The article Amazon To Let Warehouse Employees’ Families Work Thanksgiving Shifts Too, posted on The Onion satirical media resource, mocks the media’s obsession with Amazon, as well as the company’s severe working conditions. The article states that Amazon provides a possibility for its staff to work with their family members on ten-hour shifts on Thanksgiving Day. Moreover, they allow their employees to work “from home” by moving to the nearest fulfillment center. The article’s main purpose is to mock the ridiculously strict working conditions provided by Amazon to its workers; moreover, the article mocks the media reaction on every occasion related to Amazon.
The author of this article ridicules the abuse of Amazon workers, the acute problem that has taken place for more than a decade. The intended audience of this article is grown people who are aware of the mentioned problem. This satirical piece addresses the classical issue of capitalism – the exploitation of labor. Since various mega-corporations such as Walmart, McDonald’s, or mentioned Amazon view their workers only as small gears in a large mechanism, they mostly are not concerned about the working conditions. However, Amazon stands out among many other market giants on that matter. The staff of the company’s warehouses has timed toilet breaks, and they work twelve-hour shifts; Amazon even set up its internal surveillance system to spy on employees. Undoubtedly, the means of controlling the working process are absurdly strict. As a result, this market giant has attracted media attention; most major media sources take writing about the situation in Amazon as a must. Therefore, the article is making fun of stringent company requirements for its employees and the media’s attempts to address this problem by writing about every minor occasion connected with the company.
The article exposes its main thought using completely absurd satirical content, such wise addressing the problems mentioned above. The preposterousness of Amazon’s holiday proposal, described in the article, exposes the absolute absurdity of its workers’ schedules and working hours. Moreover, in this fake news story, the company tries to represent the possibilities they offer as a sign of concern for the welfare of their employees. Apparently, this is the author’s way of illustrating to which extent the company distorts the actual situation in real life, trying to justify its work regulations. Thus, the problems taking place in real life are exposed by the complete absurdity of the article.
On the other hand, it is possible to distinguish that the supposedly official style of the article’s text manifests the author’s attitude towards many other similar news stories. The public has been aware of Amazon workers’ abuse for a long time, and it is needless to say that it was described in many media sources. Therefore, the public has become bored of serious default articles attempting to analyze every display of Amazon’s injustice to its employees, which is exposed by the text’s fake official manner of narration.
Summing everything up, it is essential to say that satire is a reliable method of addressing various social problems, especially when it comes to senselessly absurd situations. In some cases, everybody understands the extent of the problem as well as its severity; therefore, the media’s attempts to thoughtfully analyze and deconstruct the matter may seem boring to the public. The case of Amazon abusing its employees serves as a good depiction of such a situation; the media’s countless attempts to shed light on the problem resulted in readers’ weariness of such articles. Thus, this satirical piece offers a fresh look at these issues because, in some cases, it is better to mock the problem instead of seriously analyzing it.
Works Cited
“Amazon To Let Warehouse Employees’ Families Work Thanksgiving Shifts Too”. The Onion, 2021, Web.