Mac McClelland recently did some investigative warehouse job reporting in the mid west for Mother Jones. I worked at a place like this for ten years. My wife and I got to know each other while applying price labels to CD orders for Hastings, Borders Books and Music, and Amazon when they first started selling music back in the 90s. This was before the Internet really killed the brick and mortar stores, but we still had an 80% turnover rate, worked 10 to 12 hour days 6 to 7 days a week, and were under similar pressure to make our numbers. I still have nightmares about bending over 10,000 times a day.

I made it out to the IT department by the time they implemented all the totes, scanners, conveyers and really ramped up production, though. Picking and shipping large 1,000 to 10,000 item orders requires much less logistics than millions of 1 to 3 item orders.

This article hits a little too close to home for me. I think it may have soiled my day.