What does Global Location mean for Amazon and the likes?

I’ve seen several articles this week about Amazon workers protesting their “rights” and the first thing I thought of was “what exactly are peoples rights in today’s day in age” and “how are they being violated?”. I don’t know if these workers are manual laborors that sew garments, assemble toys or just box up shipments and label them. Based on some of the complaints I’m guessing the latter.

My initial thought was, well – if they’re doing any of the above tasks that I listed then they might be in for a bigger surprise when a Robot replaces that role. But to my surprise, it was the comments that stuck out. Every single comment said exactly the same thing – “wait until you are replaced by Robots”. Now this really got me thinking. It’s one thing for people to complain, it’s really a another (major) thing if there are no other outlets for people ot make a livelyhood. So are people really at risk of losing jobs to Robots?

The answer is, Yes! But, there are plenty of other new opportunities that are available to the every day worker. Let’s go back 30+ years ago to the late 1980’s. At that time it was almost guaranteed that someones career would be with one, if not two companies – but things started to change around that time. By the early 1990’s it was clear that people would have to re-tool themselves by getting another degree or certification to find a 2nd career to ride into their retirement.. 10 year later by the early 2000’s it was clear that the average employee would have to re-tool thenselves every 10 years or so.. Fast forward today and there are only a small handful of careers that are even an option. So what’s the solution? Well, you need to be part of the solution and not part of the problem.

If you’re an employee that feels threatened you should be Thanking your Employer for paying you today. If you are worried about tomorrow then you need to figure out how to be part of it. If it’s robotic/automation then why not re-tool yourself to become a robotic/automation engineer or even just a Manager that is an expert in the “process”? The bottom line is that it doesn’t matter how much you complain, you can only cry over spilled milk for so long. If Amazon wants to automate your job and that job doesn’t exist tomorrow then your tears are a lost cause. Become a plumber, a painter, an electrician, a bus driver, a nurse, a doctor, a brick layer, a lifeguard, teacher .. those jobs are sure to keep your food on the table, if that’s what you want. You have no right to strong arm Amazon, the opportunity doesn’t even exist, complain all you want.. cry me a river.. If you want to make a difference then challenge Amazon in a way that will make a difference. Now if I have to explain exactly what that means then I’ll say “Thank you for reading this post, good luck on your journey”.