corporate-america

In Corporate Prison at the Ford Trend Conference

Hamilton Nolan · 06/30/14 09:30AM

The day before I went to Detroit, the city imposed a curfew due to fears of violence. The city was also in the process of shutting off water to thousands of its residents. It sounds bad. But as long as you stay inside a sealed corporate bubble the whole time, you'll never even know these problems exist.

Working at Vice Media Is Not As Cool As It Seems

Hamilton Nolan · 05/30/14 09:33AM

Vice Media is one of the hottest media properties in America. It's the counterculture empire that even Rupert Murdoch could love. Vice's founder, Shane Smith, has speculated his company could raise tens of billions of dollars. So why are its employees so broke and pissed off?

Amazon Deserves All of Its Bad PR

Hamilton Nolan · 05/28/14 11:05AM

Amazon, the Cthulhu of retail, finds itself embroiled in a spat with a major book publisher. It's gotten nasty. And, remarkably, Amazon is losing the PR battle. Why? Perhaps because Amazon—where workers are "ground into a tired heap"—deserves to have a bad reputation.

Why Was Target Canada Such a Disaster?

Hamilton Nolan · 05/21/14 11:20AM

Beleaguered retail empire Target announced weak-ass first quarter earnings today, thanks in large part to its disastrous Target Canada division, which lost $211 million just this quarter. How did Target Canada become the laughingstock of the retail industry? A Target Canada veteran explains in detail, below.

Target's Unofficial Slogan: "Expect More (Work), (Get) Paid Less"

Hamilton Nolan · 05/20/14 03:17PM

Target, the slightly less popular and cleaner version of Walmart, is having a terrible year. Today it fired one executive, and clawed back compensation from another. What's the atmosphere like inside Target now? Allow another employee to explain.

Hamilton Nolan · 05/16/14 10:11AM

The fact that Target executive Jeff Jones wrote a public response to an employee who complained to Gawker is considered so extraordinarily bold that it merits its own story in Ad Age. Take a moment to contemplate how low the bar for heroism in corporate communications must be.

Amazon Is a Time Thief, by an Amazon Employee

Hamilton Nolan · 04/30/14 11:35AM

Amazon is the future of retail, so it's always useful to hear from real live Amazon warehouse workers about what their jobs are really like. Today: one worker details just how much Amazon values its own time over that of its employees.

Amazon and the Squeezing of the Middle Class

Hamilton Nolan · 04/24/14 10:53AM

Huffpo reporter Dave Jamieson wondered why so many of his Amazon Prime packages were being delivered not by UPS or Fedex, but by "independent" courier drivers. The answer says a lot about the dark side of our delivery-dependent future.