SPARROWS POINT, MD—Informed by his manager that he would be let off with a warning this time, unconscious Amazon warehouse employee Anthony Cargill, 41, was reportedly chastised Monday for failing to file a time-off request. “We shouldn’t have to remind you that all warehouse employees are required to inform a supervisor in writing at least 48 hours in advance of passing out,” said the employee’s manager, adding that other employees who had followed proper protocol for requesting time to pass out would be forced to stay upright and cover his shift. “If you don’t give us enough notice, we can’t have the defibrillator ready to resuscitate you, okay? It’s disrespectful of our time if you’re not where you need to be because you keeled over from exhaustion and lost consciousness. Distribution boxes are piling up, so that’s stress added to my job, and how do you think your coworkers feel when they look over to see you stopped working? You think Jeff Bezos built a successful company with a workforce that just faints whenever they feel like it? We’ll let you keep your job, but don’t try this again—30 cameras will be watching you.” At press time, the supervisor was informing an employee decomposing on the floor that she’d violated Amazon’s bereavement leave policy, which permitted employees to take no more than three days off following their deaths.

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