See the film, read the book

Nomadland

She's not going dancing. She's sitting having an early morning cup of tea in her nightdress, as you do when you are camping. You see the sunrise and the sunset and these are beautiful. I look at my favourite YouTube channels documenting people travelling around in self-converted campervans, because I can't travel far these days of Covid. So I was immediately attracted to this film about van dwellers in America.  But there the similarity ends.  Nomadland is about down and out Americans who can't afford to live in a traditional bricks and mortar house on their meagre retirement pensions, so they opt for a life on the road.

Many choose to work as part of CamperForce, an invention of Amazon to fill a staffing gap in their giant "fulfilment centres".  These senior citizens are allowed to park their RV's ("recreational vehicles" - recreational???) in Amazon's giant carparks for free, as long as they work long shifts, day and night, for little pay. The message of this film is very sad, and the situation must be a lot worse now with the pandemic. 

For real detail and insights, go to the book on which it is based, part fiction and part documentary. Just as visiting an abattoir might put you off eating meat forever, reading this might make you think twice about ordering from Amazon (or at least sticking to e-books which by-pass the problem). These warehouses are huge and workers walk miles in a day and return exhausted to their vans afterwards. This takes its toll on elderly limbs, but management have targets to meet, especially in the pre-Christmas period.  Recognising this, Amazon have kindly fixed wall-mounted dispensers offering free over-the-counter painkillers for those suffering from long hours walking up and down concrete floors in the warehouse. They also have paramedics waiting outside in ambulances, ready to extract employees suffering from heat stroke. 

I'm surprised Amazon are still selling this book, given that it is such an exposé of their business practices. Wait, there is the fulfilment centre for Perth just down the road. If I run out of money,  I can apply...