The UK's Amazon warehouse during the holiday season
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the insider

joel bettridge

From Saturday's Globe and Mail

Published Saturday, Dec. 17, 2011 6:00AM EST

Around the twentieth time I shipped a box containing both Michael Bublé’s Christmas album and Justin Beiber’s Under the Mistletoe, I realized that while Christmas might be the most magical time of the year, it’s definitely not the most original.
If you live in Canada and have a friend with an Internet connection and a credit card, chances are you’re getting either a calendar, Star Wars Lego, or a book by a Giller Prize nominee. Trust me, I know. I’m what some might call an Amazon elf.
For eight hours a day, I stand in front of a table equipped with a computer, scanner and a tape machine, stacks of brown Amazon.ca boxes stacked at my feet, while I send your loved ones their holiday shopping. I do not have a scraggly white beard. My boots are steel-toed, not pointed. But here, in an unmarked and unremarkable building in the industrial hinterlands of Mississauga, I’ve found myself working at the digital world’s equivalent of the North Pole. (If Santa’s elves were required to go through stringent security checks, that is.)
Three weeks ago, between jobs and in need of some cash for Christmas, I took a job at the shipping giant’s 905 warehouse. I wake up around 4:45 for the 6 a.m. shifts and 2:45 for the 4 a.m. ones, making the 20-minute drive in darkness, listening to morning DJs wondering aloud who, besides criminals, might be listening to them.
Inside the warehouse, shelving units that sprawl out in all directions hold books, CDs and miscellaneous goods waiting to be shipped. At one end are the workstations where conveyor belts buzz as “packers” finalize the shipping process. In between the shelving units, “pickers” scurry from one section to another pushing goodie-laden carts, scanner in hand as they search out that elusive Mad Men box set or King’s Speech DVD. A bottle of water is the only personal item I’m allowed to bring in: all food, cell phones and MP3 players are forbidden in the warehouse, part of an effort to curb theft and keep greasy fingerprints off your aunt’s new Kindle e-reader.
Enjoy your Steve Jobs biography, Canada
Every year, Amazon hires thousands of temporary employees during the holiday season. The job posting specified that eligible applicants must be able to stand and walk during 8-to-12-hour shifts and lift up to 50 pounds. I lied.
I arrived to interview at the warehouse in late November, and was ushered into a room with eight other applicants. We had been told there was going to be a test, and I had worried about answering LSAT style questions involving cognitive reasoning or being asked to solve complex problems about shipments leaving different destinations at different times.
Instead, I was handed one piece of paper containing a list of 10 books, CDs and DVD titles. On another page, there were pictures of each item. Being a native English speaker with two university degrees, I managed to match them all in just under the 12 allotted minutes. I thought maybe they were trying to trick me, so I checked them all twice.
Eventually, the manager who was doing the hiring came over to see if I had finished. I’m pretty sure he didn’t even look at my answers. I started a week later.
I work as a packer, for $12 an hour, one of about 700 employees split between two shifts. I’m required to ship 97 units per hour. A high UPH is gold in here: It brings gift cards, pride and promises of more gift cards, so obviously it’s pretty hard to think when you’re focused on your UPH. But you do notice things. A lot of albums and books these days have ridiculously literal names: Tony Bennett’s album of duets is called Duets. Paul Simon’s book about lyrics? Yup. It’s called Lyrics. A lot of people order weight-loss paraphernalia: DVDs by Bob Harper from the Biggest Loser and those giant, brightly coloured medicine balls. (Here’s a question: If you’re too lazy to walk to the store and get it, do you think you’ll use it after it’s delivered to your house?) And a lot of people have sketchy holiday taste: On my first day, I shipped a rack of orders that contained 30 copies of Ernest Saves Christmas but only one copy of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. There are orders that stop you cold, too. One person ordered eight books about alcoholism. Looks like someone’s Christmas dinner is going to turn into an intervention.

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