Asking a delivery driver to dance is deranged - but Amazon bosses appear to disagree

[Judi Lynn]

Arwa Mahdawi

Sat 12 Feb 2022 09.00 EST

‘It’s still a panoptican, even if you’re dancing’

Being an Amazon delivery driver sure sounds like a blast: you get to see the world (well, part of it anyway) as you cruise the open road. Yes, the hours are gruelling. Yes, you sometimes have to pee in water bottles because there’s not enough time and no available facilities in which you can take a proper bathroom break. Yes, hauling heavy packages means you are at high risk of being injured on the job. Yes, creepy surveillance equipment tracks your every move. But you know what? You get the unparalleled satisfaction of knowing that your hard work is helping Jeff Bezos afford an obscenely large superyacht. And while the work may be difficult, there are also moments of joy: you get to jive on the job! According to Vice, TikTok users have started leaving notes in the Amazon app asking their delivery drivers to dance for their door cameras. Then these delightful people post the videos on social media.

There are, I suppose, some delivery drivers who may enjoy being told to do a chicken dance as they drop off a package. But many of the drivers that Vice spoke to understandably found the dance requests demeaning and irritating. “I’ve only seen these requests in the app,” one driver from upstate New York said. “If they said it in person, I would probably smack the shit out of them.” And that driver would be justified: asking an Amazon worker to dance for your amusement is, to put it bluntly, deranged.

It would appear that the PR suits at Amazon HQ would beg to differ. Amazon’s official TikTok account has been boosting the dystopic trend and sharing videos of delivery people dancing on command with cutesy little comments like “poppin’ and lockin’ while box droppin’”.

It should be said, of course, that these drivers are not being forced to dance. It’s not as if Amazon is threatening anyone who ignores customers commands with 10 years of hard labour in Bezos’s space colonies. But there’s a thin line between officially requiring something of your workers and strongly incentivizing it. Amazon delivery drivers are tracked by AI-powered cameras and smartphone apps that monitor their behaviour and assign them a score at the end of the week. If you don’t behave exactly as Amazon dictates then you risk a low score and your livelihood is in jeopardy.

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/12/asking-a-delivery-driver-to-dance-is-deranged-but-amazon-bosses-appear-to-disagree

[Biophilic]

1. This is just F'ing deranged. What have we become that we would belittle people like this? nt

[tanyev]

2. And it's weird.

Presumably the person who ordered the package needs/wants whatever is in it. Why take a chance on annoying the delivery person so much that they say f*** it, and drop kick that package into your shrubbery?

[Hortensis]

6. Well, I suspect "we" were raised to accept a system that

requires servers to suck up to those customers who require it for both business profits and tip income, and accept lower incomes if they decline. Where that institutionalized degradation and exploitation is normal, is it really much of a step to this?

As it happens, this particular manifestation is already essentially gone. Of course. It started as a bit of fun from drivers who felt like it to customers who were charmed. But efforts to encourage a nice thing to drivers who don't feel like dancing were destined to fail.

Btw, tipping was imported from Europe, but it's always been considered by many to be contrary to our nation's founding principles of equality and personal dignity. This isn't the first time required dancing's offended personal dignity either.

[LakeArenal]

3. This reminds me of a short lived review technique

Mr Lake’s supervisor said they should be rated one to five when we gave them a five for ability to fix a clothes dryer we were instructed we could t give them fives. Because if he was rated a five that would be professional status and should work at an appliance store. 🤷🏼‍♀️

So in reality we could only rate them fours at best.


Crazy. It lasted one review.

[Solly Mack]

4. How boorish can you get?

Damn.

[cbabe]

5. Stepin Fetchit.

Also are the videos being monetized? Who benefits? Are workers getting extra pay for extra dance duties?

Amazon employees only or also includes contractors? Hazard pay if shot at by irate neighbor?

Sounds like a demeaning marketing scheme that’s gone sideways.