Fired at the end of the year, Amazon operations officer forced to work in a factory

As the traditional peak season draws to a close, more and more Amazon operators are beginning to voice out their concerns about the low order volume and the inability to continue their work. Resignations and layoffs are happening one after another in the industry.

Being fired at the end of the year, the operation decided to work in the factory until the New Year

In early December, the temperature in Guangzhou was still humid and hot, with no sign of winter at all. However, Amazon operations manager Zhang Chao felt the cold winter of his career early on.

As usual, Zhang Chao sat down at his workstation before 8:30. Just as he was about to start his day's work, a sudden message from the HR department made him feel nervous.

Although he had anticipated this, the day of layoffs still caught Zhang Chao off guard. Three people in his group and 10 people in two other groups were also laid off.

I said I had a premonition because the recent performance was really bad. The boss often mentioned that the company's performance was not good and that it might need to optimize its personnel. But Zhang Chao did not associate this with himself at the time. After all, he was also a veteran in the team. Although the performance was not as good as in previous years, it was not to the point of being a drag.

Receiving the layoff notice at such an awkward time put Zhang Chao in a dilemma: if he went back to his hometown and started looking for a job after the New Year, the interval seemed a bit long, but it was obviously not easy to find a proper job now.

In fact, there have been quite a few similar news reports recently. A large number of cross-border workers seem to have become accustomed to the phenomenon of "layoffs" and even optimistically express that being laid off is better than voluntarily laying off.

Among those who were laid off, some chose to take the compensation and return to their hometowns to spend the New Year peacefully, while some decided to work in factories as a transitional job, trying to work until before New Year's Eve before returning home.

As a worker with elderly parents and young children to support, Zhang Chao finally decided to stay. After browsing various job recruitment information, he finally chose a warehouse in Nansha District of Guangzhou for a certain cross-border e-commerce platform. Zhang Chao thought that in a sense, this was not leaving his old business.

The recruitment information shows that the normal working hours are from 8 am to 8 pm every day, with a guaranteed monthly salary of 6,600 yuan , and additional overtime pay for overtime. More importantly, the requirements for entering the T platform factory are not high, and no physical examination is required. In comparison, SHEIN's factory requires a physical examination and the requirements are more stringent.

After a simple interview process, Zhang Chao had to face the job selection stage before entering the factory. Many of the people who interviewed with him came from warehouses of JD.com, SHEIN or other large factories. They were already familiar with the work processes and positions and had already chosen their positions early on.

Zhang Chao seemed a little confused. Finally, under the advice of an enthusiastic brother, he chose the "seeding" position suitable for newcomers. The so-called sowing is to sort different items and then hand them to the scanner, acting as an intermediary.

At first, Zhang Chao was a little overwhelmed by the overwhelming packages. But soon, he had completely adapted to the rhythm of the work, and the packages of different sizes were quickly sorted into different baskets after passing through his hands.

Sometimes he would feel dazed as the orders that used to pop up on the computer screen one after another were now "sent back" to him in this form.

When he is not so busy, Zhang Chao will also chat with the workers in the same group. After learning that his last job was in a high-end office building, many of them cast envious glances at him, saying with emotion that "it is better to have an academic degree" and "working in an office is decent and the salary is high."

But Zhang Chao was embarrassed to say that the salary at that time was not much higher than that in the factory. When asked how much money other people could make working here in a month, some said that there were fewer goods recently, so the salary was not very high. If they came during Black Friday, it would be no problem to make more than 10,000 yuan a month.

Thinking that he would probably lose his commission during Black Friday, Zhang Chao even felt a little annoyed that he had not been laid off earlier so that he could at least catch up with the factory's "Black Friday Carnival".

Physical labor is also difficult to do, and cross-border people face difficulties in transformation

On major social media platforms, more and more young people who "don't want to use their brains" have posted about their new jobs. Some quit ByteDance and went to sell lunch boxes on the street, some quit big companies and went to work as salespeople at Lululemon, and some even got a cleaning job at the age of 23. Netizens said that they had saved 40 years of detours.

Behind this phenomenon, it reflects that young people today are rebelling against various weekly reports, PPTs and workplace culture, and hope to temporarily escape from mental exhaustion through physical labor that does not require brainpower.

However, is physical labor really the ideal destination for modern young people?

After finishing a day's work, Zhang Chao hesitated whether to come the next day. After standing for more than ten hours, Zhang Chao's feet and entire back were already stiff and sore, but his hands could not stop moving for a moment.

In the huge factory building, the strong light overhead mixed with the dust in the air made it a little hard to breathe. Many people wore masks, and Zhang Chao, who had just arrived, could only hold his breath as much as possible, and when he couldn't hold it any longer, he coughed hard a few times.

In addition, there is basically no proper rest time in the factory except for eating, not even time to go to the toilet. Therefore, although his mouth was dry, Zhang Chao did not dare to drink more water.

Finally, it was time to get off work, and Zhang Chao walked out of the warehouse with heavy feet, feeling a little confused. From internship to formal work, Zhang Chao had long been accustomed to the life of sitting in the office, and the soaring work intensity after entering the factory made him want to quit, but thinking of the three-day unpaid trial period for new employees, he was a little unwilling, and gritted his teeth and decided to persevere.

In addition to Zhang Chao, many cross-border e-commerce practitioners will choose to work in large cross-border companies they are more familiar with when they encounter a gap in their careers. Although they are all working in factories, they psychologically feel that they have not left this industry.

Of course, there are also many workers who hope to jump out of this circle and change their career path while they are still young. On a certain book platform, many Amazon operators asked a soul-searching question: What else can a 30-year-old operator do if he wants to change his career?

Indeed, judging from the current workplace environment, apart from those who have entered management and those who have resigned to work on their own, there are indeed not many grassroots operators over the age of 30. Age anxiety has become a hurdle that many workers cannot overcome.

In the future, whether it is giving up this industry and starting over in other fields, or working hard to make a breakthrough in their own position, or escaping from the workplace and embracing physical labor, workers need to think carefully and be responsible for their choices.

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