UNLOCKED: I often say Amazon is the Bernie Sanders of employers (interview with Amazon driver Haley Brown)
We had a last-second opportunity to interview a very recent former Amazon driver, Haley Marie Brown about her experience driving for the company, how it flies in the face of Amazon's "progressive" public image, and how Alexander's union delivery job compares and contrasts. We did a lot of commiserating on this one, and the discrepancy between Amazon's statements and Haley's experience was too ridiculous not to expound at length. Instead of trimming this segment down, I decided to leave it intact as its own episode. Hope everyone enjoys. Support the show and get a bonus episode every week at http://patreon.com/miniondeathcult
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All their rebar and full-staff.
Stay tuned. - Now we are joined by Hayley Marie Brown, who is a very recent former Amazon delivery driver.
Thank you so much for joining us, Haley.
Yeah, I'm happy to be here.
Thank you for having me.
How does it feel to not have to hump packages anymore?
It's like heaven on earth, honestly.
I got home from the first day at my new job actually was today and I don't feel like I want to, like, hang myself.
So it's really nice, actually.
You know, I don't feel like my body is going to fall apart at any given moment and know that I have to wake up super early in the morning to go do the same thing again the next day.
That's something that they can't put a price on, unless you count, like, hiring more drivers and giving your drivers better health care and better working conditions.
Then you could put a price on it that way, I suppose.
Yeah, absolutely.
One of the things that's interesting, you know, you said you're hiring more drivers is, you know, with Amazon, they'll hire more drivers, but they'll give them the same workload as everybody else.
They won't spread the workload around like you would think that they would.
And so what ends up happening is you just have hundreds, thousands of workers running out of any given warehouse over the course of a week.
And they're all dealing with the same amount of work.
And You know, the pandemic has certainly increased the amount of packages we deliver, but nowhere near, I think, what's been given.
Like, I started out on my first full route two weeks after I started, because they give you these nursery routes to kind of get you into the position of learning how to do everything.
And then when I was first beginning my first full routes, I only had like 130 stops at the most and like maybe around 200 packages to deliver, which is like super doable.
And I was getting home, you know, like at noon or one o'clock and I would be starting at 8 a.m., you know, so I was just banging it out.
And then all of a sudden stop counts started increasing and pretty soon I'm doing over 200 stops a day pretty consistently.
um for like a solid two months right before until i quit and then i would be delivering somewhere around like 300 close to 400 packages a single day um yeah so it was nuts people don't realize that when you get as a driver like this like there's only so much room in your package car or in your van or whatever you're driving right so i mean it's it's and also i think like people think oh 200 packages
that's a lot of packages which it is a lot of packages but if you're doing it for eight nine hours like it's really not that many packages and you have a big truck but if you just add like a hundred packages to that if you just do like one and a half times that or maybe even double it it's
it grows exponentially how much how difficult the work becomes because now you're not looking for one in 200 packages you're looking for one in 400 packages you're tossing the load more easily because you go over a bump at the wrong angle or whatever and now the packages are stacked too high on the shelves or whatever so they all they all fall down um
It becomes impossible for me as a UPS driver during peak season when they try to put like 450 packages or even 500 pieces in a package car that was only designed for like 300 max you know and that's without even an aisle in the center and you just you can't do it like you can't get through it in a timely manner and you end up just bringing volume back because you run out of legal hours to be on the road.
And with UPS we are union and so they can't really do much.
If you tell them I'm working at my best rate and they can't find you doing anything like breaking any of the protocols that have been agreed to on the contract, they can't really discipline you.
You know, they can't say, oh, you have to work faster, basically.
With Amazon, however, that is like what I understand to be their whole business model.
Is that everybody has to go as fast as possible all the time.
Yeah, that's completely true.
But to add to that, there's this little sort of like spicy caveat to that.
They actually do not want you finishing early.
So they want you going as fast as possible, but they want you out there the longest you possibly can be.
Because, I mean, I don't really have a particular justification for why they might want to do this.
It's just a theory.
But my theory is that they want you to mess up after a certain point.
They want you to be Dealing with so much that you resign so they can just bring in new new workers and people who aren't Used to it so they can just grind people through it because that's literally what they do I mean the turnover rate for Amazon delivery drivers is insane And that kind of goes without standing like I know you mentioned The loading of the vans.
Well you you have as a UPS driver.
You have that big kind of boxy truck, right we We, some DSP, some warehouses will have those.
But if you're in a rural area, you probably won't have them.
You'll have Sprinter vans, Ford or Mercedes.
And so the way that we have to load our own vans.
They don't come preloaded.
And the way that it essentially works is we have the smaller envelope packages and small boxes that are in these bags, these huge bags.
And you know, on average, I was getting around 20 during normal season, 20 bags.
And then during peak season, I'd get something close to 30.
I'd get like 26 or 28.
And they're not organized in any real way, because Amazon's routes will have you loop around the same streets over and over again.
You'll finish a street, and then you'll do two houses on another street, and then you go back to that street.
And you'll be in a different bag.
That seems dangerous in a whole other respect, to be hitting the same street several times.
It's incredibly dangerous and, um, they, the worst part about it is, is there's no real protection back there.
Like they say, Amazon vans have the door, the sliding door where you can walk in, but like the solid 75% of the vans that I drove, that door was removed.
Um, so you didn't even have the option of like, Keeping things from falling, from falling into the driving cabin and like smacking you or causing a problem.
That's a big no-no in UPS.
That's called the bulkhead door in UPS.
It's the door that separates the cab from the storage area.
We're not supposed to have any boxes in the cab.
And you're supposed to, they know we are monitored to a certain degree.
We have a thing called telematics, which can monitor whether your seatbelt is, you know, engaged.
uh whether the car's moving where the car is via gps and whether that bulkhead door is open or shut while you're driving um whether you how many times you reverse is monitored as well and a lot of this stuff i'm okay with it being monitored um I'm okay with the bulkhead door being monitored because I don't want to drive around with that door to the cargo area open, you know, in case I get into an accident or in case I have to throw on the brakes or whatever.
I don't want, you know, leaf springs flying into the cab or something like that.
Same thing with the reverse.
I don't...
Really care if they monitor how many times I reverse because reversing is dangerous and that's not something I want to do and I'm glad that the union Has come to a you know agreement with the company about
it being okay to monitor a smurf because like starting from reverse is actually very dangerous because you come back to the car unless you're walking around the car there could be something under the rear wheel there could you know by the time you get back to the car etc so i'm fine with that sort of uh monitoring um i don't mostly I mostly feel pretty solitary while I'm out on my route.
I get messages here and there about safety or sometimes annoying customer requests that are relayed through dispatch or whatever, but for the most part I don't feel monitored.
Which is one part of the job I really like.
I like not having to be around a supervisor.
Apparently Amazon is instituting new driver observation policies and maybe you can fill in some of the blanks here Haley, but I have a businessinsider.com article that was shared to the Facebook group By, let's see here, who was it?
It was David, I believe.
David's caption was funny, so I'm trying to find that here.
Yeah, David says, I wonder, so let me read the headline.
Amazon driver quits, saying the final straw was the company's new AI-powered truck cameras that can sense when workers yawn or don't use a seatbelt.
And David, David Adam said, I wonder if it blares a screeching sine wave at you if you put in headphones to avoid hearing about puppet-based comedy.
Which is a reference to the Jeff Dunham episode, the infamous Jeff Dunham episode that a lot of people seem to like.
I wonder how penalized I would get for wearing earphones and a beanie and a hood while driving in traffic.
Wonder if that would be bad.
On the beanie and the hood part, I don't think that it would mind as long as it was like Amazon branded because that was a recent thing.
They used to have actually pretty lax uniform requirements.
You just had to have the vest and wear a mask and have closed toed shoes that were not in slip.
Those were the three things that you have.
But then pretty soon they started giving everybody full branded Amazon uniforms.
and then mandating that you wear those.
Now on the headphones piece, it's funny, it actually does yell at you if you wear headphones.
I watched a video on it.
Fortunately enough, I had my medical issues right around the time when they were going to be installed.
So I never actually drove with them in there.
We're an Amazon town, basically.
Something like 25-35% of the jobs in the town that I live in are all Amazon jobs, because the warehouse just takes over a giant chunk of the economy in small towns.
That's how they operate.
And I've already seen them on vans that run out of the warehouse that we used to go to.
Or that I used to go to, excuse me.
They essentially will, if you yawn, they'll record it and they'll treat it as you falling asleep at the wheel, and it'll mark it.
And this is on top of an app that we have called... No, I wasn't yawning, I was laughing because my helper said, I kill you, I am a terrorist, and I was opening my mouth to laugh really loudly.
Yeah, see, it cannot distinguish that.
I love, if you get a chance, I highly recommend you going on Amazon and just the website for this video and watching the video about this because it's just sort of this really amazing tech trend to like sort of dramatically oversell what AI can do accurately.
Like, AI cannot do objectively As accurately as it says, as Amazon says that it can measure these things.
So it's like, oh, Amazon, it actually mentions this if I'm recalling correctly.
It distinguishes between certain patterns of behavior and facial expressions and things like that.
Also, you should be able to yawn at your job, I think.
100% of the time.
Well, we know for a fact that it's not, and it will never be because AI is nowhere near perfect.
The fact that we have all these AI face tracking cameras and all it takes to ruin them is literally, grow your facial hair out thick enough or put a face mask on and they're done.
Like they can't track you anymore. - Also, you should be able to yawn at your job, I think. - Yeah, and it's boring.
It's incredibly boring.
Especially if you're not allowed to wear earphones.
Well you, yeah you wear beforehand and everybody does and your beanie trick is actually a good way to get around it because if you just have like AirPods or something and they're not they're wireless headphones and you pull them down long enough you might be able to get away with it because as long as the camera can't see it it won't really pick up on it but yeah there it's definitely an interior facing camera that used to not be a thing and now it is.
And they say that it doesn't record your behavior.
That there's no audio or anything.
It just, um, just video.
It sends a data point to management or something?
That a yawn occurred?
Like a code 3-5 occurred or something?
Is that what they say?
Um, yeah, it sends a data point and it dings you for it.
You actually get dinged.
So we had this thing called mentor, which is like, had your credit score, but for driving.
So like, if you fucked up too many times while you were driving, you would ding you like, literally, like, you could make a turn as soft as possible, for instance.
But if you like kind of were janky at the end, because something was in the road, for instance, so something that wasn't even your fault.
You would get a ding for cornering.
This is insane.
I literally drive up curbs for fun sometimes in my package car.
Yeah, if you go over a speed bump too fast, it'll ding you sometimes for speeding.
We don't even have proper mounts for them.
We call them rabbits, the devices.
We don't even have proper mounts for them.
We just had Velcro on the back of the cases and Velcro mounted to the dashboard.
So what would happen is, is we have this category called phone manipulation.
So the app can actually tell if you're using the phone while you're driving.
Like, not your phone, but the rabbit.
The scanner or whatever.
Yeah.
Okay.
And if that thing falls off the Velcro while you're driving, that's a phone manipulation, and you'll get another phone manipulation for trying to pick it up.
And you need that, especially if you've never gone where you're going before, and you have no idea what roads are what, and you need it for first-time navigation.
You'll just get I'm just screwed by it.
Like I remember one time that happened to me.
There was no Velcro on, in my van and I had no way of actually putting it anywhere.
So, um, I, there's this little tiny divot in the dashboard that I stuck it in and I would pray to God that it wouldn't fall.
And I came to, you know, to men, when I debriefed and checked my mentor the next day, um, I went from like an 800 to like a 600 because I had like 12 phone manipulations.
And I tried to appeal it because there's an appeals process where you can say that like, oh, this is what happened.
They don't give a shit.
They literally will tell you to like, ha ha, fuck you, who cares?
What you should have done is you should have just held it in your other hand the whole time while you were driving.
I think that would have been safer.
A million times more phone manipulation because if my thumb, if my thumb even hits it, It counts as a phone manipulation.
Like if it senses any kind of vibration on the touchscreen while you're driving, you will get dinged.
I think it's cool how, you know, we have these like scary stories about how China is instituting like a social credit score or like somehow, you know, like a black mirror reality already exists in the mystic far east.
Where you know users can can downvote your status in society or whatever and it's like over here we only have that for real and for one of the largest employers in the country and it affects how much like you're able to eat.
Well, I think it's funny too, just what they call it.
They call it your FICO driver credit score, which is really funny to me because like imagine walking into a bank and they're like, no, sorry, you fucking suck at driving.
You can't buy a house.
You know, like, it's another way of, like, surveillance that is not, like, I don't agree with this.
I can at least understand the point of view of, like, wanting to monitor your drivers to make sure that they're being safe, like, as you said, right?
No, absolutely not.
I don't agree with it, but I understand it from a rational perspective.
On the other hand of it, though, it's like, it's just so stupid.
Like, the whole thing is just dumb.
It's really dumb, and we, it's sort of a microcosm of a larger issue of, you know, You know, the real, the only real currency I think that we have in this country anymore, the only real thing that anybody has is their own self, and if anybody can exploit it however, you know, they want to, then it's basically a way for free money.
I've said things in the car.
I'll be driving the van, and I've had my phone off, my personal phone.
And I'll just be talking or singing a song, or there'll be a song on the radio or whatever.
And I still will get ads for that song on Facebook or for Amazon.
Like, buy this CD for this artist or whatever.
And it's like, Amazon itself is using my own data.
The fact that I am an employee of Amazon, like, to give me more targeted ads.
And, like, the worst part about it is I don't even get a fucking discount.
Like, I don't even get free Prime membership or nothing.
So at least, like, if I was gonna have to deal with that, like, at least give me something.
But I don't even get anything out of it.
It's just more and more stuff.
And the worst part about it is, is, like, They have biometrics on you.
Like, they ask you to take your picture and they want your thumbprints for stuff.
Like, they have my license.
We'll get into that in this article in a second.
Tony, what were you going to say?
Well, what's going to be wild is later on when people who drove for Amazon want to drive for UPS because they want to have a union, and UPS turns around and asks Amazon for your driving FICO score.
Yeah.
I don't think that's... I don't know if that's going to happen.
I wouldn't be surprised though, like why not?
Because there's a union contract with UPS.
Yeah, but is that going to be part of like, is the hiring process going to be part of that union contract?
You don't get hired off the street to drive for UPS.
Only one in six drivers get hired off the street, and I don't really know that process.
Most people are already union when they go to the driver.
So maybe not UPS, but I mean like another driving job.
I don't like... doesn't Amazon have like a non-compete clause or something where you're not allowed to go drive for another company or something like that?
Maybe it was FedEx, I was reading... So it's even worse than I'm trying to make it seem.
I don't think that they do.
At least if they do, I haven't heard about it.
I can understand them not wanting you to do it, like, in terms of like maybe having that.
You're too understanding, I think.
I think that's your problem.
No, I didn't mean... I didn't...
I didn't mean like that that you know that it was okay for them to have it just that yeah for your for your thing because I don't I guess like having a non-compete why you were a driver for Amazon you couldn't drive for anyone else that would be where they would have it but like it would be weird if you were a former Amazon employee and you quit and you couldn't go drive for another delivery company like I That's a whole separate document and I never signed anything about that.
I didn't sign an NDA.
I didn't sign anything.
We'll get into it later but that's why I was comfortable using my real name and just telling Ken to publish my name because I don't give a shit because Amazon can't touch me.
Um, and, uh, if they tried to like do anything to me for like libel or slander or whatever, I would love to go through that discovery process.
Um, because the whole point lies on whether or not they knew people were peeing in bottles.
And as we've established in that article, uh, they knew.
So it's a pretty open and shut, uh, case.
So, um, so for, I don't know, like, I, I know what you mean.
I understand why a company would want to have total control over their employees.
That's like the wet dream of these capitalist freaks, you know, before they can just replace all of us with robots and algorithms.
The more they control, the more that they can control us.
Yeah, obviously the better for them.
I don't know how beneficial it is for them to grind their employees into dust, because from what I understand, the most expensive part of having an employee is usually the training process.
That's something that you have to pay while you're not actually getting labor from them or maybe you're only getting half labor from you still have to pay their salary and you also have to pay somebody else to train them and you're not getting labor you know in the traditional sense or in the productive sense from either of those parties during that period so like with UPS I've had it told to me that it costs like you know 10 grand or or you know more than that like 40 grand to train a new driver
So it's it seems to me to be pretty expensive to want to just flip your drivers over like, you know hotcakes or whatever But I the only way to fight back against a company that is this Hell-bent on grinding its employees into dust would be a union which is I mean Fairly heartening to see this get attention in Alabama, the unionization effort.
Are you going to feel like you're eating crow or anything like that having quit Amazon if they unionize where you would be recognized as an actual working class person?
No, not really.
That was just a joke, by the way.
Oh, okay.
I feel like in this country you have to be a lineman to be working class.
You know what I mean?
You have to be an electrician.
You have to be calloused.
You have to have callouses everywhere on your body.
Your body must be covered in callouses.
You have to be part of a union and hate unions and hate the left to be working class in this country.
You hate those dues.
Now, do's are bad, union's good.
I'm a smart person.
But no, it's funny.
I've met people like that when I was living in New Jersey.
You know, a bunch of union guys who work for unionized grocery stores were picketing one day outside of an Aldi because the Aldi uses non-union labor there.
And all other grocery stores in that area were unionized.
And, you know, Scabby the Rat was out there and everything.
And I was talking with these guys and these guys are like, At the end of the day, like, they're, you know, pro-union, but they're chads.
Like, they have such weird views.
I was just kind of chatting with them, and they're like, if I didn't have to pay union dues, I totally wouldn't.
I think union dues are really stupid.
So it's funny how it's like, you make that caricature, but then you meet the guy, you know?
Yeah.
Who that's absolutely based off of.
Oh, that guy's totally real.
Let me get more from this article here, or anything at all.
I don't know if we even got into it yet.
So this is, uh, The Thomson Reuters Foundation published a report Friday about an Amazon driver in Denver for whom the company's constant artificial intelligence driven surveillance proved to be too much.
Vic, who asked the Thomson Reuters Foundation to only use his first name quote for fear of retaliation this month, quit his job delivering packages for the tech giant.
He started work in 2019 and saw Amazon's policies change to include more active means of surveillance.
First, there was an app tracking his route.
Then the company wanted pictures of him at the beginning of each shift on another app, he told the foundation.
What is that about?
Is that to prove that he's there?
What is that about?
Yeah, prove that you're there and that way they can monitor your location and where you are on your route.
So like, we don't ever actually see this stuff, but You know our dispatchers like know where we are at all times and they also have like a completion percentage thing so like if we this is a job where like literal seconds matter because of how big your quotas are and like so if you deviate even in the slightest like they'll like text you and they'll be like hey you need to like
pick it up or a little bit or pick up the pace or, you know, you'll get a rescue.
Sometimes you don't even get a rescue and you're working, uh, uh, way later than you're supposed to be.
But, um, they like have a progress bar essentially going back to that.
And it's like, they'll tell you if this person is, is on track or not on track.
And then you get too many times where you're off track.
They'll, they'll just shit.
What is the photo for, though?
I don't understand.
Like, why do you have to photograph yourself every day?
Yeah, see, honestly, I really didn't... I don't know that one either.
The way that it was explained to me was just to verify that it was you logging into the account and not somebody else, but again, what the fuck is the point of a password?
If you're just doing that again anyway, why not, you know, why have this extra step?
Listen, if you want to steal my identity and do my job, then that seems like a fair trade.
Yeah, I'm good with that.
I'll take that.
I don't understand that.
That pisses me off.
- I don't understand that.
That seems, that pisses me off.
Like that, I would be like, I don't know why I'm mad, but I'm mad about this.
I don't want to have to fucking take a selfie every day to log in.
That seems like a lazy retinal scan.
It's like, once again, the sort of, like, uh, hollow facsimile of the future we were promised, where you have a retinal scan to log in to, you know, work or whatever, but instead you just take, like, a shitty bathroom pic every single morning for the rest of your life.
Yeah, I mean it's really it's kind of funny because I had to do that too and when I'd start work it'd be dark outside and the lights in the in the van were too dim to actually work for to take the picture so like you there was a solid like 30 to 40 minute window in the morning where you literally couldn't do anything about it because it was so dark outside That seems like some overbearing parental shit.
Like, take a photo of yourself, or even like a jealous lover thing.
Like, who are you out with?
Take a picture of your friends while you're at the club right now.
Yeah, I mean, that's a good analogy actually.
But yeah, there were some days where it didn't make me do it, and then I'd go a week where I'd have to do it.
And then sometimes it asked me to re-upload my license.
Like, you have to like, Have a picture of your license in there.
And what's weird about it is, is you can upload it and it'll tell you it's good and then they'll let you drive.
But then the next, you know, later on in the evening after you've already completed your route, it'll say, we actually need you to re-upload your driver's license.
And if you don't do it within the next 20 minutes, you won't be able to work for a week.
And so it's just like, well, you know, until we, we, cause then you'll have to do it like manually at the warehouse or whatever.
And that takes more time, I guess.
Because HR is literally never there.
I'm just trying to picture the 45-year-old guys who are barely aware at work right now.
They've been doing the job for so long.
They have their route down pat.
They don't have to think about it.
They just do it and go home.
I'm imagining any one of these guys, you know, with like knee problems and like, I don't know, you know, you know, grandkids and shit having to learn how to upload their driver's license into like a company phone or something like that.
This is just like, this sucks, man.
We recently instituted like having to punch in on our dyads where we have to enter our password enter like our employee ID and password just to get into like the punch-in screen and that's the same password that I use for like my online account to like check HR and stuff like that if I want to do that and it's like
They made the website made me change the password after six months and it's like no I had like the simplest password because that's how I wanted to log in every single day because I have to do that before I'm even technically on the clock like I have to do that to get to the screen where I get on the clock
And so, it made me change my password, and then I forgot the password I changed it to, so then every time I logged in that week, I had to do it three times before it failed, and was like, if you don't remember your password at some point in the future, you might not be able to log in, or whatever, and I'm like, cool, then I'll get a day off.
I don't give a fuck.
Yeah, right?
Like, for all this talk about them wanting you to show up to work all the time, they certainly have these random things where it's just like, hey, if you don't do this, you don't get to show up to work.
Like, Why even do that in the first place if you want me to work?
Why go through all this, like, fucking stupid-ass rigamarole if you just want me to bust my ass delivering your 400 packages?
I mean, what difference does it make to you?
I'm still getting fucked over.
It does seem like they're trying to get away, see how much they can get away with.
What were you gonna say, Tony?
When you said 20 minutes, I had a panic attack.
I ignore my phone for way more than 20 minute chunks at a time.
All the time throughout my day for my own mental health.
If I were to get a notification saying like, hey, you got to upload your driver's license right now.
You got 20 minutes to do it.
I'm going to wait till 19 and a half minutes and I'm going to try to do it.
And then I'm going to go ahead and like, try to figure something out in two weeks when I can't pay a bill.
And like that, oh, that's, that's so fucked.
Yeah.
And one time they, I got that notification when I was in the middle of the route.
So like, There's no stopping, like, really.
You can't really afford to take time to do, like, really frivolous shit when you're working at Amazon.
So the fact that Amazon itself, like, sent me a notification saying, hey, we need a photo of your driver's license.
Um, you know, if you want to continue in the middle of my route, um, and made me like upload my driver's license and take the time, like the five or so minutes in a job where literal seconds matter, you know, it's pretty, pretty funny.
It's like that Simpsons joke where, uh, they get arrested.
It's the, it's the one where they go to, uh, Florida for spring break.
And, you know, this is a later era Simpsons episode.
So some people might be, you know, rolling their eyes at me for being a poser, bringing it up.
I still think it's a good episode.
I think that season's pretty good on the whole.
You know, it's got some little cringe moments here and there, but mostly pretty good.
That episode is exceptional.
They're arrested and they find an opportunity to escape in the car and Lisa says, oh, you know, yeah, you can't, you can't drive, Dad.
You don't have your license.
And he's like, well, let's see if it works.
And he turns the key and it starts and he's all, hell yeah.
and then they go.
And I'm just now thinking of our current situation where that wouldn't work for you.
If you hadn't uploaded your license, like the car just like literally wouldn't start.
See, that's why we need to take it one step further.
We do need to make it to where like, instead of uploading your, your driver's photo, you do take a blood test.
Cause I, I guarantee you, if I can give you like a pinprick of blood, you will see the levels of like depression and anxiety that will not allow me to upload my driver's license and you will be legally obligated to allow me to wait.
See, I, I, you know, Amazon is like, they're like one of those companies that like says they're like pro equality or whatever, but I always got the impression that like deep down, they just hated anybody that was like a minority of any kind, like including cis women.
I'm trans, but it was really funny.
One time I drove into the warehouse and they had the, like the, um, like, uh, pride flags hanging up.
And I'm just like, man, I love this place.
This place rocks.
I love coming into the warehouse and then seeing that, and then when I go to load up my van, it's, how you doing, sir?
How you doing, man?
What's up, bro?
And like, I tried to report it to HR and nothing would happen, but there's that part.
But it's funny because I just get the feeling that if Amazon saw how much estrogen was in my bloodstream, they'd be like, you're too much of a woman to drive.
You can't do this anymore, sorry.
You have a low T count, you can't do this.
We notice you're not using the maps enough.
We're not sure if it's you out there anymore.
Yeah, no, it measures my DNA and it's like, hey, we noticed you're not just like Wildly gesturing and yelling obscenities like, you know, a stereotypical Jewish person would when they're driving.
So like, we're gonna need you to like, uh, tone up your Jewishness a little bit.
Otherwise, you know, we can't have you, you know, you gotta, you gotta work.
We don't care whether you're black, white, cis, trans, gay, or Jewish, as long as you deliver 50 packages per hour and do not stop, do not remain, as long as your body does not remain at rest for more than 5.5 seconds, you are good with this company.
Pretty much.
The breaking point came for Vic when Amazon announced it would be installing AI cameras in its fleet of vehicles.
Business Insider reported in February that Amazon was equipping all delivery vehicles with an AI camera system called Driver Eye, which is just spelled like drivery, you know, like an eye at the end of it or whatever, which is manufactured by a company called Netradyne.
Yeah.
Netrodyne is run by, by, by, uh, uh, I think like former veterans turned like PMCs for like the government or whatever, like private military contractors and, and they work with communications and stuff like that.
So they've done stuff for the DOD.
Yeah, hell yeah.
I mean that is the future, like Blackwater becoming Pinkertons and other military contractors becoming slave drivers for tech corporations.
It makes a lot of sense, actually.
Insider reported in February that Amazon was equipping all delivery vehicles with blah blah blah.
I love how much Netrodyne sounds like another company.
What was that name again?
Oh yeah, Cyberdyne.
The cameras are always on and scan driver's body language and the speed of the vehicle.
How do the cameras scan the speed of the vehicle?
That seems unnecessary.
Detect if a driver is wearing a seatbelt and even measure drowsiness.
The system then uses, quote, automated verbal alerts to tell drivers if a violation has been detected.
So once again, like, the lamest part of a very cool movie called Demolition Man.
Yep.
You get it.
Warning!
Driver drowsiness detected!
Here is your ticket.
Be well, driver.
Yeah, I'm... When you get a lot of, like, Sorry.
No, yeah, you would you would you would you would be falling asleep or like it would think that you're falling asleep and it would it would literally say like drowsiness like it would just shout that like drowsy like like like it was like like a speaking spell like you would literally just like drowsy uh wake up or something like that.
A dangerous amount of serenity has been detected in the cab.
Too much call.
Error.
Error.
Driver too happy.
Error.
After you got a notification for being drowsy, would you get more ad for like Lion's Main Tea and like Kratom and like other like caffeine pills?
Probably.
I mean, just to get through that job, like I've got bad acid reflux, so I kind of generally have to stay away from really high caffeine, high carb, carbonated drinks.
But during that, to even do that job, like I had to go through at least an energy drink every like five or six hours.
And so that's at least two a day and it just sucked.
But, um... So, it's not like it would be out of the ordinary for me anyway.
Like, I ate, like, shit on that job because that was the only way to really do anything.
Yeah.
I feel some semblance of happiness was just stuffing my face with, like, those strawberry, like, rectangular, like, sugar cookies that are, like, they taste like absolute shit, but for some reason I really love the stuff.
And they bang!
Yeah, they're so good.
But they taste like nothing.
I just love them.
It's a contact eye.
I really respect the King of Queens.
Do you remember that show?
Captain James?
I really respect the King of Queens for its reality.
It's based in reality.
It always featured him in his package car with just Fast food wrappers and junk food trash all across the dashboard and that is what every UPS driver's truck looks like.
Oh yeah.
I respect that level of authenticity.
Attention to detail from a sitcom.
I was browsing the subreddit for Amazon DSP Drivers and I saw this post.
Somebody found, you know like the inside of the door has like a little like handle at the top of the door?
Yeah.
Where you can like stick in and grab it.
Well somebody got into their van in the morning and found just like bare fried chicken bones in that little thing.
The shit you find in these vans, like, I found, you know, similar things.
I found, like, three whole bags of, like, half-eaten Chick-fil-A one time under the driver's seat.
It's pretty common, and honestly, at that point, because I know what everybody else is dealing with, it doesn't bother me that much.
But I have to admit, if I saw the fried chicken bones, I'd probably be like, okay, what the fuck?
Like, that would probably be, like, the line.
Because at least the stuff that I dealt with was already in a bag, and it was just as simple as, like, taking the bag and throwing it in the trash.
But it's definitely true, like, you, you, when you, when you're driving, you need any kind of happiness you can get, because it's the most boring, soul-crushing thing you can do.
And For, you know, this sort of late capitalist hellscape we find ourselves in, really the only thing that gives people any happiness is awful food.
MSG, you know, the stuff that's like the high in fat, high in MSG, high in just really, really bad for you.
Although MSG is not really all that bad for you, as much people say it is, but, you know, the sugars, the carbs, whatever it is, you're just stuffing your face with it because it's the only way you're going to get through the day feeling like You're an important person that's valued, I guess, I don't know.
This is a pro-MSG podcast, just for the record.
Yeah, I figured.
There was a pro-MSG, pro-MGK, pro-MS13 podcast.
I'm down for all of this.
Yeah, there was a driver, you know, I transferred from California to Seattle.
So I lost my building seniority.
So I was doing cover driving.
And I would do the same route as another guy who was, you know, a newer driver.
And when I would do that route, I would notice empty soup cans in the trash can.
Yep.
Yep.
And I was like, okay, that's weird.
And then one time I drove by him like while he was doing that route and he was literally housing a can of soup.
Like it was a, like he was shotgunning a beer.
I never asked you about this.
Do UPS Do trucks have cigarette lighters?
Because what was that movie where they cook a can of soup on a cigarette lighter?
That was Goofy Movie, I think.
Yeah, it was!
Do they have cigarette lighters?
Because maybe this guy was a genius.
Uh, no, I think it was just cold because he was holding it in his bare hand and also putting it up to his bare lips.
So, I think it was just cold.
And it was like, it wasn't like fucking, you know, chicken noodle soup or like some other like creamy alfredo.
It wasn't that.
It was like ravioli.
Like, oh, it was, it was like Chef Boyardee raviolis.
That's what it was.
Okay, hold on.
No, no, no.
I got to revise this then because I'm pro cold Chef Boyardee raviolis.
It's probably pretty good.
I haven't had them in a lifetime, but way back in the days, I used to eat those on the regular.
Honestly, if you smoke weed, Go ahead and not warm up those Chef Bar I.D.
raviolis.
I want to say there was soup involved, too.
I remember there being soup as well.
Well, ravioli soup cold would be disgusting.
I think he was just a canned goods kind of guy.
I just want to thank you for the image of somebody chugging a can of, like, clam chowder at, like, you know, 10 a.m.
Yeah, they're wearing fingerless gloves.
Thank you for that.
Are they wearing fingerless gloves in your mind?
Because in my mind, they're wearing fingerless gloves.
Yes.
No, I would agree.
And then they're breathing like butt rock on the radio.
That's the trifecta.
I told this guy, this guy was like, uh, he was like talking about how, how much his back hurt and how much his knees hurt.
And he was also working way too fucking hard and fast and like lifting shit he shouldn't have been lifting on his own.
and like bending at the waist and all this dumb stuff and I was telling him to like slow the fuck down uh but he was um complaining about his back and his his uh his knees and stuff and I was like yeah man just like you got to take some like Tylenol or or something and he was like no I don't take pills I don't take pills and I was like just just you know it's good like let's take some anti-inflammatories or something he's like no I was a speed head for 10 years I don't take any pills I was like All right.
Cool, man.
Maybe smoke some weed.
One more time for the weed.
Oh, no, that's what it was.
I was telling him to take CBD oil.
I was like, take some CBD oil.
And he was like, no, I don't do drugs anymore.
Hey, listen, I don't dance with the devil anymore.
No CBD for me.
So, we don't have cameras in our packaged cars.
That would be a fucking... That would be a red line.
A line in the sand, I think, for the union.
I think for us.
We have the telematics, like I was talking about before the checks.
You're wearing your seatbelt.
I think that's fine.
I think you should be wearing your seatbelt.
I don't think the company's not really allowed to like punish you based on telematics because there is that digital error that could occur that you're talking about.
Like sometimes your fucking telematics doesn't work and it says you weren't wearing your seat belt for 11 hours the whole time you were driving or whatever.
So you can't be actually disciplined based on any of that.
It's just more of like a review type process.
The camera in the cab is really worrisome.
Like, I don't know...
Why it worries me necessarily because I mean a traditional job you are really under the eye of a supervisor that's in-house for the most part of your day but something about a camera just pointed directly at you that a company could peruse you know 10 hours of footage or something like that and to try and find an infraction seems like a far greater assault on like your personal liberty and your personal privacy than just
Yeah, I think, um... No, you definitely hit the nail on the head with it.
every few minutes or whatever.
That seems like an insane level of power and authority.
Like we have, I guess we have to get to this point before people are willing to actually fight back with it.
Yeah, I think, no, you're, you definitely hit the nail on the head with it.
That was sort of the biggest thing for me.
But another thing that really ties in for it is actually like the time.
So one of the, we're already like, we were already sort of like really forced to like break a bunch of rules.
Anyway, the nature of our quota is sort of, Implicitly, like, force us to break rules.
Yeah.
And then they're captured.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So we, I mean, like literally one of the things that I've done and that pretty much everybody does is we will buckle the seatbelt and then pick the shoulder strap and put it behind us.
Yeah.
So we literally don't even have the seatbelt on us.
We just buckle it behind us and we literally drive without a seatbelt.
And then to give the impression when we're on a city street, like we are wearing the seatbelt, we just put the shoulder strap back on over us.
And, but now with, that was before these cameras.
Now with the cameras, you'll know that.
So that, now we have to add in the literal two or three seconds it takes to click in and unclick every time you go in on a route where again, like literal seconds matter because they give you, you know, 400 packages in like 220 stops. - Adding 400 packages in like 220 stops. - Adding to this,
Adding to this is what you talked to The Intercept about because there's been this long, I wouldn't call it an urban legend because it's not an urban legend, but this meme
This common conception of Amazon employees having to piss in water bottles in order to make their quotas well and it was all it was always in my mind this was happening in the warehouse that's like what I thought the was referring to was that people who are on the floor people who are either loading trucks or loading the bags or packaging orders and that sort of thing
Weren't able to leave their work area to go to the bathroom because their footsteps are literally monitored, the number of hand motions they make to pack an order is monitored, and so they don't have time to actually go to the bathroom.
That's where I thought the piss bottle thing came from.
I think there is that as well but the actual majority or maybe a big part of the piss bottle problem was from drivers where drivers were not able to find a place to use the restroom which is a real problem for drivers from any company and they weren't able to
Drive to a location with a bathroom because of the strict quotas.
Now me and regular UPS drivers, I'll piss in a bottle if I'm in a residential area and there's nowhere to go to the bathroom or whatever, but I don't have to.
You know, I could theoretically drive off route, you know, five, ten minutes, go find a bathroom.
In times of COVID, they will still let me use, uh, even businesses aren't letting UPS drivers use their bathroom.
But I could theoretically find one and not be disciplined for it.
You know, I just would do it out of a sense of wanting to fucking get home at the end of the night.
And then, uh, You know, not wanting to have to, like, hunt around for a bathroom.
And now I have the privilege of not having to sit down to urinate, which somebody else who does have to sit down to pee is in a much worse spot.
I don't know how easy it is to piss in a bottle with that sort of setup.
But when it comes to Amazon drivers, this is a much bigger problem because the choice isn't there even if you're on a route with a business that has a bathroom.
Because you don't have time to go in, to stop the car, to find a place to park, to ask the person at the desk if you can use their restroom, to walk back there, etc.
There is like, from my understanding and from Ken Klippenstein's reporting and from your statements, there is an epidemic of Amazon pee bottles just floating around the warehouse and these, uh, the Sprinter vans.
Yeah, and don't forget, you know, Jeff Bezos also has a scat fetish.
People have defecated in the bags, you know, that we get.
Because you have, in your truck, you have just these spaces for the packages, right?
Because you're just delivering the boxes, I'm assuming, and then maybe smaller packages are interspersed between them.
But we have literal bags, literal bags that are all and you have to like stack them in and there's no security in them so they'll topple and they'll move around but um when you can't find the bathroom because of COVID and also let's say you you also have a rural route like yeah you'll find an empty bag and you have no choice because like it's either that or you like shit your pants and like that's de-dehumanizing on the level that like I don't even want to get into because it's just it's terrifying and it's degrading and humiliating.
It's a shitty thing to talk about but it's like a real problem when you're a worker who just your truck is your your package car is your office like that's your that's your work area like there aren't public bathrooms in the majority area of this country.
I tweet a lot about How I actually am in favor of gentrifying the surrounding areas of Seattle because it means there are porta-potties up for construction that I can use while I'm delivering on route.
Because, you know, otherwise I am just pissing in a bottle or I'm driving off-route, you know, ten minutes or whatever to the one apartment complex I know that has an unlocked bathroom or whatever.
And it's...
I don't know, it's gross to talk about or whatever, but it's a human rights thing.
You should have a place to use the restroom with dignity, especially while you're doing a job for somebody else.
What I'll say real quick though is like, as somebody who's done like construction type jobs and like abatement type jobs, a lot of it is driving, a lot of it is living in your car, and a lot of it is peeing in bottles.
But like you said, the biggest difference here is the choice.
A lot of times I will take the long route to a job because I get to burn hours driving instead of vacuuming shit.
But you don't have that option.
You have to meet your delivery quotas.
So a lot of people who live in their work vehicles and pee in their bottles are going to hear this and be like, why do that all the time?
I don't give a shit.
But it's different because We get to take our time driving and we get to like, we're not meeting quotas of stops and deliveries, which is the biggest difference here that a lot of people like, you know, maybe can't relate to.
But yeah, someone who's like work construction, like lived, you know, out of my work truck and my work sprinter van.
Um, yeah, you, you, you, you know, you pee in bottles, but it's out of your convenience, not out of the obligation to keep your job.
Yeah, if I wasn't afraid that if I didn't make my quota I'd just get fired, then yeah, and then I kept pissing in bottles anyway, then it'd be on me.
But like, you know, it's really telling because Everything, the whole nature of this phenomenon is just, it's so structural.
And like, it's been up until now, and this is partly because of Amazon's own bullshit with that sort of Gaslighty tweet that they did, like they really dug their own grave with that one.
Because they said something that was easily disprovable, right?
Yeah, so what you're talking about is, I mean, there were various amazing tweets that happened today, but the one you're referring to was, it started when the CEO of Amazon tried to throw some shade at Bernie Sanders on Twitter, who was going to be visiting the Alabama warehouse that is attempting to unionize at the moment.
And the CEO said something like, oh yeah, sure, Bernie Sanders, come on down.
You can see a workplace that has actually implemented progressive policies instead of just talking about them like you do, essentially is what he said.
And then somebody else replied, I don't call having to piss in bottles progressive.
Yes, actually.
And then another Amazon account replied, said, oh, come on, you don't really believe the pee and bottles story.
And is that what spurred this investigative report by The Intercept?
Yes, actually.
Ken saw the tweet and then quote tweeted it and put out the call for sources, and that's where I saw it.
This is Ken Klippenstein of The Intercept, and then you were able to confirm to him that, yes, indeed, you had to piss in a bottle.
And there were internal memos going throughout the company multiple times referencing the pee bottle epidemic, multiple times.
Multiple times and you were able to provide them or other sources were able to provide them with literal company memos.
Yeah, I sent in an email from my boss that literally had a rule outlining the no pee bottle thing so they know it's a phenomenon because if they didn't why would they have a rule against it?
You know, and that's what I sent him and I talked to him about some of the other things but a lot of the other sources like I didn't have this one and I was actually kind of surprised he had this one but There's a giant image in the article that is like a memo about how it's the third time they found poop in a bag.
And like, I'm so surprised that somebody managed to get their hands on that because Amazon is usually not that dumb.
Um, you know, as much as many of us who used to work for them like to sort of joke about giving, you know, our work relationships with the people who run the warehouse and are in charge of giving our packages and everything.
We kind of joke that they're incompetent, but when it comes to like obfuscating what they do to exploit their workers, they're excellent at it.
Which is why I still can't believe that they just went out and fucking tweeted that.
Um, and it's funny, the guy who is in charge of running that account is Jay Carney, who was the press secretary for Barack Obama.
Yeah, that's great.
Yeah, they're totally on our side.
Democrats vote blue no matter who, right?
Man's as good as his job.
Real good at his job.
Yeah, so good.
But you know, there's no way They can sort of talk, I mean they're going to try, I'm not going to dispute that, but there's no way they can back themselves out of this one now.
They dug their own hole and I still can't believe they did it.
So with this knowledge that Amazon drivers are forced to meet such strict quotas, upon threat of having their, you know,
Amazon FICO score being lowered which will you know hurt hurt their ability to keep their fucking job Are being forced to piss in bottles and then also with the implementation of AI cameras in the dash This seems like a pretty frightening prospect that you're gonna have I don't know a bunch of managers watching you piss in order to maintain their impossible quotas and then you get
I don't know, like registered as a sex offender or something when they turn this footage over to the police?
Like this, this is, this is a bad situation in my mind.
What I don't know is, is like on some level.
Um, because there are laws against it, and like, you're not technically supposed to do it because it's a hygiene issue, but it's, again, it's one thing if you're forced.
So the whole thing with the pee bottles, like, like I mentioned earlier, I have driven vans where I didn't have a door, you know, so it's just, you could see into the back, and the cameras can see that, because the back of the van has lights, so once you walk in, it lights up, and you can see clearly in there.
And, uh, So like in vans where I didn't have the door I would stack up bags that I used to block the door so nobody could could see it but you know if the if the camera were to record you going to the bathroom like on some level isn't that like Weirdly, like, involuntary pornography, especially if you're, like, forced to do that.
Like, that's something I've always thought about, like... That's why they want you to upload your driver's license every day, so they can make sure you're an adult, so they can't get charged with, uh, child pornography.
I guess, I mean, you, you, you... It's just funny.
Um, you, uh... I was...
Our vans didn't have this, but I know of people in different locations across the United States whose vans did.
Some vans actually have cameras in the back.
So like...
There's definitely people who have gotten video, who've been recorded taking a piss, like in the back of their vans.
Like our, our vans never had those cause they're a little older, but now with these new cameras, almost certainly like there's almost nothing you can do.
And with COVID, you know, like in the public bathrooms, you're already was an issue.
And like, I'm trans.
So going to a bathroom in general in public is also a very difficult issue.
Um, and, uh, like, You know, I, I happen to not have the requirement of needing to sit down to pee.
Um, but, uh, you know, for a lot of, uh, people who have that need, um, what ends up happening is they either have to buy like those, like special funnels.
Right.
Um, and that's disgusting.
Um, cause no, they're not.
Those are fun.
Those are cool.
What are, what are they called again?
It's, it's called pee wee.
There's like a, there's a cute name for them.
Those are cool.
I like those.
Well, what's bullshit is they're available on Amazon, and they don't get a discount.
When you said that employees don't get a Prime membership, for some reason I was shook.
I was like, no fucking way.
Are you kidding me?
Yeah, when I worked at Pizza Hut, I got so many free pizzas.
Yeah, same.
I think about all the places I worked at.
I mean, they didn't really know about it, but it's like...
You still got them.
Yeah.
You should be able to just take the prime.
You should be able to slip some prime into your pockets when you go home.
See, the thing is, they sell those things.
Yeah, that's true.
And if they're going to make you pee in a bottle, they should at least give you those for fucking free.
But UTIs are insanely common for people who need to sit down to pee when they drive.
And if you have to menstruate, oh my god.
I haven't even...
I don't know why this never registered with me.
I knew about the UTI thing anecdotally because there was a female assistant or female colleague of mine and we were talking one day about how much Amazon fucking sucks and how much we wanted to punch Jeff Bezos in his stupid fucking Greek face.
He, like, the one bad Mediterranean.
But Leah, we were talking and she was like, oh yeah, I've had like four or five UTIs doing this job.
Like, and she'd been working for Amazon for like a couple years.
And like, that's expensive.
And like, the healthcare options for Amazon are all shitty, high deductible, high premium plans that like,
Are like super out of network like around here you'd have to drive like I think like to downtown Stockton which is like a 30 20 to 30 minute drive just to find the hospital like they're not anywhere nearby and you're still paying you know a shit ton of money for a deductible and your premium and so like yeah and so she she had to do all that and waste all this money and Amazon basically forced her to do that because the working conditions are so bad
But when I was reading the reactions to Ken's Intercept article about this whole thing, somebody had mentioned in Twitter about menstruation and what you need to do if you need to remove a tampon or handle that aspect.
Yeah, and like, all I could think of was like, I wonder if people who have done this job have gotten toxic shock while doing it.
Like, if there have been cases of that.
And I really want to know now, because, you know, UTIs are not fatal unless you don't treat them for an extended period of time.
Toxic shock can kill you in a matter of, like, hours.
Yeah.
If you don't take care of it.
Like, not months.
It can also, like, fuck your body up permanently.
Yeah.
Even if it doesn't kill you.
Like, you can get paralysis and shit from it.
And like, if you can't access a restroom or have a safe disposal to take care of, you know, that part of your body, like, in what way, first of all, does that not violate, like, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, you know, sex discrimination?
But also, like, if somebody did die, like, to me, that's, or like, hospitalized, that has to be criminal negligence.
If you know this is going on and you, like, choose to not do anything about it, to change the culture so where this doesn't happen, Because they're literally making a decision, okay, stop and take 10 minutes to make sure I've cleaned up and taken care of everything properly and changed my tampon and disposed of it properly and waste time doing that or putting money in my wallet so I can put food on my table or pay my rent or whatever it is.
Fortunately, I haven't had to make that decision in the same way because nothing I've done has been life or death.
But I can't imagine like sitting there going like, OK, you know, I have 100 stops left to deliver and only three and only three hours left to do it, you know.
So I don't.
And like the thing is, is like if you have a certain number of packages when you come back, like Amazon systems will fuck up sometimes and they'll say like you can't deliver a package and you scan it and it won't be an issue.
And you call support and they say you're good.
Right.
But then you go back to the warehouse and you say, OK, I have a package.
You have returns to deliver.
And they will literally tell you to off the clock on your own time, go and deliver those packages, you know, and if you don't, they'll fire you.
Um, and And I've had to do that, like, at least three times.
Yeah, that's completely illegal.
Yeah, and they do that all the time.
I just wanted to go back to, I just wanted to say, to quote Diogenes, in an Amazon warehouse, the only place to dispose of your tampon is Jeff Bezos's face.
It's true.
Yes, absolutely.
And then, you know, Just everything.
Your pads, your cups, just throw it at them.
I just want to read two responses.
I think this was specifically the Marco Rubio pro-unionization effort.
You know, unionizing your workforce to own the libs.
Specifically Jeff Bezos.
I think it's a great idea.
I think we should all consider that.
Yeah.
DBTA said, I think this is, yeah, in the Fox News comment section, DBTA said, I'm not crazy about unions.
However, this may be what is needed at this point in time.
So just nothing, no, like, idea there.
No, just like, yeah, you know what?
I heard this pro-union thing.
You know what?
I think this pro-union thing is right.
Stupidest argument that I've ever heard in favor of unions.
I think it's, I think it's right, you know, for this moment in time.
Jolly Rancher point 10.
I don't know if I can skip that one.
Drifter Song 13 replies, I agree, space, space, space, comma.
I've never been a union man, but for this era, space, space, comma, this may be what's needed to blow up At the big dogs, space, comma.
It's all one mindset with them over there, space, dot, dot, dot.
And this is once again, like, just in reference to Amazon being too woke.
This is just unionizing to get, uh, I bought a zoo on Mulberry Street back in the Amazon bestsellers list.
It's funny, it's literally like, you know, I remember seeing all this sort of like chud backlash when Amazon did what I actually think is a good thing and being like, we're not going to sell books that list, you know, being gay or trans as a mental illness.
And then they got rid of like Abigail Schreier's book, I think, amongst a whole host of other things.
And like, Everybody was like, oh, now I hope that unionization effort succeeds because fuck Jeff Bezos.
And it's like, there's this part of me that's like, okay, whatever route, you know, you get there, you get there.
But then there's this other part of me that's like, maybe, maybe that's how we do it.
You know, maybe we, we turn their grievance politics against them.
And like, we sort of like trick them into doing what we want them to do, which is support the union.
Hey, did you know Walmart thinks that love is love?
Oh fuck, we better give their workers human rights.
They better be getting $37 an hour unlimited paid time off and a 50% share of the company.
I love this idea that the fucking Amazon warehouse workers in Alabama, we're at Birmington, I can't remember what city it is in Alabama.
Bessemer, I think.
Bessemer are going to unionize explicitly for the purpose of getting rid of interracial Amazon Prime commercials.
I heard.
See, it's funny.
I hadn't heard that.
I had heard that it was because they wanted Jared Fogle free.
I want that too, though, because the last thing I want is for interracial couples to be affiliated with Amazon.
Yeah, no that's... Like we had, we have several lists, I mean we had several demands.
We wanted, you know, free at the point-of-service health care.
We wanted three weeks of vacation.
We wanted regular bathroom breaks whenever we need to take them, but we're willing to give all of that up as long as you continue to stalk Mike Huckabee's book about raising two boys.
And bringing back Hitler documentaries on the History Channel.
Gotta have those.
24-7 Hitler Marathons.
Thank you so much, Haley, for joining the show and sharing your experience driving for Amazon.
It sounds awful.
I'm glad you're not doing it anymore.
Yeah.
You know, I'm honestly really thankful that this worked out and I'm glad to talk with more people about it.
It actually, maybe this is naive of me, but it actually kind of feels like people are taking this seriously now.
I mean people have been saying this and trying to like I said trying to get people to pay attention to this for years But now it kind of feels like it's coming to a head And I'm glad I was able to be a part of it Not only because I agree with the unionization efforts and trying to hold this company accountable But because in some ways it's my way of saying fuck you Jeff Bezos You get what you fucking deserve Yeah, that's the real working class Working class culture
Like Marco Rubio's whole take about unionization to spite Amazon was because Amazon was going against working class culture, which is that us working class people really like the first four Dr. Seuss books.
Working-class culture is actually just saying fuck you to your boss.
That's like true working-class culture, and I feel like you can do that by quitting a shitty job, or you can do that by organizing your shitty job.
There's multiple ways to say fuck you to your shitty boss, and I'm glad people are exploring all their options.
Thank you again, Haley, for joining us.
Is there anything you want to direct people to?
Anything you want to promote?
You want to give out your Twitter handle or anything like that?
Um, yeah.
So, um, my, uh, I had an old Twitter, but I had to create a new one because Twitter doesn't like it when trans people respond to, uh, uh, condescending instances of transphobia.
Um, and I was like permabanned, but, um, my, uh, my Twitter handle is at etch underscore, uh, underscore kvetch, like complaining.
Okay.
Um, etch a kvetch.
Um, and you can follow me there.
Um, And I guess there's a couple of things I want to plug.
It's Passover on Saturday, so Happy Passover, and then on the 31st of March, I believe, is Trans Day of Visibility, so make sure that you keep in mind that trans people are people, and with sort of the increase in anti-trans legislation, both in the United States and the United Kingdom,
Trans people around the Western world are really facing sort of an onslaught into what little protections that we have and you know are sort of at the forefront of some of the most incredulously specific and targeted acts of hate legislation in the modern era and then make sure that you advocate and support trans people in your life and Absolutely.
help us fight these things because they have a monstrous impact on our ability to live lives as our authentic selves and participate as equal members of society in the United States.
Absolutely.
All right.
Yeah.
Thank you so much for joining us.
No problem.
Thank you for having me.
Alright.
If you want to write to the show, it's MinionDeathCult at gmail.com.
