Host, are different animals over here. Why do you think it's called Nerdist?

[DanaC]

Yes - but he has also hosted talk shows. The Talking Dead is a talk show follow up to the Walking Dead, Talking Bad during the final season of Breaking Bad, was similar.d@Midnight is part game show, part chat show. Also Nerdist was briefly a tv talk show (not sure but I think it was made by BBC America).

Christopher Ryan "Chris" Hardwick (born November 23, 1971) is an American television host, stand-up comedian, actor, writer, producer, podcaster, musician, and voice artist. He is the chief executive officer of Nerdist Industries, the digital division of Legendary Entertainment. He currently hosts @midnight with Chris Hardwick, a nightly comedy-game show series on Comedy Central, and voices Craig in the Nickelodeon series Sanjay and Craig.

In 2011, he began hosting Ministry of Laughs, a BBC America Britcom block, and Talking Dead, a live hour talk show on AMC following episodes of The Walking Dead. In 2013, Hardwick hosted Talking Bad, a live half-hour talk show on AMC about and following the show Breaking Bad. He is also known for performing with Mike Phirman in Hard 'n Phirm, hosting Singled Out, Wired Science, Web Soup, and Nerdist Podcast, and as the voice of Otis in Back at the Barnyard, replacing Kevin James.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Hardwick#Hosting