Amazon vs. Wawa: Which low-wage employer is least bad?
"At Wawa they train you to be happy"
Conversation between Tish the LPN nurse and Ali the maintenance worker, as I'll call them, in the Alzheimer's wing of the nursing home where my Dad lives, just off US 202. Both previously worked at Amazon.com's original "fulfillment center" in New Castle, Del.
Tish: Amazon is always hiring. But they are the worst place you want to work.
Ali: They are so bad! You use the bathroom there, you got to clock it. You got to get permission. They're busy - and they're always busy - they'll tell you Nope, no bathroom. Hold it in.
Tish: Nobody is ever happy at Amazon. Everybody is running around stressed. All day. The one thing, though, at Amazon, if you are there long enough, you get stock and benefits.
Ali: Seven years. You there seven years, you're all right, you get stock, you can retire someday and enjoy it, if it keeps going up, up, up.
Tish: But you gotta be there seven years.
Ali: And nobody's happy. Nobody in that whole place, Amazon, is happy.
Tish: You know where people are happy? Wawa. They train you to be happy. That's part of the job. And then you're there a year, they give you stock. It's their own stock. That goes up too.
Ali: That's right. They do, they set it aside for you.
Tish: I know a lady, she is retiring next year, she has been there since she was 50. She says she'll have stock that's worth $100,000 when she retires.
Me: $100,000 is not a lot of money to live off for, say, 20 years.
Ali: With Social Security, it's all right.
Tish: Every dollar helps.