Culture Amazon Introduces Tiny ‘ZenBooths’ for Stressed-Out Warehouse Workers - The AmaZen meditation booth is a small room where employees can watch company videos about mindfulness while a small fan moves the air around

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www.vice.com

Amazon Introduces Tiny ‘ZenBooths’ for Stressed-Out Warehouse Workers

The AmaZen meditation booth is a small room where employees can watch company videos about mindfulness while a small fan moves the air around.
www.vice.com www.vice.com

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In one of its most dystopian moves yet, Amazon is introducing tiny booths where its overworked warehouse employees can momentarily escape a job so grueling, many employees say they don't feel like they have enough time to even use the bathroom.

The "ZenBooth'' or "Mindful Practice Room," as it's called, is part of the WorkingWell program Amazon announced on May 17. According to an Amazon press release, WorkingWell is a mix of "physical and mental activities, wellness exercises, and healthy eating support” meant to “help them recharge and reenergize." One of the WorkingWell initiatives is AmaZen, which “guides employees through mindfulness practices in individual interactive kiosks at buildings,” according to a press release.

What this looks like in reality is a coffin-sized booth in the middle of an Amazon warehouse where workers can use a computer to view "mental health and mindful practices."



Based on a video released on an Amazon Twitter account, plants sit on a shelf and a fan runs to cool down the employee. The skylight on top is tinted blue. Pamphlets and signs adorn the walls. A computer waits for the employee to load up a guided meditation video.

“With AmaZen I wanted to create a space that’s quiet, that people could go and focus on their mental and emotional well-being,” Leila Brown, the Amazon employee who invented the booth said in the video. “The ZenBooth is an interactive kiosk where you can navigate through a library of mental health and mindful practices to recharge the internal battery.”

Brown is giving away the game by using the language of machines. A worker is not a robot with a battery that needs to be charged. A worker is a human who needs things Amazon simply does not provide its workers. Amazon drivers piss in bottles and shit in bags. Amazon drivers sued for being paid less than minimum wage and fought against an initiative to install surveillance cameras in their cars.

Facing increased pressure from within and without due to its horrifying working conditions, Amazon has tried to clean up its image in the past year. It rebranded its brutal 10-and-a-half hour “megacycle” shift to “single cycle” after workers protested. AmaZen, like much of what Amazon is doing, is putting a new coat of paint on the same old shitty system.

Motherboard reached out to Amazon to find out when, exactly, its overworked staff is supposed to use the AmaZen booth. Is it during their notoriously short breaks? Should they break off five minutes of their lunch to stare at another Amazon computer screen?

Amazon did not immediately respond to Motherboard's request for comment.

Bruh. You know you dun goofed when Vice, of all media outlets (if you could call them that) are roasting your shitty idea. :story:

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Good thing that when Buddha on his death bed acknowledged that his ways were also potentially fallable in the fleeting world, he cared more about compassion and for others to not be mislead into illusions that his teachings could create.

From this, "If you meet Buddha down your path, kill him." And by Buddha I mean Amazon, and by kill him I mean kill in Minecraft the video game that is only a video game and not real life.
 
Zelos Wilder said:
Holy fuck we're actually heading towards the pod people memes
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If only you knew how bad things really are.

In the meantime, even though they have deleted the tweet, the mention is still there on their page:

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www.aboutamazon.com

Safety at Amazon

Our employees are the heart of Amazon. This is why safety is integral to everything we do, and it’s why we work closely with health and safety experts and scientists, and conduct thousands of safety inspections each day in our buildings.
www.aboutamazon.com www.aboutamazon.com

And also,

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WorkingWell is a new program that helps Amazon employees focus on their physical and mental well-being.

The health and safety of our employees has always been Amazon’s top priority. We work closely with health and safety experts and scientists. We conduct thousands of safety inspections each day in our buildings. And we’ve made hundreds of changes as a result of employee feedback on how we can improve their well-being at work.
Our latest example is WorkingWell, a new program developed by some of Amazon’s 6,200 employees dedicated to global workplace health and safety. WorkingWell uses scientifically proven physical and mental activities, wellness exercises, and healthy eating habits to help recharge and reenergize the body, and ultimately reduce the risk of injury for operations employees.
To help highlight the new program, we’re sharing the stories of three women who support WorkingWell and are helping us with Amazon’s vision to be Earth’s Safest Place to Work.

Leila Brown, workplace health and safety program manager, AmaZen​

Almost five years ago, Leila Brown joined Amazon to help develop a health and wellness-focused approach to prevent and heal from injuries. With a background in sports medicine, Brown used her expertise as an athletic trainer and her personal passion in alternative therapies to create AmaZen—a mindfulness practice offered through WorkingWell.
AmaZen focuses on mindfulness exercises and is currently available through self-service kiosks. Employees can watch short videos featuring easy-to-follow well-being activities, including guided meditations, positive affirmations, and calming scenes with sounds.
Brown first rolled out AmaZen as a pilot program in on-site clinic spaces so employees could focus on and improve their health and wellness. To help raise awareness and encourage employee participation, she brought AmaZen to the production floor.
Brown is now brainstorming with fellow Amazon employees who practice mindfulness and yoga to help expand AmaZen.
“At Amazon, I get to do what I love,” said Brown. “Every day I get to use my knowledge and skill set to work with creative people to create something great for employees.”
Brown hopes to continue expanding and growing the program, and to potentially offer it to other companies so their employees can also benefit from the program.

Danielle Roland, Amazon injury prevention specialist​

Danielle Roland’s career has long focused on supporting and improving on-site employee health and safety. She worked at several physical therapy clinics across automotive and manufacturing facilities before coming to Amazon, where she was excited to take on a new role and make a positive impact.

With a degree and certification in athletic training, Roland utilizes the latest developments in body mechanics and safety training to support employees. Her work includes helping leaders with Health & Safety Huddles, one-on-one wellness coaching with employees, and designing and adjusting employee workstations for the best ergonomics. Roland plays a critical role in ensuring employees stay safe and healthy.
Roland was an athlete growing up and previously owned a personal training business working with collegiate and high school athletes. She knows first-hand how an injury can change someone’s life, and she now dedicates her time to helping keep people safe.

“Health and physical fitness has always been a big part of my life, as has helping others achieve individual health—whether that’s making sure they stay safe at work or practice healthy at-home wellness,” said Roland. “It’s so rewarding to me. It makes me feel like I have a real purpose.”

Chandni Chandihok, workplace health and safety product manager, WorkingWell mobile app​

With a background in customer-facing mobile app development, Chandni Chandihok hadn’t considered a career in employee health and safety. However, when she came across the job listing to join Amazon and create the first-ever Amazon app dedicated to improving the overall well-being of employees, she jumped at the opportunity.

After starting at Amazon last year, Chandihok knew she’d need to dive deep into everything—from fulfillment to delivery—to develop a beneficial app for operations employees. She and her team reviewed feedback from hundreds of employees to see what content and features they’d like, how and where would they would use the app, and more.

Working backwards from what employees needed, Chandihok mapped out the framework of a multi-faceted app that provided content focused on safety, health, and wellness through interactive podcasts, videos, and more.

“Having studied computer science, people may assume I’m more focused on the technology than on employees. But with the WorkingWell mobile app, that’s not the case,” Chandihok said. “I developed this app with employees, for employees. I want to make sure it’s not only easy to use but that it’s beneficial, whether someone is starting their health and wellness journey or continuing their safety education. I care deeply about supporting employees, which is why this is so rewarding for me.”

The WorkingWell mobile app will soon roll out to all U.S. employees providing at-home access to all of the on-site safety, health, and wellness offerings in Amazon buildings. The offerings include AmaZen, EatWell, Mind and Body Moments, and more. Chandihok has designed the app to help facilitate proactive wellness behaviors like stretching and muscle recovery, mindfulness exercises, and body mechanics coaching. Chandihok believes when employees are given the tools to help take care of their holistic wellness at work and at home, they are less prone to injuries.

Brown, Roland, and Chandihok are leading and empowering others at Amazon to improve the safety, health, and well-being of employees no matter where they work or their role at the company.
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(https://archive.is/7r3UK)
 
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Wagie wagie
stressed from cagie
going mad from grinding daily
knowing this will be your doom
come to Mindful Practice Room
Fan will blowie
company spokey
Zenbooth now be mandatory
sit and pray while song do play
Mindful practice room is gay
live in pod and -
listen to same band
toilet paper made out of sand
Wagie know it could be worse
Such is life with wagie's curse
Alarm rings loudly
Standing proudly
Wagie goes to work devoutly
While NEETS laugh and play at home
Wagie works for scraps and bones
 
This is what happens when your HR at HQ play The Sims instead of doing their job. Happiness and energy is down; put them in the Zen Booth, if they stay long enough they'll get a personality modifier for a few hours... ... ... We'll also write them up for not being productive enough.
 
This is all for show. Amazon 'fulfilment centres' aka warehouses, don't let their pickers and staff go to the toilet without putting them on a clock. If you go to the toilet too many times in one shift, you're fired.

So, how are they going to handle people saying "I'm stressed, i'm off to play candy crush in the zenbooth for an hour" ?
 
You will never pay off your student loans making $15 an hour picking products from shelves like a human robot. You know what your budget is, and how much rent costs, and how much money you can realistically save every month, and by the time your student loans are paid off, you'll be 40 fucking years old and have about 25 years of useful working life in you to start saving for a down payment on a house. When you get the house and can finally start thinking of dating, marriage, children, and all the things that come with a house, you'll be 50 and wrinkly and no one will want your used-up ass.

You know all of these things, and yet, you are powerless to do anything about it. The system has you by the gonads. You should've gone to trade school and gotten a job as a plumber instead of majoring in Women's Studies and Interpretive Dance, but it's too late. You will never have children. You will die alone in your depressing little apartment, and then, the cleaning robots will come collect your decomposing corpse.

There is only one thing left to do. Enter the soundproofed screaming booth, and scream until you hemorrhage the capillaries in your lungs.
 
I don't know, if the Ginger comes along with the booth I'm sure we could work out a better way to deal with work related stress. I'm more shocked by the Fastenal vending machine. Does Amazon make you pay for screws and such if something like that is necessary for your job? I don't even think that the Robber Barons of the 1800s were that fucking bad. Worst Cyberpunk Dystopia ever, would not run its shadows.
 
Will they be like the ping-pong tables and arcades at Start Ups? Hey we have this cool thing you may never use because you need to work all the time.
Dom Cruise said:
What we're heading towards is THX1138, human beings no longer being human but just nodes in some computer system.
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George Lucas was always right. lol
 
More AWS-8Q Than You said:
I don't know, if the Ginger comes along with the booth I'm sure we could work out a better way to deal with work related stress. I'm more shocked by the Fastenal vending machine. Does Amazon make you pay for screws and such if something like that is necessary for your job? I don't even think that the Robber Barons of the 1800s were that fucking bad. Worst Cyberpunk Dystopia ever, would not run its shadows.
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We have those at my work you just get a card that bills some random line item in accounting.
 
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