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THE TAOISEACH WAS among scores of brave swimmers who enjoyed a bracing start to Christmas Day with a dip in the sea.
Leo Varadkar, accompanied by his partner Matthew Barrett, was smiling as he emerged from the sea at the Forty Foot diving spot at Sandycove in Dublin.
He said it was a nice way to start the day, adding that he planned to visit some of the public sector staff working on Christmas Day in hospitals and fire stations later in the day.
While Varadkar said it was his third time enjoying a seasonal dip, others taking to the sea in both Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic were more frequent regulars.
There was a steady stream of people at the Forty Foot throughout the morning, as well as in dozens of other annual festive swims around the country.
Across the border in Donaghadee, Co Down, a group who swim every day of the year, assembled on the slipway at 10.30am.
With the water temperature measuring a fresh 8.5C, there were shrieks and chuckles as dozens entered the water.
Martin Strain, from the Donaghadee Chunky Dunkers, said the seasonal swim was one of 12 sponsored dips raising money for charity.
“We go in every day, 365 days of the year, unless it’s not safe,” he said.
“There’s a buzz about this time of year, this is part of our 12 swims of Christmas, so we build up to this and then it goes right to New Year’s Day, which is the final of our 12 sponsored swims for charity.”
Strain said he has found daily sea swims to be beneficial for both his physical and mental health.
“It’s such an empowering thing, such a liberating thing, it’s life-affirming. It really has changed a lot of people’s lives through their mental health,” he said.
“Personally, I struggled with really bad mental health issues for a very long time and, whilst this hasn’t been a panacea, it has certainly helped my mental health.”
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I can tell you from personal experience that he’s lying.
Proof?
I had 2 friends whom worked with them at different times and said they were the worst place ever to work for. They had a button on their PCs that they had to hit if they wanted to use the loo and hit again on return, at the end of month their total loo time was reviewed. Said that there was large staff turnabout every month and some people didn’t even stick a full week at times.
Some people are just scared of hard work.
Lindsay the new resident troll. At least you’re consistent.
I just asked for proof. How is it trolling to learn more about something?
Get back to work… *whip sound effects*
get a job there and relay us your experience after a month.
Amazon pays it’s employees well and no one forces them to work there.
“Lindsay Price” and “Katie Byrne” are one in the same trolls, this appears to be in place of there full time jobs.. if he/she/it has one!
Don’t feed her guys
stinking troll
@Vincent f
Any call centre that takes incoming calls has an unavailable to take call button. Many out going have similar if using an auto dialler. You use it when you go to the toilet or deal with paper work then press it when you can take calls. They are reviewed to judge performance. It isn’t individual toilet break logging.
You made it sound so sinister but you are getting the information 2nd hand. You can see somebody not pulling their weight very quickly but it isn’t hard work but repetitive and doesn’t suit everyone . Call centres have a high turnover but generally people that last 6 months can handle it and stay. Not
Vincent, That loo button really hit the fan. I know someone who knows someone…
At this very moment I work for Amazon and for the past about 40min I was away from my desk, no one knew where. (Went to top up my phone and have some late lunch)
There are 2 guys that took their laptop with them and play 8 ball in the atrium, other 2 play ping-pong. Recreation areas are available and you can work from there. IE monitoring or babysitting processes that take long time to complete.
My work day is exactly 8h and it includes lunchbreak and even commuting time later so I miss the traffic. (I start my work in the morning at home) You can work from anywhere and some people take advantage of this and work from other countries a few days a week while going in longer breaks.
So, please… Don’t be jealous!
I am saying exactly what I said. Did not say NYTimes is lying, but I am 100% they can’t know better than me, working there for over almost 2 years.
However I believe there might be something going on in logistics part of Amazon. I’ve seen too a CH4? 1h insight in Amazon UK Logistics. I imagine there’s like pizza delivery. People have low education and some managers may have become too full of themselves. So I can’t say anything about that department. However I believe they prefer to leave than reach higher.
On the other hand Amazon is huge! They have also the largest fleet of servers, bigger than Google. Those servers account for more than 10% of total traffic on the internet.
I wish everyone had a manager like I do! Both of them actually (my manager’s manager too). I have been talking to managers my line more than half way up to Bezos and found them very open. (Amazon is a pretty flat company)
I even know that Facilities manager asked the cleaners contracted company to have the eastern-european girl promoted as supervisor because she was doing all the work (and well) pushed around by the two Irish bags who did nothing but hide and smoke or block us from using the kitchen at lunchtime. Now kitchen is available and that girl is having a lunch break (late like I do (because I like it this way)) too which is good. I think this is an example that whenever is brought to attention, the Amazon environment is very fair.
We are not a soulless company he says as we look directly through his hollow eye sockets.
Worked in a very similar environment. In an office of 3 staff a dozen employees had passed through the doors in approximately 5 years. I lasted 3 months. Was told I was good to last that long. One lad only lasted one week. Workers on the ground had no respect for office staff as they knew they’d be gone in a few months. Boss gave enough work for 2 employees. Your set up to fail. Life is to short to work in a place you hate.
Very easy to say that’s not the Amazon he recognises when everybody is falling over themselves to lick his arse.
Isn’t that the problem. It’s very hard to complain about what’s wrong and how things can be improved to your boss. They are usually surrounded in yes men and told what they want to hear. Unfortunately in my experience if you have a big ego and are willing to tramp on anyone who gets in your way you’ll go far. Sad but true in most cases.
Except in Amazon there is no boss just managers. Everyone has one to one meetings every fortnight with their manager and a bit more rarely with the next manager in line where you can say your piece. If two is not enough you can talk to HR at any time. You can walk in any office at anytime. You give reviews to your manager towards higher managers 2 times a year. I never had any feeling of reluctance that I can’t say anything I want.
However, I don’t know what is happening everywhere, but I doubt is any different since the what I described above here seems to be the general policy.
I honestly am sorry that Amazon gets targeted by such articles.
Same stuff goes on with other Multinationals here the one I worked for used to have a review process where co-workers had to review each other and find fault or areas of improvement for you. Basically if you didn’t like a co-worker you could hammer them! They also had the tendency to promote people into management positions who had zero people management skills and the stress and abuse these guys dished out was terrible.
I wonder would he be willing to go on the us TV show “undercover boss” and prove his point
‘Paid Volunteers’ what a load of crap. His thought’s are d
In my opinion any employer who refuses to engage collectively with their workers, through their trade unions has no right to offer an opinion upon the type of workplace it is.
I’m sure he does think it’s a great place to work. I wonder how many multiples of his employees average salary he earns.
Yes you are, Mister. Stop lieing and mend your ways you horrible git.
I love my Kindle fire……
Obviously not, it’s Amazon, not the Hunger Games.
Wow it’s amazing that people are just commenting on this now. Practices like those highlighted in the article have been in force throughout the companys history. For more information please read “The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the age of Amazon”, business book of the year 2013.
It probably depends on the position and office. But on average, Amazon looks to me as a more demanding work environment. I have some colleagues there and it looks like they do work under bigger pressure and more hours then then the rest of us in other IT companies.
have your say