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August 18, 2015

Amazon: Just another shitty job.

toiletlaptop_shutterstock_6788515.jpg

The worst floors were the ones dominated by engineers.
I regularly saw people bring their laptops into the bathroom, where they would sit on the toilet and write code. (I’ve never seen anyone clean their laptop after leaving the bathroom.) Engineers would talk to each other through stalls. On many occasions, I heard people take phone calls while mid-business. It was hard to tell if someone was groaning because it was difficult to code or difficult to poop. Another Amazon colleague once joked that this gave new meaning to the word “deploy.” At Amazon, Employees Treat the Bathroom as an Extension of the Office | Motherboard

Posted by gerardvanderleun at August 18, 2015 4:23 PM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.

Your Say

Now this is territory that should be marked by 'Triumph the Insult Comic Dog' to 'poop on'.

Sophmoric Humor fodder, compliments of Amazon.

Thanks!

Posted by: John Condon [TypeKey Profile Page] at August 18, 2015 5:48 PM

None of the engineers where I work do these things.

Some of the lawyers down the hall do, though (phones and documents that is, not laptops.)

Posted by: pst314 [TypeKey Profile Page] at August 18, 2015 6:04 PM

Taking your laptop to the lavatory? What could go wrong?

Seriously - this does not make any sense at all.

"I want my employees to un-dock their laptops, carry them along, float those laptops in the air while they drop their lower garments, do what needs to be done, clean up, and go back their work station, re-dock their laptops, and get back with work. I decree this because my idea of an ideal boss is either Monty Burns or Ebeneezer Scrooge*."

*(Before the ghosts.)

Posted by: Mikey [TypeKey Profile Page] at August 18, 2015 6:56 PM

As opposed to the EPA, where they treat the office as an extension of the bathroom.

http://www.govexec.com/federal-news/fedblog/2014/06/epa-employees-told-stop-pooping-hallway/87223/

Posted by: Christopher Taylor [TypeKey Profile Page] at August 18, 2015 7:47 PM

At the gov't office where I work, just pooping somewhere near the toilet seat is possibly a sign of IBS, but not saying a word to anyone and just leaving it there is s.o.p. Projectile vomiting all down the carpeted hallway? Someone else's problem to clean up. The tiles overhead have nasty brown stains from the bats in the attic. The EPA would shut it down if it wasn't government.

Posted by: Joan of Argghh! [TypeKey Profile Page] at August 19, 2015 4:01 AM

Joan, that's terrible. I don't know if rabies can be transmitted by contact with guano, but I wouldn't want to find out the hard way. Then again, some enterprising individual could probably start a nice little sideline business selling organic fertilizer...

Posted by: Juliecork [TypeKey Profile Page] at August 19, 2015 5:55 AM

Guano is safe.

In fact, most of the great caverns were discovered by prospectors looking for the enormous piles of guano left behind by countless generations of bats. Very valuable as a fertilizer . . . particularly for the hungry cotton crop.

Posted by: Punditarian [TypeKey Profile Page] at August 19, 2015 7:14 AM

Why in the world would anyone congregate with people that shit and hurl all over the place like that?

Please don't say "the money" cause if you do I'm gonna send Chas over to pay you a little visit, and you know what he knocks on the door with.

Posted by: ghostsniper [TypeKey Profile Page] at August 19, 2015 7:36 AM

Until I retired for good, I spent twenty years as a self-employed consultant. I got paid when the client's problem was solved to the client's satisfaction. The quicker the client's problem was solved, the more I made per week. I used to mull over work in the shower, eating breakfast, taking a dump etc. etc. Got some of my best ideas during those times.

Posted by: BillH [TypeKey Profile Page] at August 19, 2015 8:03 AM

There is nothing to brag about in the article or the comments.
We are talking about Failure here: failing to conduct business in an orderly fashion which allows structured time for meals, snacks, bathroom visits;
Failure to exert some control over bodily functions (or to wear diapers if not sufficiently potty-trained);
Failure to estimate one's value to the job. How important are you?
Failure to give the employer a fair day's work for a fair day's pay;

Oh, and bragging about it. If you were the employer would you tolerate such failure?

Posted by: chasmatic [TypeKey Profile Page] at August 19, 2015 10:37 AM

Structured time for bathroom visits? Chas, when I get the urge I gotta purge.

Posted by: BillH [TypeKey Profile Page] at August 19, 2015 2:14 PM

Yes, chas I agree. That is failure. The five-to-fifteen minutes required for that is not so valuable that you need to bring the physical impedimentia of your job with you.

The person who requires it is wrong in the head; the person who does it voluntarily is also wrong in the head.

"Hi, thanks for calling; look, can I call you back in ten minutes? I have to hit the lav."

"Sure thing."

That is how normal people act and I prefer dealing with normal people, not someone grunting and farting (with echoes) as I am talking to them on the phone.

Or: "Sorry boss; I was sitting on the can with my laptop and it fell onto the tile floor and broke. Can I get another one?"

Posted by: Mikey [TypeKey Profile Page] at August 19, 2015 6:27 PM

BillH: Urge, purge, whatever. You mean to tell me your elimination is so spontaneous and uncontrollable that you can't put the work down, head for the head and cycle your waste elimination system in a timely fashion?
What if you were three stories up on scaffolding or standing in the security line at an airport?

This article and my comments are not about mostly normal people performing mostly normal tasks. Look at it: supposedly intelligent and capable folks purposely taking their work impedimenta into a lavatory and finding a space of semi-security to use it.
Whether they use the fixtures for their intended purpose or just want privacy so they can do unsupervised work, perhaps freelance projects or book a trip to Alaska they are not acting in the best interests of their employers.
If I had employees doing that while I was paying them six figure salaries I would fire them.
What would you do? Sell the desks and chairs and have them do the whole day's work in the bathroom?

Posted by: chasmatic [TypeKey Profile Page] at August 19, 2015 11:11 PM

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