Borders and Noble vs. amazon

[Tyrone Slothrop]

The question concerning amazon.com vs. Borders and Noble should not 
have anything to do with the books or the idenpendents. Give your money to 
the physical stores before you give it to amazon, I implore you. Amazon 
is worse than the aforementioned in all cases, because it DOES compete 
directly with the idies, and it only has ONE outlet as compared with the 
EVIL bookstores. It may take you longer to order a book through another 
source, and it may cost a little more, but the reason you get it cheap 
through amazon it not JUST because their overhead is so small, it's 
because they have so few employees. Last I heard (when I went there to spy a 
few months ago), their employees are not THEIR employees; they are sent 
there by temp agencies, they work for dirt cheap under the promise of 
an eventual hire after a trial period, and when the trial period is up, 
one in twenty gets the goahead. The rest rotate through like the books 
which pour in from the wholesalers and go out to the customers. Every 
order from them encourages this disposable employee mentality. Employers no 
longer have any accoutability or responsibility to their employees, and 
its even easier to do this when they are faceless serfs in a warehouse 
in south Seattle. And before you think less of them, there are real live 
intellectuals working there who talk about REAL books and real issues 
while they unload and pack and dread the evaluation call over the loud 
speaker ... many folks I met had Masters degrees and I chatted with many 
about TP while amazon ran a special on GR in anticipation of MD .... Oh, 
the irony.

Of course, who am I to say? It all goes back to truth on the internet. 
But at least you don't see employee turnover every four weeks at B&D 
... or better yet, at your local indy.