this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2024
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Amazon trying to cover their ass?

Updated Wednesday, September 4, 2024 5:10 p.m. EST - Amazon reached out to deny the reports of a crack down on singing along with the radio in trucks and provided this PR video clip as evidence. A PR spokesperson told Jalopnik: “This post is completely inaccurate. Amazon has never issued guidance or communications to Delivery Service Partners that prohibits singing in the vehicle.”

https://youtu.be/3ddtY_iOrk8

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[–] Retro_unlimited 82 points 2 months ago (23 children)

Maybe this is why I have been seeing more drivers wearing masks.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 months ago (2 children)

couldn't amazon just tap into the audio feed then?

[–] [email protected] 79 points 2 months ago (2 children)

The real question is... why the fuck should anyone be micromanaged to this fucking extent. It's probably hurting actual productivity... even if their broken ass metrics are showing an improvement.

It fucking sucks to be deprived of the joy in what you do - there isn't much joy in delivery to begin with but vibing to the music while driving down an empty stretch of road is one of the little ones... the more you suck the joy out of a job the less shits your employees will give.

[–] eramseth 18 points 2 months ago

Heard about this a while back. I think the real explanation is that amazon wants cameras in their vehicles to monitor their drivers. But Amazon's insurer says "if you have this video we want to see it, and if your drivers are distracted in general, your insurance rates are going up" and/or when there's an incident, any evidence of distracted driving will be leveraged against amazon... so instead of getting rid of the cameras, they are micromanaging their employees not to be distracted while driving, where "distracted" includes talking on the phone and also singing or speaking.

It's all really shitty tbh.

I get that with a company as big as Amazon, small margins can make a big difference, but... pretty sure that's just an argument against giant fucking companies running everything...

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (2 children)

maybe it's because the more time wage slaves are thinking about not being allowed to sing, the less time they're thinking about how shitty the pay is

[–] TommySoda 26 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Even slaves were allowed to sing.

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I had a job where my boss got angry at me for playing music in my office with the door closed, because I was wasting bandwidth. On my ipod. So I used headphones.

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[–] shalafi 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Now I want to see a black Amazon driver dressed as a slave, singing "Swing Low Sweet Chariot", and getting chewed out over an in-van loudspeaker.

"Yuhsir! Won't happen again suh!"

Can you imagine the emergency PR meetings?!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

I feel like the more workers are generally miserable, the more they’ll be disgruntled

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago (9 children)

They're not actually monitoring that specific thing. They have a camera looking at the drivers and the recognition software happens to interpret singing as the driver being "distracted", but they don't actually want to modify the software so they are doubling down on what the software has decided.

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[–] DaddleDew 67 points 2 months ago (1 children)

This. This is how you tell that letting the job market "self-regulate" does NOT work.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago

Of course it works, what are you talking about?

Oh, for the employees? Nooo no no. Not for those haha.

[–] [email protected] 61 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Apparently Amazon has refuted this. Much like they refuted the pissing in water bottles, I expect.

https://x.com/amazonnews/status/1374911222361956359

[–] exanime 11 points 2 months ago

what's that URL? looks like the sites where they push the bad kind of porn

/s

[–] return2ozma 9 points 2 months ago
[–] andrewth09 3 points 2 months ago

The guy delivering Amazon packages wearing Amazon clothing and driving an Amazon van filled with boxes from Amazon has NOTHING to do with Amazon the website.

[–] anubis119 49 points 2 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago

Evil Picard

[–] return2ozma 7 points 2 months ago
[–] itsathursday 44 points 2 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] ChilledPeppers 5 points 2 months ago (4 children)

Whats the alternative? (For real, i have a ec2 instance there, and I guess I could use azure or google cloud but they are shitty companies too)

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

If you're a cheapskate like me, oracle cloud's free vps tier is the most generous I've seen of any provider. I suspect it's because their other services are subpar so they gotta raise market share somehow.

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[–] blazeknave 4 points 2 months ago

Vote for elected officials that champion regulations

[–] [email protected] 35 points 2 months ago

Have we Tried giving Jeff Bezos more Taxpayer Money yet to solve this problem?

[–] [email protected] 29 points 2 months ago

Alexa, who sings this song?

Taylor Swift, and you better fucking keep it that way or else.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 2 months ago (3 children)

I really wanna go to an event where we're just literally roasting selected billionaires over a fire, eating popcorn as we listen to their screams, and watch their flesh darken as it burns. So whole celebrating how much negative karma is leaving the earth all at one time.

I'm not even kidding. I would literally enjoy physically going to such an event. Bezos and Musk would probably be the stars of the show.

Does Bezos even "do" anything at all? Ever? Or is he just cashing checks while underlings deal with all the "work stuff"?

I mean I would be downright ashamed if a company with my name all over it was looked on this badly.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I get what you're saying but I get weirded out by people who go from "violence is necessary" to glorifying it. I've seen people dying before and I don't think I'd ever find it satisfying to watch any human burning to death.

Justice is one thing but I think there's a lot of sick fucks who practically get off to violence or at least violence like this in theory because they've never seen some horrific shit firsthand.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

As much as watching everything literally burn would be exceptionally cathartic, it wouldn't be useful. If you ask me, these CEOs and rich bastards can work X hours a week scrubbing toilets or otherwise contributing to society.

If you refuse to contribute to society cause you were rich and think you're hot shit, then jail. Something like the minimum security prison in Norway where the point is rehabilitation. If you've committed war crimes or premeditated murder or otherwise genuinely can't be offered even that much freedom, then real prison, but still a decent real prison.

Putin and his ilk are a different matter. What was good enough for Mussolini would be just as good for them.

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[–] PriorityMotif 18 points 2 months ago (1 children)

All of these delivery drivers work for third parties, not Amazon directly. You can start your own Amazon delivery business and contact to driver for Amazon. Amazon is saying they didn't tell anybody not to move their lips. One of the third party companies or low level manager told people not to do it because it triggers the camera.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Whose camera system is it?

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[–] 2ugly2live 17 points 2 months ago (3 children)

It's still crazy to me the the richest man in the world has the worst working conditions. He has more money than he'll ever need, than he can ever spend. Maybe taking a hit next quarter wouldn't be the end of the world.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 months ago

That's how you get to be the richest person in the world

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Wow, this may be kinda pathetic, but this might be what gets me to avoid Amazon.

[–] TommySoda 7 points 2 months ago

As long as you avoid them, it's never too late. Fuck 'em.

[–] TommySoda 11 points 2 months ago

I honestly can't even think of a reason to keep giving them money. Half the time you get sold things that are faulty or a scam. They put advertisements on their paid streaming service. They fake the majority of their reviews (have you noticed that nothing on Amazon is below 4 stars these days?). Oh, and I can't forget the most important part. They aren't even capable of treating their employees like fucking people. Who comes up with this shit? This is like, cartoon villain kinda shit.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago

This tech isn't new, exactly, though it's probably significantly more sophisticated now. I used to work at a company that used similar monitoring a decade ago. Theirs was (allegedly) triggered only by the motion of the vehicle, I believe DriveCam was the brand name. It sucked back then, I'd imagine it sucks worse now.

My guess with the reality of the situation is Amazon or their insurance company required installation of the cameras and a low-to-mid level manager somewhere noticed that singing was triggering them, so the manager told people to stop and eventually you end up with this news story. Amazon gets at worst plausible deniability and shitty things continue.

[–] bannanaente 8 points 2 months ago

That's terrible, no one deserves that type of work environment. Hope Bezos slips on a Banana peel...

[–] drdalek 8 points 2 months ago (3 children)

This was updated at 5pm (my time)

Amazon is saying this is fake and untrue

[–] chuckleslord 7 points 2 months ago
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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

Normal dystopian stuff, move on people

[–] Fedizen 6 points 2 months ago

i wonder if amazon signals could be jammed

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

This should be addressed by fixing the software, but it seems to be easier or cheaper to instead further burden the workers.

[–] MotoAsh 33 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Nah, should be fixed by outlawing such invasive and seriously demented micromanagement.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 months ago

Well, yeah, but that'd take a government not captured by Corporations.

[–] AshMan85 5 points 2 months ago

fuck amazon

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