I'm currently reading Jonathan Taplin's Move Fast and Break Things, which I feel should have the subtitle, Actually, Tech Companies Are Bad And Things Were Better When People Did LSD And There Were No Libertarians.* I was especially amused by Taplin's faux-horror here:
https://twitter.com/SonnyBunch/status/866975737336782848
I mean, if I could do this to people who steal movies or music online, I would totally do it. I'm sure Taplin would too! Name and shame those who steal; it's more efficient than throwing them all in prison and serves as a warning to those similarly inclined. (Though one wonders if it would have any real effect upon online piracy, given its ubiquity and the fact that the Amazon's shaming comes with actual consequences, e.g., job/income loss. The "This shithead stole movies" stamp would probably become a badge of honor for a certain subset of Internet dickheads.)
Anyway, I don't think Amazon goes far enough! Photos of people with "TERMINATED" stamped on them is a good start. But there's so much more they could do! For instance, any and/or all of the following should be implemented:
- Those caught stealing are forced to do a skit about why stealing is wrong whilst being pelted by batteries taken from the battery aisle of the warehouse; the worker who throws the biggest battery wins a $5 Amazon gift card.
- The walk of shame from Game of Thrones, but through the frozen food section of the warehouse. More emasculating.
- Thief moved from the Amazon warehouse to any random slaughterhouse in the country to see what real hardship is like.
- Force thief to review all one star reviews for grammar and/or capitalization. If they do not go mad within the first 12 hours, reassign them to the C suite.
- Cut off the hands of those who steal from Jeff Bezos. Nail those hands to the door of each warehouse as a warning to the others.
- Heads of thieves removed, placed on pikes on warehouse floors as a warning to others. (h/t)
- Thieves locked in rooms playing nothing but Baby Einstein clips over and over and over again. If they do not go mad within the first 12 hours, reassign them to the warehouse's daycare.
- (lol there's no daycare)
- (lol they're actually exiled to an alternate dimension haunted by the scarred vestiges of defeated dreams)
- (lol Bezos acquired this dimension in a little-known merger five years or so ago; monetizing it has been a bit of a challenge so, for now, it's more useful as a holding pen for wicked employees)
- Thieves are held until there are enough of them to mount a WWE-style Royal Rumble for the entertainment of Peter Thiel and his fellow tech billionaires. First prize is a Cadillac El Dorado. Second prize is a set of knives. Third through thirty prize is a trip to the Dimension of Defeated Dreams.
Look, theft is a real problem in warehouse settings and anything Amazon can do to keep my costs down, I appreciate. After all, I'm not going to save $2 on a copy of Taplin's book if every jackaninny with access to Amazon's warehouse floors is just walking out the door with all manner of stuff, am I?
*This is an only-very-slightly-tongue-in-cheek description of the first third of the book, which is all I've read so far. I might write more later after I've finished the whole thing. I might not. I'm sympathetic to Taplin's complaint about the Internet harming artists and have written about this at great length elsewhere; I'm far less sympathetic to the idea that Amazon et al are imperiling democracy. Indeed, I think there's a deep contradiction at the heart of Taplin's argument that, on the one hand, monied technocratic elites are crushing democracy while simultaneously decrying the fact that Donald Trump (for whom I have no love, as you know) circumvented or appropriated gatekeepers to appeal to the people. If anything, the election of Donald Trump (assuming you don't support him) seems to confirm Peter Thiel's skepticism of the demos (even as Thiel himself supports Trump). Maybe Taplin squares that circle later in the book, I'll let you know.