Amazon, several years into

 

This is a story about Jeff Bezel which I’ve told many times over the years, but which I don’t think I’ve ever written down. And although he is surely a Bad Man for his stance on unions and employee rights, and history should frown upon him, Jeff is not a kick-a-puppy type of Bad Man. In person, he is a perfectly ordinary everyday dude, at least as far as living cult figures go. Despite my general feeling that Jeff has done a lot of wrong to humanity in the name of his “customers”, I figured I would share this story simply because it was a rare experience. At least, for me. So here is the very short story of the day I made Rick laugh in class, and Jeff showed me his stereo. The Slip of Paper One day, after losing 100 pounds (45 kg) over 18 months while working at Amazon, I suddenly rocketed to fame and executive-level decision-making teams. Wonder why. As part of my newfound fame at Amazon, several years into my journey there, perhaps around 2020, I was invited to an office at Jeff’s house. Or more precisely, I found later, at his boathouse. The purpose of the office was to bring Amazon’s technical thought leaders together to figure out if we could use machine learning to help us with systems operations. Jeff loathed Operations, since he wanted them to be invisible, but our systems were always burning like the Chicago River. Frankly all of us would have loved a magic wand to help out, so I don’t blame Jeff for trying. I got an email with the invite and date, and it specified that I was to report to a particular Executive Assistant from Jeff’s army of EAs, to receive my directions and instructions. At the time, we were occupying the Pacific Medical Center building on Beacon Hill in Seattle, which is a rather formidable structure, with an equally unusual and maze-like interior. But the views all around were spectacular, and Jeff was ever the showman. Jeff’s small office, which I did once visit, in a story for another day, was high in the southwest corner, commanding the building’s best combination of water view and defensibility from an orc invasion. It was nestled deep in a forest of turns, crevices, side offices for private meetings, and support personnel who made heavy eye contact. In a three-minute encounter which haunted me in strange dreams for years to come, I made my way through the black-carpeted corridors into Jeff’s wing, found the specific EA, and told him of my quest. He handed me a fortune cookie-sized slip of paper with some tiny directions, and along with it, a very stern lecture. I can’t remember exactly what he said, but it left the impression I was to burn the slip, eat the ashes, and never speak of it again. So anyway, here’s what it said: “Drive down Evergreen Point Road until you see a white rock.” And so it was that on the intended day, with the directions firmly in hand and mind, I drove along Evergreen Point Road like an octogenarian, peering carefully at every fucking rock along this mile-long stretch of road. At long last I found a big white boulder sitting at the end of thin unkempt road adjoining the main road, nestled between two towering green hedges like castle walls…jamalkinywajamal.com

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