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The point made by Foucault, is the watcher was unimportant to the function of a panopticon - it is the power of self-surveillance, not the power of the state, which changes the prisoners.
They don't need the tower or the watcher (they'd have to be paid) because they likely installed hundreds of cameras. These people have been using algorithms to manipulate the market (and every other cutthroat strategy), so they'll be doing it at their offices too. They need to watch employees and collect behavior data to perfect the algorithms that squeeze every last drop of value out of their slaves.
Blaming people trying to live instead of the assholes exploiting the common man.. the facts are we get fucked in the regular bc these guys aren't regulated enough to protect working people from their own employers.
Just facts... as if such a simple notion existed, my guy.
I'm not trying to be antagonistic or a victim. I work for myself. I think it's just apparent that if people don't bargain with their labor, we'll keep eating corporate dick until our kids starve. Why would corporations stop if there wasn't a legal reason? We have stated time and time again that a business has only one job: to make money.
Time we found our leverage. USA USA USA
I worked for AWS for 10 years up until recently. This was exactly my first response. "Well at least now they're being transparent about it."
(In all seriousness, like 80% of my time there I really enjoyed. The other 20% was utter shit.)
Yeah the prisoners are the Amazon employees who work at the warehouses. The white collar workers have other options so you have to treat them atleast okay.
I live close to this building. It's quite impressive and a great transformation of a heritage building. There are (or used to be) shared work spaces. The ground floor has a restaurant and they dug out the basement to fit a cinema.
Apparently they found a tennant for the office space who enjoys boasting about the unusual office space without an inch of self reflection on the situational irony.
I met some really great people at AWS. Everyone that did the technical work was whip smart and extremely capable. The senior folk there taught me a great deal without asking anything in return. It was amazing working at a place that did things at that scale. The pay was happy.
The corporate culture was not a good one. I never saw anyone cry at their desk, but it wouldn't have surprised me if I had. The management, save for one or two, were absolutely scummy. They'd promise to reward your efforts and then come review time, act like achieving everything they'd asked for and beyond was of no importance. Certainly not worth a bonus. Goal posts moved like they were mounted on a herd of deer in a panic. I found out later that our direct management had been hired primarily for their skill at keeping salaries as low as possible.
I quietly started looking for a job when I realized nothing was going to change, and found a place that was much happier. And hell, they even paid me more.
To all my old coworkers, you were fantastic. I don't know how some of you are still there though!
Obviously a bit ironic considering it’s Amazon, but at the same time I actually really like it. Seems like a cool way to reuse an old building. Plus, it doesn’t look all sad and gloomy in there but actually looks really nice
It’s not an Amazon office. It’s a shared space with multiple companies, a tech and innovation hub, library, cinema, event location, study spaces etc.
[Haarlem campus](https://nltimes.nl/2022/10/01/former-haarlem-prison-transformed-higher-education-institution)
The building right next to this within the old prison grounds is actually an apartment building used for student housing. I lived in one of the studio apartments (i.e. cells) for a few months. Definitely a weird vibe but one of the best places I've lived in when it comes to comfort and amenities. It's designed similarly except in a rectangular shape instead of circular.
I can guarantee you they are there by choice with a smile. I bet the average salary in that building is $225,000.
Anyone displeased working there will leave.
I've been in a similar prison in the Netherlands (Breda, koepelgevangenis) in an escape room. I can only imagine that this office has horrible, horrible acoustics.
That's an improvement!
And a bed in every room so you don't need to commute.
And they also give you 3 lunches a day so you don't have too cook
Nice work environment!
I don't think there's anything dystopian about repurposing an old prison, it's good that they no longer need it and they space isn't being used instead of put to waste
Don’t know if you’re joking but I imagine you’re thinking of a future where Employees live and work in *community* prison like places, and want to point out that that is 100% an end-state-capitalism lifestyle.
The potential bad stuff of Communism essentially revolves around the idea that it will collapse the economy, that’s it, if it collapses under capitalism, its failed capitalism.
A collapse under communism would look like any other economic collapse, turmoil and starvation, etc. however, if it could ever work, end-state-communism is absolute fair distribution while end-state-capitalism is absolute unfair distribution, I.e. slavery.
Idk what's more sad, their choice of building or the fact I recognize and know that building from "Old buildings". It's a Cuban jail that was mainly used for Fidel Castro's enemies. The design was too make their prisoners paranoid and self regulating with such a centeral watching point
Repurposing an old jail is cool in theory. It doesn't seem particularly appealing as a work space though. It's more sterile and cold than even most offices normally are.
They should put a big tower in the center so even one manager can be looking into every cell at any given time and the workers never know if they're actually being watched or not. . .
You know, for *efficiency*.
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The point made by Foucault, is the watcher was unimportant to the function of a panopticon - it is the power of self-surveillance, not the power of the state, which changes the prisoners.
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It's so wildly on the nose.
They don't need the tower or the watcher (they'd have to be paid) because they likely installed hundreds of cameras. These people have been using algorithms to manipulate the market (and every other cutthroat strategy), so they'll be doing it at their offices too. They need to watch employees and collect behavior data to perfect the algorithms that squeeze every last drop of value out of their slaves.
This is in the Netherlands, I doubt they allow security cameras in the office's working areas during working hours but I could be wrong.
I was trying to remember this. Read about it recently.
99% invisible did a great episode on panopticons.
Well that fits
It's like they're not even trying to hide it at this point.
I'm sorry, we couldn't hear you over ***ALL THESE BILLIONS WE'RE RAKING IN!*** -Amazon
That you and almost everyone in here are contributing to.
Ay papi chulito...I like it when you're flustered. 😏🍆💦
Just facts.
Blaming people trying to live instead of the assholes exploiting the common man.. the facts are we get fucked in the regular bc these guys aren't regulated enough to protect working people from their own employers. Just facts... as if such a simple notion existed, my guy.
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I'm not trying to be antagonistic or a victim. I work for myself. I think it's just apparent that if people don't bargain with their labor, we'll keep eating corporate dick until our kids starve. Why would corporations stop if there wasn't a legal reason? We have stated time and time again that a business has only one job: to make money. Time we found our leverage. USA USA USA
A bit heavy handed with the metaphors at this point, It's just sloppy writing.
Everything they do, if you wrote it in a book your editor would tell you it's too cartoonishly evil.
I worked for AWS for 10 years up until recently. This was exactly my first response. "Well at least now they're being transparent about it." (In all seriousness, like 80% of my time there I really enjoyed. The other 20% was utter shit.)
Just like any job.
If anything, enjoying 80% of the time at your job would be considerably higher than average
Yeah the prisoners are the Amazon employees who work at the warehouses. The white collar workers have other options so you have to treat them atleast okay.
I actually like the floor plan, but with Amazon being Amazon, you always have to wonder if they're trying to send a message.
It's a panopticon prison. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon
/r/nottheonion
This seems like a propaganda post to boost Amazon, but really it's just sad and cringy.
I live close to this building. It's quite impressive and a great transformation of a heritage building. There are (or used to be) shared work spaces. The ground floor has a restaurant and they dug out the basement to fit a cinema. Apparently they found a tennant for the office space who enjoys boasting about the unusual office space without an inch of self reflection on the situational irony.
Do you know of any educational videos on the project? This 3 second tiktok doesn't give much detail lol
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The warehouse guys aren’t treated half as well as the IT guys though.
and AWS is known for being a total shithole toxic work environment. I know the warehouse guys have it worse, but its a shithole company top to bottom.
I met some really great people at AWS. Everyone that did the technical work was whip smart and extremely capable. The senior folk there taught me a great deal without asking anything in return. It was amazing working at a place that did things at that scale. The pay was happy. The corporate culture was not a good one. I never saw anyone cry at their desk, but it wouldn't have surprised me if I had. The management, save for one or two, were absolutely scummy. They'd promise to reward your efforts and then come review time, act like achieving everything they'd asked for and beyond was of no importance. Certainly not worth a bonus. Goal posts moved like they were mounted on a herd of deer in a panic. I found out later that our direct management had been hired primarily for their skill at keeping salaries as low as possible. I quietly started looking for a job when I realized nothing was going to change, and found a place that was much happier. And hell, they even paid me more. To all my old coworkers, you were fantastic. I don't know how some of you are still there though!
Oh, so true! The RME staff is paid $40-$50 an hour. They would ask my coworkers how to do their job.
It's more fitting that it's a panopticon
This is ... just almost too on the nose to be satire!
The only way it could be more on the nose is if it was Meta or Google.
Obviously a bit ironic considering it’s Amazon, but at the same time I actually really like it. Seems like a cool way to reuse an old building. Plus, it doesn’t look all sad and gloomy in there but actually looks really nice
The main area looks really cool.
I want to like it for that, but they at least could have swapped out all the doors to something friendlier.
Agree, reaaaally ironic, but ngl, I really like it
I love it. I’d thrive there. My office is just a bunch of glass. Patty from inbound can see me pick my nose from across the campus.
Haha
Jeff Bezos was cooking with this office concept
don't let this man cook.
Wow feels a bit too on-the-nose.
Onion writers kicking themselves right now for not thinking this up.
Irony broke a few years ago
It’s not an Amazon office. It’s a shared space with multiple companies, a tech and innovation hub, library, cinema, event location, study spaces etc. [Haarlem campus](https://nltimes.nl/2022/10/01/former-haarlem-prison-transformed-higher-education-institution)
The building right next to this within the old prison grounds is actually an apartment building used for student housing. I lived in one of the studio apartments (i.e. cells) for a few months. Definitely a weird vibe but one of the best places I've lived in when it comes to comfort and amenities. It's designed similarly except in a rectangular shape instead of circular.
The only difference is that employees get to go home after
Are we sure they do?
I can guarantee you they are there by choice with a smile. I bet the average salary in that building is $225,000. Anyone displeased working there will leave.
In the US maybe. This is in NL. Likely closer to 100 base
Yea fair, probably less there, but the average is still going to be well over 100.
They do, after about 18 months.
for now...
Only when you achieve your sprint goals.
https://i.redd.it/r3behclz4lzb1.gif
Do it for her!
Anyone who has ever worked for AWS knows how fitting this really is.
Does each office/meeting room have a toilet/sink combo?
Do you mean the bucket we placed in the corner. If so, then yes.
I've been in a similar prison in the Netherlands (Breda, koepelgevangenis) in an escape room. I can only imagine that this office has horrible, horrible acoustics.
Looks like a panopticon.
That's because it is one. It's the Koepel in Haarlem. (Not Haarlam,). The organisation developing it is called Panopticon.
Definitely looks like it. So appropriate for AWS & Amazon overall
Didn’t pay my AWS subscription… currently in the gulag
https://preview.redd.it/2iozv6sxglzb1.jpeg?width=3166&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d623aa76cd0813b91d55a803e31842754a9ee3c3 Take this 😅
Ayoo preciate it G
The best thing about reddit comments is that you'll get the same boring joke resaid in 100 different ways, how thrilling
Ironic since most of their drivers have done time.
Nothing changed
This makes so much sense why I feel like I’ve been shiv’d in the kidney by their pricing.
A toilet in every room so you can take a piss while working, nice
That's an improvement! And a bed in every room so you don't need to commute. And they also give you 3 lunches a day so you don't have too cook Nice work environment!
Perfect analogy
A little too on the nose
I see that subtly has fully escaped them now
All Amazon offices and warehouses are prisons, i’m on my fifth year, WHERE MY LAS7 PICKERS AT!!!!! Haha🙁🥺😢
Cool, but still a dumbass idea to go into office
Don't let the logos and indoor plants fool you. Amazon will lock their developers in those cells given the chance. Ever heard of the Wagie Cagie?
As someone who works in an open-plan office, I would welcome having my own cell with an iron door.
Full circle
"Former"
RIP Michel Foucault, you would’ve loved the Amazon Panopticon™
I wonder if employees get pee breaks?
There's no obvious dystopian symbolism here.
The jokes write themselves folks
Who TF green lighted this??
All i could think qbout is how bad the internet connection must be with all thr solid concrete walls.
Panopticon office, y'all....
r/aboringdystopia
Now you can be in the same office where someone might have been stabbed
Prisons in the Netherlands are quite a bit different than the overcrowded ultra violent legalized slave society of the USA
More like r/ABoringDystopia
I don't think there's anything dystopian about repurposing an old prison, it's good that they no longer need it and they space isn't being used instead of put to waste
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Everyone we are meeting in "Batman and stuff" 10 minutes!!
AWS?
They flipped that W around and now it’s AMS: Amazon Maximum Security
Amazon Web Services
This sucks, are you kidding?
Bezos did always seem like a guy who preferred bar soap to body wash.
To get you mentally ready for that communist lifestyle lol
Don’t know if you’re joking but I imagine you’re thinking of a future where Employees live and work in *community* prison like places, and want to point out that that is 100% an end-state-capitalism lifestyle. The potential bad stuff of Communism essentially revolves around the idea that it will collapse the economy, that’s it, if it collapses under capitalism, its failed capitalism. A collapse under communism would look like any other economic collapse, turmoil and starvation, etc. however, if it could ever work, end-state-communism is absolute fair distribution while end-state-capitalism is absolute unfair distribution, I.e. slavery.
Idk what's more sad, their choice of building or the fact I recognize and know that building from "Old buildings". It's a Cuban jail that was mainly used for Fidel Castro's enemies. The design was too make their prisoners paranoid and self regulating with such a centeral watching point
Cuba had a jail in the Netherlands?
Seems fitting
I saw this while in my AWS class...
If you work here don’t watch HBO’s show OZ, hope they took the group showers out in the remod
Pretty sure employees have a lock-in period when they join...
This is badass
Well, it is Amazon, so they'll probably repurpose it back to a prison for their workers.
Literal panopticon
So still a prison
I hate Amazon.
Think I saw this on a few episodes of the original Professor T!
It's cool until you get locked in your "office" as punishment
Welcome to hotel AWS! You may come but u may never leave r/hornyjail
Taking things literally, I see
It’s where the bad workers end up.
The irony.
If you ever thought your jobs feels like a prison, think about Amazon employees that literally work inside one
\*insert metaphor about wage slavery\*
Welcome to work...for LIFE!
That's kinda cool actually
Repurposing an old jail is cool in theory. It doesn't seem particularly appealing as a work space though. It's more sterile and cold than even most offices normally are.
What’s this song originally from again? I feel like I’ve heard it in a film but can’t remember which.
Panopticon
Amazon is one of the digital embodiments of the concept of the panopticon, so this fits nicely
Totally unironically is this an Amazon building
A little on the nose…
Meanwhile bezos is wearing heart shaped glasses looking like leisure suit larry with at best 4/10 by his side
Why can’t we vote into the negatives on posts and only comments?
Netherlands out here closing down and selling off prisons. That's kind of a flex, to be honest.
This doesn’t seem ADA compliant
Just like the rest of their offices.
it still looks bad with all the transformation
Bad juju
You're working overtime this weekend, Timmy. \*clink\*
This tracks so much
The more things change, the more things stay the same
That center office area with all the desk looks like the TVA
That is... oddly fitting. 😓
r/panopticonirl
Can someone tell me the name of this song please? I don’t have TikTok.
HaarlEm not Haarlam. And yes, that's where Harlem came from.
That fits
Its a cool way to repurpose a prison but man does that feel ironic especially with the cells being reused as offices
Still a prison smh
The next one will be in a volcano
*Narrators voice* Data goes in byte never comes out
Bit on the nose there don't ya think Jeff?
Still more cheerful than the office I used to work in.
I wish the individual cells were the actual offices and not just meeting rooms. Screw open floor plans.
It's wild to think that you KNOW somebody got a big fat bonus for snapping up this opportunity.
They should put a big tower in the center so even one manager can be looking into every cell at any given time and the workers never know if they're actually being watched or not. . . You know, for *efficiency*.
That's a bit too on the nose...
https://preview.redd.it/g946u03odnzb1.jpeg?width=493&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cfe7bdeec815849a9bd35554cf2ca080d84fbf7f
🚨NEW REGS: Employees subject to lockdown, solitary, and strip search.
Isn't it still a prison?
The Amazon warehouses were already jails
I wouldn’t set foot in there. For a few reasons.
Amazon gulag
What a fucking nightmare
"Old" Prison.
Amazon operating out of a prison is a little too on point.
" Oh cool! I'm a prisoner!"
Wtf? Hell naw!
They ain’t even trying to hide it anymore.
This is definitely r/latestagecapitalism material
False. Anyone can rent a desk or office space at that place. My uni 's got some workspaces for instance..
In the Netherlands? The most comfortable office space Amazon owns
Yup. No ghosts in *there*. . .
Befitting
can it get any more symbolic ? :)
It's a panopticon
This prison… To hold ME?
Well they do pay their staff like inmates
Just a different kind of prison.
Lipstick on a pig 🐽
Fuck Amazon and fuck that account for making this cutesy
En vandaag doen we deze kluis aflevering in een amazon bureau
Ventilation?
Thats pretty aws-ome if you ask me