I have no idea what it’s like as a seasonal associate at Amazon today. But I do know what it was like 20 years ago. A genuine mixture of chaos, frustration, h

I have no idea what it’s like as a seasonal associate at Amazon today. But I do know what it was like 20 years ago. A genuine mixture of chaos, frustration, hard work, and passion trying to build what’s next. Chaos was ever present with a large team of dedicated Problem Solvers. Associates who understood the system well enough to solve anomalies. Frustration largely came from the incongruence of trying to keep customers happy while trying to hire new associates that allowed us to “average up”(each hire improving the overall average). Hard work was constant, but it was achievable for anyone in mediocre health or better. The biggest issue was the overtime. We did run mandatory overtime for all associates that was challenging, but doable. Exempt management just worked silly hours, it’s part of why I eventually departed on good terms post Holiday madness. Seasonal Associates were referred to as temps back then. They were all sourced from a single temping agency Integrity. Often times just a mob of warm bodies, numerous temps discovered to be intoxicated, and a few times armed. Shifting from paper pick lists to handheld scanners was a big change. I guess you could call it early human/computer interaction that allowed individual metric measurement to be scaled. An earlier poster’s reference to Taylor’s Scientific Management is interesting. Amazon’s reputation in Operations being harsh originated 20 years ago when it scaled from a small team of true believers to a large enterprise of regular human beings. We fired people quickly and decisively like an assembly line. Amazon Operations then, and I presume now, is not suitable for someone who is physically unfit or unhealthy. Which when looking at the unsuitability of such a high percentage of young people being unfit for military service(obesity epidemic), leads me to believe that many who choose to work at Amazon are physically unsuitable due to lifestyle choice. Where is it all going? I would love to see a flattening of consumer spending to avoid the need for seasonal hiring, but that’s unlikely, especially, with the introduction of Amazon’s truly artificial holiday stress test Prime Day. The very early folks like myself benefitted enormously from the low wage gamble we took in exchange for Amazon stock options. More recently, the upside in compensation and stock units is far more limited, although promotion prospects within the company are considerable. There just isn’t the profit per employee with Amazon as there is with Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Netflix that is often confused and conflated by labour advocates. I just remember us all making fun of Walmart and being like the Rebel Alliance. Now it’s portrayed as the Galactic Empire a mere 20 years later. With all the great humour/satire around “Red Shirts” and evil minions in Venture Brothers, I wonder if we will see any satire around Amazon inspired by dystopian stories like THX1138. Happy Holidays to all, especially those seasonal workers moving all of our Chinese made consumer goods from A to B.