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This is a thread about Amazon and why it& #39;s my holiday wish that you don& #39;t use it this holiday season, especially if you are planning to ask for or buy my book, CRAFT COFFEE: A MANUAL. Buckle up! And please retweet.
Many of you have my book on your holiday wishlist or are planning to give it as a gift. It& #39;s consistently ranked high on Amazon in the coffee and tea category, and I am super grateful for that.
However, my holiday wish is this: Please buy the book from a local bookseller, or encourage friends and family to do so, instead of using Amazon this holiday season. Amazon is terrible, and I& #39;m going to explain exactly why in a minute.
First know this: ANY bookstore will be able to order the book (or almost any book in print) today if it& #39;s not on their shelf + get it to you in a week or two. My book is also available nationwide at @BNBuzz, @booksamillion, and @worldmarket. If they are out, you can order it.
Amazon& #39;s free 2-day or faster shipping campaign is literally killing people and ruining other people& #39;s lives. Among many other sins, Amazon does not prioritize the safety of the workers who make this *completely unnecessary* shipping speed possible.
Amazon utterly insulates itself from legal responsibly by exploiting small and medium delivery companies across the country through subcontractor agreements. These agreements indemnify Amazon against EVERYTHING but still require that 999 of 1,000 deliveries are made on time.
Individual drivers are required to deliver upwards of 250 packages a day, which is less than 2 minutes per package. Let that sink in.
Amazon has many subcontractors strategically use smaller vans that fall into a regulatory void, including one that does not legally require frequent vehicle inspection, which means many delivery vans are in disrepair and dangerous.
Delivery workers are often not carefully screened or trained and are encouraged NOT to take breaks to rest or even use the restroom. The overall standard is far below other big delivery services who enforce safety policies and training (and who are regulated by the federal gov).
UPS spends $175 million a year on training, putting its employees through virtual-reality and obstacle-course training at multimillion-dollar facilities. Drivers delivering Amazon packages are primarily trained through videos they watch on their phones.
This has resulted in hundreds of road wrecks, including those that caused pedestrian deaths.
Despite maintaining strict control over the delivery web it uses, Amazon holds subcontractors responsible for issues related to vans, employees, and lawsuits. B/c of the arrangement, it& #39;s hard to directly link the company to many incidents involving vans carrying their products.
Back at the warehouses, workers must scan a package, no matter the weight, every 11 seconds for 12 hours a day. That& #39;s more than 300 items an hour. If they can& #39;t, they are fired. Scanning data are tracked meticulously by Amazon.
If they CAN keep up, they risk serious injury, the kind that makes it impossible to work. Amazon warehouses have serious injury rates more than DOUBLE the national average: 9.6 per 100 workers (it& #39;s 4 nationally). Some v. dangerous warehouses have much higher rates of injury.
Injured Amazon workers are unceremoniously replaced with fresh ones. As if humans are disposable.
At some point, J*ff B*zos, the richest person to ever exist, must have sat somewhere and said, "It& #39;s not worth the cost of prioritizing worker safety because people are going to keep clicking that 2-day shipping button. It& #39;s what they want."
One of B*zos& #39;s favorite sayings is "Customers first," which sounds nice to the untrained ear. He thinks people will choose what is convenient for them over the well-being of others because that is how *he* lives.
Free 2-day shipping is a monster of J*ff B*zos& #39;s own making. And only we can kill it. Please choose to shop local -- or just any place else -- this holiday season.
The primary reason someone "needs" 2-day shipping on gifts is that they put it off until the last minute. Just do it now. Divert some of the volume away from Amazon warehouses. Thank you for reading.
Most of my figures came from reporting in partnership with @propublica. You can read more on @TheAtlantic ( https://bit.ly/2OpUsPD ),">https://bit.ly/2OpUsPD&q... @nytimes ( https://nyti.ms/2QWdsaj ),">https://nyti.ms/2QWdsaj&q... and @BuzzFeedNews ( https://bit.ly/35DQ31n ).">https://bit.ly/35DQ31n&q...
