Tiger Team Ep#7
Summary
This episode of the Tiger Team Show talks about the stress of peak season in fulfillment centers and shares some love letters to things such as dumpster diving and warm bodies. The hosts also discuss the top ten overused phrases in the professional world, including "we want everyone to go home the same or better than they started" and "I'm data driven." They encourage listeners to think critically about these phrases and consider the impact they have in the workplace.: An Amazon "AI candidate" given to application forms of effort is solicited to come up with but denies, while the other AI interviewer gave away no answers. Two AI interviewers, "AI candidate" and "AI interviewer" are discussing a job position at Amazon. The AI candidate is told they will be given 100 application forms to grade and come up with questions, but denies and says it is not their job, while the other AI interviewer gives away no answers. Some popular phrases Day In and About the Circulations Times In this episode, Lisa and Jordan discuss the hectic holiday season and how it affects the world of fulfillment centers. They share jokes, memes, and funny posts related to the stress and craziness of this time of year. They also commit to doing a special New Year's Eve show and asking listeners for their own crazy stories about working in fulfillment centers.
Transcription
Speaker 2
[00.00.08]
All right. Hey, everyone. Thank you for tuning in to the Tiger team show at the Warehouse Underground. Episode number seven. I am Ben, one of the hosts of the show. And joining me, like always during the middle of peak, I might mention, like, taking a break from peak is my excellent co-host to the show, my friend Jordan. Jordan, how is peak going for you so far and how's your back? I mean, is your back tired? Saw you getting by. Okay,
Speaker 1
[00.00.38]
well hello Tiger team. Hello, Ben. I think my back is okay, but I can't believe that I'm still awake. I really don't know how I made it through a five day workweek, working probably about 15 hours a day without collapsing. I think that's the worst record
Speaker 2
[00.01.01]
that that that could be a personal record. So she mentioned it's peak season for fulfillment centers all across the world, really. And so we wanted to do a Tiger team show to let you guys know out there that we feel, yeah, we know it's hard. And this is a peak stress buster of a show. So we hope that you enjoy this. So we thought about. Bringing up some cool stories. We're going to save those for a later show that we're going to do on New Year's Eve. And today I thought we would start out the show Jordan with, and this is going to sound crazy. I think we should start out with some some love letters. What do you think about that?
Speaker 1
[00.01.42]
Yeah. Letters in December? Oh, yeah. Little romantic for operations.
Speaker 2
[00.01.48]
Yeah. Well, you know, I mean, there's so much love going around with operation, cause everybody bonds together and everybody pulls on the same, you know, cart, and everybody's loving it. So I thought we should do some love letters professing some of our secret love about some of the things that happen during peak inside fulfillment centers. What do you think?
Speaker 1
[00.02.12]
I think that's an incredible idea.
Speaker 2
[00.02.14]
Yeah. So I'm going to start out so my first love letter goes to dumpster diving. Now if you if you don't work in fulfillment center, or even if you don't work in outbound, you might not know what dumpster diving is. But dumpster diving means I lean over the edge of a cart. I'm searching for a specific customer order that must go out a specific time. There may be 50 other items in that cart, but I'm looking for that one special one. So even though that my butt is all the way up in the air and everyone who walks by can see that it doesn't bother me. Jordan, because I have a love for dumpster diving inside carts, searching out one specific customer.
Speaker 1
[00.03.03]
And I just want to add that I especially have a love for diving through those box on demand carts, where every single item is either a car seat or something that is almost 50. That is especially lovely.
Speaker 2
[00.03.25]
Nice. Nice. So. Dumpster diving. I'm professing my love for
Speaker 1
[00.03.29]
you. So I would like to profess my love for those individuals who you really, really hated to see them go. But guess what? They are back. They are back for the holiday season. They remember you. They're so excited. And they are going to make your life a whole lot easier when they go out onto that production floor and pull the exact same shenanigans that made you want to see them go in the first place. But guess what? They are happy to be back, and you are happy to have them back because you just need people. And that's why that is my love letter. I have a secret love for boomerang temps too, you know? Uh, you know, there's a special place in my heart for Boomerang. Boomerang. All right, so speaking of that, this is along the same line. So there is a specific person that comes to work in fulfillment center during peak season that I really would like to profess my love for. And they don't always go by their real name. They go by their name that they're referred to, and that is a warm body. Ah.
Speaker 2
[00.04.48]
There is nothing like a warm body, just a name on the board that you don't really know that you're throwing just people at the problem. We don't need equipment. We just need more warm bodies. So for you, warm body. I'm professing my love for you. During this peak season, we need more of you.
Speaker 1
[00.05.08]
Ah, well, not to turn from the warm body, but I would like to profess my love for my favorite food. Jam. Assorted jam. Have you ever been in there on Black Friday, and all of a sudden your mezzanine stops working, or your sorter stops working and your operation comes grinding to a halt, even though you're so far behind because it is Black Friday. Well, I would like to profess my love for that and the amount of stress and anxiety that comes with trying to figure out whether or not you are going to be able to run a shift. So that way somehow you get the volume out. You're definitely not getting all the volume out. It just depends on how much volume you're not getting out. So I would like to apologize for that.
Speaker 2
[00.05.59]
I think I would, uh, I think I would only date sorter jam. Well, I don't I don't think I would ever marry Mary sorter jam. No, she's she's not marriage material.
Speaker 1
[00.06.10]
You can't, you can't. I would also speaking of not getting all the volume out. Capped at 60.
Speaker 2
[00.06.19]
What does that mean?
Speaker 1
[00.06.21]
So capped at 60. And I have have a very deep love right now, which is why I'm writing this love letter, but I just couldn't say it right at first. It's when you're an hourly associate and you can't work over 60 hours in the work week. Doesn't matter how good you are. You can't go over 60 hours. But it doesn't apply to managers.
Speaker 2
[00.06.49]
Oh no no no no.
Speaker 1
[00.06.52]
So managers they they don't care if you're working 15, 16, 17 hours and they tell you, oh you should go home. It's it's peak season. I care for your well-being. But but they don't. They don't care because there's so many things that have to get done and everything's a priority. And so then you find yourself, after you came into work at 1 a.m. at 4 p.m., walking out of your building into the dark of the night and wondering, why am I here? And we still have three weeks of this. And that is my passionate love affair for capped at 60.
Speaker 2
[00.07.33]
For the audience, it probably wasn't great of me to give that topic for Jordan to talk about right now, because she's right in the right of the thick of it and super salty with working 70s and 80s. So maybe I'll try that again in the summer when she's not so happy about the hours that she's working. But I know you're all out there doing it, so I have the last one. Jordan, so I. like to talk, so I've got podcasts and we do the show called the Tiger Team Show, which is crazy, right? So one of the things I miss, I mean, I really miss and long for, was the standard 15 to 20 minute shift stand up meetings. At the beginning of the day, you get to go through the safety tip and the ops tip and standard work and stretches and then peak season. My heart is broken, Jordan, because that fades away and it pretty much just turns into grab your crap, grab your crap, and get to work. We're behind on orders, and, um, I don't feel very romanced by that when when I do it that way. You know what I mean? I, I enjoy that the 20 minute intro and dip in your toe and and get in warm to start the day. And that's gone. That's gone during peak season. So very very sad about that.
Speaker 1
[00.08.55]
Yeah, that is sad. You always need a little lead up. You can't can't always just jump right into it. That's not fitting in during the peak season. No,
Speaker 2
[00.09.03]
no. And more to follow on that during our New Year's Eve show I think more, more, more to follow on some of that. All right. So that that that was very mushy. That was that was very mushy, very unlike the the Tiger team. But we felt it necessary, you know, we felt it necessary to profess our love for peak season because there's so many people that are out there going through it right now. So. Enjoyed that. Now, the topic that I'm excited to talk about that I really want to go through because I know everyone will identify with this. And this is a top ten list. Jordan. The top ten overused phrases in in professional world, but really in fulfillment centers that everyone has heard at a minimum 1000 times. Why don't you kick it off with number one? The number one thing that everyone has heard, and probably everyone has said if they're in a management position,
Speaker 1
[00.10.00]
well, that is, we want everyone to go home the same or better than they started. No duh. Right. And you can't think about it when you say it. Because if you think about it and you have your team working 8 to 10 hours a day and they're doing heavy labor, you just can't make sense of it. What? We want everybody to go home the same or better than they started. When.
Speaker 2
[00.10.28]
When people say this to employees, they think that employee like, what does that even mean? Of course. Oh, I want I want all of our employees to wear clothing at work when they call the like, of course. It's such a it's such a hollow statement. Everyone feels so great about themselves with what they say, though. Any safety briefing you're ever on in your career, you will hear someone say, we want you, everyone to go home better, same or better. And by the way, what does it mean to go home better than when you started? I don't know anyone that goes home better than what they started after a 12 hour shift
Speaker 1
[00.11.02]
of of. I really don't understand. And to be fair, I have never thought about that phrase in depth until the past six months. I found myself saying it and looking at the team like, wait a minute, I'm not selling this to anybody. This is ridiculous. That doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 2
[00.11.24]
No. Like we're either body language, they're this. They're like, oh, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1
[00.11.28]
here's the party line. Yeah,
Speaker 2
[00.11.30]
yeah. Okay, okay. Got a home back. All right. So number two. So this one, if you if you follow a lot of people in this industry, there's a term that everyone uses and that is I'm. I'm data driven. If they're applying for a job, I'm I'm I'm I'm very data driven. I'm a hardworking, data driven person. And I like. Well, that's great that you're very data driven. But what happens when the employee comes up to you and they have some real concerns. So are you just going to be like, ah, hello, Mr. associate, I would really like to talk with you, but I should forewarn you that I'm mostly just data driven, so I'm not really going to understand a lot of what you're talking about. So driven by the data, you mere peasant.
Speaker 1
[00.12.16]
Let me let me look at your stats. Let me pull up your stats and see if I can help you.
Speaker 2
[00.12.21]
Yeah. All right, here's one. Here's number three. And maybe people that are in big fulfillment centers won't understand this one. But if you're in a smaller company and you work directly or closely with the customer service department, you'll appreciate this. So if there's a missed shipment or there's an error in the shipment or some glitch or some you're behind or whatever, customer service will invariably come to the warehouse manager and ask about it. Why? Because their customer is asking about it. So the warehouse manager will explain to them exactly the situation. Here's what's going on in the facility. Here's what I think caused it. Here's what I think this whole thing five minute speech, ten minute speech. And at the end of it, it never fails. The customer service rep will go, that's great, but what am I supposed to tell the customer?
Speaker 1
[00.13.11]
I don't know, that's why you're working customer service. Yeah. You're out. Okay. I just
Speaker 2
[00.13.17]
told it. I just told it to you. You. You figure out how you want to mix and match that all you want, but I don't know what to tell you outside of that. What am I supposed to tell the customer? Like they can't accept the fact that there's going to be bad news that they have to give to the to the customer?
Speaker 1
[00.13.32]
Oh, goodness. That's insane. Well, there's another phrase. And. Have you ever had this where you didn't plan accordingly, but you somehow have to try to keep ours in the building? Well, this phrase. Hey, go see if you can find some volunteers to work overtime tomorrow, letting you know with only one hour left in your shift today. And you know them better than that. Seeing if they can stay an hour later even though they're already scheduled on overtime. It's quite frustrating when you're trying to solve a problem, and that's what your manager comes up with is. Well, let's see if people can stay. They have just worked 1011 hours in their shift. You really think they're going to want to stay and do probably the process that they hate the most? Towards the end of the day, for one more hour. Or they want to come in tomorrow and do the same thing. Really? But yeah,
Speaker 2
[00.14.34]
you're like, what does the senior ops manager expect me to pull here? They expect like 40 people to agree and show up in 30 minutes. I was able to find 40 people. No. Guess what? They're used to this. They saw me coming. They went hid in the bathroom.
Speaker 1
[00.14.49]
Great. So how about we just plan accordingly the first time? But no, it's the peak season. There's no planning accordingly. Like Murphy's Law.
Speaker 2
[00.15.02]
Good luck, though. And you're right about the stay later. That's another popular one. Oh. Oh,
Speaker 1
[00.15.08]
terrible. Well, speaking of people hiding, have you ever heard of people not filling out their pit checklist correctly?
Speaker 2
[00.15.18]
No, no, I've. No, I you know, I've been working in distribution a long time, and every single pit checklist I've ever seen has been filled out timely and accurately. I don't know what you're talking
Speaker 1
[00.15.28]
about. It's not like we get constant emails where somebody's failed, and then they just move to another pit, and then they logged into that pit, hopefully successfully. But now you have ten locked out pit that you have to unlock. So that way everybody can get one because you don't have enough people. That's not like that happens.
Speaker 2
[00.15.47]
Yeah, it's not enough. All right. I got one for you. Have you ever heard this one? Have you have you ever been in a copy that goes. It used to make a profound statement. People are. People are our greatest asset.
Speaker 1
[00.16.02]
I wonder if that's in the, uh. We thank you. The messages that you get right before they throw you into the midst of a busy season,
Speaker 2
[00.16.13]
but then they will, like, follow it up after that big all hands meeting. After they pronounce that and they'd be like, oh, I'm sorry, what was your name again? I don't, I don't remember your name. So like, great. You're you're very bad with names, right? Yeah. I'm so bad. You're bad with your company's greatest asset. Are you kidding me?
Speaker 1
[00.16.33]
Yeah. It's. So this is going around, and it must be. It must be fake news. It must be people who don't work with employees. Because I've been hearing employees don't care about pizza parties. I don't know about you, but I think the single thing that I get asked the most is, when are we getting food by employees? So that must be fake news. It can't be true that they don't care about pizza parties because I hear it even when it's not the holiday season, I hear it constantly. When are we getting food? What are we getting next? That's that's the main question.
Speaker 2
[00.17.19]
I think I made a LinkedIn post about that, uh, a while ago about everybody saying, oh yeah, your employees don't care about our on the wall and ping pong tables and pizza parties. They want more pay and they want development. And I always think I've used it for film and center employees. They care a lot about pizza. I mean, they will. They
Speaker 1
[00.17.40]
want all of those things. They want the table. They want the massage chairs. They want the pizza.
Speaker 2
[00.17.48]
Yeah. So I don't know. All right, all right, here's one. Now, Jordan, you work. You've worked in distribution for a while now. Mhm. And have you ever heard the phrase or somebody come up to you and go no no no no you need to, you need to walk the floor.
Speaker 1
[00.18.03]
It irks my soul when somebody asks me that after I've just been on the floor for about eight hours running a shit.
Speaker 2
[00.18.12]
Yeah, it's like I get it, you know, like I get it. You should walk the floor and you go to gemba, like where the employees are. And I get that. I understand that, but there are some problems that cannot be solved from just walking the floor. Like my facility is out of room. It's out of space. The IT system is down. Like whatever it may be like walking the floor is going to do a little bit. It's great. I'm not saying it's bad, right. But people put it out there as an end all be all like all you need to know about how to be a great leader in fulfillment center. Just walk the floor. Well, I'm walking around and I'm talking with people and my shifts still suck today. So what? You know what? What am I missing here?
Speaker 1
[00.18.55]
Oh, yeah. At that. That's so frustrating. It's so frustrating when you're when you're sitting there in the midst of it. Like, how about you walk the floor? Yeah.
Speaker 2
[00.19.04]
Oh, no. Like dog. Oh, no. I'm, I'm I have no other choice but to walk the floor. I'm. This is where I live. I'm out here. Right?
Speaker 1
[00.19.12]
So. Hey, Ben, did you see my slack?
Speaker 2
[00.19.16]
I can't stand that. I can't, I can't stand when somebody walks up to me, they have a chance to talk with me eye to eye. They're standing right there. And as they're standing in front of me, they say, hey, I sent you a slack message, or I sent you a team's message, or I sent you an email, and I want to be like, okay, well, you could have just saved all that breath that you just said, because you can just tell me right now what you wrote in the in the message. Here we are. We're talking about it. Right. But but no, I'm not spending my whole day waiting to read your team's message. You know why, Jordan?
Speaker 1
[00.19.50]
Why?
Speaker 2
[00.19.51]
Because I'm out walking the floor. I'm walking the floor. So I wasn't there to get your to get your email. Do you want me to wait to read your email and your messages? Or do you want me to walk the floor because I'm very confused. You give me mixed messages here.
Speaker 1
[00.20.04]
It's actually become more annoying to me now too, because I will take a second to glance at my computer and all of a sudden I have ten messages and I just stare at it like, don't these people have anything better to do than to message me while I'm on the floor?
Speaker 2
[00.20.21]
Well, you solve their problem for them. They need. They need information from you. That's all they want. They really care about your problems. They want their problems solved. All right, so here's the last one. This one. This one is is all right. So you're imagine Jordan you're a floor manager and a very busy FC. And you're understaffed. You're tired and things are not going well. And you're in your shift and you're trying to keep everything together. You run around like your hair and hair is on fire. And at some point a very detached senior leader will come up to you as if they've had this epiphany and let you know, no, no, no, Jordan, Jordan. But we we want we want things to run smoothly out here.
Speaker 1
[00.21.04]
Yeah. At that point I just go into a stare and just try to imagine that they were actually not saying those words.
Speaker 2
[00.21.16]
Yeah, I like again, no duh. I do, I do too. But this is the reality. I'm sorry that the stress out here is beginning to seep into your corner office. You know what I'm
Speaker 1
[00.21.28]
saying? So sorry it wasn't perfect today.
Speaker 2
[00.21.32]
All right, all right, all right. So I said in the last show last week that I was scrapping this final section, but people wanted to to have it again. Jordan. So I got a couple people say don't scrap fringe or cool. And you were one of them. So I decided to bring your cool back. So a quick summary. I'm going to show a photo on the screen very, very quickly Jordan, because people can't see it. Okay. To describe what it is so the audience can know and then let them know if it's cringe. You're cool. Are you
Speaker 1
[00.22.02]
ready? I'm ready. All right.
Speaker 2
[00.22.04]
Number one Amazon ops manager costume.
Speaker 1
[00.22.08]
Oh, so the Amazon operations manager is haunted by metrics, lives on black coffee and checklists. Thanks. And on keyboard is a band
Speaker 2
[00.22.24]
name that
Speaker 1
[00.22.25]
would be loves. Kanban. Despises. Muda refers to people as process inputs. Poke, poke poke is a tasty raw fish. Never sleep. I enjoyed this. I do like it, but I am going to say that this operations manager in particular is cringe. I don't I don't know about all this and I am not a fish person, but I can eat with the never sleeps.
Speaker 2
[00.22.55]
I like exactly how this guys dress is literally exactly how everyone looks like. What you know? Absolutely. This is exactly the the attire. So it's just this black sweatshirt. You know, our just this
Speaker 1
[00.23.10]
black sweatshirt. You got the vest? You got the radio? Yeah.
Speaker 2
[00.23.13]
The radio. Is there a little bit of a blank stare? A little bit of a spore smile is just this. This is right on. All right, so number two, are you ready for this? You might have to zoom in a little bit to read it, but this deals with one of my favorite topics which is fulfillment centers and bathrooms. Right. Are you ready? So this is a sign it looks like next to the sinks. If you are in the bathroom for more than ten minutes, a manager will conduct a smell test. And if they do not smell any, number two, you won't be written up. Management. Oh my God,
Speaker 1
[00.23.54]
that is undeniably cringe. Yeah.
Speaker 2
[00.24.01]
All these wow. All these I see pop up on on LinkedIn. And I found this one was funny because there's always a strain relationship and fulfillment center world with bathrooms because it's a push pull it. Employees will sometimes abuse it. They go hide in the bathrooms, uh, and then they stay. They kind of stay off task that way. And then the managers go pull them out of there, and then they're like, well, you can't pull me out of the bathroom. I'm just my personal space. It's always this weird discussion that I don't think we'll ever end about the bathrooms, but I thought this one was funny, that they actually smell you in there. And if it does not smell bad, then you you. I do not volunteer. Distribute. I refuse.
Speaker 1
[00.24.44]
No.
Speaker 2
[00.24.46]
All right, so this next picture was taken at a food distribution center. So if you think your life is bad and receiving and where you're working right now, imagine if you had these roll through your inbound dock. Uh, um, it's boxes of boneless pork rectum and that. Oh, yeah. Cringe that
Speaker 1
[00.25.09]
that is not okay, I.
Speaker 2
[00.25.13]
You know what? We need some prep. We need we need these. Need to go through prep. Can somebody come over here? Uh, no, uh, I gotta I gotta go to the bathroom.
Speaker 1
[00.25.23]
You know what? Eat every part of the animal. I guess that's cool. Don't waste food. And I commend them, but no. All right.
Speaker 2
[00.25.31]
Cool. All right, so this next one, Jordan, I I'll I'll show it to you. You tell me what you think about it, but I, I have I have my opinions. I think this is great. This is a post from someone named Amy Swales, who is a Amazon ops manager in the UK. And look at what she did. What's your thoughts on this? Cringe. Your cool.
Speaker 1
[00.25.54]
Oh, wow. So she basically painted their doctors with a safe rule like safety rules and reminders about standard work. This is freaking cool. Yeah, it's really well done. Yeah, and one of the one of them has like a picture of a painted pallet on there explaining how it needs to be loaded and labeled and everything, and I just, I thought this was great. I thought this was super cool. And not only does she do it. Oh, it looks awesome. I mean, the the artwork and the paint
Speaker 2
[00.26.31]
is spot on and excellent. So Amy Swales, we give you props. The Tiger team gives you the stamp of approval. This is, uh, this is super cool. We like this stuff a lot. So
Speaker 1
[00.26.43]
good on you. Absolutely. And if Amazon does not adopt this across all of their sites, they are crazy. This is such a good idea.
Speaker 2
[00.26.51]
Yeah. It looks it looks great. I love that one I saw that incredible. All right. So the last one this one is a callback. Jordan and I just I want you to know that I didn't make up what we talked about, so. Here you go. Someone. I won't name this person's name, but they. They made a post about a Kaizen blitz of five minutes. And inside the post is all the things that we talked about on our show. Jordan. That it has the time studies in there. It has. You know, the data is not always the most important thing, but the engagement of the employees. So I just want to bring this back and go. I'm glad I'm not the only one that brought up the concept
Speaker 1
[00.27.37]
of bias
Speaker 2
[00.27.39]
and kaizen bliss, because there it is right there. So cringe. I mean, I just don't understand why people feel the need to do these posts, why
Speaker 1
[00.27.52]
we don't. We don't need it. We don't.
Speaker 2
[00.27.54]
Yeah. And this is obviously not real people, but that's exactly what real people do during actual Kaizen photos. To point at the sticky notes. As they
Speaker 1
[00.28.04]
say, sticky notes are world famous. All right guys. Well, that concludes episode seven with an emphasis on pique. We know everybody's out there working in peak. We hope that people will listen to the show and get some funny comic relief from it. I know personally that I do, and I know Jordan does too. And then Jordan gets some, uh, yeah. It's like it's like therapeutic for her. I think it is
Speaker 2
[00.28.29]
to, to come on this show. So, I mean, I have to edit out all the bad parts and bad words that Jordan says, and what you're left with is just the nice Jordan. Right? Lisa? I got to keep up the image and keep up the brand. But you know, it's hard to get in the
Speaker 1
[00.28.42]
bottle laughing. There's a lot of laughing. Weird.
Speaker 2
[00.28.47]
Oh yeah. So that concludes episode seven. We are going to commit. Jordan, will you commit right now to doing a show that we release on New Year's Eve, New Year's Eve, day week?
Speaker 1
[00.29.00]
I will commit to that, but I will also commit to the Tiger team that I will be drinking champagne during that episode. Okay. No matter what time of day. Yeah,
Speaker 2
[00.29.11]
I'm good with that. No, I'm good with that. I'm happy. I'm happy with that. And, um. Yeah, we we have some. I have some crazy stories that have happened in fulfillment centers over the years, and if you listen to the show and you yourself have any crazy stories that you think are worthy of being brought out on the Tiger team, let us know. And we're going to have some cool, crazy stories for a very cool New Year's Eve show that we think everybody will enjoy.
Speaker 1
[00.29.38]
I can't wait. Jordan yeah, I can't, I can't. That's that's that's going to. That's going to be a good show. That's gonna be a cool show. Well, Jordan, thanks for doing the show again with me. And thanks. And taking a break from Pike. I know, I know, it's stressful for you, and I know you going through a lot, but, you know,
Speaker 2
[00.29.54]
that's. That's life in the FCS, I guess,
Speaker 1
[00.29.56]
right? That is. And I hope that if you are a Tiger team member out there going through the same thing, get lots of sleep, eat lots of good food, and try to stay sane for these next few weeks. And hopefully we will all get out of this together. At least we'll laugh instead of cry.
Speaker 2
[00.30.16]
All right. Thanks everyone again for tuning in and we will see you next time for episode number eight. Bye bye bye.
