Warehouse Work Sucks
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 12 ก.ย. 2024
- Welcome back to the channel and welcome back the The Delicroix Design - where I talk about stuff and things. The stuff and things today will be warehouse work and why it is a fundamentally flawed system and in short, why it sucks.
A few years ago I was feeling financially trapped and dead-ended in terms of career opportunity. I saw an advertisment offering $18 an hour at a location closer to home and decided to quit my job of 6 years at Lowe's Home Improvement so I could go and work at a Target food distribution center warehouse. When I started here I was a manual picker who would cruise around on a pallet jack picking hundreds of cartons of food (meat, veggies, fruit, candy, etc.) for 8 hours a day. It sucked. It was miserable, backbreaking work in a giant refrigerator with high demands and low morale. Management consisted of a bunch of college grads who had never done your job, but felt like they were and authority who could tell you how to do it and judge your performance. During my early stages doing warehouse work I tried to stay optimistic, but eventually it wore on me and I realized just how bad it sucks.
At the core, the number one reason warehouse work sucks so much is the existence of "productivity" goals. Most all of these places have an expectation, usually a lofty one, that drives their employees to perform whatever task it may be at a faster than comfortable rate. I understand the necessity of accountability in the workplace, but you can reasonably expect most people to work to their best ability so they can get the hell out of that place as soon as possible. Like I said, it sucks - so you can bet I am going to work as hard as I can to get done and out of that warehouse as quickly as I can. The pressure that these production numbers put on people breeds a competitive and toxic environment that sours the experience and any semblance of working on a team or feeling camaraderie between you and your co-workers. It actually incites the opposite by leading people to bullying and heckling each other based on performance differences.
The next issue that production numbers cause which makes warehouse work suck is how it contradicts apparent company values. Almost every warehouse environment in North America insists safety is their number one priority, while relentlessly pushing their employees to work as fast as they can. Threatening to fire someone for their speed is a sure way to make them rush - rushing leads to carelessness which leads to making mistakes. All it takes is one slip up in the face of carelessness to severely injure yourself or someone else, but if you raise this concern to management they will typically just dismiss it as being within acceptable bounds to work safely. You know, the same management that has never actually done your job. They obviously know best... best how to make your warehouse work experience suck as much as possible.
At the end of the day, there is no amount of money that will make putting your life at risk worth it. If you are going to work in a place like this, learn to not care about the numbers or the people trying to enforce them and instead just work at your own pace. If you end up getting fired to it, just remind yourself of the disposable nature of that job, because your happiness and you as a whole is just as disposable to them.
I appreciate your company here, as I wrote this I thought of a bunch of other stuff I wish I had the time to talk about in the video to reinforce my "warehouse work sucks" motto but I didn't have the time even if I had thought about it. If people resonate with this then maybe I will tell some more tales from my time working the warehouse gambit in a Fishing Stories episode. You can find that playlist here:
• Fishing Trips
This episode was also part of The Delicroix Design, which is an old series that I used to use to vent different thoughts while playing Call of Duty - obviously I am now playing Katamari Damacy, but that doesn't change the point. If you like this sort of philosophical deep-dive type content then here is the playlist for more (fair warning, some of the older videos sucked):
• The Delicroix Design
#TDD #DGG - เกม
You hit the nail on the head. These types of jobs are soul crushing. They exhaust you mentally and physically, so at the end of your shift you feel like doing absolutely nothing.
No matter what education level you are in life. A warehouse job is terrible. You hit all the points. Warehouse jobs are really lonely. I took a promotion from the company i worked at for years and warehouse employees are the worst. They think everything is a competition.
I'm leaving my warehouse job this week never to return again. Not having a higher education, I've had to work several warehouse jobs to get by. But I just can't do it anymore.
Good for you! Hope you find happiness.
holy shit your so right i fell into the trap of working in a warehouse thinking it was going to be a good experience/pay instead its brutal schedules with insane production goals and fucking toxic co-workers fuck that shit im going back to college
I feel like my job is preying on my sanity and eating my soul. The managers are extremely disrespectful. It feels like a prison. Got hurt (horrendous back pain) and took two days off and got written up for it. They will write you up for anything and everything. Like this one girl said “they will write you up for being a human being” and next thing you know you’re told you’re on your final. They literally do not care. I’ve been filling out applications for other places. I have to get out of here. I’m usually a calm, cool, and collected person but today I almost lost it.
That last sentence really hits home. I've had many jobs like that turn me into someone I am not, completely losing my temper and letting my mental state effect those around me.
At least you seem to recognize what you are worth - you will find something better.
Why doesn't this video have more views!
The background noise
@@Clipsoftheyear101 This is true unfortunately.
I hate warehouses they are so depressing
I agree 100% with everything you said, I’ve done some of the jobs you mentioned before and they are absolutely mind numbing/soul crushing. Some of the warehouse jobs I’ve lasted the longest in were ones I was in the maintenance department which compared to the more quota/rate based jobs is better, but even those jobs there is only so much sweeping you can do before you feel like your going insane from boredom and other repetitive tedious tasks
I’ve been working at my warehouse job for five years and everything you have said in this video is completely true I have to pick 110 lines per hour and deal with people that get pissed off at me because I get an extra bonus for the amount of work I do and let me tell you I have never felt so depressed in my life everyone works against each other in my department and lately I’ve been feeling overworked I have autism so I’m not sure what else I could do besides working at a warehouse
Sorry to hear it, man. I really hope that you find something sustainable that you love in a place that respects you. I'm still trying, myself; so know you're not alone.
Hit the nail on the head, I worked in a HUGE warehouse for a company called LKQ. They sell car parts, bumpsters, hoods, ect. Like the kinda shit you need if you crash your car, the equitment was old, the night shift was wreckless, the numbers were impossible. And anyone who had been there for more than a few years were the most souless dead inside people ever expect for one guy who only worked there for the money because his wife got hurt in a car crash. We also had a n ight manager who mostly smoked weed and slept all night giving me shit for taking to long to get a 150 bumper off a shelf 40 feet up, that was asfter 5 months. I dropped that fucker right off the side of the picker, lowered it, and just fucking left.
Hahaha, my dude. Hope you're in a better spot now.
@@Delicroix Much better, I drive Limo now, such a better job man
I agree they want speed of safety and it’s the biggest issue. Also when you are new it’s hard to find where things are with the heavy load but the still expect it all to be done in a certain time frame.
230 for an hour? I got 220 for 40 min. Heb warehouse sucks. New hires always get shit on and coworkers always rush you even while learning. And that’s not all, the job sucks so much. Definetely not worth the decent pay.
100%. I hope you've gotten out of there - I wouldn't wish it on anyone.
I remember not being totally enthusiastic about going to college after graduating high school... even tho my parents had did whatever they needed to to make sure i did.
So i aimlessly tried pretty much working at any place that will take me.. my first job was through an outreach program in my city who takes "kids" essentially like me who just graduated and has them work for MINIMUM WAGE with full grown adults at "the city yard" so it was a government job... Where you pretty much shadow full time parks and recreation workers... There was a crew that covered graffiti.. and i got put on the SHlTTlEST crew they had which was the "Street tree" department where wed cut and trim trees that actually belonged to the city that were kinda close to people's personal property but werent ... And it was stupid grunt work but one thing it did was show me HOW AWESOME IT IS to have a government job.. and how you get taken care of..i.e. get put in a strong union , getting paid well (for the full timers) and getting away with A WHOLE LOT OF not doing much being that your paychecks dont come from a customer based business .. so there's no real middle men or micromanagers breathing down your neck for results.
Anyways that lasted a year.... then i was off to the real races into the private sector.. and that's when the temp agencies and working at almost a dozen different warehouse's happened... and I ABSOLUTELY HATED IT. Just like what most of these videos state...i found it to be soul and spirit crushing and i was super depressed while working there.. But what was kinda crazy was most of my friends were working in warehouses themselves and they liked it.. and i couldn't fathom how they didnt HATE IT LIKE I DID...Anyway... Being that i had worked in government before one thing i knew for sure was that i did not want to work in the private sector.. but i didnt have a skill set necessarily.. so i didn't know how i was going to get a government job.. so one day A close friend of mine who's father was a janitor/custodian at a school... Said his pops was having him work as a substitute custodian which i had no clue what it was.
Then he broke it down to me... and it didnt sound to bad.. it was essentially being an on call school janitor through the local school district...and THE PAY WAS incredibly HIGHER than anything I had going on at the time...but the thing was was that you were on call so obviously you weren't promised full time work...At the time tho I was 19... No kids no girlfriend still living at home so i didnt have any kinda overhead to worry about so i could afford to not work for a week or two if i didnt have to....in fact that in itself kinda drew me in to actually applying cuz one thing i did hate about all these dumb warehouse jobs was the full time and over time they'd offer .. and i HATED BEING THERE and really didnt need to be working my butt off like at the time
Anyways i apply...and get hired...and it's off to the races...the one thing im told tho is don't turn down jobs when they give them To you cuz at some point they'll remember that you always turn down work and will offer it to others who say yes over you...AND so I NEVER TURNED DOWN ANY JOBS.. a custodian was on Vacation at a school 7 miles away for a week.. cool id show up and do what i could for a week.. and most of the time these guys HARDLY DID SHlT at these schools...their jobs were easy and you essentially had no supervisors...as most "supervisors" at a school site for custodians janitors etc only work mornings..and leave the night custodians alone...so at the time (before the internet and social media and cameras etc) alot of these guys would do lousy work for 5 hours and just go home and still get paid for a full day cuz they got paid on salary and never punched a time clock.
And even when you were working... You were ALONE THE WHOLE TIME.. either vacuuming rooms.. or cleaning bathrooms. Or once in a while helping the school set up for an event.
I mean...after all that id been through in the private sector not having an education or any work experience.. i couldn't believe i was now working a government job doing SOMETHING AS SIMPLE AS VACUUMING CLASSROOMS.... alone... with headphones on. And getting paid as well i did.. with free benefits...and in a strong union that made it almost impossible to get fired. Because after about 4 months i did get hired on permanently cuz i always showed up and took advantage of the first opening i could which was part time.. then after a year... I actually ended up transferring to actual elementary school i went to myself as a kid and my 6th grade teacher was still there and of course... HERS WAS ONE OF THE ROOMS I CLEANED so it was like being around family almost.
And fast forward almost 25 years (and if im honest half of those years I'd go home at 730pm every night even tho im supposed to work till 1130 but then THE SMART PHONE, GPS AND MINI CAMERA ERA USHERED IN and put a stop to that) but im still here at age 43. Doing it. And I've never fell out of love doing it...and any time there was some ups and downs.. it was that FEAR of potentially going back to warehouses.. in the private sector for an employer that looks at you as expendable and REPLACEABLE... That kept me in line all these years cuz it hasn't always been great.. but JUST AS YOU DESCRIBED IN YOUR VIDEO.. could've verbatim been my same testimony at what i witnessed and took part of when i had to BULLSHlT work at warehouses
To this day I TRY TO PUT PEOPLE ON TO MY JOB.. who dont have a formal degree or training at something... And honestly most ppl dont follow thru or i guess dont believe me.. and the small handful that have ended up just like me... Became lifers unless they happen to get grandfathered into another job from a family or friend connection or something like that but most of them that tried their hand all ended up staying like i did cuz honestly it's pretty awesome work for the pay and you don't have any micromanaging or supervisors AT ALL for the most part breathing down your neck cuz it's not a net results based business... it's essentially public service.
Anyways...felt i had to comment being that i had had the same experience and wiggled my way out of it and never looked back. Hope you are where you always wanted to be in your journey amigo. 💪🏼💪🏼🙏🏼
Thats built to be like that , someone has to do those jobs , most of the warehouse jobs are making you do things which are useless and cause damage health towards other people
Amazon warehouse come to mind.
add in decent hours and its omg why is it so hard to find early shifts?
WE DID IT BROTHA MAN!
Exactly
So true
Warehouse sucks man