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Fired by Bot at Amazon: 'It's You Against the Machine'
Contract drivers say algorithms terminate them by email—even when they have done nothing wrong.
Normandin says Amazon punished him for things beyond his control that prevented him from completing his deliveries, such as locked apartment complexes. He said he took the termination hard and, priding himself on a strong work ethic, recalled that during his military career he helped cook for 250,000 Vietnamese refugees at Fort Chaffee in Arkansas.
“I’m an old-school kind of guy, and I give every job 110%,” he said. “This really upset me because we're talking about my reputation. They say I didn’t do the job when I know damn well I did.”
Normandin’s experience is a twist on the decades-old prediction that robots will replace workers. At Amazon, machines are often the boss—hiring, rating and firing millions of people with little or no human oversight.
relates to Fired by Bot at Amazon: ‘It’s You Against the Machine’
Amazon became the world’s largest online retailer in part by outsourcing its sprawling operations to algorithms—sets of computer instructions designed to solve specific problems. For years, the company has used algorithms to manage the millions of third-party merchants on its online marketplace, drawing complaints that sellers have been booted off after being falsely accused of selling counterfeit goods and jacking up prices.
Increasingly, the company is ceding its human-resources operation to machines as well, using software not only to manage workers in its warehouses but to oversee contract drivers, independent delivery companies and even the performance of its office workers. People familiar with the strategy say Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos believes machines make decisions more quickly and accurately than people, reducing costs and giving Amazon a competitive advantage.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-06-28/fired-by-bot-amazon-turns-to-machine-managers-and-workers-are-losing-out
Normandin says Amazon punished him for things beyond his control that prevented him from completing his deliveries, such as locked apartment complexes. He said he took the termination hard and, priding himself on a strong work ethic, recalled that during his military career he helped cook for 250,000 Vietnamese refugees at Fort Chaffee in Arkansas.
“I’m an old-school kind of guy, and I give every job 110%,” he said. “This really upset me because we're talking about my reputation. They say I didn’t do the job when I know damn well I did.”
Normandin’s experience is a twist on the decades-old prediction that robots will replace workers. At Amazon, machines are often the boss—hiring, rating and firing millions of people with little or no human oversight.
relates to Fired by Bot at Amazon: ‘It’s You Against the Machine’
Amazon became the world’s largest online retailer in part by outsourcing its sprawling operations to algorithms—sets of computer instructions designed to solve specific problems. For years, the company has used algorithms to manage the millions of third-party merchants on its online marketplace, drawing complaints that sellers have been booted off after being falsely accused of selling counterfeit goods and jacking up prices.
Increasingly, the company is ceding its human-resources operation to machines as well, using software not only to manage workers in its warehouses but to oversee contract drivers, independent delivery companies and even the performance of its office workers. People familiar with the strategy say Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos believes machines make decisions more quickly and accurately than people, reducing costs and giving Amazon a competitive advantage.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-06-28/fired-by-bot-amazon-turns-to-machine-managers-and-workers-are-losing-out
12 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
Hire somebody to get your email feedback feature to work! Didn't work for me yesterday. Maybe you just don't want feedback? A feedback form allowed me to check a box for "Delivered to Wrong Address" but it had no place for an explanation. I hope the driver doesn't get fired for it.
I had a package delivered to a neighbor I believe because the font on the shipping label was so tiny it could hardly be read without a magnifying glass. I wanted to tell Jeff that it's not the driver's fault that somebody chose a font size that is unnecessarily too small and hard to read. Trying to save a penny on ink perhaps? 
