May 9th, 2022 - Nondisclosure Agreement
Dear TNY,
“Nondisclosure Agreement” is quintessential TNY.
It’s about a writer writing.
It’s topical to the media (usually late).
It has non-cishet tension.
It’s factually inaccurate.
The protagonist is a victim.
It’s elitist.
And it’s in New York (State this time).
Which means, drumroll please, it’s a massive piece of shit.
Let’s talk about writers writing. I think I get it now, why you publish these. The people that buy your fuckass dickshit of a magazine have money and believe they have taste in literature, and likely believe they can write too (because their parents never took the time to make them feel like shit because, gag, you’re so special baby, awesome without trying (also, they don’t have taste, because they read your shitty “literature” and think it’s good (see: TNY dumbing down the upper middle class by selling them trash and using the magazine’s reputation to convince them it’s good, reestablishing the standard ever lower))). But whether or not these people do write, they sure like to read about people like themselves (“writers”). People who have something to say but just need someone to read it, gosh darn it. And that’s some real Stuart Smalley bullshit. Fuck agenda and intention. That. Isn’t. Cool. So yeah, sell these crackbabies their crack. At the expense of Art. Fuck it, let’s just flush ourselves down the toilet for profit.
Man, I was just hit with a feeling I had a couple weeks ago, which was: When did literature become about how the reader felt about the information in the story, and not about how good the story was or why it was good or bad? So fucking dumb. Like, this story is a vehicle for insulated people to use to have a conversation about shit they don’t know about (in this case, Amazon; or more broadly, bad jobs (because your readership isn’t working the strawberry fields in California, so these would be considered bad jobs)). The conversation is not about the craft of story at all. Well I call boof on that, sugartits. Because that means it’s not Art, it’s just product. So, I guess Cheez Whiz is cool. Fuck Cabot Creamery, right?
And yes, I see that sometimes I’m on about the information in the story being wrong, but I’m also here saying that the MC is unempathetic, the antagonist is cardboard, the narrative is a weak retread (victimization), the language is tired, and the scaffolding is still visible (in that it is obvious that this story is a platform to talk about the author’s experience AND shit on Amazon at the same time).
Now let’s talk about the inaccuracies. So, I’m guessing that no one on your staff has ever been in a Fulfillment Center. Well bud, I have. Now, as this was obviously autofiction (also the title seems like a not so subtle nod to the author sticking it to whatever man is out there in the real world, like here’s my nondisclosure agreement, which, Jesus fuck am I over your magazine and how you look down on shit, I CHOOSE TO LOOK DOWN ON YOU, MOTHERFUCKER!), I’m not going to say that I can discount the author’s experience of stealing shit at an FC, at least 100%. But I can tell you that out of the dozens of FC’s that I have inspected over my time with Amazon, not one has open cardboard boxes going down a conveyor belt at Pack. And my time at the company was from 2013-2018. So maybe this was written forever ago when it might have been different. Or maybe shit has changed. But here’s the deal: Amazon DOES track shrinkage. Like, constantly. So much so that when you enter an FC, you have to empty all your pockets, you are not allowed a bag, and you walk through a metal detector. And you leave the same way. This character claims to have worked on Pack. So how orders work is they get picked by people walking around with carts and a scanner and bins (yes, there are robots that bring the shelf to a person, but same general principle). They fill up their cart with bins containing orders, scanning each item as they pull it from Stow and scanning the tote they put it in, each tote containing a whole order. This has to be accurate because they will drop this off at the Pack station later where another person will scan the order, build the box, and scan each fucking item as they pull it from the tote and put it in the box. If they don’t scan everything, the order doesn’t leave (shipping label won’t get printed). And then, get this, they close the motherfucking box right then, and tape it shut. Then it goes on the conveyor belt, not to be opened until the customer gets it. The shipping label gets printed automatically. And then it goes through more conveyors and chutes before leaving the FC. So if the MC was at Pack station, could they see open boxes going by? Nope. This story also describes the way stealing works as: repack, rescan, reroute. What does that even mean? How are these open boxes which don’t exist being re-anythinged? Now, is it possible to be a packer and steal? Yes. You scan an item and then just don’t put it in the box (there are scales for shipping calcs, and last I knew they were implementing a weight matching system for shrinkage like one would see in self checkout at a grocery store, but I’ll get real technical here, ASIN data fidelity is turbo low, so the kickout rate would be astronomical, which would fuck up outbound numbers, so I imagine that would be challenging to implement without using separate pack lines, ones for verified data and ones for FBA/unverified vendor data; these extra lines integrating problem solvers in the fold, and also Amazon would need to get after the bad sellers to change their data, but that last phrase is very far outside of how Amazon works with sellers, typically letting them fuck the pooch at every turn and hiring armies of low wage employees in second and third world countries to fix that shit for them). You take the scanned item and just pocket that bitch and go on about your day. But, do you guys remember the security at the front? So stealing is a lot fucking harder to do because of it. And every box that arrives at the customer’s home which doesn’t have all the shit in it (if the customer complains) is tracked back to the packer. And packers are held responsible. So, a packer with a habit of stealing will be a red flag. Now, I say all this knowing that this is how it’s supposed to work. Do people steal, even at Pack? Yes. All the fucking time. It’s why FCs are a contentious place to work. The conditions are hard. They treat people badly (not necessarily people treating people badly; more a business asking too much from people). And they don’t pay very much. So employees steal. So Amazon doesn’t invest in their wellbeing because why would you for people that steal. So people, in turn, steal. And it goes in a fucking loop, over an over, Amen.
I’m way off track. This story got published because it’s newsworthy right now (see: unionization). It’s not good, the story, not at all. But that’s how you roll. That and free commercials for Au Bon Pain. By the by, when do your characters ever eat at Cracker-barrel or Denny’s? Or a fucking shitty burger joint with grease in the ventilation system? Fucking idiots.
And victimhood. The MC studied what he loved and the world didn’t care. He worked hard at his jobs, the world didn’t care. Then this man wants to publish what the MC cares about, and, yep, you guessed it, takes advantage and now there’s some kind of lawsuit. Victim across the board. Even the theft was passed off as “sticking it to the man”. And on that note, fuck you, man. You know what that shit is? It’s jealousy. I fucking hate Amazon. Because they are perceived to be awesome, for what? Catering to your fucking laziness? Cool. But that shit, sticking it to the man, what would you do if you were Jeff? Let people steal from you? It’s in the top five most valued companies in the world. Do you think they got there because they don’t know how to do business? This MC is a jealous-ass broke motherfucker who doesn’t want to work for big corporate money (because, in this case, he’s an elitist academic who’s too good for that shit), but would absolutely be tightfisted if he had the money. I mean, look at the way he spent the money he got from his new job. Save it? Charity? Help the homeless? Nah, new apartment and new car. So fucking stupid. Just more vicitmhood. I deserve these things, and if I don’t get them I deem them to be not fit for anyone…until I get them and then I want more and none for others!
And quit fucking slumming it, you twats. I’m so sick of watching a creative yet oppressed blue collar worker try to make art work. I know it gives your readership a raging boner and/or a sopping cunny to touch the “common man”, but eat all the fucking dicks, you high-horsing dildos. Maybe try actually fucking representing humanity instead of picking from a pool of “intellectuals” to represent it. Then maybe the lives from the rest of America will grace your pages.
But hey, who am I, right? I don’t know shit. No way I could. A homeschooled kid from New Mexico? Fuck, I’m lucky I have all my teeth and I’m not riddled with syphilis. I’ll go back to my station and turn my little cog so that everything up in your tower functions as per normal.
You know, I was talking to someone the other day about this shit. This shit being the literary industry. And I have this secret, delicious, joy in my heart. Because I can’t do everything, right? No way a person can do everything. But, I can build you a house, wire it, plumb it, insulate it and drywall it, paint it, install all the windows and everything thing else, and I can build you a boat, same same there with regard to completeness, and I can take your car apart and put it back together again, I can landscape, I can drive a fucking tractor trailer and am licensed to do so. I can hunt, kill, and dress an animal and cook that badboy up for you. I can even weld a tad and run a mill and lathe. I can manage multinational teams of people distributed globally on projects worth millons of dollars and containing billions of datapoints. And I can build and disarm an IED and/or a nuclear weapon (or any other ordnance for that matter). I can do most of the work that makes sure that your protected life in this country of gross excess is comfortable. That you are swaddled in your little cocoon.
I can do all that shit AND I can write fucking circles around you.
And you know what? So can a lot of us out here that you don’t see. So, how much is your fucking education worth now? I’ll help you. It’s worth exactly as much as the insulated circle you have drawn around yourself lasts. But when everyone you surround yourself with is a fucking phony, I guess you’ll never know that you are too.
Wow, Holden Caulfield poking out a little bit there.
Anyway, yeah. I’m an asshole. I hear it. Whatever.
So I’ll be here, rescanning, repacking, and rerouting. I see the irony in the object of this FTNY project too, Superchief. It’s not lost on me. We’re all fighting the battles we think are right.
So here it is, me fucking sticking it to you.
Nick
