LogFAQs > #924109395

I didn't watch the video because it's irrelevant compared to actual experience, so I'm going to touch on a few things that are exaggerated in this topic. I worked in an Amazon FC for 1.5 years back in 2011. The facility was brand new.

There are 5 main job positions in a warehouse:

Receiving - Just as it sounds. They unpack everything and prep it for being stocked by placing items into large yellow totes onto tall standing carts for the stockers. The work area is decent sized, but most of these guys aren't busting their asses walking around.

Stockers - They wheel the big carts with totes on them up and down the aisles, filling empty bin locations with product for Pickers. They walk a decent amount, but tend to stand in the same location for longer periods of time because they fill any bins they can find with product. Stockers have quotes, but they aren't terrible to maintain from what I remember.

Pickers - Physically the hardest job in the warehouse. You push a really small cart with up to 2 yellow totes on it in an area with bins that's around a football field size and 3-stories tall. There are generally 2 of these picking areas in a facility. No, you do not constantly go back and forth from them. That is not how the system assigns pick paths because it's inefficent and makes for shitty productivity. Generally if a Picker gets shifted to the other side of the warehouse to pick it's because there is currently nothing left to pick in the specific area they were picking at and the other Pickers on that side already have the other products yet to be picked, covered. In some cases there are just bad pick paths made by the system because of how the product is spread out or because it's a slow day. Managers can tell when Pickers are having to constantly shuffle around from side to side or even from floor to floor and a Manager worth their shit will say something to the IT department without the Picker having to bring it up with them so it can be looked into.

Pickers have the worst quotes to make and things like pick paths and the kind of product you are picking (large items as opposed to small items) can either make or break you. The quota back when I was on was 100 items per hour. Overall, it's not that hard to make the quota unless you're out of shape or don't give a shit about making quota, but you will be walking a lot. I know some people walked 10+ miles on any given day as Pickers. It's rough on the feet. (Just for reference, I made quota the 2nd day on the job. They slowly build you up to 100 per hour. I think its like 70 first week, 80, 90 then 100)

Packers - These guys probably have the 2nd hardest job. Despite standing in one place for most of their shift, packing is extremely tedious and their quotas are pretty high, but not as bad as Pickers.

Shipping - Easiest mainstream job hands down. You load the shit into trucks. What more needs to be said? lol

Most Amazon FC's now a days are a mirror image if you split it in half. So there are 2 receiving, 2 picking areas, 2 pallet areas and 2 forklift areas in the warehouse and then generally there's a large elevated concrete "floor" in the middle where all the packing is done with shipping at the back of the warehouse behind the elevated flooring area.