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I’d expected the pain. I’d expected the monotony. I hadn’t expected so many people to regard this as a decent job.

Because Amazon does pay better than comparable jobs in the area. And I’d known, academically, that 80 percent of low-wage workers in the private sector don’t get any paid time off. …

There’s a few exceptions to the six-point rule—you can get some time excused with a doctor’s note or proof of a close relative’s death. You can apply in writing in case of other emergencies, but those are very, very rare, Miguel says. “I have a doctor’s appointment, I have court—it has to be more s…

Next slide is policies and procedures. “The first one is going to be attendance,” says Miguel. “We expect you to work the full shift, including any scheduled overtime. You can expect us to tell you about required overtime as soon as we can, and no later than the start of the lunch break during the …

Even the concourse is crowded, and it has to be twenty feet wide. My gawking has started to disrupt traffic, and, embarrassed, I merge back into the confused herd of new hires. We’re walking in a long train from the on-site temp office, where we’ve just received lanyards and white ID badges with ou…

The other big advance that’s made life miserable for low-wage workers is algorithmic scheduling. Work schedules that used to be drawn up by managers now rely heavily on algorithms that analyze historical data to predict exactly how much business a store can expect in the upcoming week. As it’s most…