Exit Interview: The Life and Death of My Ambitious Career

by Kristi Coulter

“They suggested we ‘find efficiencies.’ Which is Amazon-speak for ‘sorry your team is screwed, but it’s not our problem.’”

“This is the most important thing to understand about Amazon. No one knows jack shit.”

But it does mean that from the very beginning I’m attuned to the fact that a lot of people see my employer as, you know, pure evil.

Welcome to Amazon, kids, where the provisionality of your existence is right out in the open.

“Help me understand” is Amazon-speak for “you are an absolute fucking moron.”

Amazon has never shut me inside an oven, but I’m familiar with its refusal to adjust productivity requirements in the face of human limitations.

“So, the thing about Amazon is that there are no wheels,” I say. “They were never there. What you’re experiencing is just how it is here. Absolute chaos.”

Amazon didn’t create our yearning for recognition, but it exploits it for maximum return by holding the rat pellet just out of reach and then frowning on any rat who looks hungry.

Now needing time to think starts to feel again like a career-limiting weakness.

It’s not the first time I’ve felt as if Amazon were daring me to do my job. But I no longer believe there’s any reward for winning the dare. Amazon’s going to cram as many bodies into as little space as possible, and the prize for doing good work under lousy conditions will be getting to do more work under lousy conditions.