An interesting counterpoint to the undercover “stings” which support the narrative that Amazon exploits its workers, written by an actual Amazon warehouse worker.

While warehouse work doesn’t sound particularly appealing or financially rewarding to your average white-collar worker, he makes the point that Amazon’s are pretty decent warehouses to work at and the pay is quite a bit better than other jobs on offer. Sure, $15/hr isn’t much, but it’s 36% better than $11/hr elsewhere.

Bloodworth says he worked 10-and-a-half-hour days at Amazon, which sounds pretty brutal. Maybe they do things differently in the UK, but my Amazon sortation center is very flexible about the hours it offers. When I was applying for the job online, Amazon allowed me to create a schedule tailored to my needs. They asked me how many hours a week I’d like to work, and which days of the week suited me best. They asked if I preferred to work evenings, overnight, early mornings, days. After compiling this info, they gave me a shift that fits me like a glove. I work four and a half hours a day, five days a week. My shift begins at 6:30 am and ends at 11 am. But, when I need a bit more money, I can go to work at 5 am and pick up an extra 90 minutes of work pretty much whenever I want. Many of my co-workers add hours to their days whenever they are in need of a little extra cash, and we can take voluntary unpaid time off just about whenever we like.