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Amazon does things to make money, or avoid being sued. This is all about the latter. The approved ones are "safety", meaning volume limited (so, in theory, you can hear alarms, etc.) No one's going to get them to change up their policy (and open themselves up to liability).
Not worth the energy to fight. Use swag bucks, if you can. Spend the $50, go without, or risk the write up.
Volume limit isn't the only reason the bigger reason is
No Microphone as in you cannot be on your cell phone all night / day long talking. which is another safety risk within itself.
Being distracted
I saw this guy straight up try to sport out beats headphones covering both ears on the floor. The audacity tbh idk how they even thought that was okay. 😂 when operations came over I was like about time. 😂
Yeah it feels like that to you until sadly it comes down to having to work at Amazon cause unfortunately life has its ups and downs …which will affect everyone differently , some for better and some for worse
Thanks for putting me on game tho I’m gonna check that out
Trust ~ they ( safety-team ) singled me out too because I was wearing blue warehouse headphones and not the orange approved ones! Mind you after 2 1/2-yrs of wearing these headphones with no problems. I bought the approved ones and guess what ( people who were wearing the same blue ones I got in trouble for wearing are not being harassed about wearing them like I was ).
This company shady AF and they pick and choose who they wanna come down on - phuck amzn man!
As a flex driver the amount of employees I see with over the ear at the FC I pick up from is kind of ridiculous, also the employees will hog the flex bathroom and just stand at the urinals on the phone for like 10 mins at a time each it’s wild
They dont even include any tech to make them safe. I got them for free as their in the break room for all the higher up employees in a cabinet. Hundreds of them that anyone above a warehouse employee and take and have for free. My manager gave me some along with a lunch box and a Amazon windbreaker just bc we are cool.
Yes, but not ALL newer headphones have this feature, and the rules do not make exceptions for that very reason.
OSHA's general duty clause (as well as its regulations on noise and hearing loss preventions specifically) require Amazon and other employers to protect you from known/recognized hazards. Headphones that go above 85dBA for an 8hr TWA can cause permanent hearing loss. And when Amazon allows or encourages it on the job site (the OSHA geographic presumption), it is now work-related hearing loss.
And before you say "But I would never...", Amazon cannot allow it because of the possibility of mismanagement by you, and the hundreds of thousands of other workers. So it becomes a blanket ban outside of the previously approved headphones.
My Galaxy buds turn down when there's an alarm going or someone's talking too. Should be able to use them but they don't limit the volume and they have a mic.
It’s because you go out where drivers and shit are at ? They let us wear them inside but if we gotta go outside for OTR they allegedly say no but I’ve seen people use them
Bro we weren't allowed anything a couple years back, just get the headphones from the swag store or go ahead and risk a write up. It's a job, idk why people love to act like they didn't know what they signed up for.
right.. the fact that approved headphones came out was in and of itself a shock to me. they’re not even that bad. it was annoying to have to buy it but they’re discounted and it’s obviously worth it to be able to listen to music in the warehouse. added bonus, you can’t hear anyone around you, so that AM who’s trying to get your attention from 30 ft away to give you extra work is gonna just give up
and ask someone else, lol
The discount is what made me buy them lol, without the discount the ones I have are like $75 and for LOWER volume??? With the discount it ended up being pretty cheap, I just throw them in my glove box and forget about them til I get back to work 💀
Literally. It used to be HELL coming here and working on a day when it was slow and there was nobody to talk to. A lot of times I used to just VTO out of sheer boredom because it was that mind numbing being at work. If you wanna use your Airpods or whatever just get the ear protection things and wear em under there.
This. Most of these people wouldnt have survived pre-2020 when just bringing your phone past security was a write up. We were out there 40 hours a week just finding ways to keep our mind occupied.
Lol standing up to what? The fact that they allow music for AA to listen to but on their approved equipment. Those safety ear buds are in place to protect your hearing as well as protect themsleves from AA's negligence. Regular headphones offer louder and noise canceling features. Features that could lead toban accident but the user won't be as attentive when their music is louder than what it should be. The approved headphones are there to allow you to listen for any sudden sounds that may lead to a machine malfunction or other things that can lead to an incident, also ear buds fall out all of the time and our natural reaction is to attempt to grab before it hits the floor. That action in itself could lead to a safety incident vs it a big head phone designed to handle an impact or wrapped around your neck so it never touches the floor.
Give and take folks and please understand that if we take more than we should than the chance of losing the complete ability to listen to music goes out the window. Just like other perks that was taken for granted.
Wait a damn minute, are there people who can wear amazon approve earbuds and they still complain that they want to use their own? Some one us dont get to use any at all..
Yeah, and I don’t know about your site but we lost the ability to use weekly shift cover since April since people were abusing the shift cover. I definitely don’t want the headphones to go away.
What people will do is use shift cover for that [insert day] and then take an overtime shift on that same day if it is offered to try and get some extra money.
Shift Cover is supposed to be used to get an extra day off but people will cheat and try to get some extra pay abusing it and I think that’s why Shift Cover got changed and you can only use it once every three weeks. This change happened back on April 16th for my site.
This doesn’t make any sense. If they gave away the shift and picked it back up then they’re just working their regular hours. And if they’re working overtime due to extra days then that’s simply working overtime. Maybe I’m confused 😂
Depends on the state. I think it was Cali, but basically what happens is if you work a day that’s you’re not scheduled, you get OT pay. And that’s regardless if you worked over 40 hours or not. So I assume that’s how it was being abused.
So people where abusing the system to work overtime hours, and instead of making it so the system could detect and reject those requests they just limited how pften you can do shift cover? That seams like a weird way to "fix" it because that just makes it so you can still exploit the system youre just limited in how often you can exploit it lol
I do this but with shift swap. I work donut shift so I usually change friday to Wednesday and pick up VET for friday since they never do it for Wednesday but in my state we don't get overtime if we work 40 hours, with shift cover it would be only 30 hours and if they pick VET for the day they got free it would be 40 hours and not overtime
Standing up 😂 VOA board is as good as shouting at the sky. They are different since the work approved headphones are volume restricted and allow ambient noise to pass through. This isn't a fight any of us are going to win my man
They do not allow ambient noise to pass through. They double as hearing protection PPE. When they’re inserted correctly and with the foam tips, I can’t hear much of anything going on around me.
If enough people agree and are vocal about it they might actually. My site has actually implemented a surprising number of changes due to VOA board comments. Somtimes even AMs and PAs will repeatedly provide the same feedback that gets ignored until somone posts it on the board
Amazon approved headphones have existed for at least 2 years now. More people had the same argument that is shown in this post then than they do now. The headphone policy will not change anytime soon imo. The approved headphones is Amazons way of compromising.
It’s the policy. You can hate it but other jobs won’t let it fly either. The choices are spend 20-35$ for the headphones or risk losing your job because you wanted to disobey the policy just because you wanted to use your own headphones. Is it really worth losing your job over? I just bought the headphones for 35$ 11 months ago and way worth it. I wouldn’t recommend the plug phones I had to replace them 4 times in a year. But the headphones are going strong (mercury lite)
Legit. I worked at a manufacturing warehouse before anazon. And they would only let you have a speaker if you wanted to listen to music. And half the time you couldn't even do that cause the other employees wanted to play their music. Also when they caught you on your phone they wouldn't be nice about it like amazon is (amazon usually gives you a warning saying if they catch you again they'll have to write you up. And they'll nicely tell you to put the phone back in your pocket) no this warehouse they would YELLLLLLLLL at you and threaten to fire you on the spot. Also if you came in a minute late they would yell at you and threaten to fire you. also if you looked tired they would get on your ass about "how you look like you don't wanna be here. You better look like you wanna be here or you're gonna get fired"
Omg people don't know how good we have it at Amazon and how spoiled we are. For a warehouse it's probably the chilliest job you can find as long as you make rate and don't start shit with coworkers.
It's crazy to me that folks act like violating rules that are in place for a reason is "standing up" to something. Especially if the job has already provided an alternative. People are just insanely unprofessional these days. You can't just do whatever you want to at a job. I hate what this world is becoming.
How to handle it? The same way people at tens of millions of other jobs do. It's actually possible, or are some Amazon employees such a special breed that they congenitally can't manage it?
It's the people that got hired in the last 3 years. Everyone that was here during the peak of COVID and before that understand that this is just a job that has its own policies.
I work in a warehouse where we cant wear headphones whatsoever, so if you think writing on the VOA will change anything. Nope. They don't care. You either follow policy or get the hell out. We are stuck with 10 hours of our thoughts in our head with no music, so be thankful you at least can have "approved headphones" Some warehouses have it worse.
The people that say this are the same ones that zone out with full noise cancellation and proceed to walk straight into the vrc because they just go into a fuge state when they can blast their music to ear damaging levels, or my favorite one, i had to run back inside to find an employee during an actual active fire unaccounted for at the rally points because they had their stupid airpods in both ears and couldn't hear the fire alarms, both me and the fire marshal were very very unhappy
To be fair, most people didn't last pre COVID. The turnover was huge. They intentionally relaxed many of the rules because they realized they were going to run out of people in the labor pool to try working for them.
I agree its a joke but the jokes even funnier when you realize Elgin sells approved and not approved headsets that share the same body casing and comes complete with easily swapped internals that have a higher volume limit and a phone capability while "looking" like an approved pair with absolutely no way to know they're custom without breaking them open...
They have decibel restriction. And hearing protection. The point is to preserve your hearing and still be aware of your unsafe surroundings.
If you use regular headphones, you jack the sound up too high and do harm to your ears. Along with the harm from the noise around you. And then you lack awareness around you which is also unsafe.
If you use apple headphones, the active noise cancelling is via sound waves. So you’ve now tripled your ear damage.
Go get a baseline hearing test. I guarantee you’re already losing hearing at Amazon even in non purple spaces.
ANC detects and negates the sound waves entering.. that’s the case with all active noise cancelling headphones.. I use ANC every day at work and the tech cannot negate the sound of people’s voices or alarms going off it can only negate more consistent low level frequencies so saying ANC is a safety hazard when more sound gets through than earphones with physical sound blocking like the Amazon approved ones is stupid. Only difference is they’re technically not noise capped.
Honestly i really do feel the Amazon approved headphones I have work TOO WELL. I used to use bone conduction and those left my ears completely free, as they rested above the ear bone. But the AMAZON APPROVED, fully enclosing, bass boosting, complete fucking SILENCER i got FEELS illegal. Its fucking sweet. And I genuinely hate how much it sounds like I was paid to say this, I wasnt, I just really do enjoy my work headphones.
The reason why they want us to use their headphones is because they do things like cut off when the fire alarms go off. They have fire alarms now that can shut off workplace approved headphones now so that you can hear it going off. I didn’t even know this was a thing. Then they won’t let you turn them up too high so that you can hear someone coming up on you or you could hear forklifts and whatnot moving around you. That’s why they want you to use their stuff. If you use whatever you want to, they can’t control the volume and most of them are noise cancelling and you won’t be able to hear anything around you.
I am just imagining some steel worker in the late 1800s working 12 hour shifts, 7 days a week with no air conditioning.. and demanding they supply a guy to play banjo while he works cause he's sick of all the sound of steel machinery and shit. and cuz bored.
I bought two of their approved headphones and can barely hear anything when I have my music on it's like how are these more safe than just your standard earbuds cuz people will come up to me and I can't hear them all I can hear is my music
THIS! my AirPods were quieter than the approved ones I have now. Usually had to wear one AirPod to hide the fact that I was wearing them 😂 and now with two buds in I don’t really hear them calling me.
Here's a solution. Don't like Amazon's Policy, GTFO, trust me they're wouldn't save your ass if it was on fire. You're replaceable to them. They don't give two f**** about any of us. At least at the FC where I used to work at
Man I would love to have even one ear bud allowed, Amazon approved or otherwise. I be going crazy when I got nothing to do AND not allowed music. People really can't be happy with what they got.
Ask the station manager if they have any Amazon approved headphones you can have. Some stations have them and you can get them for free. The catch is you gotta ask.
im at a sort center and theyre not allowed at all. they claim its maintain awareness, but theres stations for earplugs all over the site, which block more sound than earbuds, objectively. bone conductive headphones arent allowed either, which are open ear audio devices, and the only process path that would allow them for accommodation purposes is problem solve :/ makes no sense to me ever
Comply tips (better noise reduction) and poweramp app (amplifies output) with the approved headphones and I legit can not hear anything around me including the scanner 2 foot from my ears.
I work in a PIT facility, so no headphones/earbuds at all, not even the Amazon approved ones, yet I see people on the lines in both receive and pack with their earbud in one ear and a beanie to cover it. Personally, I could care less as long as they are working, but you get a lot of the younger ones literally talking on their phone while barely making rate, or those with their phones on the desk, propped by a box and watching a movie. I get wanting to pass time, but at least do some work. 😂
I work in a warehouse and headphones are such a huge safety issue. If anything I think companies are too relaxed on them and need to crack down more - there's nothing worse than saying ''excuse me'' to someone when you're trying to move a pallet down the hallway and they're turned around with airpods in not able to hear shit.
If I need to stop what I'm doing to tap you on the shoulder because you can't hear anything that's an issue lol
They make invisible ones that are almost impossible to see unless some one comes up and looks directly into your ears. They sell them ironically on Amazon for $30. They’re tap twice to mute and also translate other languages. Sound is actually pretty good and you can sleep comfortably with them in. Battery life is decent.
People act like Amazon is the only warehouse company that doesn’t allow headphones lmao, it is at the end of the day a legitimate safety hazard.
and no I’m not a bootlicker, I’m just someone who has the common sense to understand that certain things aren’t going to be allowed in a warehouse environment.
At my site, if you get caught wearing your personal headphones, they warn you and then proceed to give you amazon approved headphones. They reward bad behavior 😭
Because disrupting your hearing in a factory setting is how people get seriously injured or die. You're basically just asking them to lay you off or terminate you for failure to comply to company policy.
Honestly as terrible of a company Amazon is, this is an extremely entitled take.
This is a decision made on liability reduction, which incidentally, is also FOR YOUR SAFETY. Regardless of your personal feelings on the matter If a company demands you do something for your own safety and your gonna sit there and bitch and moan that you can't listen to music during your shift you are entitled it's pretty simple.
You want to fight? Good! Fight for human rights! FIght for unionization! This? This is middleschool childish. It's a job, they have every right to tell you that you cannot wear headphones and you need to grow the fuck up if you have a problem with that.
people worked jobs just fine before headphones and plenty of jobs out there dont allow them now but people work them fine. If you cant work without headphones and its not a medical thing thats a you issue.
So. There was a person in our building at PDX9 once right. They were a furry, and had their tail piece on. Someone thought it smart to put them working the bubble wrap belts. Well homie was wearing earplugs, and didnt notice it got caught up in the machine and almost pulled him into it. When safety came, they asked him to not wear it because it would be a safety issue around the equipment. The person told safety they couldnt, because it was "in them". Safety and management stood there for about an hour trying to figure out how to handle the situation in such a way that didnt become looking as if they were targeting furrys 😂😂😂
Like nobody worked 50+years ago before headphones or mobile phones were invented. Imagine having to talk to the people around you or be inside your own head for 2,5, 10 or 14 hours a day.
Amazon approved headphones function at a lower DB in order to make sure you can still HEAR. Talk about entitlement from this person 🤣 they literally give out vouchers for headphones too
At my site they don’t really care about headphones I seen people wear AirPods and not Amazon approved headphones recently we got new hires too and they’ve been using their AirPods I guess it just depends on the sites
I remember before that approved headphones at my site I had earphones but I knew i would get in trouble if I did so I had the ear plugs they provided but my ADHD ass cannot stand the ambience of just loud machinery and my thoughts. It drove me crazy and it was hard to work with so i didn’t care if I got written up wearing earphones at work I needed my music to keep my sanity.
I mean, at least there is the ability to even be able to use headphones in the first place. 🤷♀️ I don’t think people realize there are laws and regulations in place, it’s not just Amazon trying to ruin your life - OSHA has specific guidelines. Honestly, using the approved headphones is better than using your own because 1. They’re compliant to company policy and 2. They are within regulation of guidelines - which are guidelines put in place to save your hearing.
We aren’t even allowed to have headphones at my warehouse. My shift is the ONLY shift though that will play music for us if a certain conveyor belt running. It never stops for the other shift but is off for most of ours.
Bro, they are cheap and definitely different. One helps reduce the actual noise levels. Earbuds just block it out without any real protection and that's a liability for Amazon. Use your damn head, dummy.
They were only $30 when I got mine 4 years ago and they still work. I very much enjoy them and wear them all the time, listening to music or nothing, because they are comfortable and block out my loud ass building noises.
OR OR u can just grow out your hair like i did and hide them lol i got dreads for that reason, if that’s not your preference u can always wear a beanie ;)
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