Working in the Chocolate Factory
I’m a box guy.
At Amazon, they call us water spiders. It’s a Japanese term derived from the principles of lean manufacturing. I personally think the term is ridiculous. I bring boxes and other supplies to the packers. The packers do just that; they pack customer orders.
Amazon has an amazing system for delivering product inventory to the packers. But when setting up this system, I don’t believe they gave any thought whatsoever to the boxes. Box delivery can only be described as chaotic.
So be it. Whatever. Someone has to deliver unmade boxes to the packers, and for some reason the managers have given me that job. Because we water spiders get to move around freely, I would say it is a slightly better position than packer. But that is totally subjective because, if done well, the job is completely exhausting.
In any case, the way it works is each box guy is assigned a certain number of packers. And we spend our shift carting boxes to them.
We don’t get the same packers every shift. The packers are moved around from shift to shift. And so, with every shift I get a new set of packers. At any one time, there are up to 84 packers and four box guys. So I have twenty or so packers to serve.
The point is, sooner or later, I meet all the packers. Some are very nice; some not so much. I don’t mind if a packer is not nice, but for me to properly serve them, they do need to be civil. If not, well, they just don’t get boxes. That’s a problem for them because Amazon is constantly monitoring their pack rate, how many items and boxes they are packing per hour. And if I do not bring them boxes, they have to go get them themselves, eating time and lowering their rate. I should get in trouble for this. But I don’t. The managers know fully well how hard I work.
A packer can call a box guy at any time by turning on a light. But more typically, I just go down the line getting them whatever they need. So sooner or later, I get to know all the packers and all the packers get to know me.
Am I boring you yet? I tell you all this to sort of paint the picture.
Like almost everyone, when I started working at Amazon, I was a packer. But after a couple of weeks, they moved me into the water spider role. Like I said, it’s exhausting. But on the bright side, it is like going to the gym for ten to twelve hours, and getting paid for it.
Before I started working at Amazon, I had no expectations about what I would be doing. Then after I started packing boxes, I did wonder if I could do that for four nights a week. Four ten-hour shifts a week. Five eleven-hour shifts during the holiday season. Then after they made me a water spider, I wondered if I could do that. They made me a box guy just in time for the holidays. So five eleven-hour shifts of carting boxes around.
I promptly lost thirty pounds.
After working at the company for about three months, my de facto supervisor, Cohnson, asks me: “Reuben, what the hell are you doing here?”
“Me? Hey, I’m just getting some exercise."