Amazon 'Fesses Up': that Peeing in Bottles Thing is Probably True (marketwatch.com) 101
"You don't really believe the peeing in bottles thing, do you?" Amazon tweeted last week.
But on Friday "The web giant fessed up that its delivery drivers have limited access to bathrooms, meaning that accusations of them urinating in bottles or elsewhere in public are likely to be true," reports the New York Post: "We know that drivers can and do have trouble finding restrooms because of traffic or sometimes rural routes," the online retail giant posted on its AboutAmazon portal. "And this has been especially the case during Covid when many public restrooms have been closed...." Amazon's mea culpa admits that the original response was wrong. "It did not contemplate our large driver population and instead wrongly focused only on our fulfillment centers..."
Amazon's original tweet had been attempting to knock down criticism from U.S. congressman Mark Pocan, who'd tweeted that "Paying workers $15/hr doesn't make you a 'progressive workplace' when you union-bust & make workers urinate in water bottles."
After Amazon's belated acknowledgement of his original criticism, Pocan responded, "Sigh. This is not about me, this is about your workers — who you don't treat with enough respect or dignity. Start by acknowledging the inadequate working conditions you've created for ALL your workers, then fix that for everyone & finally, let them unionize without interference."
Ars Technica notes Amazon's turnabout follows an investigation by Vice which had indeed discovered a Reddit forum for Amazon drivers with "dozens of threads and hundreds of comments" on the issues around finding a bathroom. But Ars also notes the issue appears to extend beyond Amazon: "This is a long-standing, industry-wide issue and is not specific to Amazon," the company added. Amazon says it wants to solve the problem: "We don't yet know how, but will look for solutions."
Amazon appears to be right about that. Drivers for Uber, Lyft, and food delivery services have reported trouble finding bathrooms while on the job. Drivers for UPS and FedEx have reported similar difficulties. The problem has gotten worse in the last year as the pandemic has closed a large number of stores and restaurants.
But on Friday "The web giant fessed up that its delivery drivers have limited access to bathrooms, meaning that accusations of them urinating in bottles or elsewhere in public are likely to be true," reports the New York Post: "We know that drivers can and do have trouble finding restrooms because of traffic or sometimes rural routes," the online retail giant posted on its AboutAmazon portal. "And this has been especially the case during Covid when many public restrooms have been closed...." Amazon's mea culpa admits that the original response was wrong. "It did not contemplate our large driver population and instead wrongly focused only on our fulfillment centers..."
Amazon's original tweet had been attempting to knock down criticism from U.S. congressman Mark Pocan, who'd tweeted that "Paying workers $15/hr doesn't make you a 'progressive workplace' when you union-bust & make workers urinate in water bottles."
After Amazon's belated acknowledgement of his original criticism, Pocan responded, "Sigh. This is not about me, this is about your workers — who you don't treat with enough respect or dignity. Start by acknowledging the inadequate working conditions you've created for ALL your workers, then fix that for everyone & finally, let them unionize without interference."
Ars Technica notes Amazon's turnabout follows an investigation by Vice which had indeed discovered a Reddit forum for Amazon drivers with "dozens of threads and hundreds of comments" on the issues around finding a bathroom. But Ars also notes the issue appears to extend beyond Amazon: "This is a long-standing, industry-wide issue and is not specific to Amazon," the company added. Amazon says it wants to solve the problem: "We don't yet know how, but will look for solutions."
Amazon appears to be right about that. Drivers for Uber, Lyft, and food delivery services have reported trouble finding bathrooms while on the job. Drivers for UPS and FedEx have reported similar difficulties. The problem has gotten worse in the last year as the pandemic has closed a large number of stores and restaurants.
It was eventually going to happen (Score:2)
Re:It was eventually going to happen (Score:5, Informative)
People gotta pee and truck drivers peeing in bottles is hardly new or unique to Amazon.
It's gonna happen, the only thing that worries me is the bottles being thrown out of the truck's window.
Maybe a solution is to provide them with proper bottles and to collect/dispose of them at the end of each day. I'm sure the femnazis will have something to say about that though, how unfair it is to the women drivers.
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Yes, the GoGirl [wikipedia.org] is a popular model.
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People gotta pee and truck drivers peeing in bottles is hardly new or unique to Amazon.
Oh, that makes it okay then.
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Oh, that makes it okay then.
Yes, it does make it ok. Urination is a natural biological process. Peeing in a bottle doesn't cause cancer or nuclear war. So who cares?
If an Amazon driver wants to take a break and drive to a gas station, they can do so. They aren't going to receive extra pay for that, but why should they? If Amazon did give them extra pay for "breaks", any driver with half-a-brain will pocket the money and continue to use the bottle.
Or (Score:2)
Just hear me out on this one. Give employees time to take care of basic bodily functions? I also love your logic. Things have been shitty for truck drivers so let’s continue to keep things shitty.
Re:Or (Score:5, Insightful)
Fast food joints have been open for months (Score:3)
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so outside of a few rural areas ... there's plenty of bathrooms.
Found the guy who never leaves big cities!
Re: Fast food joints have been open for months (Score:2)
I actually find that the suburbs are the easiest place to find a public restroom. In big cities there's a lot of bathrooms for patrons only.
Strip malls with fast food chains that have public bathrooms are pretty omnipresent in suburbs outside of even small cities.
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My experience is that the suburban neighborhoods get built first, and then the strip malls often show up (sometimes many years) later. I certainly know of many suburban neighborhoods where you've got a pretty significant drive to find a public restroom.
Of course, what time/distance is considered "too far" is debatable. Even if the drivers are given the time to go find a restroom without penalty (which I certainly think would be good to ensure), I would say that ten minutes or longer and at least a few peo
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Thay makes sense.
There aren't really any new suburbs around me.
I grew up in a small city/township (Score:2)
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Suburbs (you know, where lots of your Amazon customers live) often don't have any nearby shopping, and no nearby fast food either. I can think of several areas near where I live with lots of housing (and certainly Amazon deliveries), but you're probably at least 15 minutes away from the nearest public restroom.
The fact that you think that this is extraordinarily unusual makes it painfully obvious that you don't leave your bubble.
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I live in a city, and for the past year, finding a bathroom downtown has been near impossible.
Re: Fast food joints have been open for months (Score:2, Insightful)
And people wonder why cities smell like pee. Of course "iTs jUsT tEh hOmElEsS", same kind of excuse as "tEh hOmElEsS sHoOt uP iN teHrE" when you find a restroom locked and they won't give you the key.
While we're doing anectdotes (Score:2)
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so outside of a few rural areas Amazon most likely doesn't send drivers (usually they leave unprofitable stuff like that to post office delivery, at least for the final run) there's plenty of bathrooms. That's just Amazon's smoke screen to avoid addressing the problem of setting impossible metrics and then blaming the drivers for not making them.
Their drive throughs have been open for months ... in many places, they've only been allowed to open up indoor dining recently, if at all. And some of them have chosen to stay drive through anyway.
The smoke screen is that the original accusation about peeing in bottles was about warehouse workers. The tricky shift to drivers is not on the part of Amazon.
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You didn't read the article about how taking time for a bathroom break hurts their quota and rating?
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Just because you're ignoring the response doesn't mean address it. This is all automated and planned so far up the driver's ass that Amazon could work rest stops into the schedule. And these people are delivery drivers, not long haul truckers, further making the comparison invalid.
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If Amazon can work out deals with UPS and Kohls to handle returns, they could make deals with Cenex and McDonalds to let delivery drivers use their rest rooms, then program stops every two to three hours on their routes.
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Maybe a solution is to provide them with proper bottles and to collect/dispose of them at the end of each day. I'm sure the femnazis will have something to say about that though, how unfair it is to the women drivers.
Uh, it /is/ unfair to the women drivers. It is totally inequitable if male and female drivers are being judged by the same standard, but men are given access to a system which gives them an advantage.
It is almost a textbook case of sexism. The fact that you write it off as something only 'feminazis' would care about speaks volumes about the way you think about equality in the workplace. It's a sadly prevalent attitude on the obviously male-dominated Slashdot - it's not /my/ problem, so why should I care? It
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Why bother peeing in bottles (Score:4, Funny)
When there are plenty of packages to use?
Is it the "bottle" part that troubles people? (Score:4, Funny)
Install these in the delivery vans and problem solved [i.redd.it].
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You jest, but there exist relatively cheap and compact portable chemical toilets [ebay.co.uk].
These things are nothing new, so I'm surprised they don't just put one of these in the back of the truck.
This will get worse for delivery drivers (Score:2)
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Good luck with that.
Re: This will get worse for delivery drivers (Score:2)
Re:This will get worse for delivery drivers (Score:5, Insightful)
Long haulers have a solution - there's a useful truck stop every few hours. The problem being that times are being squeezed and stopping the truck to get out and pee has become costly, even independent truckers hit this problem.
Now for Amazon and their increasing whiny base of entitled customers wanting deliveries in less than a day means a non-stop group of local drivers are always on the go and always shuttling back and forth between warehouses and residential houses, which is a very different model than long haul truckers. It used to be normal to expect that you'd get FedEx deliveries once a day, UPS once a day, USPS once a day, and that gives time to optimize routes. Today I see Amazon vans pull into the condo complex multiple times a day, each time delivering to just one door and then driving away again, which is massively inefficient.
The rare times that I do buy something online, I choose 3 day delivery or longer. I don't need it immediately, I don't need to pay extra, I don't need a separate box for each widget so they get delivered at different times for my inconvenience.
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This isn't from customer demand, but Bezos's greed.
It's more about their response than the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, I agree this problem is probably very common in that industry. The issue is that their response wasn't to say that very thing, but to instead launch a wide scale disinformation campaign denying the problem existed and basically making fun of anyone who might think it did exist. If they are willing to do that for a problem that is well known to exist among all companies that employ delivery drivers, what are they willing to do for other major issues?
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It's more about their response than the problem
Their response is yet another symptom; the Problem... is Amazon.
The real problem : (Score:2)
The real problem is that apparently, unlike any other country in the world, US cities don't have public toilets. That is really weird! So, since humans do need to do these things, and these drivers seem to be polite enough to not just pee anywhere like in your backyard, well then you have all this story. Why don't US cities build public toilets like the rest of the world does?
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The real problem is that apparently, unlike any other country in the world, US cities don't have public toilets... Why don't US cities build public toilets like the rest of the world does?
The reason that US cities do not have public toilets is they instantly become roosts for homeless people and drug addicts, crowding out any decent people who just need to take a whiz. I have with my own eyes, at a public toilet at the city center in the main square, saw a guy shit all over the walls, shoot up, and at least a couple of times a couple having sex. There's nothing more conducive to a good experience downtown than watching some nasty, unwashed lady-parts bobbing up and down on some dude. Final
Re: The real problem : (Score:2)
This is more of a culteral problem than anything.
bourgie shits are why gulags were invented (Score:2)
"I would rather have homeless drug addicts shit and piss where I walk rather than in a toilet!"
"Look at my random anecdote and confirmation bias!"
Piss ants (Score:2)
How does UPS do it? FedEx? (Score:3)
Amazon's delivery service is providing largely the same function as UPS, FedEx, and USPS. So how do they do it?
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UPS and Fedex and USPS have a different model. You get one and only one delivery per day, unless you pay an exorbitant rate. If your a corporation, the delivery to you receiving dock is within a 2 hour period, roughly the same every single day, because the routes are being optimized. My USPS mail comes roughly the same time every day. UPS deliveries had the same truck bringing packages for multiple addresses in my complex or block. You pee first, do your normal route, then pee when you get back, or pee
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Sounds like it's even easier for Amazon.
Do like UPS: Go to the Amazon place to pick things up, pee, drop things off, get back to the Amazon place to pick up the next load, pee.
The UPS truck is a lot bigger than an Amazon delivery van. They'll presumably be getting back to base much less frequently than the Amazon delivery crew.
So what's the problem? It sounds like you're saying that the UPS guy should be peeing every four hours (start of day/lunch/end of day), and the Amazon delivery crew can't because they
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It's the schedules. Some delivery companies takes into account the need to pee and schedules things such, while Amazon schedules things such that you are always running behind so when you go to the Amazon place to pick up more packages, there is no leeway to waste time peeing as you're behind schedule.
The solution is pretty easy, schedule pee breaks, or at least a couple of minutes of slack per hour, but that eats into profits.
Of COURSE it's true (Score:5, Informative)
When Amazon's Twitter account tried to throw shade on this ("You don't really believe that, do you?"), AOC replied... by posting one of Amazon's internal memos telling drivers to stop leaving bags full of pee and poop in the vans:
https://twitter.com/AOC/status... [twitter.com]
Re: Of COURSE it's true (Score:2)
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Common Practice in the Transportation Industry (Score:5, Insightful)
Having worked for several delivery companies before, I can tell you this was common practice for me and nobody even asked me to do it.
When you're on the road, and aren't being paid by the hour, it simply makes sense to drink as little liquids as needed and pee in a bottle when needed. Get the job done quickly and get home. I can imagine it's a bit larger hassle for women, but for men it's a trivial issue.
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it simply makes sense to drink as little liquids as needed and pee in a bottle when needed
Staying well-hydrated is critical for maximum alertness, plus it means more empty bottles to pee in.
Corporatist Bootlicking (Score:2)
Workers used to be expected to work seven days a week without an overtime. WYP?
Explained on Trailer Park Boys (Score:2)
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TPBs is one of the best shows on.
The hash driveway....
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Let's say that Amazon fesses up... (Score:1)
Piss jugs are an ancient trucker standard (Score:2)
Piss jugs work so they'll likely remain in use as they're very convenient, but they make good copy since bodily fluids are scary.
It would be silly not to have one as a delivery driver even if infrequently needed because there are few places to piss and parking is inconvenient. Delivery outfits aren't going to install urinals in trucks because it's so expensive and expensive to service so I'd expect the classic piss jug to remain standard indefinitely.
Alternatives could include "piddle packs" as used by avia
You could always (Score:2)
Give employees more time take of these things? But they could only deliver 5% fewer packages per day, the horror!
How about more public restrooms? (Score:2, Flamebait)
I suspect this is the stupid right wing moral panic about the war on drugs and their general homophobia that if you gave a person a place to take a shit, they'll just overdose and/or ha
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Seriously, why is this such an issue. Is it THAT expensive for bigger cities to build and maintain bathrooms?
Drug users, drug dealers, prostitutes, and crime in general is the reason.
And yes, it is THAT expensive to build and maintain bathrooms which people want to use. When some junkie tears out the piping to score some cash every other week, costs add up. When some bored twat decides to mangle the faucets just because, costs add up. When someone decides to use someone else's head to bash a hole in the
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However, if you think it's that simple, easy and cost effective to have an open restroom in a city, have it. Let us know how you make out.
I don't know how easy it is or how much it costs, but any European city has plenty of public toilets. I never heard anyone suggest that they cost too much and should be suppressed.
In some places where they fear that too many junkies would use them, they use ultraviolet neon lights, so junkies go find another more convenient place for shooting.
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Public toilets are actually quite rare in the Netherlands. You might find some open-air urinals in downtown areas where drunk males would otherwise piss against a wall, but that's about it. Otherwise, it's large train stations, gas stations, and pubs; for all of those you have to pay.
Every US building has indoor plumbing (Score:1)
Seriously, why is this such an issue. Is it THAT expensive for bigger cities to build and maintain bathrooms?
Drug users, drug dealers, prostitutes, and crime in general is the reason.
And yes, it is THAT expensive to build and maintain bathrooms which people want to use. When some junkie tears out the piping to score some cash every other week, costs add up. When some bored twat decides to mangle the faucets just because, costs add up. When someone decides to use someone else's head to bash a hole in the wall, costs add up.
First of all, how often does that really happen? This is the USA in 2021, not a batman movie. Violent crime is going down. I don't even think in the 80s, it was a huge issue of someone bashing someones head into the wall of a public restroom. I am sure it happened somewhere, but I am sure the overwhelming vast majority of urban public restrooms never saw that level of violence. But even if I'm wrong...fine...lock the doors at sundown. That's what the parks do. I can live with limited afterhours acces
Not just Amazon drivers! (Score:1)
Most stores and restaurants only allow the restrooms used by paying customers.
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Even paying customers are at workers' mercy (Score:4, Informative)
Most stores and restaurants only allow the restrooms used by paying customers.
I've lived in major cities for the last 25 years and have been refused access to bathrooms even after paying for something. You're at the mercy of whomever is working there to give you access. My local Dunkin Donuts is notorious for that. Buy a cup of coffee and ask to use the bathroom and you have a good chance of getting refused...or they just put an "out of order" sign on it and never take it off. I've seen many McDonalds where the bathroom is "out of order" for many months at a time, but you see employees go in and use it.
But really, in a walking city, like NYC, everyone needs to pee and poop, especially if you drink caffeine, are older, or have small kids with you. Businesses shouldn't have to fill in the demand. It should just be a public service. Why can't train stations have bathrooms? I don't care if they're gross and have graffiti all over them...just someplace I can piss and not get arrested or prevent my kids from soiling themselves. There should be readily accessible places for the public to relieve themselves...even if they're gross port-a-potties...I don't need comfort or dignity, just relief.
Re: Even paying customers are at workers' mercy (Score:2)
Wait, wut..? Here in Switzerland I know even a few tram stops that have public toilets. Yes, you may need some coins to get access, but if you're really out of spare change, people typically help out. Train stations without toilets? This is beyond me...
All drivers sometimes need a "pit stop" (Score:1)
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Another Amazon non-story (Score:5, Insightful)
Media: "Warehouse workers are forced to pee in bottles because they can't take a break!"
Amazon: "No, they are not."
Media: "Ok, but your delivery drivers are peeing in a bottle."
Amazon: "Right, I thought we were talking about FC workers. Delivery drivers for EVERY company in the US are peeing in bottles. Have you tried to find a public restroom while driving in the city?"
Willful Obtuseness (Score:3)
You're ignoring the fact that Amazon warehouse workers are peeing in bottles [businessinsider.com] too, not just delivery drivers. And that there's a big gap between "there are no public restrooms nearby" and "Amazon sets quotas so high I can't meet them if I stop to use a restroom".
Moving the goalposts. (Score:2)
The original, presumably false, claim was that fulfillment center workers were peeing in bottles to meet their targets. If Amazon denies it and then you present evidence that delivery drivers have difficulty finding restrooms along their routes, you have moved the goalposts, you havenâ(TM)t proven your original claim.
They're still blaming it on (Score:2)
Deflect (Score:2)
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Fesses up? (Score:1)
Probably true, yeah gotta love those conditional words, I'm sure likely. But more like Amazon "pisses off" that it was maybe true 100%, and they're only 1% not unsure.
JoshK.
Company profits (Score:2)
No public restrooms (Score:1)
I mean, what do people expect from Amazon/delivery services here?
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Dump - no. That's really a health hazard. Urine - not so much. A lot of places consider it a sex crime to urinate in public.
Hunters have been doing that for a very long time. Deer can smell human urine.
Can't find a public restroom? (Score:2)
America Is Not Made for People Who Pee [nytimes.com]
The fact it happens is not the concern (Score:2)
Problems finding restrooms? (Score:2)
Having done a lot of food delivery for Uber, DoorDash and other services over the last year, I'd say the issue of finding a bathroom is real, but over-stated. In any of these apps, you're able to "pause" your deliveries for at least 30 minutes or so, giving you time to drive someplace where you know you can find a restroom.
Some restaurants are more friendly about public restrooms than others... I know where I live, the downtown McDonalds location feels almost like it's trying to be hostile to food deliver
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Yep, it behooves Amazon to install toilets all along their delivery routes, all across the country.
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There is no "delivery route". They don't deliver to an entire neighborhood at once, they're all on-demand now and deliver to one customer at a time, zig-zagging through the city so that upscale customers don't have to wait so long. Thus the smaller vans which hold less, do a few deliveries, rush back to base to pick up more items for the needy crowd and head back out.
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There is no "delivery route". They don't deliver to an entire neighborhood at once, they're all on-demand now and deliver to one customer at a time, zig-zagging through the city so that upscale customers don't have to wait so long. Thus the smaller vans which hold less, do a few deliveries, rush back to base to pick up more items for the needy crowd and head back out.
You seriously think that Amazon doesn't combine and route deliveries?
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Just because routes are not *fixed* doesn't mean a bathroom stations couldn't be built and integrated into the dynamically constructed routes -- at least in some areas. You could contrive the route to drive reasonably close to bathroom several times on a shift. But it would be easier to build a head into the trucks. Heck, Amazon *sells* super-compact heads for fishing boats.
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It's the schedules, there needs to be a 5-15 minute break every 2 hours or such, not some algorithm that doesn't take needs or accidents (creating slowdowns) into account.
You've basically got a boss with a stop watch timing things and not taking into account the need to travel 5 minutes off your route to find a bathroom and the time to use it.