|
I've been unemployed since April and the chances of my job coming back are looking slimmer by the day. I've been waffling on applying for an Amazon DSP driving job, since they seem incredibly easy to get and usually seem to pay about $20 an hour, which I can live on. I also have a bunch of experience doing similar jobs and generally like that type of work. You get to be alone, outside, plenty of exercise, good way to catch up on podcasts. My last job wasn't actually that different, although I'd much prefer to work for the company I was previously working for than Amazon since they were pretty good to their employees until all of this covid poo poo went down. The only thing I'm worried about is potential working conditions. Seems like the type of job that would potentially sneak in lots of mandatory OT, and who knows the type of healthcare these random LLCs offer. I'm just curious if anyone has experience doing this kind of work and if it's reasonable work to get into, or just setting people up for burnout.
|
#
?
Oct 8, 2020 22:50
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 25, 2024 18:42 |
|
|
I used to work for Amazon Delivery when they first started out. I don't know what it's like now, but back then it was a good way to get a bit of exercise and chat up some interesting people. The package load was small, so you'd drive around, deliver some goods and people would be waiting in their driveway to grab it and you'd just talk about things. People would voluntarily tell you what they got and invite you inside to do unboxings before that was a thing. I got on a first name basis with lots of the townsfolk within a couple weeks. Maybe I was just in a nice neighborhood. It was cool for a while, until I got fired after two months because of the snow incident. On one of the days it started snowing. It was flurries. Nothing too bad. But you already know the next day would be black ice if the sun didn't evaporate all that poo poo. I didn't make it to the next day though because of the events that soon unfolded. I knew today's roads would be better than tomorrow’s, so I asked my manager if I could do a double and for tomorrow have a lighter load. Manager said that's cool and he packed more than usual into my truck. My manager was rad as hell. That poo poo was packed neat. No wasted space on the bottom rows of shelves, all fully in there. But we forgot one package. There was one last package and it was a big one. The big package that was the last one didn't fit on the floor of the truck since there was no more room, so we put it on the top shelf. Never put the big heavy packages on the top shelf. My manager always gave the advice on the first day to new recruits: Big, heavy packages are always supposed to go on the bottom floor shelf. Don’t put them up top. This time, manager packed it wrong because there was no more space, breaking the golden rule. The broken cardinal rule caused the incident of the snow-day delivery. The big heavy package that was breaking the golden rule by existing on the top shelf had some unusual aspects to it. The package had some weird foreign markings all over it with big text, but it was broken scribble language, so it was unreadable. English and sometimes Spanish is the mother tongue of the delivery truck drivers, so no one could decipher the faraway, bad language. But it was big and in red font so you knew it was menacing. We figured if it was actually important it would be written in a real language, so we ignored it. We shouldn't have ignored it and manager shouldn't have put it on the top shelf. We didn't learn the two pronged mistake until later. Those two mistakes alone wouldn't have caused the snowdrift delivery disturbance. The last ingredient was the drifting. In videogames, it's freaking fun as hell to drift. Most games give you a boost from the drift. During normal car operation, drifting doesn't really exist. But on a day of snow and flurries, drifting mode activates. So I drifted. And it was fun as hell. I drifted through stopsigns. I drifted between parked cars. I drifted up people's driveways at 2mph. Then the bad drift happened. The bad drift is when you're going 55 and you drift. Don't ever do the bad drift. I had to brake hard because there was an idiot other driver drifting. He was drifting at 55, which is the bad drift. He drifted right at me and I braked and the whole world shook. The shelves bounced and emptied packages everywhere from the speedy stop. Time slowed as I turned around to watch all the items jerk into life. My heart was focused on the heavy package with the warning labels. Most packaging is robust and can handle a little bit of tossing around, but if it’s the heavy package on the top shelf, that rule no longer applies. I watched in awe of the raining packages scene unfolding before me. The heavy package plummeted to the floor and instantly exploded. Dark filth gushed from the package. Steamy brown air wafted around, filling the truck with haze. When the brown air bursts throughout your truck, the first thing you notice is that you can no longer see. The second thing you notice is the putrid stench that makes you wretch. It smelt like someone went into the men’s room and had the worst case of explosive diarrhea and crapped it all over the toilet seat. But this version wasn’t just on the seat. The evil goo drenched everything in sight, and more evil sputtered from several new orifices blown open on the package from hell. So instead of merely the toilet seat enduring the pain, it would be more like the toilet seat crapper man ran around splashing diarrhea logs all around the floor and walls too, making a horrible painful mess of the place. My amazon truck looked and smelt like the crime scene of a man spraying stinky explosive diarrhea chunks all over the floors, walls, and ceiling. And every crevice and nostril in between. I opened the windows and stuck my head out to save my nose even though it was really cold from the snow. I found a few tree air fresheners in the glove compartment and tied them to my face with some boxing tape. That helped a little with the bad smell. I had to keep my head out the window in order to make the rest of the deliveries. It was hard to read some of the addresses on the packages partially because of my eyes watering from the doom smell, but mostly because of the grime covering each package. A windshield squeegee made it possible to wipe the gunk away at least from the barcode label. It only took a few tries to scan each package. I was on a deadline so I tried not to chat with most of the customers. Most stayed inside from the cold anyway, so they had no idea of the unholy stink smell burnt into their packages. One customer saw me during delivery and wanted to chat. His eyes went big when he opened the door and he used his jacket sleeve to save his nose from the box’s new scent. He didn’t want to touch the package, but I told him I was on a deadline so didn’t have much time to chat. He was mad and started cursing, but I could barely hear because of the air fresheners in front of my ears. I set the package on his doorstep that had a small dusting of snow on it from the flurries. He had boxcutters and snipped at the package on the ground from afar with quick distant swipes to keep clear of the slime. His unboxing party revealed several rolls of toilet paper. He shouted “why would I buy toilet paper that was already used!”. I told him that amazon must have packaged it like that and to call up their customer service for a refund. He was fuming, but I had more stuff to deliver so I left. The rest of the day was pretty busy. I worked harder and faster than ever before since I had double the packages and because I wanted to get home so my nose wouldn’t be around the slime. I knew not to stick around after the toilet paper customer, so when people waved hello, I made a gesture like “sorry, I’m in a hurry”. I finished up and got back to home base. It was late so no one was there. I dropped off the truck. I usually have clean gym clothes ready in my car, so I grabbed those and took a shower in the warehouse. The next day, my manager calls me up and he’s freaking pissed. I told him what happened and that it’s his fault because he committed the golden sin of putting the heavy box on the top shelf. He told me I’m fired and that I’m banned from amazon dot com. I was mad so I hung up. A week later, it’s paycheck day, so I drive over to pick up the last of my earnings. I figured my manager might have cooled off by then, but he was still mad. He refused to pay me. I asked him why and he said that the truck had to be destroyed and it would come out of my paycheck. I told him I would sue him and left. Weeks later I won $400 in small claims. That’s my experience with doing delivery. You’ll probably run into something similar if you choose to take up one of those jobs.   
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2023 17:13
|
|
|
I've been driving for Amazon for about 3 months now. Overall it's not awful, I do get plenty of time to myself and it's good exercise. Some of my main issues are: 1. Inconsistent scheduling. 4 10's are the norm, although the actual length of the shift can vary between 9 and 12 hours. However during peak there definitely is mandatory overtime where you're working 5 and occasionally 6 days. This week I only got scheduled 3 days. There's times I've driven 25 miles down to the station to Llearn I'm an extra and I have to wait and see if there's a route available. If not I have to clock out and go home after an hour and a half. 2. Cameras and computers monitoring your performance. It's easy to mess up your perfect driving score with accidental hard acceleration or hard braking. Not a big deal if you're careful. They also have cameras pointed into the driver's cab which are supposed to detect via AI when you're distracted. They've never flagged me and I think it's because wearing glasses messes up the facial recognition software. 3. Dicey situations. Our delivery area is 60 miles away from our station for some reason which means a lot of highway driving in potentially hosed weather conditions. The town I deliver in has been hosed over hard by deindustrialization and there's some pretty scary parts of town and trailer parks with scary signs all over about shooting trespassers and people like to keep some scary dogs. Nothing has happened to me but it definitely makes me cautious. So overall the job's not bad. Amazon sucks, you might go to some messed up parts of town. I have peed in bottles before because I was far away from any public restrooms but I've never had trouble meeting the return to station times. Edit: didn't realize this was a 3 year old thread. Oh well hope this is useful to someone. HORNEY VAPE BRO fucked around with this message at 13:32 on Mar 2, 2023 |
|
#
?
Mar 2, 2023 13:27
|
|
