They call for potential recruits to join “Amazon Assistants,” which the company describes as “experts in helping Amazon customers keep up their home.”More jobs in the gig economy. What do you think of this? Please indicate whether you see yourself receiving this service or giving it? If you're a receiver, I hope you'll order through the Althouse Amazon Portal, which is how I get paid in this gig economy called blogging.
That means helping customers with “tidying up around the home, laundry, and helping put groceries and essentials like toilet paper and paper towels away.”
I hallucinate the internet yelling at me: But, Althouse, aren't you a law professor? Or did they fire you after that last post?
Posts
30 comments:
I think that it's a neat idea. I couldn't see myself paying for a weekly maid service, but if I could just call, get, right away when I needed it and it was reasonably priced, I could see myself buying this service when I'm, say, having people over and there are a million things to take care of.
Soon Amazon will offer Amazon RoboBuy, an app that you install on your computer, phone, or tablet. RoboBuy takes all the hassle out of deciding what to buy. It orders what you need, when you need it, straight from Amazon. A free year of Prime comes with your first order! (Fill out the "Preferences" section to apply the Amazon kickback to the blog of your choice.)
I didn't know I needed a crochet'd yak-yarn Elvis wall-hanging. I guess it's a Christmas present for Uncle Phil.
I just invite my sister over. She's a neat freak so she'll do all this simply because she cannot not. I just had a hip replacement, you should see what a came home to after 23 hours in the surgical center. I could have had my surgery there.
I might use the Amazon service if she moves further away, or passes, or I get a conscience.
Also known as "casing the joint."
Not to be outdone by Google, Amazon realized that while Alexa is a valuable voter data gathering tool, there is the potential for voters to maintain an unacceptable level of privacy, that can only be squelched by human intervention.
Just refrain from cleaning altogether. It doesn't get that bad.
I use Amazon for most shopping and eBay from time to time. I don't know how many would use that service but I suspect single people in apartments might be the target customer.
I would LOVE this, especially if Amazon vetted and bonded the people so I didn't have to worry about it. It also established a service from a private contractor so that I don't have to worry about employment taxes.
tidying up around the home, laundry, and helping put groceries and essentials like toilet paper and paper towels away
Isn't that what a wife is for?
Isn't that what a wife is for?
Of course, the Amazon pay-as-you-go pricing model is probably far cheaper
Ignorance is Bliss said...
Of course, the Amazon pay-as-you-go pricing model is probably far cheaper
I can't wait to see the pricing structure for Amazon Assistants with Benefits.
This is a great idea for old people. Great idea. I
How long until Amazon cleans up after murders and puts Sunshine Cleaning (2008) out of business.
I read about these things happening, but I never thought it would happen to me...
I answered the knock at my door and there was the Amazon Assistant to help tidy up my home. I don't know what I was expecting, but she was beautiful! Firm breasts, long slim legs and beautiful dark eyes.
She introduced herself as Lexa, then came inside.
"It looks like I have a lot of work to do," she smiled.
"Yeah," I replied, embarrassed. "I haven't had the chance to clean much lately."
"Because you've been too busy being naughty?" she said as she bent over to adjust cushions on the couch.
"Something like that," I said, admiring her shapely buttocks.
"Naughty boys never know when it's time to get a new mattress," she said, heading to the bedroom. "Here: come test it with me."
What can I say? I followed her into my bedroom and we laid upon my mattress."
"Let's give this mattress a thorough check, shall we?"
To make a long story short: she took off her clothes and we fucked, and then I ordered from her a new mattress. through Amazon.
Now I can't wait until she and her female Amazon Assistant friends come back to deliver it!
I am Laslo.
If Amazon follows Google's lead we soon won't wonder anymore how we ever consumed from anyone else.
They can start with my garage.
tidying up around the home, laundry, and helping put groceries and essentials like toilet paper and paper towels away
Isn't that what a wife is for?
Haha. Just what I thought. That that is my job!
Amazon is staffed by, headquartered in a city full of, and oriented to people who don't marry and have kids, and certainly don't follow the model of which Althouse and myself are fans--having one adult member of the household dedicated full-time to the smooth running of said household.
I can absolutely see how they are testing the waters for this kind of domestic arrangement in the future.
It breaks my heart, what Amazonism is doing to the culture and city of my birth and background. My grandparents raised ten children in a modest bungalow in Seattle; my grandmother's life's work was managing that home and family including of course lots of in-person shopping at places like Chubby and Tubby and yes Pike Place Market when it was a real working-class food market and not a tourist trap.
Now every day (it seems) dozens of single-family homes and legacy businesses and community institutions are torn down to build absolutely revolting crackerbox rabbit warren condos and apartment buildings that are designed to accommodate the new Seattle lifestyle. This means 26 year old tech workers who are too cool to marry, too busy to have children, and too poor from paying for those shitty apartments to have the spouse that they don't have stay at home to mind the home and do shopping in person and put away the toilet paper. So those people live by putting in 14 hour days and then coming home to a pile of Amazon boxes sitting on their apartment stoops. I can see why it might appeal to them to have someone do what a spouse should do, or they would do it they had the time.
But the very idea is repellent to me.
Marijuana delivery in the weed-legal states.
Doritos appear in the "Customers who purchased this item also bought" section
"Isn't that what a wife is for?"
I'll bet there are at least as many women who have needs for things a man would do if only there were a man around here.
I can remember there years I lived alone in this house and needed a helping hand with something I couldn't do, or couldn't do alone. It can make you feel awfully lonely. I put up a Christmas tree by myself, using the old stand, and it made me feel sad. My sons were coming home for Christmas, and they would have helped me, but I wanted it up. It was really hard to do. Later I found a type of stand that works for one person, but still, getting the tree off the top of the car and into the house... that's not something easy or properly joyful to do alone.
And don't even ask me about the time I moved a sofa upstairs by myself.
I can remember there years I lived alone in this house and needed a helping hand with something I couldn't do, or couldn't do alone.
That's a good point. I also think of military wives whose husbands are on deployment, or wives like me whose husbands travel for work. Things I could use his help with sometimes happen when he's gone.
But, the thing is with military spouses, there is a wonderful support network for things like that. I have friends I can ask if I need to do things without my husband's help. Isn't it awful to think of having to pay someone? Why didn't you ask your friends to help you with that Christmas tree or sofa?
"Also known as "casing the joint."
My prediction is that a "gig economy" will spawn a large number of third-party intermediaries, who will take a cut for screening to eliminate (OK, reduce) incompetents and criminals, and perhaps (for an extra fee?) offer guarantees and/or assume liability.
My prediction is also that these third parties will be villified for taking a cut of honest laborers' labor (leaving it up to economists to determine whether it is the buyer or seller who is actually paying the third party). In theory this could be done by a producer co-op, but this seems unlikely.
Ya know what's interesting? All the anti WalMart people who shop thru Amazon and other online outlets.
Amazon will put more small business under than WalMart ever has. Internet shopping will be responsible for decline of department stores also.
Amazon providing services will be contracting with vetted local contractors..
Here is what will kill department stores once and for all. Amazon will open shops where you come in get scanned by computers and choose clothes that are tailor made just for you. There are some midrange bespoke men's wear shops doing this for suits and dress shirts, but once robots get better at making clothes, expect this to be deployed all over.
And don't even ask me about the time I moved a sofa upstairs by myself.
My wife is left-handed. You just don't move furniture, or fold sheets with her.
madAsHell said...
My wife is left-handed. You just don't move furniture, or fold sheets with her.
I'm confused. Since the two people who are folding a sheet are facing each other, their actions have to be mirrored. Wouldn't having opposite-handed people be beneficial?
Who the F cares about these elitists from Seattle.
More importantly, what's up w/ the lowly educated rural folks who the educated innovators need to learn from? Mississippi?
Anywho, just keep voting for stuff that benefits folks in the 18 states that have an average educational level above the nation's mean. Who knows how many of these 18 states voted for HRC?
Yup, 18.
Carry on.
Check out a ranking based on the the advanced degree column.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_educational_attainment
Anywho, w/ all the speculating about what sorta things matter in the recent election, it seems like going 18 for 18 is as significant as anything.
Carry on.
From the R POV, it's a good thing to have your party's electoral success mesh w/ lowly educated populations. It's got to be easier to bump the number of lowly educated folks in the nation v doing the reverse.
From there, re the nation as a whole making progress in this century, I can't imagine a down side lowering the education levels for the population.
A jobs program for former DNC staffers.
PBJ, you lost, you don't know why you lost, and you don't sound like you want to do the hard work of figuring it out. Congratulations, keep up the good work! See you in 2020.
Post a Comment