I use Amazon almost every day, and I feel bad about it every time, but apparently not bad enough to stop.

Imagine a Walmart that was several degrees hotter or colder than you’d like your house to be, with less bathrooms and a concrete floor. Now imagine running around it all day bending over to grab things off the bottom shelf and being timed by a buzzing iPad if you’re too slow. And say you’re you’re 65 and Social Security pays half your rent.

Now imagine that you’re the part of Amazon’s supply chain that the local jurisdiction that demands you’re treated better than the other 97% of Amazon’s chosen supply chain.

Refreshing is one word for a company being honest about the fact that they are lobbying hard to make your hypothetical life 0.001% more efficient.

And it's within their free speech to find that level of pettiness (and straight-up lies for that matter) distasteful and move his business elsewhere...

I agree with them - this is not a good look for Amazon. I have already essentially stopped purchasing on Amazon prior to this for various reasons (endless counterfeits and worker abuses) but will likely look to disband my relationship with AWS as well if they continue.

I don't mind them pushing back on politicians, but I do mind them lying while they do it.

I'm also stopping purchases from amazon.com based on this, but I'm not yet ready or able to cut out AWS

> but I do mind them lying while they do it

Sure, I sympathize with this. But one person's lies are another person's truth in this day and age, unfortunately.

Right, but _I_ think they're lying, and so they've lost _my_ purchases because of it.

That's the problem when you make corporate statements that are both controversial and on shaky factual ground. The shakier the factual ground the more people might decide you are not telling the truth (as they see it) and stop doing business with you.

Again, I have _zero_ problem with a company being snarky with politicians. Criticizing our electeds is the core of the first amendment and I fully support citizens right to disagree with political figures—even political figures I mostly agree with. For example, this particular tweet from @amazonnews I quite agree with: https://twitter.com/amazonnews/status/1375529101931520007.

> This is extraordinary and revealing. One of the most powerful politicians in the United States just said she’s going to break up an American company so that they can’t criticize her anymore.

I have no problem with companies being "powerful enough to heckle senators with snotty tweets". I actually have a problem with the inverse: there should be no company that is not powerful enough to heckle senators with snotty tweets.

You don’t really believe the peeing in bottles thing, do you?

We know from internal amazon communications it's happening. It's comical for them to deny it, except for the human misery they are making by having work expectations that make it almost impossible to take bathroom breaks and meet their expectations.

The memos that say "please don't leave pee in the trucks, please don't leave poop, we can figure out who you are".

Just because something happens and there are memos about it doesn’t mean it happens because of corporate policy. I’ve worked jobs that had memos that said “please don’t pee all over the floor and seat of the bathroom” and “please don’t throw poop covered toilet paper in the trash”. In neither case was the job or corporate policy so unbearable as to not allow enough time for proper bathroom use. It just seems there are some people that don’t understand normal / acceptable human bathroom behavior.

This isn't new - Amazon workers have had to pee in bottles for years. From 2018: https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-warehouse-workers-hav...

This is just the same old Amazon - they optimize everything to the point that humans can't keep pace with their metrics without cutting corners.

Well, at some point they will have managed to remove all need for unskilled labor and then everyone will be happy, right? /s

> have had to pee in bottles for years

Contractors can choose to pee where they want. But employees can sue so easily over this sort of thing. It's a specific OSHA violation.

This story depends on confusing the issue about who is and isn't a contractor, doing this to themselves.

The contractor should be let go. As the response notes, they represent the company and represent it badly.

If they’re driving an Amazon branded truck, they’re Amazon for all I care. When an ISP contractor shows up at your house and is rude, you don’t go “well, they’re a contractor, so I can’t blame Spectrum for this.” No, they have Spectrum’s branding on, so they represent Spectrum. It doesn’t matter if they’re a contractor or not.

Right, that's why they need to be terminated regardless of their specific style of employment.

I’m certain that every delivery or truck driver has peed in bottles and that most do it regularly.

It’s a giant hassle to do otherwise and peeing in a bottle ain’t that bad.

I suspect that many people just don't want to believe it, and shape their beliefs to fit their ideology.

That'd be fine if they weren't also aggressively lying about their labor conditions.

Agreed. I may not have agreed with most things Amazon twitter said but IMO it was definitely refreshing to see a company answering back instead of being just a punching bag mute for the politicians to score easy wins like "hey look how tough I am, I'm saying all these things about big bad <insert the latest company punch bag>, you should vote for me because of the emotional response you get from feeling less powerless" (although the latter part is rarely spoken).

Regardless of whether Amazon is in the right or wrong on this particular issue, I find it far more disturbing that Warren apparently thinks she should be immune to criticism (whether that criticism is justified or not).

For the record: Amazon, you, me, or anyone else is absolutely entitled to send Elizabeth Warren snotty tweets. Or send her snotty emails. Or make snotty phone calls to her office.

She is a public servant, not a noble or a pope or whatever.

If she can't handle people being rude to her, she needs to find another line of work. The "RESPECT MAH AUTHORITAH!!!" attitude is not a good look, either.

what did she say in response? I only saw her tweet and amazon's petty (and misleading) response. Who said she cannot be criticized? I think mostly people are saying that they are cringey liars...

She said it herself. See https://twitter.com/amazonnews/status/1375529101931520007 - in there, Warren says "And fight to break up Big Tech so you’re not powerful enough to heckle senators with snotty tweets." That's a direct threat to break up a private entity because it criticized her (a sitting Senator and representative of the federal government).

I see. Agreed that's, not great. I'm still more worried about amazon behavior and power currently tbh. Plus she is replaceable by somebody else that is willing to break up big tech, I don't care if it's her or someone else :)

You're getting modded down for this, of course, but she clearly thinks that only the powerful are entitled to "heckle Senators", and that anyone who "heckles Senators" should be punished.

Bite me, Senator Warren. I'll "heckle" your entitled ass any time I damned well see fit to do so.