On the Clock: What Low-Wage Work Did to Me and How It Drives America Insane

by Emily Guendelsberger

Say you worked a full forty-hour week, but Amazon only paid you for thirty. Wouldn’t they be stealing from you? Wouldn’t you be mad? Yes! we chorus. So then doesn’t Jeff Bezos have a right to be mad if you’re clocked in for forty hours but only actually working for thirty? Aren’t you stealing from him? Yes, we agree, with less enthusiasm. And, unlike other places we may have worked, Amazon will know if you’re only on task for thirty hours. “Amazon knows how your day is spent,” Miguel says. The company can track every second of a worker’s productivity throughout the day. “We have a saying in Spanish—Siempre va a te ver. That means There’s always an eye out there on you.” The “eye” isn’t cameras—it’s the scanner guns former workers talked about, which wirelessly upload your location and how long it’s been since your last bar-code scan in real time. If you’re going too slow, the scanner will display a message telling you so. If you go too slow too often, a “coach” will come find you to tell you in person.