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> Amazon, everything is on fire. you are not fooling anyone Fun story, when I was an intern at Amazon there was actually a warehouse fire. The result was a lot

by j2kun 10y ago

> Amazon, everything is on fire. you are not fooling anyone Fun story, when I was an intern at Amazon there was actually a warehouse fire. The result was a lot of manual database entry updating as products were determined to be destroyed or still fit for sale.

marcoperaza 10y ago
I'm curious about what happened to products that were no longer fit for sale, but still fit for use. Do you recall?
- robaato 10y ago
  In the military, a warehouse fire or equivalent suddenly generates a ton of "backdated transfer requests" showing that various stock had been sent to the warehouse just previously!
  - dTal 10y ago
    This sounds like rank corruption. Surely such a thing is rare in the military?
    - marcoperaza 10y ago
      To be fair, there's a plausible explanation for what robaato describes that doesn't involve corruption. Suppose it's standard or common to move things first and then file such "backdated transfer requests". After a fire that destroys everything in a warehouse, there would be a flurry of activity to quickly account for everything that was destroyed, so paperwork that would otherwise have trickled in over a month or two might suddenly be hurriedly filed in a few days.
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      It could just be lackadaisical administration that only gets urgently addressed when there is something perceived as a particular problem. The military is not exactly known for being great at keeping track of things that aren't nuclear weapons, and sometimes falls short even on those.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- hobofan 10y ago
  There is "Amazon Warehouse Deals", Amazon itself acting as a used products seller on Amazon. This is usually used for returns etc., but I wouldn't be surprised if they also handle something like this.
- greglindahl 10y ago
  There are businesses that specialize in remaindering fire-damaged goods -- mostly stuff that smells like smoke. They showed up in my town in the early 1980s after one of our local malls had a smokey fire. They sold a bunch of stuff that came from other places, too, including a ton of 15mm miniature soldiers.

by j2kun 10y ago

marcoperaza 10y ago

I'm curious about what happened to products that were no longer fit for sale, but still fit for use. Do you recall?

robaato 10y ago
In the military, a warehouse fire or equivalent suddenly generates a ton of "backdated transfer requests" showing that various stock had been sent to the warehouse just previously!
- dTal 10y ago
  This sounds like rank corruption. Surely such a thing is rare in the military?
  - marcoperaza 10y ago
    To be fair, there's a plausible explanation for what robaato describes that doesn't involve corruption. Suppose it's standard or common to move things first and then file such "backdated transfer requests". After a fire that destroys everything in a warehouse, there would be a flurry of activity to quickly account for everything that was destroyed, so paperwork that would otherwise have trickled in over a month or two might suddenly be hurriedly filed in a few days.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    It could just be lackadaisical administration that only gets urgently addressed when there is something perceived as a particular problem. The military is not exactly known for being great at keeping track of things that aren't nuclear weapons, and sometimes falls short even on those.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
hobofan 10y ago
There is "Amazon Warehouse Deals", Amazon itself acting as a used products seller on Amazon. This is usually used for returns etc., but I wouldn't be surprised if they also handle something like this.
greglindahl 10y ago
There are businesses that specialize in remaindering fire-damaged goods -- mostly stuff that smells like smoke. They showed up in my town in the early 1980s after one of our local malls had a smokey fire. They sold a bunch of stuff that came from other places, too, including a ton of 15mm miniature soldiers.