#it’s basically a sales job

[astrlloow]

interview went great whee i’ll hear back by next week if i got the job 🍀

[littlestellababy27]

Starting work at a lingerie boutique with a sex shop in the back the weekend before Valentine’s Day was certainly a choice I made

[pikonv5]

my job wants me gone so bad , like 1 month in and they have already brought out their no effort in communication and gaslighting full force, and telling me much of the work I am doing is wrong and accusing me of not doing the basic things like stocking, that I try so hard and am sure to keep up with being the only person working at a time? like if they are going to do this at least do it while i am on the clock..

[roseband]

...

[chipjrwibignaturals]

my desperation to get a job in my field vs a 45-53 hour work week with a $400 base weekly pay FIGHT

[starcchild]

((so one of our biggest stores is wanting to unionize lol

[gentlethorns]

fuck dude i have got to find a job where i can be self-employed and creative. i cannot be in fucking retail hell anymore

[elsolaer]

i have many thoughts in general but this tidbit from tingyun's voice lines is one of the things i wanna elaborate some more on at some point...

" Every time I head out, I leave a letter behind and lock it in the drawers of my shop. If I come back, then I'll burn it later. If I don't... then it'll be something for others to remember me by."

[killerchickadee]

I wanted to go buy fabric today but the weather is gross and my cough has gotten worse and I'm just like... idk. Shopping on a Saturday sucks anyway. I should just make orange rolls and stay in bed.

But the fabric for my Nadja cloak came in the mail yesterday!

Hell yeah vagina pattern.

I was going to go get fabric for the lining and something for trim around the sleeves but yeah. Maybe I should take it easy today.

[moonwabbitt]

hello! i have some characters up for sale/up for offers! designs by others and a handful done by myself! i ended up spending quite a large chunk on my dog, im also, quite honestly trying to treat myself and a friend to a present so any little bit extra helps!

you can see what i have to offer here

im also once again reminding you all that i also have commissions open on ko-fi and vgen!

[boneless-mika]

*convincing myself I have multiple simulator games that I like to avoid the temptation of the Steam spring sale*

[idiotshriek]

every week the rolly chair in the shop i work in gets switched like this week its the broken uncomfortable one. cant wait until next week when we get the good comfortable one 🤞🏻

[sastielsfandom]

Trying to remember your skills you've accidentally picked up through fandoms and hobbies is difficult when you don't think they're actual skills because you're self taught in them all is so fun.

[vigilantejustice]

not to out myself as a truly deeply uncool girl but one of two tops bella wears in twilight (2008) dir. catherine hardwicke that have lived in my heart for fifteen years is for sale + i’m SO tempted

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Amazon's bestselling "bitter lemon" energy drink was bottled delivery driver piss

Today (Oct 20), I'm in Charleston, WV at Charleston's Taylor Books from 12h-14h.

For a brief time this year, the bestselling "bitter lemon drink" on Amazon was "Release Energy," which consisted of the harvested urine of Amazon delivery drivers, rebottled for sale by Catfish UK prankster Oobah Butler in a stunt for a new Channel 4 doc, "The Great Amazon Heist":

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-great-amazon-heist

Collecting driver piss is surprisingly easy. Amazon, you see, puts its drivers on a quota that makes it impossible for them to drive safely, park conscientiously, or, indeed, fulfill their basic human biological needs. Amazon has long waged war on its employees' kidneys, marking down warehouse workers for "time off task" when they visit the toilets.

As tales of drivers pissing – and shitting! – in their vans multiplied, Amazon took decisive action. The company enacted a strict zero tolerance policy for drivers returning to the depot with bottles of piss in their vans.

That's where Butler comes in: the roads leading to Amazon delivery depots are lined with bottles of piss thrown out of delivery vans by drivers who don't want to lose their jobs, which made harvesting the raw material for "Release Energy" a straightforward matter.

Butler was worried that he wouldn't be able to list his product on Amazon because he didn't have the requisite "food and drinks licensing" certificates, so he listed his drink in Amazon's refillable pump dispenser category. But Amazon's systems detected the mismatch and automatically shifted the product into the drinks section.

Butler enlisted some confederates to place orders for his drink, and it quickly rocketed to the top of Amazon's listings for the category, which led to Amazon's recommendation engine pushing the item on people who weren't in on the gag. When these orders came in, Butler pulled the plug, but not before an Amazon rep telephoned him to pitch him turning packaging, shipping and fulfillment over to Amazon:

https://www.wired.com/story/amazon-let-its-drivers-urine-be-sold-as-an-energy-drink/

The Release Energy prank was just one stunt Butler pulled for his doc; he also went undercover at an Amazon warehouse, during a period when Amazon hired an extra 1,000 workers for its warehouses in Coventry, UK, in a successful bid to dilute pro-union sentiment in his workforce in advance of a key union vote:

https://jacobin.com/2023/10/the-great-amazon-heist-oobah-butler-review

Butler's stint as an Amazon warehouse worker only lasted a couple of days, ending when Amazon recognized him and fired him.

The contrast between Amazon's ability to detect an undercover reporter and its inability to spot bottles of piss being marketed as bitter lemon energy drink says it all, really. Corporations like Amazon hire vast armies of "threat intelligence" creeps who LARP at being CIA superspies, subjecting employees and activists to intense and often illegal surveillance.

But while Amazon's defensive might is laser-focused on the threat of labor organizers and documentarians, the company can't figure out that one of its bestselling products is bottles of its tormented drivers' own urine.

In the USA, the FTC is suing Amazon for its monopolistic tactics, arguing that the company has found ways to raise prices and reduce quality by trapping manufacturers and sellers with its logistics operation, taking $0.45-$0.51 out of every dollar they earn and forcing them to raise prices at all retailers:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/25/greedflation/#commissar-bezos

The Release Energy stunt shows where Amazon's priorities are. Not only did Release Energy get listed on Amazon without any quality checks, the company actually nudged it into a category where it was more likely to be consumed by a person. The only notice the company took of Release Energy was in its logistics and manufacturing department – the part of the business that extracts the monopoly rents at issue in the FTC case – which tracked Butler down in order to sell him these services.

The drivers whose piss Butler collected don't work directly for Amazon, they work for a Delivery Service Partner. These DSPs are victims of a pyramid scheme that Amazon set up. DSP operators lease vans and pay to have them skinned in Amazon livery and studded with Amazon sensors. They take out long-term leases on depots, and hire drivers who dress in Amazon uniforms. Their drivers are minutely monitored by Amazon, down to the movements of their eyeballs.

But none of this is "Amazon" – it's all run by an "entrepreneur," whom Amazon can cut loose without notice, leaving them with unfairly terminated employees, outstanding workers' comp claims, a fleet of Amazon-skinned vehicles and unbreakable facilities leases:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/17/revenge-of-the-chickenized-reverse-centaurs/

Speaking to Wired, Amazon denied that it forces its drivers to piss in bottles, but Butler clearly catches a DSP dispatcher telling drivers "If you pee in a bottle and leave it [in the vehicle], you will get a point for that" – that is, the part you get punished for isn't the peeing, it's the leaving.

Amazon's defense against the FTC is that it spares no effort to keep its marketplace safe. As Amazon spokesperson James Drummond says, they use "industry-leading tools to prevent genuinely unsafe products being listed." But the only industry-leading tools in evidence are tools to bust unions and screw suppliers.

In her landmark Yale Law Review paper, "Amazon's Antitrust Paradox," FTC Chair Lina Khan makes a brilliant argument that Amazon's alleged benefits to "consumers" are temporary at best, illusory at worst:

https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-paradox

In Butler's documentary, Khan's hypothesis is thoroughly validated: here's a company extracting hundreds of billions from merchants who raise prices to compensate, and those monopoly rents are "invested" in union-busting and countermeasures against investigative journalists, while the tools to keep you from accidentally getting a bottle of piss in the mail are laughably primitive.

Truly, Amazon is the apex predator of the platform era:

https://pluralistic.net/ApexPredator

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/20/release-energy/#the-bitterest-lemon

My next novel is The Lost Cause, a hopeful novel of the climate emergency. Amazon won't sell the audiobook, so I made my own and I'm pre-selling it on Kickstarter!

[casuallyanidiot]

Yandere coworker who hates you.

Well... it's not that he doesn't like you, he just doesn't like that you act like you can take care of yourself. Yandere coworker spends practically every day by your side, watching as you struggle to meet deadlines and burnout again and again. His sharp eyes land on your tired form, and he frowns.

Yandere coworker is praised by the supervisors, makes the most sales of anyone in your department, and overall is just better than you at everything. While you look haggard on a constant basis, just one bad day from breaking down, he looks put together and confident. While he is charismatic and schmoozes those higher up on the corporate ladder with ease, you flounder in even the most basic conversations.

You shouldn't be here. He doesn't understand how you still have a job. He's harsh on you, sure, but it's not like he's not constantly saving you from yourself.

He is the one who puts in a good word for you so you don't get fired. He's the one who stays in the office well after he should've left to watch you work overtime. He deserves all the success. He deserves you.

Yandere coworker hates you for how stupid you are. If you would just stop being so stubborn and just turn to him for help, he'll make it so you never have to work again. Maybe he can play a little dirty if it means he can get you to stop acting like you can do anything without him.