You know what else Amazon delivers to your home? Jobs!

You know what else Amazon delivers to your home? Jobs!

We were out at the dog park today, and someone expressed dismay to me that Amazon is starting to deliver everything (you know, there’s a reason they call it the “Everything Store”).

I get it. This person specifically expressed concern over all the small, two-person kinds of places that Amazon replaces.

Well, first, Amazon can be great for small businesses! Is there a cost to doing business through Amazon? Of course. After all, they are providing a service. However, they can reach a lot more people than you can from Main Street…and Amazon is all about infrastructure. Also, a lot of the customer service will go through Amazon…and that can be the most expensive part for a product-distributing or producing business after they’ve sold the product.

I think Amazon is also starting to feel the pressure of how things may go politically in the future. There are multiple paths which could cause problems for Amazon, both from the existing DOJ (Department of Justice) and possible future administrations.

That may…um…encourage them to deal with gray areas and ones which cosmetically look odd.

Recently, for example, Amazon has changed a major, major policy.

They used to prohibit third-party sellers from selling the same products somewhere cheaper than Amazon…which I always found to be iffy. While I’m not an expert on this, it felt like “restraint of trade”, where one retailer determines what a wholesaler can do with another retailer.

According to this

Geek Wire article by Taylor Soper

and other sources, Amazon has stopped making that requirement.

I’m okay with Amazon delivering everything to my house…the more the merrier!

You know what else Amazon delivers to your home?

Jobs!

At time of writing, Amazon has 465 work-from-home (virtual) jobs listed at

https://www.amazon.jobs/en/search?offset=0&result_limit=10&sort=relevant&category_type=Work%20from%20Home&distanceType=Mi&radius=24km&latitude=&longitude=&loc_group_id=&loc_query=&base_query=&city=&country=&region=&county=&query_options=&

The vast majority of the jobs are technical jobs (350 are Amazon Web Services jobs), but nine of them are Customer Service. While there is a lot of skill to Customer Service, it’s not that techie prereq.

If you are looking for a job, or know someone who is, I think it’s worth checking Amazon. My understanding is that at least some of these jobs (after maybe 90 days) are eligible for benefits.

I think we’ll see Amazon doing a lot more with benefits in the future…in part inspired by criticism driving them to try to improve.

What do you think? Would you work for Amazon from home? Is Amazon helping small business, hurting small business…or both? Am I wrong to want everything to come through Amazon? Feel free to tell me and my readers what you think by commenting on this post.

 

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* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get.  Shop ’til you help!  

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. 

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The latest thing Amazon will deliver to your home…a job (with benefits)!

The latest thing Amazon will deliver to your home…a job (with benefits)!

Remember when you used to have to leave the house to get books? Or see a movie? Or get groceries?

Or earn a living?

Well, on that last one, Amazon currently has something like 250 jobs listed where you work for them from home.

According to this

Employee Benefit News article by Kathryn Mayer

and other sources, these full-time jobs have benefits:

• medical
• dental
• a 401(k) plan with employer match
• restricted stock units
• maternity and paternity leave
• adoption assistance

What kind of jobs are they? I look a look at

https://www.amazon.jobs/en/locations/virtual-locations

and this is how they classify them at time of writing:

• Solutions Architect (99)
• Sales, Advertising, & Account Management (27)
• Project/Program/Product Management–Technical (18)
• Fulfillment & Operations Management (17)
• Human Resources (13)
• Operations, IT, & Support Engineering (13)
• Project/Program/Product Management–Non-Tech (13)
• Software Development (8)
• Business & Merchant Development (7)
• Customer Service (7)
• Facilities, Maintenance, & Real Estate (5)
• Investigation & Loss Prevention (4)
• Marketing & PR (4)
• Leadership Development & Training (3)
• Editorial, Writing, & Content Management (2)
• Machine Learning Science (2)
• Medical, Health, & Safety (2)
• Data Science (1)
• Finance and Accounting (1)
• Systems, Quality, & Security Engineering (1)

You’ve probably been sending Amazon money for a while…maybe it’s time for them to send some to you. 😉

Oh, and I should be clear…contrary to what some people may think, I’m not an Amazon employee. I have made money from them (royalties from my books and my blogs, for example), but not as an employee.

I mentioned this job availability to someone and they said they didn’t want to work for Amazon. There have been quite a few…concerns mentioned about Amazon’s treatment of employees. I’ve recently watched something like two hours of video from a well-known political figure about this issue. They aren’t hard to find: I’d say feel free to take a look and see what you think.

If you do apply for one of these jobs, I’d love to hear how the process went…and I wish you luck!

Bonus deal:

Today’s

Kindle Daily Deal (at AmazonSmile…benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

has 21 titles, and some are really well-known! Here are some which stood out to me:

• 1984 by George Orwell $2.99 (also available at no additional cost through Kindle Unlimited…KU)
• The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien $2.99 (KU)
• The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery (translated by Richard Howard) $2.99
• The Seven Story Mountain by Thomas Merton $2.99
• The Big Burn by Timothy Egan $2.99 (KU)
• The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid $2.99
• The Turner House by Angela Flournoy $2.99
• A Soldier of the Great War by Mark Helprin $2.99
• A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories by Flannery O’Connor $2.99
• A Tale of Love and Darkness by Amos Oz $2.99
• Meet Cute anthology $2.99
• The Princess Bride by William Goldman $2.99

Remember that you can buy these books at the reduced price and delay the delivery until the appropriate gift-giving occasion, or have them sent to yourself, print them out, and give them whenever you want. 🙂 Also, do check the price before you click/tap/eye gaze that Buy Button.

Join thousands of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

All aboard The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip at The History Project!

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get.  Shop ’til you help!  

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy  Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.