Amazon to add employee wristband trackers
 

Already known for having a less-than-leisurely management style, Amazon recently won two patents that will help it realize the possibility of putting wristbands on all of its workers. The wristbands would ostensibly track the workers? movements and breaks in an effort to reduce work time inefficiency.

Although the move might seem like something out of a dystopian novel, such a decision is not out of the ordinary for Amazon. For one, the company has been known to experiment with in-house technology before selling it to the public. Since the company has announced it will be opening a second headquarters, testing out an employee-tracking system before unveiling its new location may be right in line with their methodology.

What?s more, Amazon was recently in the news for upturning the company culture of Whole Foods, a company the online retailer acquired in 2017. According to multiple reports, Whole Foods employees have begun complaining about the strict practices and impersonal approach to management that Amazon has brought to the grocery chain. It seems in character, then, for Jeff Bezos? billion-dollar company to continue to look for new methods of micromanaging and automating jobs down to a science.

Amazon filed a patent for the wristbands in 2016 and won them last week. According to an Amazon spokesperson, the wristbands will ?emit ultrasonic sound pulses and radio transmissions to track where an employee?s hands were in relation to inventory bins, and provide ?haptic feedback? to steer the worker toward the correct bin.? The company claims that using a tracking device will motivate workers to have a faster delivery service.

However, questions of motivational techniques aside, there can be other unintended consequences to personal-tracking devices. The New York Times recently published a report that found that a fitness app called Strava, which allows users to track their activities and compare their progress with other people in the same area, may have endangered its users, especially those in the armed forces.

Because the tracking data is held by a private company but reveals the location and movements of American soldiers, privacy advocates have pointed to the fitness bands as an example of the kind of unforeseeable consequences personal-tracking devices could have.

In addition, according to NY Daily News, Amazon has been accused of fostering unbearable workplace conditions in the past, such as forcing workers to have timed bathroom breaks and 55-hour workweeks.

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Why would they need to do this? They all carry electronic scanning devices with them while they work.

My brother in law works for Amazon. He started at the entry level and three years later he loves it.

It's interesting. Everyone I have ever met who has worked for Amazon (or currently is) has either loved it or despised it. There doesn't seem to be a lot of middle ground. A friend of mine's daughter worked for them for a little less than a year and said it was the worst possible place to work.

im thinking this will be secured to your body by security. some total recall shit :1orglaugh next a chip with free removal if you ever stop working there :Oh crap

Fuck that!

Imagine their workers putting up with this... only to be replaced by robots sooner rather than later.

Fuck that. Start your own business today.

You can say that about a lot of jobs.

I worked fast food when I was in my twenties for a while... Seven years to be exact - It's how I met my wife. (I had a full time job at the phone company at the same time.) Most people hate it. I loved it. It was fast paced, always something to do, and you met a lot of people. It was fun.

Yep,training future robots.

Very true.

Her main complaint was that they had quotas they had to meet and sometimes it was impossible to do so. She worked in a fulfillment center and had to pick a certain number of items every hour/day. Sometimes it was easy to do, but often there would be odd shaped items, items that weren't close together etc. She said even if you sprinted between items (which they didn't want you to do) it was impossible to get it done then they would bitch at you and increase your quota for the next hour. She also said they offered bonuses but in order to get them you had to achieve things that were unachievable or if they offered one that was attainable, they would often make up an excuse not to pay it.

sounds like it could be beneficial for a few wives

Their goal is to find the maximum they can get a human to do so they can set that as the standard for the minimum the robot can do. Mark my words it's true!

They are outright psychologically fucking with people to gauge the minimum performance their robot replacement workforce will need to be in order to be profitable.