[kolektiv]

There are some rather key differences though don't you think? I imagine as a reasonably valued software engineer you weren't likely to face disciplinary action or loss of employment for not picking fast enough, thus negating a huge cause of stress/anxiety. You also had the knowledge of a definite finite term of employment followed by more relaxing/agreeable work, another rather significant difference.

You also talk about troubleshooting shortages and getting to do things that require problem solving. It sounds from this article (and others like it over the last few years) that this kind of thing, if even still available at all, is not likely to happen to your average seasonal employee.

The fact that other people have it worse in various sweatshops around the world is hardly relevant, or particularly edifying. We are quite capable of seeing problems as a matter of degree I would hope.

Your comment comes across as a little like the CEO who spends a day on the factory floor and proclaims that he had a marvelous time and everyone treated him wonderfully. Unsurprising, but hardly enlightening...

[nicpottier]

We were definitely measured the same as everyone else and had the same targets, though obviously didn't face the same repercussions. The targets were hard at first but once you got the hang of it nothing terribly difficult.

It is manual labor, I don't really understand the arguments against. Yes, it is work, yes it is boring, but so it being a gas station attendant. The people I worked side by side with seemed happy enough.

Maybe I lack empathy, but geez, I actually did it for a while, and you and the other respondent didn't... so maybe another option is that the article is a bit sensational and it isn't as bad as it is made out?

Sore feet and that it is boring and are his primary complaints.. really? This is something to get up in arms about?

[Mikeb85]

Have you ever worked manual labour? Like a real labour job?

When the recession hit, I was unemployed, but got a decent paying construction job from a friend. It involved lifting a hundred pounds at a time, working in dangerous areas (near elevator shafts, on the edge of a 45-story office tower, under cranes) in cold weather (up to minus 40 degrees celcius), and with plenty of dangerous equipment (cranes, concrete pumps, excavators, etc...). The typical work week was 70 hours of gruelling physical work, with even more hours available if you wanted them (and some people would take as many as 100 hours per week).

And that job was quite mild, compared to all the oilfield jobs people take up north, where the weather is consistently much colder, and the hours even longer.

If working at Amazon was so terrible, there wouldn't be 5000 people employed there. Or the demand for jobs there would be so low, the wages would be much higher. But let's face it, there's much worse jobs even in our western countries.

[DanBC]

I've had menial jobs. For what they were - menial work to earn a bit of money - they were great. The bullshit on assembly lines is present, but it's different to the bullshit you get in offices.

Good employers can make this kind of menial job a great place to work for many people. Bad employers can very quickly ruin it.

> You also talk about troubleshooting shortages and getting to do things that require problem solving. It sounds from this article (and others like it over the last few years) that this kind of thing, if even still available at all, is not likely to happen to your average seasonal employee.

Yes, bad companies don't listen to their employees. When someone sits at a machine for 8 hours a day, moving a widget, pushing a button, and putting the widget in a box for someone else, that person knows a lot about that process. They can tell you about the lighting or the draft or the position of the bin or the seat or how stuff piles up too fast for them or how they're left waiting for product.

Find these people. Reward them for their insight. Apply those tweaks.