Jeff Bezos pictures Amazon as an inverted pyramid, in which he is the least important person at the bottom
- A seasonal Amazon worker, who wrote an anonymous column in The Guardian, described the induction talk they were given on their first day.
- A manager took an image of an inverted pyramid, labelled the bottom "least important" and said that CEO Jeff Bezos thinks he belongs at this end of the diagram.
- Amazon's customers and warehouse workers were right at the top of the inverted pyramid.
- The anonymous staffer went on to savage Amazon's working conditions, saying that employees in the warehouses are treated as "disposable."
Amazon workers are told that Jeff Bezos considers himself the least important person at the company.
That's according to a seasonal worker, who wrote an anonymous column for The Guardian in which they described their introductory talk from a fulfilment center manager.
They said that the manager drew a line down the side of an image of an inverted pyramid, and wrote "least important" at the bottom and "most important" at the top.
He reportedly asked the new employees: "Where do you think Jeff Bezos sees himself on this chart?"
The manager then pointed at the bottom of the pyramid and said: "Jeff sees himself as the least important person in the company. What this company cares about is the customer promise, and putting our customers first."
He went on to say that customers rank top, closely followed by "fulfilment associates," the job position the anonymous worker had just taken working in the warehouse.
But according to the Amazon worker's account, the inverted pyramid image was quickly soured by their new colleagues. "Did they give you the pyramid crap?" one asked, adding: "That's a load of sh-t."
The anonymous op-ed proceeded to tear into Amazon's working conditions, and said workers are treated like "disposable parts."
They're not the only Amazon staffer to speak out over workers' rights. Thousands of Amazon workers went on strike on Black Friday this week, incensed by the "inhumane" conditions inside warehouses.
Amazon said it maintains a high level of safety. "All of our sites are safe places to work and reports to the contrary are simply wrong," a spokesman told Business Insider.
Business Insider contacted Amazon to ask if the inverted pyramid image is commonly used by managers to train staff, and whether Jeff Bezos truly considers himself to be the least important person at the company.