Alleged Amazon Worker Draws Skepticism for Viral Post Praising Conditions

An alleged Amazon warehouse worker has sparked controversy online and renewed scrutiny over the company's labor practices, with a viral TikTok claiming that employees are allowed to sit down and nap on the job.

In the video, which has been viewed 1.8 million times, TikTok user @rare.ssur was shown sitting on the floor of an apparent fulfillment center while scanning items with overlay text that said "At Amazon you can sit down when you're tired and take a nap at your station," along with a caption claiming: "They treat us like family."

The post appears among a series of similar videos on the account that mock critics of the company's working conditions, including another clip with the text: "I can't believe people are quitting because they are too lazy to do this for $49 an hour at Amazon."

The posts have attracted vehement skepticism from viewers, many of whom claim to be warehouse workers themselves. One commenter wrote: "I've been at 3 FCs [fulltillment centers] and have never been allowed to sit on the floor to stow, not even for the bottom bins."

Another posted: "Nope, they make you put away or open a certain amount of boxes an hour. I have tendinitis and bursitis because of Amazon." One user claimed to work at FedEx and "walk in on people passed out on the bathroom floors because they were worked so hard."

Some commenters did not claim to work at Amazon, but speculated that the videos were not really posted by an enthusiast of the company's warehouse conditions. The jokes included suggestions that "HR [was] pretending to be an hourly team member" and CEO Jeff Bezos was "holding a gun behind the camera."

Although these comments may be comedic, Amazon has in fact paid employees to share positive messages online in the past. Starting in 2018, a campaign codenamed "Veritas" dispatched ambassadors to defend Amazon and Jeff Bezos on social media and combat what the company deemed "untruths," according to a document leaked by The Intercept. Fulfillment center workers were chosen for their "great sense of humor" to snarkily push back on posts by labor rights activists, politicians and other critics on Twitter. Amazon quietly shuttered this program at the end of 2021.

The company has sustained continued complaints about its working conditions by employees and activists, pointing to 10-plus hour overnight "megacycle" shifts and fulfillment demands so high that some warehouse workers have been forced to forego their bathroom breaks and pee in bottles, according to a report that Amazon has denied.

Newsweek reached out to @rare.ssur and Amazon for comment.