The Daily Valet. - 11/26/19, Tuesday
✔️ The Cost of Online Shopping and the Love of Dogs
Tuesday, November 26th Edition
Who else is happy it’s finally “sweata weatha”?
Cory Ohlendorf , Editor ⋯ @coryohlendorf
Today’s Big Story
Amazon Workers Are Protesting for Improvements
This holiday season, Amazon will move millions of packages at dizzying speed ... but at what cost?
Amazon workers protested Monday night in the New York City borough of Staten Island, outside one of the company's most productive fulfillment centers. The demonstration marked a significant escalation between frustrated workers and the online retailer.
Workers delivered a petition signed by more than 600 local employees demanding better working conditions, better transit options and breaks extended from 15 minutes (which workers say is eaten up by walking through the vast facility to the break room). This comes less than a week before the most grueling time of the year for any retailer, but especially for Amazon, as more and more of us rely on the company for its ease and speed.
But the workers say they each package about four online orders every minute and if they stop for a few seconds outside of their designated breaks, it hurts their performance evaluations. Newly leaked company documents reveal that injury rates at the warehouse, known as JFK8, are over three times the industry average, reports Gizmodo. What’s unclear is if these numbers are at all anomalous compared to Amazon’s other facilities.
The data shows that Amazon workers in Staten Island face greater risks of serious injury than coal miners, loggers and city waste collectors. The injury rate at JFK8 is roughly three times the national average for warehouse workers, according to a copy reviewed by Motherboard.
Yet safety complaints about Amazon aren’t unusual. In 2016, the US Occupational Safety & Hazards Administration fined Amazon $7,000 for not recording about two dozen worker injuries at a warehouse in New Jersey.
As the Atlantic put it, "Amazon's speed and technological innovation have driven the company’s massive global expansion and a valuation well over $800 billion. It’s made Amazon the nation’s second-largest private employer behind Walmart and its CEO, Jeff Bezos, one of the richest humans on Earth." Surely, they have the resources to streamline their processes while valuing the humans working for them. But this is clearly a story that will continue to develop.
↦ FYI: According to a Morgan Stanley analysis, the typical order for one-day shipping is $8.32, and Amazon spends $10.59 to fulfill and ship it, meaning the company loses money on many sales.
What’s Next in the Impeachment Inquiry?
Impeachment investigators will complete a report after Thanksgiving
The impeachment inquiry into President Trump will soon move to its next phase. House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff announced in a letter Monday that work had begun on a report summarizing the inquiry’s findings so far. This report, he said, would be “transmitted to the Judiciary Committee soon after Congress returns from the Thanksgiving recess.”
While the House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs, and Oversight committees have so far led the impeachment inquiry, the Judiciary Committee is tasked with holding its own set of hearings and drafting articles of impeachment for the full House to then consider, reports the Wall Street Journal.
After all, there are likely still plenty of questions to be asked. But the decision to press ahead quickly means that Democrats are making a calculated decision to forgo opportunities to obtain more testimony and records that are relevant to their inquiry.
Their decision to do so, even though hardly any Republicans have shown support for the impeachment inquiry, is essentially an admission that they will not actually manage to remove Trump from office, reports Vox. And that they doubt any newly unearthed facts would change that outcome.
Serial’s Murder Case Will Not be Heard by Supreme Court
Adnan Syed will be staying in jail
The US Supreme Court said Monday that it will not hear the appeal of Adnan Syed, the incarcerated subject of the first season of the Serial podcast we were all addicted to a few years ago. Despite his conviction being vacated in 2016 when a new trial was ordered (citing an alibi witness that was never originally explored), the Maryland Court of Appeals in March 2019 reinstated the conviction and said Syed would not receive a new trial, reports NPR.
“We’re deeply disappointed that the Supreme Court is not taking this case,” Syed’s attorney, told the Baltimore Sun. “But, by no means, is this the end." Brown said legal options remain available to Syed’s defense team. He declined to say what will come next. The 39-year-old Woodlawn man has been serving a life sentence since 2000, when he was convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend.
↦ No Deal: An HBO documentary about Syed revealed earlier this year that prosecutors offered a plea deal that would've resulted in his release. Syed refused because he would've had to admit to the killing.
Dogs Are Lovers
But do our good boys and girls love us as much as we think?
New research points to an alarming realization: that our dogs might not be entirely obsessed with us. (Except my dog, right? Because she constantly follows me around and is begging for some playtime as I type this.)
What if there isn't some special human-dog bond? What if dogs love practically every species they come into contact with, be it a dolphin or a giraffe?
Clive Wynne, a well-respected dog behavior specialist, explained to the New York Times that dogs have “an abnormal willingness to form strong emotional bonds with almost anything that crosses their path.” And they maintain this throughout their lives. Above and beyond that, dogs have a willingness and an interest to interact with strangers—a trait that has helped them thrive compared to other animal species.
Wynne's research even uncovered genes in dogs that are associated with rare “indiscriminate friendliness” in humans. What does this mean? Thousands of years of domestication have bred so many good dogs that the dog genome has actually changed to make them even more amenable.
↦ FYI: Gregory Berns, a neuroeconomist at Emory University, found that, given a choice, some dogs prefer their owners to food.
Other Things We’re Talking About Today
+
Do I Really Need Another Credit Card?
Apple Card users now get cash back from Nike
I swore I wouldn't get Apple's in-house credit card simply because it was shiny and new and Apple said it was unlike anything on the market. Even though that's usually enough to get me to buy one of their products.
But the Apple Card is getting harder to ignore. Nike has just announced that they are the latest retailer to offer Apple Card users 3% cash back on purchases, joining Uber, Walgreens and T-Mobile. Tech Crunch reports that the cash back applies to in-store and online purchases, as well as the Nike app and training clubs. You even get money back at SNKRS—Nike's home to highly coveted new kicks—should you be fortunate enough to actually make a purchase.
Since the card debuted in August, Apple has been steadily expanding the number of retailers and apps that offer cash back to cardholders, giving the company a larger foothold not just in online and mobile payments, but physical retail sales as well. In October, Apple CEO Tim Cook said Apple Pay transaction volume was bigger than PayPal and was growing four times as fast.
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Morning Motto
Lead by example and show people the way ...
↦ Follow: @werenotreallystrangers
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