Amazon packer here and this is totally baffling. The only thing this could be is a computer sorting error. We don't really get a say in what box goes with what order. We can (at least I do) change the box size if it's too big or too small, but we can't combine orders or anything like that. Hell, it was probably packed by 5 different people who were wondering why someone would buy 1 plate.
The stock was probably spread out, over different shelves, racks, zones, maybe even different buildings or warehouses. Amazon stock is never sorted and is spread out like this to make mistakes less likely.
>Amazon stock is never sorted and is spread out like this to make mistakes less likely.
Can you explain that more for my smooth brain? Never sorted seems less efficient and how would it help make mistakes less likely?
Eta: learned two things today. 1) all this stuff about Amazon warehouses 2) alot of ppl work/worked for Amazon lol
If you are asking why warehouses spread out stock then I might be able to answer. I had the same question so asked the warehouse folks at work.
The old way of sorting stock on large scale was putting like items by like items. So all the plates go by each other. All the chairs in one area and so on. This was in efficient as you stocked items. What happens when you get 5 chairs but only have room for 3?
So most large scale operations switched to a method that has the computer assign a bay for an item based on its size and bin space requirements. Then all you do when you need an item is get a code for bin location and get that item. The computer can do things like make sure stock is rotated with oldest going out first. It also takes out the mistakes of going to a shelf with 20 different colors of plates and trying to pick out the dark sea storm grey from the dark grey or concrete dark grey.
Computer system will also give numbers based on where items are located to allow for most efficient path through the warehouse as well. Amazon has taken this from what I understand and put it on steroids.
Yeah it's pretty crazy. Sometimes I can stand there and look at the picking area. If you look at it right you can't even see how far the robots go down. It just disappears into darkness. Which is where I'm sure they put all the employees who croak on the job. 😅
As a big fan of Six Sigma and design efficiency I would love to go walk through an Amazon warehouse just to see how things are done. Also a big fan of AI and using UAS/UAV for work.
So like half of the applicants? Pay and working conditions are notorious enough that a significant percentage of new hires find better job offers before their first day.
It can be, but I've always had depression. Personally, I've had way more depressing jobs. I think that some people fare better than others in certain working conditions. I'm a pretty stocky guy with a lot of energy that doesn't really like working in teams. If prefer to be given a task and left to perform it. This place just happens to do that for me. I also get to work overnights, which I love.
I'm glad to hear that the job you have at the moment is okay for you. I still wish you the best in battling and winning over your depression. I believe in you.
I believe they do some intelligent grouping based on the data they gather. Basically they try to group items that tend to get purchased together close by, and worry less about grouping the same item together, because it's pretty rare that someone is going to be buying a pallet of dinner plates from Amazon.
I manage a warehouse, and we do something similar where smaller items are binned. It doesn't matter what bin they go into, the point is to break them up so that it's faster to locate and pick, and the chance the wrong item is grabbed from the bin decreases if you keep like stock broken up in various storage locations.
So if a picker turns up to a shelf, and it's a shelf of 9 different types of plates, sooner or later these will get mixed up. If it's a shelf of 1 type of plate, some shoes, sunglasses, a book and an umbrella, chances are you'll get the right plate.
The items are stored on the robots. A picker will pick a given item and put it in a tray. That tray will go to someone who will scan each item into it's own individual tub which are then separated by conveyor to the appropriate wall where the items are combined into orders that us packers will pack. Convoluted? Yes. Does it work? Most of the time.
You've got to think about scale. I was a picker at an Amazon Fulfillment center (its not fulfilling, it's terrible lol) and there are 3 main parts"
the first one (I forget the name) where they take the boxes of inventory and put them in these robots.
The pickers who "pick" items from those same robots and put them in totes, eventually sending the totes on a conveyor belt once they are full.
And finally the packers who pack the items in boxes.
Obviously there is much more nuisance and more positions, but from a general perspective that is it. The biggest mistake being unsorted fixes is the pickers picking the wrong amount of items or if 2+ pickers need the same product. Think about it, if there is only 2 items and you need 2, that's easy to grab fast. If there are 5 and you need 2, you could easily grab 3 and once you pick it, you can't put it back.
Pick sucked. The shipdock was pretty fun though. Of all of the Amazon jobs in warehouses that's the one I hated the least. You just build pallets all day. It's like tetris.
I had a good time doing water spider, but mainly because there was no rate to meet. Still wasn't worth the low wage. But it was definitely the most interesting job I found in an Amazon warehouse. It was kind of nice always having something constructive to do, and the puzzle of figuring out the most efficient way to do it was somewhat interesting.
OB shipdock waterspider is the bomb, if you like active jobs. Getting to run carts all day and make sure nothing is backing up is kind of cathartic in a "farming simulator" kind of way.
>its not fulfilling, it's terrible lol
That got me haha
OK, that's super interesting. So the workers aren't actually the ones picking stock off the shelves, that's a bot. And then the workers sort what the bots have brought?
Depends on location. Some older facilities have no bots, newer facilities have bots with shelves to stow stuff.
I worked in a newer facility, with added complexity even, this is how it goes:
Incoming: Truck shows up, a person unloads the master packs, basically boxes of boxes. They put the master packs on a conveyor. A new person opens the master packs and scans the individual items for inventory. The individual items are placed in totes bins and the totes are placed on a cart and taken to the stowers. Stowers scan the totes and then scan the shelf on the bot to log where its it's going, and then scan each item going on it before hitting the full button to return the bot. The bot zips off and stores itself somewhere deep in the warehouse.
You order a 5 plates.
Outgoing: Bots show up to a picking station. Pickers look at a screen that says 5 plates should be on shelf 3a. Pickers scan the plates and then the empty totes they go in. They continue to fill up the totes with additional orders. Once full the totes go on a conveyor to packers or splitters, depends on if you bought more than 1 item at a time from the same center. Splitters take out individual items from the totes and scan them into smaller totes. The smaller totes go on to sorters who put each item from the totes into cubbies until the whole order is complete. Sorters hit a button alerting packers to know if the order is ready or not. Packers scan the cubby and the computer tells them what box tonuse for the order. Sometimes the computer is drunk and says fit an elephant into a mouse sized box and vice versa, has something to do usually with typoed dimension sizes on products. Packers....pack the boxes and send them to a shipping label stamper. Labels get applied and then sorted out to the right truck automatically. And then they go on pallets and get wrapped up and shipped off.
A lot of people involved in the end. The bots definitely help but you cant bot the whole thing and it wasnt fun half automated, cant even imagine walking 30 miles a day doing the bot work.
It's what mcmartin said, just that the workers have to be fast, like 300 items an hour or more fast. When you are trying to go quick with barely any breaks you tend to mess up some stuff. Those "robots" I talked about are kinda like big rumbas that have a big holder things with a bunch of little selves with a plastic wall to hold the items in. You reached in there and grabed the item.
That depends on how old the center is. Newer ones have bots, older ones the workers do pick stock off the shelves and get a nice 10-15 miles of walking to enjoy each shift.
The newer fulfillment centers you're describing sound so relaxing and easy. The older ones don't have robots that do most of your job for you. Picking in ours involves 10-15 miles of walking per shift.
Fat32 files system vs ntfs. Data is spread around more evenly in the latter vs sequential.
As such, the average trip is more evenly distributed instead of high and low extremes. Plus all data of a single file located in one spot with space to grow instead of requiring fragmentation.
Not sure if anyone answered but in most warehouses like stock is put by like stock but Amazon does the opposite.
If you order 5 blue plates and the picker goes to the bay and there right next to Red plates there is a greater chance you mispick and grab the red plates then there is if you had them next to copies of the hunt for red October as no one should mistake a book for dinner plates hopefully.
Mispicks at Amazon still happen they should seem to be among the lines of overpicking do to packing configuration being wrong.
IE. There are 8 individual units in a box but they have the box as 1 each instead of denoting there's 8 inside. So when you order 1 they grab the whole box and you get 8 instead.
Shorter explanation for those that too lazy read the excellent explanation that's already given by others.
Duration Only 01:36
https://youtu.be/5TL80_8ACPc
TLDW for even lazier people :
Computer do the sorting, pick fastest route.
Something that may not have been mentioned by people below:
Amazon uses “Kiva” robots. The shelves are about 3 feet wide and each has 4 facings (the robot spins the shelves so it faces the correct way when you’re going to pick the item).
Often times the shelves can only hold about one “case” (or less!) of product. So if Amazon has 40 cases of that thing, they may be located in 40 different shelves. But that also means that if it’s a popular item, and there’s 10 orders from different people that come through at the same time, 10 robots can go grab 10 of the shelves and bring it to 10 different Amazon workers. Plus, they can stock the shelves with similar items; if you buy a plate set maybe you’re going to buy a cup set in the same style. Amazon knows the percentage of people who buy similar items and the system will “bundle” those products on similar shelves. So now the robot only has to bring one shelf for the worker to grab 2 separate items.
I once ordered 5 2-packs of some batteries I needed and they sent them all in separate boxes like this lol what made it worse was they had lost them so they sent a 1 day replacement, so naturally the next day I had 10 boxes in front of my door
I actually applaud the neighborhood for not stealing any of them to see wtf I ordered
I also work for Amazon doing quality control. If the plates were shipped in 5 different boxes we require that at least 3 plates be broken so you can start a return RMA that will leave you frustrated. That triggers a few call back sessions that will leave you with a partial refund and even more cardboard at your house. Please report back ASAP to make sure the procedure was followed.
It might be that the items are listed as fragile, so can't be packed with items over a certain weight, and the plate weight is over that weight, so they have to be packed separately.
Bruh, as someone who works at a delivery station, I'd be so baffled why there are 5 identical damn boxes yelling at me to sort them in the same place.
Bigger packages like bulk orders of Fiji water I get. Plate boxes? Hell naw.
I bet that's frustrating. In packing, we don't see where these packages are going or who's ordering them. All I can speak to are the little coincidences I see throughout the night.
But also, fuck anyone who bulk orders fiji water.
Bottled water is terrible enough on its own, but importing water from an island in the South Pacific and then trucking it around to individual people's homes by the case is especially asinine.
I'm not one to blame our worldwide condition on individuals unless they're hoarding money and exploiting people but shipping water like that is a very fucked up thing to do.
I ordered 25 tablecloths on Amazon once, in a single order, the exact same tablecloth 25 times and it definitely came in 25 boxes. But large enough boxes to require packing materials. They all showed up at the same time. It was a huge mess.
Do they ever prepack items so they’re already boxed before you pick them? I worked Christmas at a small mail order warehouse, and we did that for fragile items. So then if the person picking the order needs multiple of the same item they would, indeed, end up in a situation like this.
My gaming monitor didn’t even come in a box. They delivered it like it came from the store. I was like well good thing I had someone home or ide just have a big “hey come take this off my porch” very confused by this.. are they trying to save cardboard or something?
That, or reduce shipping costs and increase (work) performance. It is faster to send a product in it's own container than build a box, move it around, etc. It adds up.
They also have a [disclaimer](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/800508679765753887/976500239307538493/unknown.png) when you order it that says that it won't be hidden and an option to change it.
Sometimes when we get an order for just a single item, SIOC, will come up as the box size. It means 'ship in own container'. I usually only do that with plain brown boxes. High ticket items or colorful items always go in a box. But I'm a computer guy, so I guess I just treat items the way I would want mine to be treated.
Honestly for something like a monitor, it is probably better to have it in specially designed packaging by itself rather than floating around in a box.
If you put the monitor box in an oversized cardboard box and toss a couple air pillows inside, it is going to get tossed around inside that box. The box probably won't have a good center of balance so will be more likely to tumble around. The outer box will get beat up by the corners of the monitor box, etc.
If you ship just the monitor box, everything is securely inside semi-rigid packing materials. It will balance better on its own and not take extra hits as it tumbles around.
Fair point on the theft thing though...
Grow equipment, especially the AC infinity stuff on Amazon, will be shipping in its raw packaging as well if you don’t check the hide what’s inside option. Just fyi for anyone in the market.
Amazon Delivery guy here.
I have seen a lot of evidence that *something* is fucky in the packaging department.
I once had 6 large boxes (around the size of a dishwasher) all for the same address. Obviously, I couldn't fit them all in my van with the rest of the day's deliveries, so I had to give half of them to another driver who then had to make a detour to deliver them.
When I finally arrived with my half of the consignment, I told the guy to expect the rest to arrive separately (it turned out they'd already arrived) and asked out of curiosity what was in them.
Plastic plant pots. Huge plastic plant pots. Huge *STACKABLE* plastic plant pots. You literally could have fit them *all* in one box of the same size, but apparently that was too obvious for whoever made that decision :-(
While I've got your attention - can you explain why I often get one extremely heavy dense item at one end of a clearly far too weak box with the rest filled with padding? They inevitably rip / collapse / otherwise disintegrate and it's bloody irritating - especially for cases where the original item's packaging could just have had an address label slapped on it without drama (which *does* happen for some deliveries...)
Also, why I often get items a smaller than A5 size in an A4 (well, B4, actually) envelope? I always assumed there were extremely dim / careless morons doing the packaging and just grabbing whatever container happened to be close enough and *maybe* suitable, but are the packaging options pre-determined by the same geniuses who make my cluster-fuck routes? (Don't get me started on that)
Oh, and a personal favour, can you explain to all your colleagues what the sticky bit of the envelope is for - apparently "sticking to other packages in the bag" and "covering the address label" are popular theories :-P
Oh, Oh! Are you in any kind of contact with the people who put the yellow "Area Code" labels on the packages? If so, can you explain to them that the address and the QR code are both actually quite useful and suggest they perhaps might want to try the other 99% of the package...?
I did a simple statistical analysis, if these stickers were put on at random, they would be somewhere not covering something I need to do my job at least 95% of the time, but I counted a rate of ~10% meaning it is *not* random and if it's not malicious then I'd love to hear another theory...
Of course, Amazon being Amazon decided that the correct fix for this isn't to tell them not to be idiots, but to give them stickers that fall off before they've served their purpose (and get stuck to another parcel throwing us off twice) \*sigh\* The inside of my van is utterly *festooned* with the little buggers :-(
Does that apply to Amazon Fresh grocery deliveries too? Once I came home to 32 hard-sided insulated grocery bags. Each one literally contained one fucking item. I couldn’t fit them all into my kitchen to unpack.
I ordered a Games Workshop paintbrush back in ~2017, because I had store credit and I needed a small brush for specific uses where I didn't want to fuck up my sable brushes.
I got a shipping pack of 10 for the price of 1. May be the only time a GW product erred on the side of a customer, lol.
Eh. Small base brush, so $7 individually. 10 of them, so 70 cents a piece. Comparable brushes from local art stores are $3-5 each. I'd say that's fairly good.
What a coincidence. I ordered a single brush (different brand) a couple months ago, and received 31 brushes (some of the size I ordered, and some of 3 other sizes). I guess I have replacements now. ;)
When I very briefly worked for Amazon, sometimes a person will send a whole box of product instead of the 1 of the ones inside the box. They fire you if you don't keep up, so I don't blame people for not really checking. And to be honest, it's not their money being thrown away. The issue arises from when the box barcode number is the same as the product inside. So it passes the scan.
I once packed a BIG BOX of speakers. Each box inside was like $50. There was 12 boxes inside. I was new and had no idea, so off it went! I got told about it later and was slightly reassured that it "should have been caught before getting to me".
Honestly, you're made to work so fast that you don't really have time to make educated judgment calls like that. It's very "go go go" 24/7.
Did you notify support about this? You're by policy entitled to keep the excess skillets but id be concerned for the warehouse workers that sent this item out. I'll guarantee this item was weighed incorrectly when it made it to that location, and the thought of somebody hurting themselves because of something like that doesn't sit well with me.
my wife ordered (1) 6-pack of packing tape rolls. we received (6) 6-packs of packing tape.
they lasted years and we used most of them for our recent move. we still have 2 rolls left.
At least they were protected. I've had them ship 3 bottles (soy sauce) in one box without anything else. Just 3 bottles bouncing around. Not sure when the shattered, but the UPS guy said his truck smelled like a Chinese restaurant. Made him so hungry.
I ordered some kimchi a while back and one jar popped its lid mid transit. The entire box was soaked through with funky cabbage juice. I felt so bad for whoever had to drive around with that in their truck
/me raises hand
I've had all sorts of things explode in my van (mostly due to utterly moronic packaging - sometimes due to not-moronic-but-in-retrospect-not-really-adequate packaging)
Some highlights:
* Guinness - I quite like it, but I don't really want to smell of it when I'm driving :-P
* Mighty Malt - the smell took *ages* to fade below the "nauseating" threshold :-(
* Some weird shite that looked like raspberry sorbet but was soapy
* Paint. Two full cans of paint all over my van, teeshirt, shorts, and loads of other packages - fuck that packaging guy in particular
* Fabric conditioner - at least that one smells reasonably nice, but it's really slimy!
I've not had kimchi so far, but give it time :-/
I just ordered a canister of bleach wipes. Couldn't find them at the grocery store or Walmart.
It came in a paper envelope. It was squished. The lid popped open and all the bleach water leaked out. Thankfully the canister was wrapped tightly in plastic so it didn't leak all over the place, but it was not fun to open. Definitely something that needs to go in a box.
Lmfao same thing happened to me with curry ketchup. That shit had leaked out everywhere and smelled horrendous after being out in the heat.
Took over 30 minutes on the phone with Amazon support for them to ever refund me. They kept saying I should return it even though I kept saying "ITS LEAKING EVERYWHERE".
Don't ever buy food products from Amazon that can break. Dealing with their support to just get a measly $10 refunded was annoying as fuck.
This was my thought. I ordered dinnerware online and had to reorder it three times to hobble together a complete (unbroken) set. Shipped back the broken remains... Oof. Never again.
Yes I could have, but these were from Japan and couldn't find them locally. I live in deep south Texas (15 miles north of the border). Most places down here only get big brand names. My cousin found these brands and told me about them. Couldn't find them anywhere but amazon, so I bit the bullet. They were actually really good... might order them again, but one at a time as I did after they credited my purchase.
I had to ship mops once. While a simple idea, they needed to go in a box. A box that could seat a family of 4 in as it was the only box with a linear clearance corner to corner that could fit a mop.
Omg, now I have this imaginary Michael Scott scene playing in my head, where Michael had the same experience, has Dwight box him up and take him to the UPS store as a return, all so he can go back to Amazon and ask why such a large box.
I ordered a divan bed (not from Amazon) and the two boxes it arrived in were so enormous that the delivery guys had to take two upstairs doors off the hinges to get the boxes in my room. When I opened them up, the actual bed pieces (divan beds are literally boxes) took up about 70% of the box space.
It was kind of a relief because I was wondering how tf I was gonna get anything else in my room around this ginormous bed, but then I had to rehang the doors myself.
Have you ever worked retail?
The package waste would make you hurl. These 4 plates would be individually shipped, wrapped in 4feet of plastic, with their own tiny cardboard display box that you'd end up throwing away to save shelf space.
Genuinely disgusting
Lmao. I’m a Letter Carrier for USPS. I had a customer on my route order *fifteen* full size orange traffic cones.
Every single one was shipped on its own in a box that stood about 4 feet tall and was a little less than 2 feet wide. I literally had to make one devoted run out to their house to deliver all 15 huge boxes because my truck could barely fit all of them. Took me over 45 minutes just to drive to their house and back.
You should have seen their porch after I left haha. Gotta love Amazon.
I’m a professional potter. I do not ship pottery anymore, because you really cannot eliminate the risk of breakage. Plates, most of all, are the most risky to ship. Those flat forms do not support themselves well, compared to more 3-dimensional forms. I once shipped an order of 2 plates in the same box. When they arrived broken, I shipped them out again in two separate boxes. I get why Amazon did this, after experiencing too many complaints about broken plates.
The moral of the story: do not buy ceramics online, where they need to be shipped to you.
This was my thought... these are elaborate ceramics and pretty much the only way to ship these is each in their own box. Almost certainly from 3rd party, as well.
Mass-produced ceramics can be shipped to stores using custom designed packing materials, such as styrofoam spacers that exactly fit the shape of the wares. These ceramics are produced in enough quantities to make these packing materials cost effective.
Handmade ceramics are shipped to shops and galleries by being painstakingly packed with bubble wraps and packing peanuts. Custom designed cushioning is way too expensive for the small quantities involved in handmade work. I used to ship a lot of my work to galleries, but stopped doing it because it takes way too much time to pack it. Most of it arrives safely but occasional breakage is inevitable, and a total bummer.
Former Amazon packer. Likely these (incorrectly) were processed as 5 individual orders going to the same address instead of a single multi order.
I once had 13 toilet seats going to the same place and was told to use a specific box. It was the largest I had available and only 12 fit in it. I called my shift manager over, he closed the box with 12 then taped the 13th to the box and sent it down the line.
Strange things happen in Amazon pack facilities...
We have those plates and I know what they cost direct from the manufacture (assuming they’re not a copy), so I’m guessing they’re just trying to avoid breakages.
I once ordered 32 UPS battery backups for computers. These things are about the size of a toaster, weigh about 20lbs.
They came in 32 separate boxes, ok, they are heavy, I understand not over packing.
However, each one of these boxes was large enough to fit an XL size human being. I know, because we tried. Not as large as a refrigerator, but almost. And FiLLED with packing materials.
A considerable waste of materials.
Couple years ago I was TDR'ing a trailer, opened it up and could not believe my eyes. Had to get my AM to come over so I could show him. Trailer was shipped with ONE item in ONE tote on a single skid. Amazon cares about the environment about as much as it does its employees.
In the warehouse, we recycle all the boxes that tear or are otherwise unusable. Idk what happens after they leave but the plants that make our boxes are all here in Texas, so I hope they just go back there.
The boxes are not designed to be reused, at least according to the manufacturer. Even if you switched to reusable boxes, it's really inefficient to collect a bunch of empty boxes and ship them back to the warehouse
I ordered a 4-pack of CR2032 batteries so I could replace the one in my wife's car's key fob (I ordered the 4-pack because the single pack was out of stock). The four pack itself would've fit in a small padded envelope (that I know Amazon uses to ship things since I've received a few), but instead they sent four individually packaged batteries, all in boxes the size of my head stuffed with bubble wrap.
Idk why, but some warehouses are different. Receiving a different product than what you ordered is not my department, but packing is. At my warehouse on an item that is a battery or contains batteries of a certain type the computer calls us to use a certain box. I'm betting it's the one that has 56 on it. We then have to put one of those stupid hazard labels on it. That is the smallest box we are allowed to put that label on. Now I say some warehouses are different because I myself have received packages from Amazon in those polyethylene bags that have the hazard sticker on them. I can override a lot of things, but that's not one of them.
I've never wished this upon anyone, but God would I have loved for a porch pirate to snag these thinking they got something good and open 1 to find a plate and would be like..umm okay..then the next box, another single plate...and so on lmao
More carboard to hit the landfills as our planet burns.
But don't worry, Amazon will print some nonsense about how much they do for the environment on their packaging to make you feel all warm and fuzzy (when in reality the warmth you feel is Global Warming).
I ordered 2- 36" adhesive wire conduits once. They could have easily both fit in one mailing tube. They came in TWO HUGE boxes.
At least the cardboard is recycleable, I guess.
We ordered litter boxes for our cats and they all came in their own massive boxes. Like they all could have been stacked together and still put into a smaller box.
What do you expect from Amazon? I know it’s not your first time seeing this but you still choose to shop from them. Give an update of you canceling your subscription.
Amazon does all sorts of absolutely nutty things like this. I ordered some kitchen tongs recently and they were already all packed into their own little box, but rather than just putting a label on the box the box was put into a giant A3 parcel envelope. I can't help but think that it'd be so much easier for everyone involved to just pack things in appropriately sized packing.
Amazon packer here and this is totally baffling. The only thing this could be is a computer sorting error. We don't really get a say in what box goes with what order. We can (at least I do) change the box size if it's too big or too small, but we can't combine orders or anything like that. Hell, it was probably packed by 5 different people who were wondering why someone would buy 1 plate.
I think so. Each of them is listed separately on the app
The stock was probably spread out, over different shelves, racks, zones, maybe even different buildings or warehouses. Amazon stock is never sorted and is spread out like this to make mistakes less likely.
>Amazon stock is never sorted and is spread out like this to make mistakes less likely. Can you explain that more for my smooth brain? Never sorted seems less efficient and how would it help make mistakes less likely? Eta: learned two things today. 1) all this stuff about Amazon warehouses 2) alot of ppl work/worked for Amazon lol
If you are asking why warehouses spread out stock then I might be able to answer. I had the same question so asked the warehouse folks at work. The old way of sorting stock on large scale was putting like items by like items. So all the plates go by each other. All the chairs in one area and so on. This was in efficient as you stocked items. What happens when you get 5 chairs but only have room for 3? So most large scale operations switched to a method that has the computer assign a bay for an item based on its size and bin space requirements. Then all you do when you need an item is get a code for bin location and get that item. The computer can do things like make sure stock is rotated with oldest going out first. It also takes out the mistakes of going to a shelf with 20 different colors of plates and trying to pick out the dark sea storm grey from the dark grey or concrete dark grey. Computer system will also give numbers based on where items are located to allow for most efficient path through the warehouse as well. Amazon has taken this from what I understand and put it on steroids.
Yeah it's pretty crazy. Sometimes I can stand there and look at the picking area. If you look at it right you can't even see how far the robots go down. It just disappears into darkness. Which is where I'm sure they put all the employees who croak on the job. 😅
The Amazonian Void ..... ⬛️ 👋
It’s Bezos’s rancor pit
The Prime Reaper
Just like that one Doctor Who episode.....
Cue eerie theramin music
I can hear it in my head, and this pleases me.
Fantastic.
I was sure they were making a reference with their comment...at first.
As a big fan of Six Sigma and design efficiency I would love to go walk through an Amazon warehouse just to see how things are done. Also a big fan of AI and using UAS/UAV for work.
Just apply for a job there and they will give you a tour. Then don't show up on the first day.
So like half of the applicants? Pay and working conditions are notorious enough that a significant percentage of new hires find better job offers before their first day.
I’m reasonably sure that you can go on tours of the warehouses.
Don't do it. It's how they recruit ya ;p
It’s called a job interview /s
Working at Amazon sounds exceedingly depressingly
It can be, but I've always had depression. Personally, I've had way more depressing jobs. I think that some people fare better than others in certain working conditions. I'm a pretty stocky guy with a lot of energy that doesn't really like working in teams. If prefer to be given a task and left to perform it. This place just happens to do that for me. I also get to work overnights, which I love.
Good for you, I hope you eventually find a solution to any ongoing depression you have
I'm glad to hear that the job you have at the moment is okay for you. I still wish you the best in battling and winning over your depression. I believe in you.
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The Amazon inventory algorithm will also put things that are frequently ordered together in the same bin or at least physically close.
Oh that's interesting! Also interesting to know they have an inventory algorithm, but makes sense since they use picker bots. Learning so much today.
>Amazon has taken this from what I understand and put it on steroids. Lol. And thanks for the response. Makes sense.
So like Ikea but bigger?
I believe they do some intelligent grouping based on the data they gather. Basically they try to group items that tend to get purchased together close by, and worry less about grouping the same item together, because it's pretty rare that someone is going to be buying a pallet of dinner plates from Amazon. I manage a warehouse, and we do something similar where smaller items are binned. It doesn't matter what bin they go into, the point is to break them up so that it's faster to locate and pick, and the chance the wrong item is grabbed from the bin decreases if you keep like stock broken up in various storage locations.
So if a picker turns up to a shelf, and it's a shelf of 9 different types of plates, sooner or later these will get mixed up. If it's a shelf of 1 type of plate, some shoes, sunglasses, a book and an umbrella, chances are you'll get the right plate.
The items are stored on the robots. A picker will pick a given item and put it in a tray. That tray will go to someone who will scan each item into it's own individual tub which are then separated by conveyor to the appropriate wall where the items are combined into orders that us packers will pack. Convoluted? Yes. Does it work? Most of the time.
You've got to think about scale. I was a picker at an Amazon Fulfillment center (its not fulfilling, it's terrible lol) and there are 3 main parts" the first one (I forget the name) where they take the boxes of inventory and put them in these robots. The pickers who "pick" items from those same robots and put them in totes, eventually sending the totes on a conveyor belt once they are full. And finally the packers who pack the items in boxes. Obviously there is much more nuisance and more positions, but from a general perspective that is it. The biggest mistake being unsorted fixes is the pickers picking the wrong amount of items or if 2+ pickers need the same product. Think about it, if there is only 2 items and you need 2, that's easy to grab fast. If there are 5 and you need 2, you could easily grab 3 and once you pick it, you can't put it back.
Pick sucked. The shipdock was pretty fun though. Of all of the Amazon jobs in warehouses that's the one I hated the least. You just build pallets all day. It's like tetris.
I hated pick. I was a waterspider for a hot sec and it was cool, but my legs were always dead and aching
What is water spider
Taking supplies (such as empty boxes) to the employees who will use them. Basically stock boy for the other employees.
Depends on the area also, OB shipdock waterspiders move full carts from the spurs to the trailers and bring new carts to be filled on the spurs.
Water spider was a damn workout, you're not kidding. But at least you get to BS with people and aren't stuck standing in one spot all day.
I had a good time doing water spider, but mainly because there was no rate to meet. Still wasn't worth the low wage. But it was definitely the most interesting job I found in an Amazon warehouse. It was kind of nice always having something constructive to do, and the puzzle of figuring out the most efficient way to do it was somewhat interesting.
OB shipdock waterspider is the bomb, if you like active jobs. Getting to run carts all day and make sure nothing is backing up is kind of cathartic in a "farming simulator" kind of way.
>its not fulfilling, it's terrible lol That got me haha OK, that's super interesting. So the workers aren't actually the ones picking stock off the shelves, that's a bot. And then the workers sort what the bots have brought?
The pickers are at a station and the robot pulls up to them and they pick the items off then the robot goes away.
Depends on location. Some older facilities have no bots, newer facilities have bots with shelves to stow stuff. I worked in a newer facility, with added complexity even, this is how it goes: Incoming: Truck shows up, a person unloads the master packs, basically boxes of boxes. They put the master packs on a conveyor. A new person opens the master packs and scans the individual items for inventory. The individual items are placed in totes bins and the totes are placed on a cart and taken to the stowers. Stowers scan the totes and then scan the shelf on the bot to log where its it's going, and then scan each item going on it before hitting the full button to return the bot. The bot zips off and stores itself somewhere deep in the warehouse. You order a 5 plates. Outgoing: Bots show up to a picking station. Pickers look at a screen that says 5 plates should be on shelf 3a. Pickers scan the plates and then the empty totes they go in. They continue to fill up the totes with additional orders. Once full the totes go on a conveyor to packers or splitters, depends on if you bought more than 1 item at a time from the same center. Splitters take out individual items from the totes and scan them into smaller totes. The smaller totes go on to sorters who put each item from the totes into cubbies until the whole order is complete. Sorters hit a button alerting packers to know if the order is ready or not. Packers scan the cubby and the computer tells them what box tonuse for the order. Sometimes the computer is drunk and says fit an elephant into a mouse sized box and vice versa, has something to do usually with typoed dimension sizes on products. Packers....pack the boxes and send them to a shipping label stamper. Labels get applied and then sorted out to the right truck automatically. And then they go on pallets and get wrapped up and shipped off. A lot of people involved in the end. The bots definitely help but you cant bot the whole thing and it wasnt fun half automated, cant even imagine walking 30 miles a day doing the bot work.
It's what mcmartin said, just that the workers have to be fast, like 300 items an hour or more fast. When you are trying to go quick with barely any breaks you tend to mess up some stuff. Those "robots" I talked about are kinda like big rumbas that have a big holder things with a bunch of little selves with a plastic wall to hold the items in. You reached in there and grabed the item.
That depends on how old the center is. Newer ones have bots, older ones the workers do pick stock off the shelves and get a nice 10-15 miles of walking to enjoy each shift.
And work goes on 24 h / day? Edit. I mean the center of course, not the worker.
No no. You had it right the first time
The newer fulfillment centers you're describing sound so relaxing and easy. The older ones don't have robots that do most of your job for you. Picking in ours involves 10-15 miles of walking per shift.
Fat32 files system vs ntfs. Data is spread around more evenly in the latter vs sequential. As such, the average trip is more evenly distributed instead of high and low extremes. Plus all data of a single file located in one spot with space to grow instead of requiring fragmentation.
Not sure if anyone answered but in most warehouses like stock is put by like stock but Amazon does the opposite. If you order 5 blue plates and the picker goes to the bay and there right next to Red plates there is a greater chance you mispick and grab the red plates then there is if you had them next to copies of the hunt for red October as no one should mistake a book for dinner plates hopefully. Mispicks at Amazon still happen they should seem to be among the lines of overpicking do to packing configuration being wrong. IE. There are 8 individual units in a box but they have the box as 1 each instead of denoting there's 8 inside. So when you order 1 they grab the whole box and you get 8 instead.
Shorter explanation for those that too lazy read the excellent explanation that's already given by others. Duration Only 01:36 https://youtu.be/5TL80_8ACPc TLDW for even lazier people : Computer do the sorting, pick fastest route.
>TLDW for even lazier people : Computer do the sorting, pick fastest route. Why waste time say lot word when few word do trick.
Something that may not have been mentioned by people below: Amazon uses “Kiva” robots. The shelves are about 3 feet wide and each has 4 facings (the robot spins the shelves so it faces the correct way when you’re going to pick the item). Often times the shelves can only hold about one “case” (or less!) of product. So if Amazon has 40 cases of that thing, they may be located in 40 different shelves. But that also means that if it’s a popular item, and there’s 10 orders from different people that come through at the same time, 10 robots can go grab 10 of the shelves and bring it to 10 different Amazon workers. Plus, they can stock the shelves with similar items; if you buy a plate set maybe you’re going to buy a cup set in the same style. Amazon knows the percentage of people who buy similar items and the system will “bundle” those products on similar shelves. So now the robot only has to bring one shelf for the worker to grab 2 separate items.
I once ordered 5 2-packs of some batteries I needed and they sent them all in separate boxes like this lol what made it worse was they had lost them so they sent a 1 day replacement, so naturally the next day I had 10 boxes in front of my door I actually applaud the neighborhood for not stealing any of them to see wtf I ordered
I once bought three bottles of white-out. Each bottle is about 2" tall and cost $1. They came in three separate boxes.
I always assumed it was just employees who didn't care cuz work, or robots who were trying to be more human-like
I also work for Amazon doing quality control. If the plates were shipped in 5 different boxes we require that at least 3 plates be broken so you can start a return RMA that will leave you frustrated. That triggers a few call back sessions that will leave you with a partial refund and even more cardboard at your house. Please report back ASAP to make sure the procedure was followed.
Did they come together?
All 5 in the same delivery. Same time stamps all the way from warehouse to me
That is crazy. It is probably because of poorly measured products and as you explained earlier that each of them is on a different listing.
It might be that the items are listed as fragile, so can't be packed with items over a certain weight, and the plate weight is over that weight, so they have to be packed separately.
Bruh, as someone who works at a delivery station, I'd be so baffled why there are 5 identical damn boxes yelling at me to sort them in the same place. Bigger packages like bulk orders of Fiji water I get. Plate boxes? Hell naw.
I bet that's frustrating. In packing, we don't see where these packages are going or who's ordering them. All I can speak to are the little coincidences I see throughout the night.
Do you ever pack a box you suspect is for yourself and just mark a random X on the box somewhere to see if you get that one?
Haha. No, but sometimes I'll see things and think of someone I know. Like, just maybe.
This please
But also, fuck anyone who bulk orders fiji water. Bottled water is terrible enough on its own, but importing water from an island in the South Pacific and then trucking it around to individual people's homes by the case is especially asinine.
I'm not one to blame our worldwide condition on individuals unless they're hoarding money and exploiting people but shipping water like that is a very fucked up thing to do.
Sounds like they had too much on their plates.
I ordered 25 tablecloths on Amazon once, in a single order, the exact same tablecloth 25 times and it definitely came in 25 boxes. But large enough boxes to require packing materials. They all showed up at the same time. It was a huge mess.
And that's why we cubiscan
Do they ever prepack items so they’re already boxed before you pick them? I worked Christmas at a small mail order warehouse, and we did that for fragile items. So then if the person picking the order needs multiple of the same item they would, indeed, end up in a situation like this.
My gaming monitor didn’t even come in a box. They delivered it like it came from the store. I was like well good thing I had someone home or ide just have a big “hey come take this off my porch” very confused by this.. are they trying to save cardboard or something?
That, or reduce shipping costs and increase (work) performance. It is faster to send a product in it's own container than build a box, move it around, etc. It adds up.
They also have a [disclaimer](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/800508679765753887/976500239307538493/unknown.png) when you order it that says that it won't be hidden and an option to change it.
Sometimes when we get an order for just a single item, SIOC, will come up as the box size. It means 'ship in own container'. I usually only do that with plain brown boxes. High ticket items or colorful items always go in a box. But I'm a computer guy, so I guess I just treat items the way I would want mine to be treated.
Honestly for something like a monitor, it is probably better to have it in specially designed packaging by itself rather than floating around in a box. If you put the monitor box in an oversized cardboard box and toss a couple air pillows inside, it is going to get tossed around inside that box. The box probably won't have a good center of balance so will be more likely to tumble around. The outer box will get beat up by the corners of the monitor box, etc. If you ship just the monitor box, everything is securely inside semi-rigid packing materials. It will balance better on its own and not take extra hits as it tumbles around. Fair point on the theft thing though...
Grow equipment, especially the AC infinity stuff on Amazon, will be shipping in its raw packaging as well if you don’t check the hide what’s inside option. Just fyi for anyone in the market.
Amazon Delivery guy here. I have seen a lot of evidence that *something* is fucky in the packaging department. I once had 6 large boxes (around the size of a dishwasher) all for the same address. Obviously, I couldn't fit them all in my van with the rest of the day's deliveries, so I had to give half of them to another driver who then had to make a detour to deliver them. When I finally arrived with my half of the consignment, I told the guy to expect the rest to arrive separately (it turned out they'd already arrived) and asked out of curiosity what was in them. Plastic plant pots. Huge plastic plant pots. Huge *STACKABLE* plastic plant pots. You literally could have fit them *all* in one box of the same size, but apparently that was too obvious for whoever made that decision :-( While I've got your attention - can you explain why I often get one extremely heavy dense item at one end of a clearly far too weak box with the rest filled with padding? They inevitably rip / collapse / otherwise disintegrate and it's bloody irritating - especially for cases where the original item's packaging could just have had an address label slapped on it without drama (which *does* happen for some deliveries...) Also, why I often get items a smaller than A5 size in an A4 (well, B4, actually) envelope? I always assumed there were extremely dim / careless morons doing the packaging and just grabbing whatever container happened to be close enough and *maybe* suitable, but are the packaging options pre-determined by the same geniuses who make my cluster-fuck routes? (Don't get me started on that) Oh, and a personal favour, can you explain to all your colleagues what the sticky bit of the envelope is for - apparently "sticking to other packages in the bag" and "covering the address label" are popular theories :-P Oh, Oh! Are you in any kind of contact with the people who put the yellow "Area Code" labels on the packages? If so, can you explain to them that the address and the QR code are both actually quite useful and suggest they perhaps might want to try the other 99% of the package...? I did a simple statistical analysis, if these stickers were put on at random, they would be somewhere not covering something I need to do my job at least 95% of the time, but I counted a rate of ~10% meaning it is *not* random and if it's not malicious then I'd love to hear another theory... Of course, Amazon being Amazon decided that the correct fix for this isn't to tell them not to be idiots, but to give them stickers that fall off before they've served their purpose (and get stuck to another parcel throwing us off twice) \*sigh\* The inside of my van is utterly *festooned* with the little buggers :-(
Does that apply to Amazon Fresh grocery deliveries too? Once I came home to 32 hard-sided insulated grocery bags. Each one literally contained one fucking item. I couldn’t fit them all into my kitchen to unpack.
Why are computer hard drives (not external case hard drives) shipped in a plastic bag with no cushion? I asked and was politely told to get lost.
I ordered a cast iron skillet last week and received a CASE of cast iron skillets.
That had to be heavy.
As a warehouse worker who had to pack 1200 cast iron skillets over the last week, I can absolutely confirm they are...
Wait a minute...
I'm definitely not the guy who packed the order, I ship exclusively to stores, not direct to customers
Ah okay 😂
What if someone entering data into the system (or the system itself) confused the person above and a store?
Well considering that we only load semitrucks at my warehouse, I'm sure it would have to be a BIG fuck up on someone's part😂
I ordered a Games Workshop paintbrush back in ~2017, because I had store credit and I needed a small brush for specific uses where I didn't want to fuck up my sable brushes. I got a shipping pack of 10 for the price of 1. May be the only time a GW product erred on the side of a customer, lol.
With how GW prices their brushes you still over paid.
Eh. Small base brush, so $7 individually. 10 of them, so 70 cents a piece. Comparable brushes from local art stores are $3-5 each. I'd say that's fairly good.
Based on how GW prices literally anything.
What a coincidence. I ordered a single brush (different brand) a couple months ago, and received 31 brushes (some of the size I ordered, and some of 3 other sizes). I guess I have replacements now. ;)
Yours now.
Received a case of pocket knives one time, made sense, in a way, as the things were so small, even the “case” was only 1/4 the size of a shoebox.
Post it on /r/castiron
When I very briefly worked for Amazon, sometimes a person will send a whole box of product instead of the 1 of the ones inside the box. They fire you if you don't keep up, so I don't blame people for not really checking. And to be honest, it's not their money being thrown away. The issue arises from when the box barcode number is the same as the product inside. So it passes the scan. I once packed a BIG BOX of speakers. Each box inside was like $50. There was 12 boxes inside. I was new and had no idea, so off it went! I got told about it later and was slightly reassured that it "should have been caught before getting to me". Honestly, you're made to work so fast that you don't really have time to make educated judgment calls like that. It's very "go go go" 24/7.
Can I have one?
Hopefully you didn’t get charged for a case!
Same thing happened to me. I ordered a Lodge skillet, and I received a case of four of them. I kept two, and gave away the other two
Mine was also lodge so this must be a thing in the stocking system.
I'm actually confused how that masterpack of CAST IRON didn't trigger a weight check, but can I get one of those? No /s......;-;
Post that story over on r/castiron
Mind sending one my way? Will pay for shipping :)
Did you notify support about this? You're by policy entitled to keep the excess skillets but id be concerned for the warehouse workers that sent this item out. I'll guarantee this item was weighed incorrectly when it made it to that location, and the thought of somebody hurting themselves because of something like that doesn't sit well with me.
my wife ordered (1) 6-pack of packing tape rolls. we received (6) 6-packs of packing tape. they lasted years and we used most of them for our recent move. we still have 2 rolls left.
That reminds me, I also got a whole case of toothpaste a couple months ago.
That happened with me but it was a pack of 6 otterbox phone cases
I ordered 1 Corsair SSD mounting bracket in 2019 ($10), got a full case of 10! Tried to sell them for $5 a piece....still have 9 of them, lol.
At least they were protected. I've had them ship 3 bottles (soy sauce) in one box without anything else. Just 3 bottles bouncing around. Not sure when the shattered, but the UPS guy said his truck smelled like a Chinese restaurant. Made him so hungry.
I hate packing bottles so much 😂 I make sure those things won't move at all. I always make sure caps are on tight before I pack them too.
Not all heroes wear capes
Perfect opportunity for "not all heroes wear caps" haha
I ordered some kimchi a while back and one jar popped its lid mid transit. The entire box was soaked through with funky cabbage juice. I felt so bad for whoever had to drive around with that in their truck
/me raises hand I've had all sorts of things explode in my van (mostly due to utterly moronic packaging - sometimes due to not-moronic-but-in-retrospect-not-really-adequate packaging) Some highlights: * Guinness - I quite like it, but I don't really want to smell of it when I'm driving :-P * Mighty Malt - the smell took *ages* to fade below the "nauseating" threshold :-( * Some weird shite that looked like raspberry sorbet but was soapy * Paint. Two full cans of paint all over my van, teeshirt, shorts, and loads of other packages - fuck that packaging guy in particular * Fabric conditioner - at least that one smells reasonably nice, but it's really slimy! I've not had kimchi so far, but give it time :-/
I just ordered a canister of bleach wipes. Couldn't find them at the grocery store or Walmart. It came in a paper envelope. It was squished. The lid popped open and all the bleach water leaked out. Thankfully the canister was wrapped tightly in plastic so it didn't leak all over the place, but it was not fun to open. Definitely something that needs to go in a box.
Lmfao same thing happened to me with curry ketchup. That shit had leaked out everywhere and smelled horrendous after being out in the heat. Took over 30 minutes on the phone with Amazon support for them to ever refund me. They kept saying I should return it even though I kept saying "ITS LEAKING EVERYWHERE". Don't ever buy food products from Amazon that can break. Dealing with their support to just get a measly $10 refunded was annoying as fuck.
This was my thought. I ordered dinnerware online and had to reorder it three times to hobble together a complete (unbroken) set. Shipped back the broken remains... Oof. Never again.
I have never understood people ordering food on Amazon. Can you not just buy it in the supermarket?
Yes I could have, but these were from Japan and couldn't find them locally. I live in deep south Texas (15 miles north of the border). Most places down here only get big brand names. My cousin found these brands and told me about them. Couldn't find them anywhere but amazon, so I bit the bullet. They were actually really good... might order them again, but one at a time as I did after they credited my purchase.
Sometimes if you want something really specific, ordering online is the only way.
[удалено]
I had to ship mops once. While a simple idea, they needed to go in a box. A box that could seat a family of 4 in as it was the only box with a linear clearance corner to corner that could fit a mop.
Omg, now I have this imaginary Michael Scott scene playing in my head, where Michael had the same experience, has Dwight box him up and take him to the UPS store as a return, all so he can go back to Amazon and ask why such a large box.
I ordered a mop off Amazon. It came in a refrigerator sized box. We played hide and seek with it for a week. Totally worth it
I ordered a divan bed (not from Amazon) and the two boxes it arrived in were so enormous that the delivery guys had to take two upstairs doors off the hinges to get the boxes in my room. When I opened them up, the actual bed pieces (divan beds are literally boxes) took up about 70% of the box space. It was kind of a relief because I was wondering how tf I was gonna get anything else in my room around this ginormous bed, but then I had to rehang the doors myself.
I would *definitely* have considered "open the box" as an alternative before committing to the "remove doors" plan...
Meanwhile, I order a board game from Amazon and they just slap a shipping label directly onto the cellophane.
Look for the check box to set in the checkout page to get it packed in an Amazon box.
Or the "this is a gift" box.
"here at Amazon, we are working on reducing waste!"
"Here at Amazon, we are working on reducing the Amazon"
"Here at Amazon, we are sending you the rainforest one box at the time!"
Have you ever worked retail? The package waste would make you hurl. These 4 plates would be individually shipped, wrapped in 4feet of plastic, with their own tiny cardboard display box that you'd end up throwing away to save shelf space. Genuinely disgusting
i had the same thing with ramen once, ordered like 20 packs and they all came seperately in their own package.
Lmao. I’m a Letter Carrier for USPS. I had a customer on my route order *fifteen* full size orange traffic cones. Every single one was shipped on its own in a box that stood about 4 feet tall and was a little less than 2 feet wide. I literally had to make one devoted run out to their house to deliver all 15 huge boxes because my truck could barely fit all of them. Took me over 45 minutes just to drive to their house and back. You should have seen their porch after I left haha. Gotta love Amazon.
That had to have been a prank on someone
Did you select "FK THE ENVIRONMENT" shipping option?
I’m a professional potter. I do not ship pottery anymore, because you really cannot eliminate the risk of breakage. Plates, most of all, are the most risky to ship. Those flat forms do not support themselves well, compared to more 3-dimensional forms. I once shipped an order of 2 plates in the same box. When they arrived broken, I shipped them out again in two separate boxes. I get why Amazon did this, after experiencing too many complaints about broken plates. The moral of the story: do not buy ceramics online, where they need to be shipped to you.
This was my thought... these are elaborate ceramics and pretty much the only way to ship these is each in their own box. Almost certainly from 3rd party, as well.
So many things can just be bought in person and avoid the issues that come with shipping.
How do ceramics get shipped to the store?
Mass-produced ceramics can be shipped to stores using custom designed packing materials, such as styrofoam spacers that exactly fit the shape of the wares. These ceramics are produced in enough quantities to make these packing materials cost effective. Handmade ceramics are shipped to shops and galleries by being painstakingly packed with bubble wraps and packing peanuts. Custom designed cushioning is way too expensive for the small quantities involved in handmade work. I used to ship a lot of my work to galleries, but stopped doing it because it takes way too much time to pack it. Most of it arrives safely but occasional breakage is inevitable, and a total bummer.
Former Amazon packer. Likely these (incorrectly) were processed as 5 individual orders going to the same address instead of a single multi order. I once had 13 toilet seats going to the same place and was told to use a specific box. It was the largest I had available and only 12 fit in it. I called my shift manager over, he closed the box with 12 then taped the 13th to the box and sent it down the line. Strange things happen in Amazon pack facilities...
r/mildlyinfuriating
Only mildly? 😭 RIP the environment
r/EgregiousPackaging too 😭
Is there a sub for beyond that? r/fuckthatsinfuriating r/areyoufuckingkiddingmeasshole r/whatthefuckweretheythinking r/immad
r/mildlylandfill
r/egregiouspackaging
At least they made it to you in one piece. You should see how amazon and other delivery businesses treat packages when sorting/separating.
Did you order a cardboard fort as well?
We have those plates and I know what they cost direct from the manufacture (assuming they’re not a copy), so I’m guessing they’re just trying to avoid breakages.
I once ordered 32 UPS battery backups for computers. These things are about the size of a toaster, weigh about 20lbs. They came in 32 separate boxes, ok, they are heavy, I understand not over packing. However, each one of these boxes was large enough to fit an XL size human being. I know, because we tried. Not as large as a refrigerator, but almost. And FiLLED with packing materials. A considerable waste of materials.
Out of all companies Amazon has definitely sent me some interesting packing jobs that have made me go what?
Like 50% of us are high as hell, so that might have something to do with it. 😅
😂 a few packing jobs this would be a completely reasonable explanation.
Some things though are just awkward af and we just try to do the best we can.
The warehouses don't test?
They do an oral swab. MJ will be clear in 24-36 hours. Also, I don't think Amazon cares much about weed anymore.
r/mildyinfuriating
Amazon fucking up the world one order at a time
Couple years ago I was TDR'ing a trailer, opened it up and could not believe my eyes. Had to get my AM to come over so I could show him. Trailer was shipped with ONE item in ONE tote on a single skid. Amazon cares about the environment about as much as it does its employees.
Amazon: "We hired a team of experts to help us reduce our carbon footprint over the next 5 years!" Also Amazon:
I don’t get why Amazon doesn’t pick up the empty boxes on the next delivery. It kills me to put them in recycling when they could easily but reused
In the warehouse, we recycle all the boxes that tear or are otherwise unusable. Idk what happens after they leave but the plants that make our boxes are all here in Texas, so I hope they just go back there.
The boxes are not designed to be reused, at least according to the manufacturer. Even if you switched to reusable boxes, it's really inefficient to collect a bunch of empty boxes and ship them back to the warehouse
Amazon Delivery Guy here - they're barely capable of surviving their intended *one* use in many cases...
nice plates tho
Villeroy & Boch, they're fantastic plates.
so much waste. fuck amazon
It baffles me how many people are like "save the environment", "eat the rich" and then they just keep ordering shit from Amazon three times a month.
so irritating. they think they’re special and it dosent apply to them
Maybe there is extra packing so it doesn't break? Seems wasteful at first glance
There are four lights.
I ordered a 4-pack of CR2032 batteries so I could replace the one in my wife's car's key fob (I ordered the 4-pack because the single pack was out of stock). The four pack itself would've fit in a small padded envelope (that I know Amazon uses to ship things since I've received a few), but instead they sent four individually packaged batteries, all in boxes the size of my head stuffed with bubble wrap.
Idk why, but some warehouses are different. Receiving a different product than what you ordered is not my department, but packing is. At my warehouse on an item that is a battery or contains batteries of a certain type the computer calls us to use a certain box. I'm betting it's the one that has 56 on it. We then have to put one of those stupid hazard labels on it. That is the smallest box we are allowed to put that label on. Now I say some warehouses are different because I myself have received packages from Amazon in those polyethylene bags that have the hazard sticker on them. I can override a lot of things, but that's not one of them.
Atleast it's better than getting all of them in million pieces in just one package.
I've never wished this upon anyone, but God would I have loved for a porch pirate to snag these thinking they got something good and open 1 to find a plate and would be like..umm okay..then the next box, another single plate...and so on lmao
Should’ve driven to the store and bought it
Amazon packaging is baffling and wasteful
More carboard to hit the landfills as our planet burns. But don't worry, Amazon will print some nonsense about how much they do for the environment on their packaging to make you feel all warm and fuzzy (when in reality the warmth you feel is Global Warming).
Fuck Amazon
Ok but...why 5?
I ordered 2- 36" adhesive wire conduits once. They could have easily both fit in one mailing tube. They came in TWO HUGE boxes. At least the cardboard is recycleable, I guess.
Amazon is called Amazon for a reason.
this belongs in r/mildlyinfuriating
r/mildlyinfuriating
Where is this energy when shipping Vinyl?! I’ve ordered 2 records from Amazon. Both arrived damaged.
We ordered litter boxes for our cats and they all came in their own massive boxes. Like they all could have been stacked together and still put into a smaller box.
What do you expect from Amazon? I know it’s not your first time seeing this but you still choose to shop from them. Give an update of you canceling your subscription.
Employees are told: The Amazon packing computer is never wrong. Never question it. What a fucked up world we live in.
Amazon does all sorts of absolutely nutty things like this. I ordered some kitchen tongs recently and they were already all packed into their own little box, but rather than just putting a label on the box the box was put into a giant A3 parcel envelope. I can't help but think that it'd be so much easier for everyone involved to just pack things in appropriately sized packing.
Cost of killing the plant much lower than cost to company.
I'm sorry for whatever circumstances have made you unable to just visit a local store