"What are your barriers?"

Ramo is the type of person you either like or dislike, with very little wiggle room between the two.  An arrogant, pushy and mouthy person---the perfect criteria for a manager at Amazon.





I had worked in pack singles for about a month 1/2 prior to peak, I knew how to do the packing, no big problem there, other than just like AFE, you had to stand on your feet for roughly nine hours.  During peak, I was back in AFE, which was fine, a little bit more hectic and some of the coworkers were, well, idiots, especially the recent hires known as White Badges.

So I had transferred over to pack singles about mid-January, I hadn't even met Ramo prior to that night he acted like a total dweeb.  I had a product that needed to be in a large box, there were no large boxes at my station and I couldn't find the dude who distributed boxes (most times he was off chatting up some girl), so I went off to look for one.

At the box line, I retrieved the correct size and heard a loud voice behind me: "Hey you, excuse me mister..."

I turned at it was Ramo, with a rather constipated expression on his face.  "What are you doing?"

Well I related the reason to him, to which he continued that idiot expression, then: "You are wasting time coming here to get a box, you're supposed to get the water spider to get boxes for you, that way you continue to pack."

It was all I could do to hold my temper at such an idiot remark as his: "The box guy is nowhere to be found, I had to get the box myself, however even if we call the box guy to get us a box, we waste time, waiting for him to bring the box, so how am I wasting time getting it myself."  I paused, I'd already put my foot in the shit, so I continued: "Besides you are wasting my time asking me questions..."

I turned around went to my station, within about ten minutes up came Ramo with the kind of expression that says: "You're in trouble mister..."

"You're packing too slow," he remarked.

I looked at him; "I'm going as fast as I can and still doing it the way it should be done and besides there are other people slower than me."

Ramo didn't like that answer, he looked at me for a moment, then over at the other folks, then back: "What are your barriers?"

I had to think about that one.  What, was he calling me a retard?  Or maybe insisting I had some developmental problem.  Or maybe that I was stupid.  I didn't like the way he had said it, as if it were intended as an insult, or some kind of reasoning that I was more of a retard than other people and that's why I was slow and/or acting the way I was.

Looking at him, mirroring his own expression: "I don't understand the question and besides I have no developmental or mental problems that keep me from working or diminish my ability to work, or even diminish my self-worth..."

That stopped him, he stuttered out something, then quit sputtering and turned around and walked away.

This is an atypical question that Amazon has taught its managers to ask when a worker has done something or is doing something "wrong," or whatever else.  "What are your barriers,
initially sounds like an insult, it sounds as if they are asking if you are a retard or have some kind of developmental, or mental issue which keeps you from working at their speed.

Well in a way it is questioning if you are a retard or developmentally "challenged" and all that crap.  Instead of seeing if there is anything which can be done, to help the packer do their work easier and faster, they suspect that there is some kind of issue with them, which keeps them from being "Amazon up-to-par" levels.  They set the bar and you are supposed to exceed it, not meet it, so if they feel you aren't doing right or unable to do right, then you have barriers.

The idea is to find out what the problem is, then to delegate blame on you or others for the lousy job...it is never a managers fault, for they are "Amazon perfect."

Ever since that introductory, the guy gave me grief, treating me as if I was some loser or an idiot of some kind.  There were much slower packers than me, honestly speaking, yet I felt I was a target.

It got to a point where I'd be told, "You need to pack {this amount}..." so the next quarter I'd pack the required amount, only to have them come back over and tell me to pack six to eight more boxes.

See, it works this way: most crews in pack singles have about twenty people, more or less depending...a small group of "the fastest packers," usually in their early twenties who don't give a fuck as to what the package looks like when they pack...sometimes made up of four or five fast ones---it is they who set the goal of how many packages to pack in each quarter.

Most times it is a said amount, handed down from some other big shot, other times it all depends on how many "over night" or "two day" shipments we have.  Not everybody is as fast as these roadrunners who, in a lot of cases, do a lousy job of packing.  They are the ones we, as the other packers, are supposed to mirror, no matter what.  If we fall too far back in numbers, we have nitwits like Ramo, the manager, come over with his little laptop and attitude, to tell us we fucked.

Ok, Ramo what are your barriers? 
copyright © 2016 Anti-Amazon All Rights Reserved