TikTok user and alleged Amazon delivery driver @iagtjuice3 used the app to ask followers to help him get in contact with former CEO Jeff Bezos after he allegedly got sent home for using the bathroom on company time.
During the video, the TikToker explained how he was experiencing some stomach pain and stopped at a gas station to use the restroom before beginning his delivery route.
@iagtjuice3 Smh #fyp #viral #amazon ♬ Spongebob Tomfoolery – Dante9k Remix – David Snell
He said that when he came out of the restroom his supervisor was “posted up” at the gas station, asking him why he was “wasting time” if he was on the clock. The Amazon worker said he was then sent home. The video ends with the TikToker telling Jeff Bezos to “holler” at him.
The video received over 15,000 likes and over 1,100 comments, but it isn’t the first time Amazon workers questioned the company’s bathroom policies.
In 2018, undercover journalist James Bloodworth observed the working conditions of an Amazon warehouse in Staffordshire, U.K. noting that workers there would use plastic bottles instead of going to the actual bathroom, which was “too far” from their workstations. The workers feared being reprimanded for using the bathroom on company time.
A similar occurrence happened out of Austin, Texas in 2020 with delivery driver James Meyers. In an interview with the Guardian, Meyers stated that he “saw no effort on Amazon’s part to push delivery service providers to allow their drivers to use the restroom on a normal human basis.”
He said that the vans alerted Amazon anytime the vehicle stopped for more than three minutes. Meyers stated that this would cause him and other workers to “urinate inside bottles for fear of slowing down our delivery rates.”
Despite all of the buzz and backlash around this topic, Amazon has done very little to mitigate this problem for its workforce. In fact, it seems the company is doing quite the opposite.
Earlier this year, another TikToker, @vaneriam.m, went viral for showcasing Amazon’s “time off task” policy that monitors workers’ every move. The “time off task” metric tracks and analyzes individual workers’ time spent away from their assigned job, like when they have to use the restroom.
The Daily Dot has reached out to TikToker @iagtjuice3 for comment but has not received a response.
Since posting the original video, the Amazon worker responded to several comments made on his post.
One commenter inquired about how long the TikToker was in the restroom, saying it must have been a long time if his boss was waiting outside. In response, he said he “doesn’t really set timers” when he uses the bathroom.
If you gotta go you gotta go,” said the TikToker. “If it was a day, two days, a year, it doesn’t matter how long I was taking, if you gotta shit you gotta shit.”