Miserable and monitored workers rebel in small ways
For anyone not entirely in love with their job, life could be worse. You could work at a U.S. Amazon warehouse, where, Bloomberg Businessweek reports, workers line up to enter each morning to see wall-mounted TVs announce individual firings or arrests for theft and other offences.
Yes, it’s a shaming ritual served up as a warning.
The workers aren’t identified by name but it’s still creepy. Black silhouettes, Bloomberg reports, “are stamped with the word ‘terminated’ and accompanied by details such as when they stole, what they stole, how much it was worth, and how they got caught — changing an outbound package’s address, for example, or stuffing merchandise in their socks.”
Working in Amazon “fulfilment centres” is famously arduous; every object/ human is tracked for location and rated for speed, so it would seem only the cleverest of employees could steal successfully.
In any other workplace, employees with this level of initiative would be promoted to management. But face it, Amazon is just killing time until human package fillers are replaced by robots.
Pre-robot, other companies do this too. In industries where humans are regularly left alone with tiny objects, management keeps a beady eye on the help. But what if the objects aren’t worth stealing?
As the American humorist David Sedaris once wrote in a lacerating essay on a year spent apple-picking and packing in Oregon, “everything we buy has been poked or packaged by some unfortunate nitwit with a hairnet and a wad of cotton stuffed into his ears. Every barbecue tong, paper hat and store-bought mitten arrives with a history of abject misery.”
And this is why you must treat other human beings with respect. This is how they spend their days.
Here’s a stunning quote from security consultant Pat Murphy in the Bloomberg story: “There are people who will never steal. There’s a certain percentage of people that will always steal. You’re always trying to influence that middle group.”
I knew Amazon workers were seething. Over the past six months, books I’d ordered began to arrive damaged. It’s a small thing. As long as I can still read the print, I don’t hugely care.
But somewhere, in Swansea or Baltimore, some disrespected footsore member of the precariat made a tiny statement, put a message in a bottle, and sent out a book that should have been discarded. Far away, I registered their cry of pain.
It happens a lot now. Our mail is no longer placed inside the mailbox. Most of it is left hanging outside in the rain, although placing a smaller thing inside a larger thing is not in itself difficult. The mailman is expressing distress, and so am I as I hang my T4s to dry in the laundry room.
My sidewalk is damaged and has been patched with great laissez-faire with a lump of tar. The street is patched and lumpy. The hedge, also smashed by city workers, has never grown back despite replanting and tending. City of Toronto staffers, look upon your works, ye mighty, and despair.
When I shop at a particular big Bloor St. store, it quickly sends me an online questionnaire about every aspect of the experience. Was it everything I had hoped it would be? They then name the salesperson who handled the purchase and ask me about everything she did or said. Did she do it with enthusiasm?
With a few keystrokes, I could destroy a young woman’s job. I detest being handed this power and would sing the staffer’s praises to the skies even if she had punched me in the face, which could happen. It’s not a mellow place, what with wealthy attitudinal shoppers and their overgroomed dogs tangling up their leashes.
All I am saying is that when people are unhappy with their jobs, they will work to rule in small ways.
There are some jobs where this is not possible. One of the most miserable jobs on earth is working in a slaughterhouse because the speed of the hideous bloody disassembly line is unchanging. Do a work-to-rule there and you’ll miss a cow stomach or lose a hand. Either way, someone’s going to notice.
In digital workplaces there is nothing to steal as such. Perhaps there are two kinds of jobs, the ones with stuff and the ones without, with surveillance designed accordingly. Editors do not pat down the contents of my head. Instead I am surveilled by readers.
Until the comments died, Angry Pyjamas would demand a Two Minutes Hate followed by some form of slicey Edgar Allan Poe confinement. What times they were. I shall not miss them.
Perhaps there are two kinds of jobs, the ones with stuff and the ones without, with surveillance designed accordingly. Editors do not pat down the contents of my head. Instead I am surveilled by readers