Anyone here ever worked for Amazon?

[BringBackFergy]

7 minutes ago, ExiledInIllinois said:

Be prepared to read and weep your ill educated take on automation... Maybe there is a lawyer algorithm... But in the work a day world... Things gotta get moved.

 

Never (reply to your post)!  In the last 50 years we actually added a worker.  Crews were one person years ago.  Now two!

 

S.A.F.T.E.Y.

 

...Will always need four boots on ground.

 

Good read about shipping, economy, if you care to read the "back story"

 

https://www.wbez.org/shows/curious-city/mystery-boat-alone-and-idle-in-waterlogged-corner-of-chicago/7833e5d2-0936-46c3-b68b-3d3da75acde8

 

"...Overall, the shipping industry is still relatively active, but the Port of Chicago is not the economic engine it once was. According to a 2011 report, the most recent data available, the Port generates nearly 2,700 jobs, 25 percent less than it did nearly a decade prior. And the jobs the Port creates indirectly have dropped by 22 percent over the same period. Industry-wide, shipping on the Great Lakes faces headwinds, due to the phasing out of coal and a steel industry that has yet to return to its pre-Recession peak.  

“It’s an industry that will never die. But it will never get better,” Hansen said. “It just gets smaller and smaller and smaller. As we lose our steel. As we lose our cement. As we lose our coal.”

 

Still, marine transport is the most economic way to get cargo from one place to another — far cheaper than trucking and even rail.

But a struggling manufacturing sector mixed with low commodity prices, means ships like the C.T.C. No. 1 are left waiting in the wings, stuck in a kind of limbo where they’re too valuable to ditch, but not useful enough to repair. ..."

So, by your own admission there’s less demand for “water transport” but more demand for gubment workers to man those antiquated lock systems. Amazon doesn’t need wildflower gardens and Soduku experts...they need to move merchandise quick. Shoot, if they relied on lock tenders to move their food stuffs, the grape juice would turn into wine by the time the product arrived at poor Mrs. Hubblehand’s house. Enter...the robots. 

[/dev/null]

2 minutes ago, BringBackFergy said:

Amazon doesn’t need wildflower gardens and Soduku experts

[ExiledInIllinois]

6 minutes ago, BringBackFergy said:

So, by your own admission there’s less demand for “water transport” but more demand for gubment workers to man those antiquated lock systems. Amazon doesn’t need wildflower gardens and Soduku experts...they need to move merchandise quick. Shoot, if they relied on lock tenders to move their food stuffs, the grape juice would turn into wine by the time the product arrived at poor Mrs. Hubblehand’s house. Enter...the robots. 

We set the water levels.  Like paving a road.  Constitutionally mandated.  "Common Highways, forever free of duty or toll." 9 foot channel, harbors (of refuge) are congressionally appropriated.  

 

Like the USPS... Who else will do it?  

Edited November 22, 2019 by ExiledInIllinois

[KD in CA]

4 hours ago, /dev/null said:

shopping for white people

This seems to be a rapidly expanding segment of the job market.  While I remain a staunch supporter of the free market, I do understand the concerns with this reality.

[apuszczalowski]

7 hours ago, ExiledInIllinois said:

What's NOT made in China, consumer goods that is?

I'm talking about the cheap knock off stuff though, not the actual quality stuff built by them and passed off as 'Made in America'......

[Sundancer]

I know a few white collar executives. They love it. 

 

I'm sure it is hard in distribution. 

[ExiledInIllinois]

12 hours ago, BringBackFergy said:

So, by your own admission there’s less demand for “water transport” but more demand for gubment workers to man those antiquated lock systems. Amazon doesn’t need wildflower gardens and Soduku experts...they need to move merchandise quick. Shoot, if they relied on lock tenders to move their food stuffs, the grape juice would turn into wine by the time the product arrived at poor Mrs. Hubblehand’s house. Enter...the robots. 

Part Duece of the rebuttal to your incoherent rants about automation:

 

Amazon ain't moving bulk commodities, like 10,000 tons of sugar or corn.  Those shipping  times are pretty much set in stone.  Of course our aging parts of the infrastructure that need attention in order for efficent shipping.

 

It's multi-intermodal system that's being streamlined.  Robotics will exist in places. Still need at least a few humans to run the show... That's what exists now.

 

Outside of bulk commodities, inland water is ancillary.  Yet, as the "pipeline" continues to be filled, other goods and services will enter... Already see overflow with containers as the eastern ports fill since opening of New Panama.  It's pretty time based, but it's still only taking about 10 days to move 15,000 tons of petrol-chem from Chicago to New Orleans and back.  Ain't gonna get much faster even with robots.  I don't see Amazon shipping your new 70" OLED TV via water, ever.  MAYBE, if anything to warehousing. Even your sour grapes will go by reefer train or truck.

 

So get a grip, your apocalyptic Andrew Yang take on automation ain't happening anytime soon in the bulk commodity biz.

 

Anyway... I gotta get back to moving 9,600 tons of pig iron faster than a herd of turtles with my face hanging out the window.... Damn Sudoku has to wait on this glorious November Saturday morning!

 

Go Amazon!

[Not at the table Karlos]

Friends wife worked there for maybe two weeks. She said she hated every min of it but She didn’t give any reasons why. 

[T&C]

So, is it safe to say that No One here has worked for Amazon? 

 

We have one close here and I hear the stories all the time... picture Berlin in the 1930's.