Management Styles

Last night - actually, this morning - we had another example of the negative style of management during the non-peak season at Amazon. We have occasionally been informed about minor mistakes we've made while stowing - i.e.: not ending a bin properly after stowing items, or miscounting items that are placed in the bins to name two. That's OK, as long as they tell you your doing a fine job and are performing better than most full time employees who are stowing product - which we are. Last night, I was told that I had miscounted an item that I had placed in one of the bins. I scanned 12 items, but only placed 10 in the bin. I must have stowed about 3,000 items in probably 300 bins for the night, and they feel like they have to remind me that one bin was miscounted? They never mentioned, or thanked me, for performing at 130% of plan last night. Now, I spent many years as a successful manager during my "real" working days and I have to say that I was very successful as a manager, so I know a little bit about it. People used to enjoy working for me because I created a "positive" environment that made people want to come to work and they felt good about their contributions. That is missing right now at Amazon. It has created an attitude in us that we don't care whether we produce or not, but are just working for the money. Most workers there feel that way. That is not a healthy attitude for any business. The style totally changes during the peak season when there is an emphasis on reward-for-performance and an emphasis on teamwork which is sadly missing right now. There is also a camaraderie - a natural result of feeling good - that makes it fun to go to work. We don't have that feeling.

I'm glad I got that off my chest. We're 2 days into the week, with 3 to go counting our OT day on Thursday. There is nothing planned for our free time right now, but that will probably change. There won't be a lot of time to go places since we only have the 2 days off this week, and with the sleeping schedule we have, it makes the planning more difficult. We'll see...