Inside Amazon’s Hellscape

In the summer of 2015, I decided to take a tour of a local Amazon distribution center. I didn’t make it out before the doors locked for the night shift. What I pictured would turn out to be like a Night at the Museum quickly turned into Orwell’s 1984.

Fortunately, through the use of this judgmental Harry Styles life-sized cardboard cutout, I remained undetected throughout the night. However, here are the true horrors I witnessed while trapped in an Amazon warehouse.

“Attention, Humans”

The entire fulfillment center is monitored and controlled by a female-voiced supercomputer known as “Echo.” She controls all aspects of operations and cannot be seen—nor shut off—as she lives inside the cloud powered by AWS (Amazon Web Services). Any disruptions in the server will result in an automatic oxygen cutoff to the building. In her robotic voice, Echo relays website orders, reprimands workers for changes in emotional behavior and randomly informs everyone how to spell “cantaloupe.”

Perpetual Amazon Fire

The warehouse is ungodly hot. Hellish, in fact. It makes sense, considering there is an enormous ceiling-high fire burning at the center of it. All through the night, thousands of excessively sweating workers in neon vests stand around the perimeter of the inferno throwing bags of Haribo Gold-Bears and books into it. Based on Echo’s broadcast, the company’s plan is to destroy all physical books by 2017. Consumers will have no choice but to purchase eBooks.

Military-Grade Technology

Amazon is known for their proprietary technology, in full swing within the warehouse—unmanned machine gun-toting drones and C4-strapped Roombas on active duty. There are scare tactic hologram Jeff Bezoses that automatically appear anytime an employee’s heart rate goes beneath 192 beats per minute.

Open Murder Policy

Employees are openly murdered for poor performance. One employee was clocked spending more than five seconds searching for beard oil. The floor opened up beneath, dropping him into a growing sarlacc pit of Fire TV sticks and Dash Buttons.

Prime

Prime is NOT a free two-day delivery service that allows you early access to luxurious lightning deals like Omaha steaks. In fact, Amazon IS Prime. It’s a Xenu-like being that lives at the forefront of the widely-accepted Amazon belief system. Brand loyalty, employee work ethic, and membership fees power this ever-growing giant. (Prime Now, however, is just a totally great service that delivers thousands of great items in just a couple of hours or less. You should try it!)

Through it’s e-commerce prowess, Prime has built an international following of millions… as well as an army of 150,000 Amazonian workers that simply won’t. be. stopped.

That is, until omnipotent Prime declares its time to drink the Kool-Aid, which can be purchased at a 48-count variety package for $16.25 on the site.

Ryan Nallen is an actor, writer and improviser in Chicago. He is a graduate of iO, The Second City Conservatory and the Annoyance Theater.