8/27/20 update 10:33
just a rough draft

Dear Ms Whitehead (Keri?),

  I wrote to you twice this spring on the topic of produce waste at the warehouse [fulfillment center] you run and I worked at. At the moment I am not working there, although I hope to return at some point. I will shortly be applying for a T3 position at [new castle de location] PHL1. But I have not given up on the mission of doing something about the problem of $1000 a day of good product being thrown away. You never replied to my messages, and with my lack of social skills I wasn't sure what to do next, and it became a back burner item. But "persistence beats resistance", and I have no plans to give up. This is a topic where I have chosen to "disagree and commit". Frugality is one of the 13 and half key values at amazon.
I am new to Amazon, and don't know yet if these are empty buzzwords or actual methods by which we do business, but I am going to be proceeding as though it matters that we are wasting over $1000 a day in product that can easily be fixed. In the three books I have read about Jeff Bezos, I got the sense that he has an attention to detail and a concern for doing things efficiently; what we are currently doing does not meet that standard.
Would you be willing to take a meeting with [the staff of the food bank I wrote to you about?] I think she can make the case better than I can.  Is there someone else I should be discussing this with?

Email is best, gtbear@gmail.com. My rbbiste@amazon.com account is not currently working.
Phone is 303 529-1529 or 317 760 0223 if you prefer to have a conversation, although I can be hard to reach by phone. 

Sincerely, Robbin Stewart.





July 28. I've been here nearly a month. we are halfway through the study. and i've written nothing.
So on my to do list for today I put that I would write at least a paragraph, just to get started. So this is that.



memo1 - stop throwing away product

For a company that claims to value frugality, the UFF (ultra fast fresh, or something like that) isthrowing away over $1000 retail of perfectly good product every day,which shouldbe going to a food pantry, or otherwise kept out of the waste stream. Reduce, reuse, recycle. Here it's about reduction.
I am not saying this stuff should be sent to Amazon's customers. Quality control is important. But framing things as either deliver it to customers or throw it away, is a false dicotomy.

Food waste is bad business. It negatively affects the bottom line. More importantly it's sinful, evil, stupid. It's just plain wrong. Amazon is a company obsesses about loss prevention, defined as stealing by employees. There was a famous incident last year in our warehouse where an employee took a pair of shoes. He was detected and fired. I don't know if they got the shoes back.  At least three employees per shift work loss prevention, their eagle eyes watching the front door. Meanwhile thousands of dollars daily goes out the back door, into the compactor. That is the loss that they are not preventing. It's a blind spot.

I was paid $120 a day to push a cart around. I pretty quickly realized that I could be of more value to the company if I could do something to stop the waste. At first I went through channels.I discussed it with my ambassador, learned how to email my supervisor, who passed it on to the warehouse manager.
I never hard back. A week or so later I folowed up with another email to the warehouse manager, attaching an article about the food bank that I had had found that was offeringto come weekly to pick up the non-marketable but still good product. I never heard back. Since then I have been procrastinating, planning to write this memo.

I am not fluent in the format of the Amazon memo. Apparently it's something like this:
p 1.Mock Press release.
p 2. Thesis. Abstract.
p 3-5  Body. A narrative essay, that tells a story, perhaps using the STAR format: situation, task, action, result. 
p. 6 footnotes and bibliography.

So that's off to a pretty good start. I can expand later.


memo 2 - ergonometrics of the produce aisle

memo 4 - a hunble brag. my currilculum vitae,a 6 page resume

memo 5 a leave of absinthe. i take a month off to do a rough draft of this book. and read a few books about amazon

memo 6
mentors, mentees and manatees.
i'm not even sure there's a memo here

memo 7 a glossary - some amazon jargon explained.

memo 8 the 13 1/2 values, roadmap or hype?

memo 9 - iww, prayer circles, recruiting an empire.

memo 10 - vid and covid.

memo 11 - my life as an amazon consumer, reseller, and kindle author

memo 12- angling for promotion, apply for L3jobs

memo 13 proposal for a health care program

memo 14 investing - my 401k, tesla, amzn, etc.

memo 15 what is gemba? six sigma explained in 6 pages.

transcribing from notes on plane.

july 5th 2020

My Gemba Walk at Amazon

a book told in a series of 6 page memos

memo 0
day 1: i imbed myself in an amazon facility toobserve and critique

memo1 - stop throwing away product

memo 2 - ergonometrics of the produce aisle

memo 4 - a hunble brag. my currilculum vitae,a 6 page resume

memo 5 a leave of absinthe. i take a month off to do a rough draft of this book. and read a few books about amazon

memo 6
mentors, mentees and manatees.
i'm not even sure there's a memo here

memo 7 a glossary - some amazon jargon explained.

memo 8 the 13 1/2 values, roadmap or hype?

memo 9 - iww, prayer circles, recruiting an empire.

memo 10 - vid and covid.

memo 11 - my life as an amazon consumer, reseller, and kindle author

memo 12- angling for promotion, apply for L3jobs

memo 13 proposal for a health care program

memo 14 investing - my 401k, tesla, amzn, etc.

memo 15 what is gemba? six sigma explained in 6 pages.

= = =

memo 0
day 1: i imbed myself in an amazon facility to observe and critique

this part is one page per memo, just to get an outline,first expand from tobale of contents.
star stories, situation, task, [a-thing] result
narrative - a memo tells a story.

day 1.  I embed myself at an amazon warehouse FC for 10 weeks to learn about the company from the inside, so i can observe and report, criticize and praise.
who how when where and why.

the narrative part:
during covid, my usual gigs shut down, so in late march of 2020 i was thinking about coming out of semi-retirement and actually getting a job. earlier in march, i had reopened my schwab brokerage account, bought a share of tesla, and was looking for a way to make some money to buy more shares, because there seemed to be an unusual attractive investment opportunity. my lifestyle is such that i dont need a job, because i own my house and car, get my food for free, spend almost no money,  and just have a [broken thought]

5 years after my accident, i was recovering well, and though that for the first time i might be well enough to hold down a warehouse job. i lay in bed in pain for the first couple years, but i'd been making progress over the past year.
i had a federal lawsuit going, in which i argued that i had lost income, because i had planned to go work at amazon. this looked pretty speculative to the insurance company, so actually getting a job at amazon would make this more persuasive to a jury.

my plan, as far as it involved amazon, had three stages:
one: work for wages in the warehouse, learn about the company, develop some expertise. invest the wages in tesla or a similar opportunity, maybe buy another house or some cars.
two: learn how to sell used books to amazon.
less likely, find a product or product to sell via amazon; at least i would learn a bit about this option.
three: write a book or other publication for kindle. bruce sterling told me one time, in a bookstore in austin, that there's more money in nonfiction than fiction. there have already been good books written about amazon, but there might be room for one more. if not a book, maybe an article that could be pitched to a magazine.
i know a guy online who supports himself writing one book a year about his adventures, while going around having adventures. adding in some writing income to my current multiple streams suits my long term goals.but in the short term, i was looking for a paycheck, and amazon was offering $17/hr during april. so i put in an applicatioin.

as far as amazon knows, i was just some guy who showed up on time for his shifts and pushed the cart around as the computer told me. they didn't know that i have a doctorate and a masters, that i have a background in working in warehouses, that i've been a teamster, that i've held appointed public offices in the same 4 states where i've been arrested. or for that matter, that i have an internet persona as an aardvark.







memo1 - stop throwing away product

memo 2 - ergonometrics of the produce aisle

memo 4 - a hunble brag. my currilculum vitae,a 6 page resume

memo 5 a leave of absinthe. i take a month off to do a rough draft of this book. and read a few books about amazon

memo 6
mentors, mentees and manatees.
i'm not even sure there's a memo here

memo 7 a glossary - some amazon jargon explained.

memo 8 the 13 1/2 values, roadmap or hype?

memo 9 - iww, prayer circles, recruiting an empire.

memo 10 - vid and covid.

memo 11 - my life as an amazon consumer, reseller, and kindle author

memo 12- angling for promotion, apply for L3jobs

memo 13 proposal for a health care program

memo 14 investing - my 401k, tesla, amzn, etc.

memo 15 what is gemba? six sigma explained in 6 pages.