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Amazon Tells Warehouse Workers To Close Their Eyes and Think Happy Thoughts (404media.co) 122

Posted by msmash from the where-everybody-knows-your-name dept.
Amazon is telling workers to close their eyes and dream of being somewhere else while they're standing in a warehouse. From a report: A worker in one of Amazon's fulfillment centers, who we've granted anonymity, sent 404 Media a photo they took of a screen imploring them to try "savoring" the idea of something that makes them happy -- as in, not being at work, surrounded by robots and packages. "Savoring," the screen says, in a black font over a green block of color. "Close your eyes and think about something that makes you happy." Under that text -- which I can't emphasize enough: it looks like something a 6th grader would make in Powerpoint -- there's a bunch of white space, and a stock illustration of a faceless person in an Amazon vest. He's being urged on by an anthropomorphic stack of Amazon packages with wheels and arms. There's also a countdown timer that says "repeat until timer ends." In the image we saw, it said 10 seconds.
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Amazon Tells Warehouse Workers To Close Their Eyes and Think Happy Thoughts

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  • Huh? Isn't that a good thing? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pz ( 113803 ) on Thursday March 14, 2024 @01:31PM (#64315465) Journal

    I have to shrug my shoulders: Why is this a problem?

    I work at a very much non-Amazon-style company. They more or less say the same thing here, but call it meditation. It's encouraged. They even provide classes that emphasize mental imagery of pleasant places as a key aspect to it. Seems to do really good things for health and well-being both short and long-term. Why shouldn't it work at Amazon as well?

    • Re:Huh? Isn't that a good thing? (Score:5, Funny)

      by nightflameauto ( 6607976 ) on Thursday March 14, 2024 @01:41PM (#64315499)

      I have to shrug my shoulders: Why is this a problem?

      I work at a very much non-Amazon-style company. They more or less say the same thing here, but call it meditation. It's encouraged. They even provide classes that emphasize mental imagery of pleasant places as a key aspect to it. Seems to do really good things for health and well-being both short and long-term. Why shouldn't it work at Amazon as well?

      The problem can be summed up thusly, "CLOSE YOUR EYES AND WATCH THE TIMER!" It has HR monkey written all over it. Reality need not apply.

      • Re:Huh? Isn't that a good thing? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by bugs2squash ( 1132591 ) on Thursday March 14, 2024 @01:47PM (#64315523)
        Yeah, it should have read "close your eyes and watch the timer and watch out for the forklift"

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Xenx ( 2211586 )

        "CLOSE YOUR EYES AND WATCH THE TIMER!"

        It doesn't say that, though. It says wait for the timer to end. Any meditation timer I've seen either vibrates or makes a sound when it ends. While I don't have any evidence saying they do that here, do you have any evidence that they don't?

        • do you have any evidence that they don't?

          Amazon bad. That's all a lot people need, it seems.

          • do you have any evidence that they don't?

            Amazon bad. That's all a lot people need, it seems.

            If you've ever talked with somebody that's worked in their warehouses, you'd probably feel that way too. I know we've got a certain contingent of folks that worship the larger companies as benign, benevolent entities of trust and purity, but that hasn't been the experience of the vast majority of us outside the tech-bro circle-jerk.

          • Re:Huh? Isn't that a good thing? (Score:5, Interesting)

            by selflessscoundrel ( 10502535 ) on Thursday March 14, 2024 @03:27PM (#64315805)
            It isn't unique to Amazon, and it isn't unique to some fool in HR. Anyone can make this mistake, but having worked at Amazon before, its ALWAYS this mistake.

            The size and speed that Amazon works at requires every level of employee to constantly push. Workers have to get their scan rates up so boxes keep moving. Supervisors need to continuously load/unload trucks. Management has to push the rate boxes get out the building. And so on. A never ending push for numbers and numbers.

            The purpose is to justify your job and justify your next job. There is no good enough. Even if you are the top building in your area, you must justify why there isn't infinite improvement from the last quarter, from last year.

            So, now you get HR, Management, Admin, Training, IT etc departments trying to justify why they aren't on a path to infinite growth and productivity.

            This means PROJECTS.

            Projects are the justification. Why didn't we see improvement? We were rolling out a new trial run of some sorting technology. We were rolling out a new floor layout to improve throughput. And yes, We were rolling out a meditation program to encourage our workers to maximize their productivity.

            It's not important that the Project succeeds. In fact that is beside the point. The Project is a scapegoat. Waste as much money as you want, and waste as much time as you want. As long as you have a new bullet point on your resume and can spit out some BS numbers, this then not only justifies your current job, but lines you up for the magical next one, so you can jump ship on all your BS half done projects and go to some higher level of the same routine.

            This is not just Amazon. This is every corporate environment I've seen.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

              I wonder what would happen if Amazon put a "slower delivery, reduce the stress on Amazon staff" button on the order page.

              • I wonder what would happen if Amazon put a "slower delivery, reduce the stress on Amazon staff" button on the order page.

                My wife and I have long discussed a "don't care, take your time" option for Amazon. I think the problem is that Amazon is displaying all the symptoms of MBA-itis, more of everything all the time, faster, better, more profit, always. You can't make impressive up-trending charts with "take your time" options. So it'd never fly for the company.

                We're pissed that they don't, at the very least, offer a "no weekend deliveries" option for orders. I really don't need those pen refills to be delivered on Sunday, when

        • "CLOSE YOUR EYES AND WATCH THE TIMER!"

          It doesn't say that, though. It says wait for the timer to end. Any meditation timer I've seen either vibrates or makes a sound when it ends. While I don't have any evidence saying they do that here, do you have any evidence that they don't?

          No. But having dealt with large company HR nonsense for seemingly centuries, it would be par for the course.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Shaitan ( 22585 )

      Business Plan

      1. Create unhappy working environment.
      2. Confirm your intent by making workers pretend they aren't unhappy.
      3. ???
      4. PROFIT!!!

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by jenningsthecat ( 1525947 )

      I have to shrug my shoulders: Why is this a problem?

      I work at a very much non-Amazon-style company. They more or less say the same thing here, but call it meditation. It's encouraged. They even provide classes that emphasize mental imagery of pleasant places as a key aspect to it. Seems to do really good things for health and well-being both short and long-term. Why shouldn't it work at Amazon as well?

      I'm willing to bet that at your workplace it's a bit of a perq. I also suspect that you and your co-workers aren't worked until they almost drop; aren't subject to a many-times-higher rate of workplace injuries than those in other similar workplaces; and aren't under constant threat of losing their jobs for some incredibly minor deviation from what's expected.

      In your workplace, meditation is something to make people more productive by enhancing happiness. At Amazon, it's the cheapest-possible means to shave

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by pz ( 113803 )

        In your workplace, meditation is something to make people more productive by enhancing happiness. At Amazon, it's the cheapest-possible means to shave a thin slice off their misery. Because actually caring about their workers enough to treat them as well as other folks in other similar jobs costs too much.

        I'm sorry, meditation somehow when used at Amazon is evil, but at other companies is good? That doesn't make sense given that meditation moves the needle in the positive direction no matter the circumstance.

        Let's make a thought experiment, shall we? You have a company that performs a service. The service is viewed by society as important. Workers who perform this service face substantial stress and a high rate of burnout, but --- and this is the part where one's imagination comes in --- are compensated

        • The difference, as I see it, is that Amazon is probably asking you to "meditate" on your own time, and other companies allow you to "meditate" on company time.

        • I'm sorry, meditation somehow when used at Amazon is evil, but at other companies is good?

          I'm sorry, but where, in an Amazon worker's day, is there time to meditate? I suggest that you have a look at this: https://www.businessinsider.co... [businessinsider.com] .

          Yes, Amazon reports that it has "abolished penalties for taking time off and that it doesn't time employees' bathroom breaks". But given that the workplace environment was such that one employee "described an 'awful smell' coming from warehouse trash cans, saying coworkers would urinate in them for fear of missing their targets because they took too much time

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Shaitan ( 22585 )

      "Seems to do really good things for health and well-being both short and long-term."

      ROFL. I can only assume you work in HR. There is no aspect of HR or anything relating to psychology or emotional well being in a corporate environment that serves any useful purpose but annoying staff and liability protection. You don't need to tell employees about measures meant to make them happy and they don't need to do anything to make them work but all such measures are counterproductive to the bottom line.

      But hey, if

      • Re:Huh? Isn't that a good thing? (Score:5, Funny)

        by ceoyoyo ( 59147 ) on Thursday March 14, 2024 @03:11PM (#64315749)

        Now now, a little daydreaming at work probably does improve your mental health.

        Giving classes, calling it meditation and "encouraging" it, along with a bunch of other modern business practices, probably does build devotion to the company. There are lots of real-world examples, like this one [wikipedia.org] and this one. [wikipedia.org] This one [huffingtonpost.co.uk] even focuses specifically on meditation.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Shaitan ( 22585 )

          Congratulations sir. I haven't had to clean my beverage off the monitor in quite some time.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

            Thanks! I should have included this one as well:

            https://www.wired.com/2014/09/... [wired.com]

            It's an excerpt from Peter Thiel's book. If your employer starts going on about company culture, teaching meditation, or handing out Kool Aid, just read the title. Or this quote:

            The best startups might be considered slightly less extreme kinds of cults. The biggest difference is that cults tend to be fanatically wrong about something important. People at a successful startup are fanatically right about something those outside i

    • I work at a very much non-Amazon-style company. They more or less say the same thing here, but call it meditation. It's encouraged. They even provide classes that emphasize mental imagery of pleasant places as a key aspect to it. Seems to do really good things for health and well-being both short and long-term. Why shouldn't it work at Amazon as well?

      I went from working at a shitty company to working at an amazing company and find myself asking the same question, but rhetorically. It's hard because you can describe what both are doing by using the same words in the same order, but it's as if the tone or the reasons behind it are all wrong at the shitty company. Think how wildly different the statement "you look good today" could be meant and/or interpreted depending on tone of voice, relationship between the speaker and listener, and general context. Sa

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Pascoea ( 968200 )
        Couldn't agree with you more. Had my last company come up with a policy like this I'd have laughed them out of the room. The current company, I'd be willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. All about perspective, and past experiences. Coming from Amazon, all I can think is some egghead figures they can get 0.25% more packages out the door every day if they let their employees "meditate" for 5 minutes every 4 hours.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by taustin ( 171655 )

      If the only thing you can do to keep your workers from lighting midlevel management on fire is to tell them to imagine not being at work, they're not the problem. You are.

    • I have to shrug my shoulders: Why is this a problem?

      Indeed. It adds another item to my growing list of why I'm happy I cancelled Amazon Prime and no longer order anything from them!

      Thank you, Amazon!

      • The best way of defanging Amazon is to stop buying their products and services. Especially from their warehouses.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by leonbev ( 111395 )

      I'd be worried about getting run over by a warehouse robot if I stopped and closed my eyes to take a 30 second meditation break in an Amazon warehouse.

      Seriously, have you seen video of those things? Some of the freaking shelves drive to YOU to cut down on process time.

    • I have to shrug my shoulders: Why is this a problem?

      It very much parallels the old "Lie back, and think of England" instructions given to young brides when married off to older men against their will -it translates to "shut up and get fucked, it's for the greater good."

    • ... classes that emphasize mental imagery of pleasant places ...

      Do you have to do that standing at your desk/workstation?

      The old phrase "you can't polish a turd" is literally false but figuratively true: Putting lipstick on a pig doesn't make your life better. At some point, it becomes impossible to ignore the ugliness of reality, this is why torture works (plus the desperate mis-belief that co-operation equals control). Given the stories about how Amazon treats its workers badly, it's dishonest to assume they now see them as imperfect individuals: Amazon isn't do

  • After all the blowback from the Amazen booths [youtube.com] I'm surprised that the company is playing psychologist again. Or should that be playing 'propagandist, or maybe 'gaslighter'?

    I guess they just don't care what people think. They sure as hell don't care about their warehouse employees, beyond whatever cheap and hollow 'be happy' shit they can shovel down their throats in a vain attempt to squeeze that last little bit of self-sacrificing productivity out of the poor bastards.

  • Omega Mart Beat Them To It. (Score:4, Funny)

    by pezpunk ( 205653 ) on Thursday March 14, 2024 @01:37PM (#64315483) Homepage

    Take Microbreaks!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

  • Lots of people do jobs they hate (Score:3, Insightful)

    by aldousd666 ( 640240 ) on Thursday March 14, 2024 @01:40PM (#64315493) Journal
    I've had jobs I hated too. It's a fact of life. There is no inherent responsibility of an employer to make a shit job palatable. There's a reason they are paying someone to do it, and it's because they aren't doing it themselves. Many times that could be because the job sucks. It's still a pay opportunity. What next, are we going to bitch that sewer workers don't like their jobs either? GTFO
    • do you not see the difference in not "making a shit job palatable" and actively making a shit job more shitty?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by CAIMLAS ( 41445 )

      Nah, this is more about the company knowing it sucks, and encouraging people to stay in what is an unhealthy situation longer by encouraging specific coping mechanisms - coping mechanisms they wouldn't need if the job wasn't horrible, and coping mechanisms which do nothing to really attenuate the pain, just prologue it.

  • Right in the middle of the sorting facility they should stop, close their eyes and savour a happy thought. Then when their next performance meeting comes up telling them they are under performing because they were 27.263 seconds behind the optimum delivery schedule they should sue their company for sending mixed messages.

    On a serious note mental health and happiness is a thing that needs to be addressed. My company does this too, but the difference between them and Amazon is that I am actually expected to t

    • Right in the middle of the sorting facility they should stop, close their eyes and savour a happy thought. Then when their next performance meeting comes up telling them they are under performing because they were 27.263 seconds behind the optimum delivery schedule they should sue their company for sending mixed messages.

      On a serious note mental health and happiness is a thing that needs to be addressed. My company does this too, but the difference between them and Amazon is that I am actually expected to take time out to clear my head (no not just morning break, afternoon break, and lunch, but in addition to those breaks), and not expected to piss into a bottle to avoid spending 1minute to go take a bathroom in order to meet my KPIs.

      We need to address mental health on the whole in our country, and probably a lot of other countries around the world. We're less than a generation removed from mental healthcare being summed up as, "Man up, pussy." There's overcorrections in certain segments to the point of utter absurdity, "pronouns are violence" as an example. And then there's still huge swaths of people living by the "man up, pussy" mantra. I gotta think there's probably a happy medium in there somewhere where you try to be kind to other

    • That's why the timer is only 10s

  • What happened to Slashdot's login button (Score:4)

    by gtall ( 79522 ) on Thursday March 14, 2024 @01:41PM (#64315501)

    All I see now is some silly Google crap on the right of the link bar. Where'd it go?

    • same here

    • Same here. Someone took a savored moment at Slashdot and hit the wrong button.

    • All I see now is some silly Google crap on the right of the link bar. Where'd it go?

      I see that too - an advert for Google Cloud.

      Ironically, it's right above the (checked) checkbox that says "Ads Disabled - Thanks again for helping make Slashdot great!"

  • "Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens" for the modern era.

    "When the robot-dog bites...."

    Of course, in an Amazon warehouse, you've got lots to choose from when it comes to "your favorite things."

  • Aperture Science (Score:5, Funny)

    by Calydor ( 739835 ) on Thursday March 14, 2024 @02:11PM (#64315611)

    This reminds me so much of the starting room in Portal 2. Contemplate this art, listen to some smooth jazz, back to hibernation.

  • Toyota owned factories blast loud children's music over the whole floor when the laborers are not meeting the build times.

  • There's some history behind this (Score:3)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Thursday March 14, 2024 @02:43PM (#64315697)

    Remember Apple's Ridley Scott directed 1984 Super Bowl television ad that declared "And you'll see why 1984 won't be like 1984"?

    Well, see, Bezos saw that too - and his response was "hold my beer...".

  • Amazon Tells Warehouse Workers To Close Their Eyes and Think Happy Thoughts

    [holding a doll and stuffed warehouse]
    Therapist: Can you show me where the Amazon Warehouse touched you.

  • "Close your eyes and--"

    "Close my eyes? On the warehouse floor? With all the rampaging robots on it?"

    "Oh, right. Well, okay, when you're on a bathroom break--

    "What bathroom breaks?

  • This idea could be used by Kim Jong Un in North Korea although strike that, he doesn't want the citizens to think happy thoughts of: revolution, freedom...

    The idea was already used by Colonel Saito in the WW2 story "Bridge of the River Kwai"..."be happy in your work..."

    JoshK.

  • ...we should start calling them "Sixers"...?
  • 30 years ago I worked at a chemical plant on 24 hr shifts driving forklifts around on the ice in the dark, rolling around 600# drums of acid, get treated for weird lesions on my legs from chemical exposure etc. etc. If there was a sign telling me to close my eyes and think about working in a Amazon warehouse, I would have done it.
  • Amazon manager: Are you thinking happy thoughts?!
    Amazon worker: Yes!
    Amazon manager: What is it?
    Amazon worker: Violently murdering you.
    Amazon manager: ...

  • Right now, preferably yesterday.

    You don't want people to end up in misery, but you want your cheap stuff fast and cheap - to your door - preferably yesterday.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by HiThere ( 15173 )

      The problem is "How will the people they replace earn a living?".

      My preferred answer is UI. Not UBI, but a guaranteed (minimal) income for everyone, or at least all citizens.

  • Just imagine Bezos being skinned alive and imagine his screams of agony as the life slowly leaves his body.

    I'm pretty sure that is the happiest thing anyone working in an Amazon warehouse can have.

    Fuck, just do it, it should up their spirits for weeks at the very least!

  • Amazon Tells Warehouse Workers To Close Their Eyes and Think Happy Thoughts

    This sounds disturbingly like something that would have been said in Terry Gilliam's dystopian movie "Brazil"....

  • The beatings will continue until morale improves.

  • What if you are already living your dream, being exactly where you want to be - do you still have to close your eyes?

  • TBF I've been doing this, or a variation of this, since kindergarten.

    Yes, fellow slashdotters, since 1974 I've been pretending to go along with the flow, pretending to be alright, pretending pretending pretending.

    The truth is I hate crowds. 30 kids in a classroom is a crowd.

    The truth is I hate office life. Ringing phones, the babble of half a dozen conversations, etc. The least productive environment I can think of.

    The truth is I hate factory life -- and yes, i've worked assembly line, twice.

    So to a lot

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