How did you find that job? How do you like it?
On their website from their Jobs page over the summer. Their postings tend to get snatch up quick, so you gotta be on top of it whenever they show up, otherwise you’ll have to wait a number of days before more pop back up. Once I got it and signed up for it, they later sent me an email saying that if I’m still interested, I should attend a mandatory New Hire Orientation at their warehouse at this in-the-cut industrial area in Springfield, VA. You get to this massive warehouse and before you get taken to the orientation room, Amazon employees inspect your documentations (I gave them my passport, SS Certificate, etc.) and once you’re in the orientation room, they’ll have you take a picture for your work-issued ID. There’s no specific dress code for the orientation (nor your work site), you may come as you are so long as you don’t wear anything “obscene or offensive”. The orientation is essentially a 1 1/2 or 2 hour long lecture and fluff piece about Amazon and you take a drug test inside the room (mouth swab). You’re basically hired on the spot if everything is good with your documentations and drug test, they’ll send you an email to let you know you’re cleared to go. Before your start date tho, you’ll be doing some online training (mainly videos and scenarios), then when you go to your site, you’ll be given actual training in person.
As for working as a Shopper, I like it personally. We’re set up at a Whole Foods since Amazon got a special relationship with them now. Most of my coworkers are okay and I’m personally cool with a few of them now. Not gonna give out its exact location address unless you want me to DM you but I work at the busiest site in the DMV, so we tend to get a lot of traffic with the orders and our workforce can get pretty big (damn near 100 of us on certain days). I absolutely love the flexibility and since I’ve worked enough weekends there, I’m officially Gold status, which means that I can pick up some shifts in advance that won’t drop for regular Shoppers til a few days to a week later on most normal days. The pay is $15 hourly, but it can bump up to an additional $1-$3 on some Sundays where the site is tryna meet customer demand and wanna get more Shoppers to work on that day (Sunday is the busiest day for my site). We also get paid $30 an hour on holidays except Christmas (we’re closed). The benefits are pretty bare-bone in my opinion tho, I think the Whole Foods employees got better benefits than we do with the same hourly pay and similar flexibility. My new manager is pretty cool (young and athletically built ADOS breh, dude look like he in his mid 30s). I’ve been 10 minutes late once for a double shift (10:45 to 8:30) and was even 20 minutes late to a double shift under my old manager and I haven’t received a single infraction from both. I guess as long as I show up for work within an hour, I’m straight
I’m certainly complaining, especially on account that I commute 25 mins to the site from my house in PG County during rush hour.
We get to pick our own shifts. You gotta be on it when them shifts drop tho because they can snatched up real quick. They typically drop from 6:15 PM to 6:25 PM (generally around 6:17 PM specifically) on AmazonMoment and you have the choice of:
6:00 AM to 10:45 PM
10:45 PM to 3:30 PM
3:30 PM to 8:30 PM
8:30 PM to 9:21 PM
You’ll also have shifts with odd times such as:
11:30 AM to 4:30 PM
Keep in mind that the afternoon and evening times are actually in military time.
The work environment is pretty decent and chill. My friend works at the Silver Spring site and told me how ratchet it can get sometimes. I hear the same thing about some of the DC sites too lol. So it definitely varies from site to site.
Also, you'd think it be a lot of Cacs and Middle Easterners working at my site since it’s in Arlington but most of my coworkers are a mix of ADOS, Africans, some Latinx, a small handful of Asians, at least one Middle Easterner, and a couple of Cacs, so it’s pretty diverse.
The flexibility comes in clutch too because say if you’re going to school or dealing with stuff at home or dealing with another job or two or career, as long as you work within 30 days from the last time you worked a shift or once a month, you’ll be able to keep your side job with Amazon. For me personally, that came in handy a lot when I was attending school. But since I’ve recently graduated, I’m able to dedicate some more time with Amazon while I look for an additional job as well as work on starting my career path. I plan on hanging on to Amazon for as long as I can since the money tend to be real good. The amount of hours I tend to work within a week and on top of me being Gold status (which also means I get paid biweekly), I can easily make $2,000+ within 3 weeks so it’s a really nice extra source of income on the side. I prefer being a Shopper since most of the horror stories of heard from Amazon’s FC workforce be from the warehouse people.
Big tip tho,
WEAR SOME COMFORTABLE SHOES
No open-toe shoes but Crocs are fine. I’ve seen quite a few of my coworkers get away with wearing them.
@Super Ramon OP you can check this out too.
