Household Object: Amazon Package

Features:

• 3 million shipped daily, or 1.1 trillion every year
• Can be shipped and delivered in less than twenty-four hours
• Comes with a smile

My local parcel carriers know I work from home. Whenever they have a delivery for my neighbors, they ring me. I hurry down so they don’t have to climb the stairs. The DHL deliveryman told me he walks up to nine miles a day. His younger, more slender colleague told me he walks up to twenty-two miles a day, and that he needs new shoes every two months. The Hermes deliveryman is new in my area. He bears no resemblance to the Greek messenger god from whom the shipping company takes its name. He’s elderly and overweight, and wears an ill-fitting blue uniform. When we met recently, on the first floor, he was out of breath. He handed me a cardboard box printed with a black arrow in the shape of a smile. The deliveryman did not smile. He told me he had just carried four furniture boxes to the fifth floor of another building while the owner watched from the doorway.

I took the package, signed for it, and placed it in the hall for my neighbor. I contemplated the smile. A few years ago, to supplement my meager writing income, I got a job as a seasonal associate at an Amazon fulfillment center in Leipzig, Germany. I worked in the books department, checking incoming products for damage and scanning them into the warehouse system, which made them available online for customers to buy. During my training, Amazon emphasized satisfaction and teamwork as part of its culture. We called one another by our first names, as if we were friends. When Amazon delivers a package to a customer, I was told, everyone should be happy. Seasonal associates are behind every smile on every box, the training videos say.

Also: we were poorly compensated for exhausting work, we had no guaranteed employment, and we received no benefits. We had to stand near doors that didn’t fully close, letting in frigid winter air. “Amazon wants its employees to be healthy not only when they’re working here, but also when they leave the company,” my trainer informed us. He also told us: “Sick days harm Amazon.” We showed up to work with toothaches or fevers, because we were afraid that if we took sick days our contracts would not be renewed, or we would lose our jobs outright. At Amazon’s insistence that we “Work hard. Have fun. Make history,” we traded cynical grins—but only on our lunch breaks, when we couldn’t be seen.

I sympathize easily. It’s a human trait. Mirror neurons, which...