Video claims to show robots ‘trapping’ Amazon warehouse worker: ‘It can sometimes get crazy’

‘It really does feel like Maze Runner’

Gino Spocchia
Monday 07 March 2022 21:25 GMT
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An Amazon worker has apparently recorded the moment he was “trapped” by robots on the floor of a warehouse.

The employee, or “Robotman77” on TikTok, said he took 15 minutes to “escape” from the situation at an Amazon fulfillment centre.

In a video allegedly from an Amazon warehouse floor, the employee was retrieving items from robotic yellow shelves that appeared to “trap” him in last week.

“They’re trying to block me in”, said Robotman77 after he appeared to be blocked by a moving yellow robot. “These pods be messing with me”.

He showed his followers on TikTok where the robots charged, and his search for an exit from the warehouse floor after another robot appeared to block his path.

He says: “Oh my god why is it stopping in the middle. I’m f*****”.

The video ends with the Amazon worker eventually finding his way out of the warehouse floor, which he said “seems like a maze” and took “15 minutes” to “get out”. He added that it was not the first time it had happened to him.

“It can sometimes get crazy (because) them robots like to mess around”, Robotman77 added in a written caption of the TikTok, which has since had more than 800,000 views.

“It’s not a maze,” wrote one viewer in the comments. “They don’t move. It’s a labyrinth. They move”.

“It’s like the Maze Runner,” wrote another, to which Robotman77 responded: “It really does feel like that 100 per cent don’t feel like I am at work”.

He explains in another TikTok how he fixes faults with robots at his Amazon warehouse, and that “not everybody can go in” to the area of the warehouse floor. It was unclear where in the United States the fulfillment centre was.

While sensors and cameras enable the robot shelving units to move, Amazon workers must follow strict rules such as keeping on a path and wearing a sensor to prevent accidents.

There are thought to be 110 Amazon fulfillment centres in the United States, and some 185 around the world.

The Independent has approached Amazon for comment.

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