Today I Learned #4: Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.

[Comrade Ceasefire]

TIL about the Amazon molly, an all-female species of fish that mates with males of different species to reproduce via a process called 'gynogenesis'

And when she's not doing that, Amazon Molly is "savoring" it.

Amazon Tells Warehouse Workers to Close Their Eyes and Think Happy Thoughts
A worker in one of Amazon's fulfillment centers, who we've granted anonymity, sent 404 Media a photo they took of a screen imploring them to try "savoring" the idea of something that makes them happy -- as in, not being at work, surrounded by robots and packages. "Savoring," the screen says, in a black font over a green block of color. "Close your eyes and think about something that makes you happy." Under that text -- which I can't emphasize enough: it looks like something a 6th grader would make in Powerpoint -- there's a bunch of white space, and a stock illustration of a faceless person in an Amazon vest. He's being urged on by an anthropomorphic stack of Amazon packages with wheels and arms. There's also a countdown timer that says "repeat until timer ends." In the image we saw, it said 10 seconds.

Amazon Tells Warehouse Workers to Close Their Eyes and Think Happy Thoughts

"Close your eyes and think about something that makes you happy," the screen, titled "Savoring," instructs Amazon fulfillment center workers.

www.404media.co

 

[r16]

think happy is good
think unhappy is bad
makes you sabotage robots
you cheap
robot not cheap
ı would never be a poet
certainly in old times

 

[Gori the Grey]

Amazon Tells Warehouse Workers to Close Their Eyes and Think Happy Thoughts

If this happened recently, then here's my guess:

A couple of weeks back, NYT ran a piece on how to enhance happiness in your life through a technique like this. So, for instance, if you're a parent: imagine your child having gone off to college, and how much you would, at that time, give to have just ordinary daily experiences with your eight-year-old. Now, return to the present and relish the present moment with her all that much more richly by virtue of reminding yourself that the joys of this moment are limited to this moment.

It's decent life advice. I use a version of it, and I think it has made me a happier person.

Someone in HR read that article and said, "oh, I could use this to help my employees be happier and therefore more productive," without really realizing that the starting point for that savoring has to be something that you enjoy in the first place (but lose the sense of enjoyment in other concerns, e.g. responsibilities and hassles of parenting). If there are Amazon warehouse employees who love their job, it could work. But many probably find it a drudgery. So if they follow the instructions, they will think of something that does make them happy, which will be out of the workplace, and that will make them even less happy when they mentally return to the workplace (after the ten-second respite they've been allotted).

 

[Birdjaguar]

If this happened recently, then here's my guess:

A couple of weeks back, NYT ran a piece on how to enhance happiness in your life through a technique like this. So, for instance, if you're a parent: imagine your child having gone off to college, and how much you would, at that time, give to have just ordinary daily experiences with your eight-year-old. Now, return to the present and relish the present moment with her all that much more richly by virtue of reminding yourself that the joys of this moment are limited to this moment.

It's decent life advice. I use a version of it, and I think it has made me a happier person.

Someone in HR read that article and said, "oh, I could use this to help my employees be happier and therefore more productive," without really realizing that the starting point for that savoring has to be something that you enjoy in the first place (but lose the sense of enjoyment in other concerns, e.g. responsibilities and hassles of parenting). If there are Amazon warehouse employees who love their job, it could work. But many probably find it a drudgery. So if they follow the instructions, they will think of something that does make them happy, which will be out of the workplace, and that will make them even less happy when they mentally return to the workplace (after the ten-second respite they've been allotted).

If 1% of the Amazon workers who read the post follow it and feel better, has it been successful? I would say yes. While it is not a panacea nor widely followed it is an effort even if not well executed. Other people may need a different approach. One size does not fit all.

 

[Gori the Grey]

If 1% of the Amazon workers who read the post follow it and feel better, has it been successful? I would say yes.

I might say no. Because that 1% feeling better has had as its cost 99% feeling worse. And worse in at least two ways. If they do the exercise, it will likely actually intensify the extent to which they find their work a drudgery, because they will be reminded that their real joy is something from outside of the workplace. And second, I think a lot of employees resent these facile and self-serving attempts by the upper-ups to force workplace joy. I think of that scene in Office Space where the manager is pressuring the Jennifer Aniston character regarding her "flair," and insisting that she has to want the flair. The anonymous employee who shared the screen-shot with 404 Media seems to have felt this way: "Of all the nerve, them telling me to 'savor,' and giving me a full effing 10 seconds to do so, at that, and a hideous graphic as the prompt to do so!" This kind of crap is itself part of the dehumanizing experience people have in the modern workplace. "'Working well': give me five more g d sick days per year and I'll 'work well.'"

 

[Comrade Ceasefire]

If 1% of the Amazon workers who read the post follow it and feel better, has it been successful? I would say yes. While it is not a panacea nor widely followed it is an effort even if not well executed. Other people may need a different approach. One size does not fit all.

Of course you didn't mean it that way, but it sounds a bit too bootlicky to me.
I guess we could shoehorn lots of different percentages into hypothetical situations to see if they fit. What if 99% found it repulsively demeaning but have been made too afraid to vote for unionizing at that workplace to express their collective contempt?

Amazon is consistent: it opposes unions in preference to having "direct relationships" with workers because it believes unions could slow down business initiatives that are beneficial for employees.

But then again, they would believe that, wouldn't they.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I might say no. Because that 1% feeling better has had as its cost 99% feeling worse. And worse in at least two ways. If they do the exercise, it will likely actually intensify the extent to which they find their work a drudgery, because they will be reminded that their real joy is something from outside of the workplace. And second, I think a lot of employees resent these facile and self-serving attempts by the upper-ups to force workplace joy. I think of that scene in Office Space where the manager is pressuring the Jennifer Aniston character regarding her "flair," and insisting that she has to want the flair. The anonymous employee who shared the screen-shot with 404 Media seems to have felt this way: "Of all the nerve, them telling me to 'savor,' and giving me a full effing 10 seconds to do so, at that, and a hideous graphic as the prompt to do so!" This kind of crap is itself part of the dehumanizing experience people have in the modern workplace. "'Working well': give me five more g d sick days per year and I'll 'work well.'"

Most will likely just ignore it. How would one measure if any feel worse? Those who are unhappy at their job will likely find lots of ways to disparage management anyway regardless of what they do. "Haters" gonna hate" and most/many don't want actual solutions. that would change their opinions of of their job. My experience with employees is that the disgruntled ones will always find a reason to be unhappy even if you respond to their complaints.

TV is a poor source for the effectiveness of real life tools. It is scripted for a predetermined outcome. Could Amazon have done this better? sure; likely a crappy manager thought it was a fabulous idea and did not think things through. I wonder if the program's originator took his idea from watching TV rather than experience in managing people n actual work environments.

Amazon is consistent: it opposes unions in preference to having "direct relationships" with workers because it believes unions could slow down business initiatives that are beneficial for employees.

You illustrate my point perfectly: those who dislike Amazon policies for political reason will never like what they do unless they can force management to agree with those politics. Employees often follow the same path.

 

[Comrade Ceasefire]

You illustrate my point perfectly: those who dislike Amazon policies for political reason will never like what they do unless they can force management to agree with those politics. Employees often follow the same path.

But if the workers overwhelmingly outnumber management, isn't that just democracy in action?
IAC, I hope they do end up as happy as the cartoon box on wheels, and that some are using the enormous benefit granted to them by Amazon to savor the day they might be managers or union reps themselves.

 

[Birdjaguar]

But if the workers overwhelmingly outnumber management, isn't that just democracy in action?
IAC, I hope they do end up as happy as the cartoon box on wheels, and that some are using the enormous benefit granted to them by Amazon to savor the day they might be managers or union reps themselves.

Democracy does not always extend beyond the political arena. And even in politics we see in the US that minorities can hold sway over the majority. Most organizations are not democratic,

Worker management feuding goes back to the earliest edges of community life and likely further. I do not see any end to it. We are too disagreeable a species to give up complaining about others.

 

[Comrade Ceasefire]

Democracy does not always extend beyond the political arena. And even in politics we see in the US that minorities can hold sway over the majority. Most organizations are not democratic,

Worker management feuding goes back to the earliest edges of community life and likely further. I do not see any end to it. We are too disagreeable a species to give up complaining about others.

I'm sure they'll end up liking each others music.
Meanwhile, back in reality.

Amazon violated workers’ rights at crucial air hub, labor regulators allege
Workers at an Amazon air hub in Kentucky celebrated a victory Thursday after federal labor regulators found that Amazon violated labor law by trying to prevent workers there from unionizing.

The employees have been demanding higher pay, more flexible schedules and safer working conditions since 2022. After a months-long investigation, the National Labor Relations Board issued a complaint against Amazon last week, alleging the e-commerce behemoth illegally attempted to curtail those efforts by interrogating workers, threatening to call the police on them and demoting workers involved in union organizing.

MSN

 

[Gori the Grey]

the e-commerce behemoth illegally attempted to curtail those efforts by interrogating workers, threatening to call the police on them and demoting workers involved in union organizing.

Which of those experiences were they to "savor," one wonders.

 

[Kyriakos]

Til that King Alexander of Greece, who died in 1920 after a bite by his pet monkey, leading to the very unpopular with Britaino-France Constantine returning (and thus having a very bad effect in the Greek-Turkish war), actually decided to die...
By which I mean that he had the option to get his leg amputated, but preferred to die.
Death was from septicemia, probably due to the bite leading the dye from his sock to taint ( ) his blood.

 

[r16]

france was out of steam by their conquest of Syria and Arab Revolt and all the stuff . Britain refused French demands to destroy Germany for good . It inevitably meant they would fall apart . Cut off the leg , shoot the monkey and you still lose .

 

[Comrade Ceasefire]

Til that King Alexander of Greece, who died in 1920 after a bite by his pet monkey, leading to the very unpopular with Britaino-France Constantine returning (and thus having a very bad effect in the Greek-Turkish war), actually decided to die...
By which I mean that he had the option to get his leg amputated, but preferred to die.
Death was from septicemia, probably due to the bite leading the dye from his sock to taint ( ) his blood.

I think I know what you are trying to teach us with this cleverly constructed story, K.
Allow me to deconstruct...

Authors cannot create stories that are original.

A story is the result of an author compiling extant words and ideas.

Authors themselves cannot decide the true meaning of their own TIL.

You are an author, a fan of Borges and detective stories.

Borges wrote "Death and the Compass".

Therefore, I presume that the clues will lead back to you in some way.
(Unless you have presented us with an "unintentional fallacy". Nyuk, nyuk.)

The royal sock was dyed with Tyrian purple which is made from the "tears" of a sea snail.

The name of the genus of this mollusc is Murex which, as we all know, was the name given to them by Aristotle.

Aristotle was the tutor of Alexander the Great.

Alexander the Great's sister was Thessalonike.

You live in the city named after her.

QED.

The pet monkey is a red herring.

 

[Takhisis]

If 1% of the Amazon workers who read the post follow it and feel better, has it been successful? I would say yes. While it is not a panacea nor widely followed it is an effort even if not well executed. Other people may need a different approach. One size does not fit all.

Oh come on, they could just not report record profits and give their employees time off and a salary above the living wage.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Oh come on, they could just not report record profits and give their employees time off and a salary above the living wage.

Of course they could. Lots of things are possible in business but not done for any number of reasons. Not doing what you feel they should do does not mean a lot. A few years ago I sent Bezos a letter (via overnight FedX) about a great opportunity for his company. Damn I never got even a reply. He apparently has his own opinions about how to run his company.

 

[Comrade Ceasefire]

Of course they could. Lots of things are possible in business but not done for any number of reasons. Not doing what you feel they should do does not mean a lot. A few years ago I sent Bezos a letter (via overnight FedX) about a great opportunity for his company. Damn I never got even a reply. He apparently has his own opinions about how to run his company.

You sent a letter and didn't get a reply.
Others didn't send him anything and got pics.
I guess you don't always get what you savor.

Also, for English speakers... there is no u in savoring.
Just saying.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Also, for English speakers... there is no u in savoring.

Just like there is no "u" in color.

 

[Kyriakos]

I think I know what you are trying to teach us with this cleverly constructed story, K.
Allow me to deconstruct...

Authors cannot create stories that are original.

A story is the result of an author compiling extant words and ideas.

Authors themselves cannot decide the true meaning of their own TIL.

You are an author, a fan of Borges and detective stories.

Borges wrote "Death and the Compass".

Therefore, I presume that the clues will lead back to you in some way.
(Unless you have presented us with an "unintentional fallacy". Nyuk, nyuk.)

The royal sock was dyed with Tyrian purple which is made from the "tears" of a sea snail.

The name of the genus of this mollusc is Murex which, as we all know, was the name given to them by Aristotle.

Aristotle was the tutor of Alexander the Great.

Alexander the Great's sister was Thessalonike.

You live in the city named after her.

QED.

The pet monkey is a red herring.

Why not. After all (to quote Borges), the fundamental property of the world is its complexity. Writing isn't even the world, since there everything has to be a symbol already so as to exist ^^

 

[Takhisis]

Also, for English speakers... there is no u in savoring.
Just saying.

Yeah, and there's no ‘me’ in team, sure.

Of course they could. Lots of things are possible in business but not done for any number of reasons. Not doing what you feel they should do does not mean a lot. A few years ago I sent Bezos a letter (via overnight FedX) about a great opportunity for his company. Damn I never got even a reply. He apparently has his own opinions about how to run his company.

Yeah, sure, but this is unmet legal obligations I am talking about, unless you want the US to take the mask off and formally return to the gilded age.