Does anyone know why Amazon has such visually striking facilities? I'm not used to seeing a warehouse like that. I imagine there is some sort of reason for it (reduces workplace accidents by making certain things stand out), but I suppose it's also possible that Jeff Bezos just thought it looked pretty.
A ton of modern-day manufacturing and warehouse facilities in the U.S. are brightly lit and have safety colors everywhere. This isn't that unusual, except for maybe the yellow bins everywhere.
I work at Amazon in operations, so I'm a little more able to answer than most, but to me it's just a warehouse. The buildings are built as huge boxes. The only thing I can think of is that they're brightly lit. There is an eye toward safety.
Everything is the exact same shade of yellow with a splash of red for danger and occasionally blue. However, after seeing the video (I read this on mobile initially), there is more photoshop going on than I gave it credit for.
However, there is still a high degree of color-coordination, even when you're not looking at shots emphasizing the orderliness of the place with the colors brightened.
There are lots of very clear, systematic horizontal lines. Part of that is how all the equipment is the same, and those self-moving crates are all the exact same height, but they went to the trouble of painting the bottom of poles yellow and the rest white. When you do see red, it's all on the same horizontal line, too. The bottom of the self-moving crates are red, then nothing until you get the tops of the poles, which are all at the exact same height. If I didn't know anything about the company, say it was Walmart's warehouse, I'd expect it to look more like this: https://imgur.com/a/A8ALC
The photos are definitely unusually bright. That said, the 360 video in there seems strangely "dusty" as well. From my recollection, reality is somewhere in between. The photo composition is also having an effect on things- they are crafted to show, as you say, order.
It's also worth considering that there may well be an intentional effort towards aesthetics. These are frequently hard and unglamorous jobs. If white poles and good lighting help make the place feel less oppressive, then I think we'd consider those merits.
Side note: I liked "self-moving crates". Those are Kiva robots carrying pods around. They're fascinating and oddly adorable.
That's a complex question. I get two conflicting perspectives on their jobs: one from corporate, and one from the internet.
Corporate wants to believe that we're trying to do right by them, by making their jobs easier where we can, and by being a decent company to work for. We supposedly pay a bit above average (certainly better than minimum wage), with benefits, and provide some other perks, at least for the full time associates. A lot of effort goes into making their jobs easier and more reliable. It's understood that these are, as I said, not fantastic jobs and most of them won't stay long term, and that's ok. Some move up into management.
The internet tells me that we drive people like mad, that management is brutal and unforgiving, that there's no such thing as full time associates, and even if there were, you'll never become one. I have seen some utterly grueling jobs in person. (The one I have in mind I believe has very short shift times and I think was meant to be automated this year.)
There is some variance where and when we employ FTEs and PTEs, and I think that's a lot of the difference. And the hard truth is that when we bring on more work for Q4, it's seasonal, and most of them will simply not be needed afterwards.
The internal tone could colorfully be described as a controlled panic, that we must scale our operations, faster every year, because Amazon is not slowing down, and we have to keep up. I don't doubt that this manifests itself as a scary downward pressure on the floor, especially during peak. It is understood that manpower alone is failing us and we will shortly be simply unable to hire enough people to meet demand. That we can barely do this now. Automation is crucial.
I suppose my view is: they work incredibly hard and we try to do right by them, and probably don't do enough. We occasionally make the news for the latest horror story, but I find it hard to believe it would ever be intentional. And I have serious doubts about our part time associates.
I can elaborate if you had a particular question in mind.
There was a lot of polish, cleaning and color correction done in those photos. Amazon warehouses look a lot dingier in real life, especially once they've been used.
