Oobah Butler, a writer and filmmaker with a history of pulling elaborate pranks and gaming the system to advance his car | dG1fNnJibC1MVGRuWkE
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Short filmTranscript
00:00 So I just started thinking and thinking,
00:02 "How do I get people to care about Amazon's workers?"
00:06 Yeah. I started kind of...
00:07 I was hanging around their fulfilment centres a lot
00:10 and I noticed how outside a lot of them there are bottles of urine.
00:14 Bottles of urine?
00:15 Bottles of urine, yeah. Yeah.
00:17 If you ever go to an Amazon fulfilment centre
00:19 and you look at the side of the road,
00:21 there's often, like, bottles of urine.
00:22 Just for the record, it definitely was urine,
00:24 cos I sniffed it.
00:25 HE GASPS
00:27 Yeah, and then I thought, "Where on earth is this coming from?"
00:29 So I went to speak with Alex Press,
00:31 a Labour journalist who hosts a podcast about Amazon
00:34 to confirm my suspicions.
00:36 People are pissing in the bottles.
00:38 It's a pervasive problem,
00:39 one that all the delivery service partners
00:42 and the company itself are very aware of.
00:44 There's no time for bathroom breaks
00:48 cos you don't want to get written up for being off the clock.
00:51 It's called time off task at Amazon.
00:53 There's evidence that people are pissing in bottles
00:57 or holding it in.
00:59 To the point where women at Amazon often complain
01:01 about developing urinary tract infections.
01:04 It's really bad and well-documented,
01:06 most among the delivery workforce.
01:08 But an Amazon spokesperson said that they don't do that.
01:11 Yeah, well...
01:13 Excuse me, excuse me.
01:15 We're making a film where we're talking to Amazon delivery drivers.
01:19 When was the last time that you pissed in a bottle?
01:21 Oh, today.
01:23 Yeah, today. I mean, it's just like a thing, you know, every day.
01:26 It's just... It's unfortunate,
01:28 but we have to do it.
01:30 You'll see in the back seat, back there, this is...
01:33 How does it make you feel?
01:35 It's honestly degrading, you know?
01:37 It's kind of like, in a way, you feel like you have no option.
01:42 So I've spoken to drivers all over the world
01:44 and it seems to be the same everywhere.
01:47 What is it? This is the toilet.
01:49 And the reason that they piss in bottles
01:51 is just cos they're under such crazy pressure to meet targets.
01:54 The algorithm tells that he needs to make a delivery once a week.
01:58 So, every three minutes.
02:00 They're being monitored by a dispatcher at all times.
02:03 I am, like, the dispatcher lead.
02:05 You get a direct monitor of how many packages everyone has done,
02:08 how long they've been working,
02:10 how many packages have been done, the percentages of them.
02:12 They don't give you enough time to schedule a break,
02:16 and if you do, you'll probably end up going overtime.
02:19 They will call him and tell him, "You are 10 package
02:22 "below the average today."
02:24 You know, people are going slow, usually end up getting fired.
02:27 If I'm looking for a McDonald's or, I don't know, for a toilet,
02:31 for a public toilet...
02:32 - Good stuff. - Exactly.
02:35 Now I found out that every bottle of urine
02:37 that is found in their car at the end of the day
02:39 counts against them.
02:41 We go off, like, a point system,
02:42 so it's like if you pee in a bottle and you leave it,
02:45 and, like, you're going to get a point for that.
02:48 How many points until they might have truck trouble?
02:50 Well, everybody has, like, their own system.
02:52 So our point is a ten-point system, yeah.
02:54 So there's fleets of Amazon vans all over the world
02:57 chucking bottles of urine out their window.
03:00 Amazon are flooding the world with piss.
03:03 This seems like such a waste.
03:05 - Of piss? - Yeah.
03:07 You want it?
03:08 I'm collecting all of the bottles of urine that I can find
03:24 from Amazon's disgruntled and overworked drivers.
03:27 The people at the top of Amazon have tried to brush this issue
03:30 under the carpet.
03:31 So I'm going to make their drivers' urine
03:33 something they can't ignore.
03:35 See, the number one product in any Amazon category
03:38 gets a special promotional badge saying it's a bestseller.
03:41 And if I can get one for Amazon driver's piss,
03:44 then they will proudly display it front and centre
03:47 of their own platform.
03:51 We want to make a drink out of the driver's urine.
03:55 We just need to come up with, like, a name, a label,
04:02 a design for a logo.
04:04 Has it got to do with energy?
04:07 Yeah, energy. Energy's good.
04:08 Has it got to do with piss?
04:10 Piss energy?
04:11 Busting.
04:14 - What about drive? - Drive.
04:16 Drive's not bad. Shall I look if it's been taken?
04:20 - It actually looks pretty good. - Yeah, it looks good.
04:22 What do drivers want when they're on a shift for Amazon?
04:25 They want to piss.
04:27 They want to be released from their shift.
04:29 - Release energy drink. - And they want to release.
04:31 - Release energy. - Yeah, that's not bad.
04:34 - Release energy. - There's nothing.
04:35 Release. You can see it.
04:37 It sounds like it would be good for you.
04:39 - And it's basically taken away. - It is a release.
04:43 Energy drinks have a look to them, don't they?
04:45 It needs to be released, and maybe a little letter's energy.
04:47 - The Amazon orange... - Nice.
04:49 ..kind of looks...
04:51 Yeah, it does look energy drinky.
04:52 It looks like, I imagine, your vat of piss looks.
04:55 We need a more healthy piss colour.
04:58 A little more yellow. Bright yellow.
05:00 - That's too... - That's too hydrated.
05:03 That looks like Wes Anderson's designed it.
05:05 Yes.
05:06 That's it.
05:07 - I would totally drink that. - Would you drink that?
05:13 Yeah, definitely. Would you drink that?
05:16 My cut's just arrived.
05:18 Very nice.
05:22 7.5 inches.
05:25 This is all being listed, and that's where it says all the ingredients.
05:30 Switch out the ingredients to your own.
05:33 Open finish.
05:35 I can't... I just... I'm just saying, surely not...
05:37 ..available to buy.
05:40 HE LAUGHS
05:42 Fuck.
05:43 Does anyone want to do a test purchase?
05:44 HE SIGHS
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06:11 (upbeat music)
06:14 (upbeat music)