Avery Hartmans/Business Insider
- I recently visited an Amazon warehouse in Kent, Washington, which is about 20 miles south of Seattle.
- The fulfillment center is just under 1 million square feet, contains 18 miles of conveyor belts, and lots of robots.
- Amazon has come under fire recently for the treatment of its warehouse workers, with some workers saying describing job metrics that are "brutally aggressive."
- However, the employees that I saw during my tour appeared to be working steadily and methodically, but no one appeared to be rushing around the facility to complete their tasks. I didn't see anyone stopping to take a break, but I didn't notice anyone look visibly upset or stressed, either.
About 20 miles south of downtown Seattle sits one of Amazon's many fulfillment centers.
The facility is looming and beige, and it feels removed from the shiny, glamorous headquarters that Amazon is still building in the center of the city to house its corporate employees. Large, open fields stretch in one direction, and suburban houses are in the other direction. In the distance, you can catch a glimpse of Mount Rainier.
The setting is almost picturesque, until you remember that before you sits an Amazon fulfillment center that spans nearly one million square feet. Inside, Amazon workers spend 10 hours per day, four days per week ensuring your order gets to you on time.
It's the core of Amazon's business, and also one of the most controversial: current and former employees have told horror stories of a workplace that's so fast-paced and strenuous, workers don't even have time to use the bathroom. The fulfillment centers recently became a target for Senator Bernie Sanders, who called on Amazon to pay its workers more, and even sponsored a bill with the acronym BEZOS, after Amazon's CEO.
In response to mounting criticism, Amazon announced last week that it would be raising its minimum wage to $15, a change will affect more than 250,000 full- and part-time employees, plus more than 100,000 seasonal staff members who work for Amazon over the holiday season.
I visited the Kent fulfillment center one day after Amazon's biggest hardware event of the year, as part of an Amazon-sponsored tour. Amazon had shuttled out journalists from across the globe to visit the facility, where we caught a sanitized glimpse into the world of Amazon.
Ahead of my visit, I was given several rules: no loose-fitting clothes, no recordings, no straying from the tour, and absolutely no speaking to fulfillment center employees. A legion of Amazon corporate employees attended the tour, for seemingly no other reason than to keep members of the media in line.
Still, there was plenty to see and hear during my visit. Here's what it was like.