Tiger Team Ep#8
Summary
The host welcomes listeners to the New Year's Eve episode of the Tiger Team from the Warehouse Underground, a show about warehousing, operations and distribution. He shares two stories he experienced while working as a new area manager at a large fulfillment center. The first was when he walked in on two employees having sex in the back of the building and wasn't sure how to handle it. The second was when he was tasked with covering up sex toys in bins for an open house event. He then invites Ben Hopkins talks about his experience of an employee's father calling him when he sent his son home because he was sick. This leads to a conversation about how to handle parents calling and the importance of setting boundaries. Later, Ben shares some cool and cringeworthy posts from social media related to warehouse and distribution, including a child's Christmas list, a bobblehead award, five s principles applied to life, and a veteran-focused holiday initiative at Amazon. In this episode, a workplace safety officer named Jordan and host, Doug, discuss workplace safety topics and trends. They talk about the importance of masks and personal protective equipment, as well as safety measures for using eye wash stations. They also mention the prevalence of sexist items in the workplace, such as pink vests with inappropriate labels. The hosts encourage listeners to make a New Year's resolution to listen to more episodes of the Tiger Team podcast in 2026.
Transcription
Speaker 1
[00.00.08]
All right, Tiger team, in a recall to the unhinged episode that I opened. It is New Year's Eve, and so I am here to welcome you to the Tiger team from the Warehouse Underground, the show for warehousing, operations and distribution. And trust me, on this New Year's Eve, we're bringing the wit, sarcasm, and humor. So we've got tons of champagne, we're popping bottles. It's the end of the holiday season. How are you feeling, Ben? I'm
Speaker 2
[00.00.45]
feeling good. And, you know, since I have the champagne out, I think some of the stories that we're going to tell on here, this may be our first explicit show. I'm not sure if I have to put the warning tag on there, but some of these stories are a little bit edgy, so don't let your kids listen to this If you are driving to work and they're in the back seat
Speaker 1
[00.01.04]
and hopefully you are listening to this while you are driving to work, we will put the E on it for explicit maybe.
Speaker 2
[00.01.12]
Yeah, yeah. Awesome. So, uh, thanks for the introduction, Jordan. And we did a show was that a couple of weeks ago? And we said we were going to have some, some special stories that we were going to tell for the New Year's Eve show. And so we asked some people to send us some stories, and we had a couple of entries of, of, of people putting in stories. So I was happy to hear that. But I'm gonna I'm going to kick the show off first as we go into the as we go into the new year. So this is, this is let me set the stage for you first on this on this story. Jordan, are you ready?
Speaker 1
[00.01.49]
I am I am ready because you said edgy.
Speaker 2
[00.01.52]
Yeah. Yeah. Right. So okay, I am a brand new area manager at a very large Fulfillment center, and I have only been doing this job for maybe three weeks. Before that, I was in the military like you were two. I know we're both this, so I'm a little bit fuzzy on what's going on inside of an actual civilian operation, but I'm doing my best. So I'm night shift. I'm so big time. Fulfillment center, huge, one point 5,000,000ft . They're big. Just halls and halls and halls of racks and goods and shelves and the whole bit. And usually in those type of seas, most of the fast moving or the popular items kind of make their way towards the middle of the building and what goes on in the very back wall. I mean, the very back of the FC is anybody's guess. Who knows what product is back there, who knows what's happening. So I'm taking my rounds. I'm working on night shift. It's about two in the morning and I'm making my rounds, and I go back there to the very back of the building. And as I'm as I'm walking up short and I hear what I think is the unmistakable sound of two people having quiet sex in the very back of the FC. And so I think, okay, this this can't be happening, right? Like, no one would do this. This can't be happening. But sure enough, as as I'm walking up, I peek around the corner and I see it with my very own eyes. And I'm like, why? Why would they? Why would they do this? First of all, why would people do this? It's dirty and dusty and the whole bit back there. Why would this happen? And why is this happening to me? Because I don't know what I was supposed to do. Right.
Speaker 1
[00.03.51]
So you were in the military, and they put you on nightshift because they dressed like a night shift in the FC. I don't know what to do. I, I should, I should I just ignore this? Should I confront them? And so, like, I step back away and I call my wife, I wake her up in the morning at two in the morning, and the reason why I call on her is because she had had a long career in the civilian world, so she knew what was okay, what was not. And I wake her up in the morning, I'm like, hey, listen, you're not going to believe this. Two employees are having sex in the back of the building. She's like, oh my God. Are you serious? Yes. I'm serious. Okay. Like relaxed, relaxed. I, I don't I, I don't know what to do. I need to know what to do about this. Is this. Should I address these like. Yes, absolutely. You should address it. You're not allowed to do that on the property, on the premises. You need to make them stop. So I'm like, how do I make them stop? Like walk up on the stop? I'm like I said, so I try to like I try to sort of be a little bit louder. Like maybe they'll hear me coming. Like
Speaker 2
[00.05.03]
probably. Yeah, probably not the best choice of words there. But so I try to make a little bit of noise that, you know, I'm like squeezing my, my brick, my radio a little bit. So maybe they could hear that. And I'm like. It's like this is a good bias for action. You know what I mean? From them. So I have to give them credit. But I'm like, ah, should I remove his barrier? Barrier? I don't. Probably not. Don't do that. Yeah. If you work in Amazon, you know that all you hear about is remove their barriers. Remove
Speaker 1
[00.05.40]
the barrier. I'm not removing you down there. You know what I mean? Like. Oh, yeah. Uh, so anyway. So finally I walk up to them, I get up enough courage to walk up to them, and they're embarrassed. You know, they pick up the thing like, hey, you can't, can't do this and the whole bit. And so they walk away and I follow back up with HR and the general manager the next day, like I saw this last night. I put a stop to it. I wrote them up. You know, I really don't know what else I'm supposed to do about this. Well, they pull the tape, so they pull the the the footage from the overhead camera. And the first thing they see, of course, is them. But then they see me
Speaker 2
[00.06.22]
seeing it and then walking away and making phone calls.
Speaker 1
[00.06.29]
It just goes from bad to worse. Yeah. So
Speaker 2
[00.06.32]
they're like. They're like, who are you? Who were you calling? I mean. What what was going. What was going on there? And I'm afraid to tell them who I called. So I go, I, I called the ethics hotline just because I wasn't sure I complete the complete lie. So they're like, well, you know, you know, this whole thing. So eventually it came out and I told my leadership everything that had happened. And they were like, well, we're we're very proud of the way that you handled that as a, as a, as a young manager. But, uh, you know, you just you never know. You never know what you're going to find or what you're going to do. And that was the only time that I've experienced that in my career. And I thought, I thought, this is just setting the tone. Like, this must just happen all the time. I'm in that type world. But no, it did not. I, I know I never walked up on people having sex again other than that, than that, that time, and I was just not sure, not sure how to handle it. But there you go. Wow.
Speaker 1
[00.07.33]
I've only I've only heard stories about it. I've never actually met anybody who has seen it happen. So that's just so gross. Just the the layer of dust that covers everything in any sort of fulfillment center. Yeah, there's all ours. I mean, I don't know, something better.
Speaker 2
[00.07.52]
Yeah, I don't know. I mean, it was late. It was two in the morning. It was kind of dim back there. And so I guess they just thought no one would come back there. And, you know, my my mistake for we're walking back there, so. Story number two. All right. Are you ready for number two? I
Speaker 1
[00.08.09]
don't know. I don't know. Story number two could top story number one. But I know you're gonna try.
Speaker 2
[00.08.15]
Yeah. So this again, this is a junior manager working the new life and fulfillment center. And one day, the the the GM comes up to, I'll say me for the purposes of the story. The the general manager comes up to me and says, hey, we are having an open house next weekend, which a lot of sites will do that, that will have an open house where everybody comes in the families and they give tours, and the kids and moms and dads in the whole bit says I had then we're having an open house next weekend, and I and he hands me this sheet of paper, and it's a list of all these bins on it in the in the facility. It's like, hey, here's a list of bins. And he hands me a roll of of black shrink wrap and a black black trash bag. And so I go. This is a little bit odd, but he didn't give me any instructions, so he didn't say, here's what I want you to do. So he just walks away and I'm handing this list of bins for the open house, black screen crap and black trash bags. And I go, hey, what sir, what am I what? What? Did I miss something? What am I supposed to do? He's like, you'll know it when you get there. So I think, okay, I don't really know what that means, but. All right. So I walk through the first bin and inside the first bin is a try to keep the most mostly clean show a very large and very prominent obvious sex toy. Oh, and I go, okay, maybe this is like a hazing that they do with a new man. I have no idea. So I go to bin number two, which is fairly close to it. Same type thing. Sex toy. Number two. Bin number three. Sex toy number three. Sex toy. Number five. Sex. Like, there's 35 sex toys on this list. in these in these bins and some of them to this day, I have never seen again in my life. Like I never knew that these existed. But you can buy everything. Yeah, you can buy everything on these sites. And so I, I go and I, I realize what my task is, it's that I have to take the black screen crap, and I have to cover up every single one of the, the bins so that Johnny, the six year old, cannot see them when he does a walk through the the building. So I do all this. I cover all these sex toys up, cover all these sex toys. That's my day. That's how I spend my day. So I go home and I walk in and my wife is like, hey, how was work? What did you do to what did you do at work today? I'm like nothing. Nothing. Well, I don't even know why you would ask that.
Speaker 1
[00.11.06]
Nothing happened.
Speaker 2
[00.11.08]
Yeah, work was working was fine. I wasn't watching anything. I didn't look anything. I didn't see anything. I just remove people's barriers. Just that that's what I did throughout my day. So. Yeah. So you never know what you're gonna get. Uh, in in the, uh. In there. And it's true. I mean, if you walk through, I mean, when people walk through big giant fulfillment centers like that, you see anything and everything under the stars that shows up in the in the bins. I mean, you just, you know. Yeah.
Speaker 1
[00.11.42]
What? There's so many things that exist.
Speaker 2
[00.11.45]
Yeah. All right, so I've got one more story for you before we jump into your pool, and you will appreciate this one. So again, I'm. I'm running ops inside of a FC on a night shift, big, big fulfillment center. And one of the employees, the picker, is obviously sick. Actually, it was a packer is obviously sick. Sick coughing and sneezing and runny nose and the whole bit. And yeah, it's wintertime. And so I'm very concerned about everybody getting sick from this one employee. I don't want that to spread that. So I sent him home and about about an hour and a half later the security of the building comes to me and they go, hey, you have a phone call up front. Like, what do you mean, phone call? Three in the morning, two in the morning. Yeah. So I go, I go up there and I go, hello, hello. And there it goes. Is this Ben Hopkins? Like, yes,
Speaker 1
[00.12.47]
that's the government name. It
Speaker 2
[00.12.48]
is. I speaking, Uh. He goes. Why'd you send my son home? And I go, what what what? What do you mean? Yeah. My son is Timmy Thomas. We'll call him and and and you just sent him home. I'm like, who? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I speaking to? He goes. His father. Who do you think you're speaking to?
Speaker 1
[00.13.10]
I guess that's calling.
Speaker 2
[00.13.11]
Yes. Is this like daddy is calling now? Because. So come to find out that he. He didn't he didn't want him home because he wanted him at work. He wanted him out of the house. He went. He didn't. He needed to be at home by himself, the father, because something he was working on. Whatever. So he's like, yeah, you should have just had him up in the up, put him up in the front office or something. You can't just send him home like that. I'm like, well, I don't even like, why have I been talking to you? I goodbye like, hey, hang up. And so the next day I hr. I tell HR about it and they're like no no no no no no. You should never talk with people's parents directly. They shouldn't call you. If they do, you should put them in, you know, in touch with so and so, especially when it pertains to matters like this. Like you don't just have to be on the phone and have somebody dad complain to you. So there you go. You never know.
Speaker 1
[00.14.09]
Insane. I, I don't think I've ever heard of somebody's parents calling, but I guess. Especially with the young workforce nowadays. I guess that is very possible. Yeah.
Speaker 2
[00.14.20]
You just you don't know. You don't know, but, you know, be ready. I mean, I did not have that on my bingo card, but you never know when a dad's going to call, you know? So
Speaker 1
[00.14.29]
2026 is about a new year. Who knows? It calls from some parents.
Speaker 2
[00.14.36]
Yeah, that needs to be onboarding
Speaker 1
[00.14.38]
about their parents. Who knows? Diverse workforce.
Speaker 2
[00.14.42]
Yeah. Stand up the next day. I should have been like. And none of y'all's dads better call me. Tell your dads. When your mom said lose my number. I
Speaker 1
[00.14.49]
did your dad call me? Yeah. All right. Jordan. So I have some cool cruncher cool for you today. So this is a segment we do on the show where I reveal some photos or some stories to Jordan, who has not seen them ahead of time. She's not seen any of these. She has to give a brief description and then say if she thinks it's cringe or cool. And most of these are what I find on social media, so on LinkedIn or the like, and they all pertain in some shape, form or fashion to warehouse and distribution. Although it's fun to make short and squirm and get a responses on some of these, so I enjoy doing that. Ready? All right, I am. All
Speaker 2
[00.15.35]
right. So the first one is uh, so we just coming off Christmas. So the first one is a Dear Santa Christmas list. And I guess this is Christmas lists in 2025. So explain to the audience what this child wrote in crayon on their letter to Santa.
Speaker 1
[00.15.56]
So this child wrote out the entire web address of the item that they want from Amazon. And I can't tell what that item is, but I hope it was really epic and that this Christmas card for the parents to buy it for them. So I'm going to go with cool, because this kid tried really hard to get some okay from Santa. I got it. I mean, it's like the whole hyperlink, every single dash letter number, which he.
Speaker 2
[00.16.33]
Yeah. Amazon. I think that's the world. Yeah. All right. So you so you went cool on that. All right. So I'll give you cool. So yeah that was a good that was a good effort. I give it a cringe though I, I just I like the old fashioned Christmas list myself. Just it's just very simple and a whole bit so. All right. So somebody posted this on, uh, LinkedIn. It is a bobblehead, which I think that this is an award that somebody won. Trevor I don't know his last name, who is a manager and an Amazon FC, but his employees or Amazon made this award for him. It's a bobblehead of him. He is tearing his shirt apart, and instead of having the Superman S on his vest, he has an orange. An orange shirt with an Amazon smile on there. Fringe or cool on the Superhero Bobblehead award for the Ops manager.
Speaker 1
[00.17.35]
So if it was from the associates, I think it's cool because they're clearly trolling him. If this is from anybody other than the associates, it is so crazy. I don't know what I would do if I received that. I think I would laugh uncomfortably and then I don't know where I would. I don't know what I would do. I might, I might just have to keep it displayed at the site just for the laugh. It's very interesting.
Speaker 2
[00.18.07]
Yeah, I think I might post a photo of this when I put this post on LinkedIn so that people can see it and see his hair. I mean, the hair is pretty cringeworthy, but I that may be what his hair actually looks like, I don't know, so I shouldn't say that, but I'm half and half on this. I don't know, they it does look like they nailed it from his. Yeah. Small picture that I see. So maybe.
Speaker 1
[00.18.29]
It doesn't look like he has a cold, though. So no bobblehead night. And that's what's important.
Speaker 2
[00.18.34]
All right, I'll throw this one up here. These are. This is from Denver three. I guess it's just an Amazon site out in, uh, Colorado. They posted this on LinkedIn. They broke some records. $5 million weeks. I just thought the graphics looked very cool with the dinos up there. So it's just a cool AI generated photo of the T-Rex with, uh, you know, moving the boxes. It's just it's a cool photo, you know, it's cool. It is cool, isn't it? Yeah, I bet I
Speaker 1
[00.19.00]
they probably put that on their Instagram page and associates shared it and that's probably pretty cool. Yeah, that's
Speaker 2
[00.19.06]
pretty cool. Yeah I like it. I thought it I thought it looked pretty cool. All right. So so we've had so this next one we've had five of us on the show before. We did a whole bit on five s. This person and I, I've taken their name away because they made a LinkedIn post about fives, but they took it to another level, sort it. They made a parallel between fives in the warehouse to fives seeing their like so removing distractions, excuses, habits. Prioritize what matters. Keep your environment. Create simple routines. Make improvement. All this stuff. So they took the five S principle. They applied it to their life. Friends, you're cool on five S being a life life motivator life lesson. I'm not saying that there aren't parallels, but this is this is Corinne, this these people. Let me tell you how your team, these are the most we don't want to see. We do not want to see. You use five s and and parallel it to life.
Speaker 1
[00.20.14]
We just we can't have
Speaker 2
[00.20.15]
that.
Speaker 1
[00.20.17]
This is just a friend.
Speaker 2
[00.20.19]
I'm going cringe on this to. I just it's it's it's a bridge too far I can't I, I can't make this bridge and start applying by this to my life. I just can't do this.
Speaker 1
[00.20.29]
Even if it makes sense, I just refuse, I can't, I can't,
Speaker 2
[00.20.32]
I just say no. Just say yes. Just just say no to five as any anyplace other than in the FC. You know everybody. Leave. Leave it. Leave it to the peanut butter and jelly sandwich guy. Have you ever seen that video? He explains, you know, lean and all that way, making the sandwich and the whole bit. So, yeah. No.
Speaker 1
[00.20.54]
Do you not go into 2026 using fives? Please
Speaker 2
[00.20.59]
don't. No. All right. So this one is a post from a senior ops manager at Amazon. Her name's Martha Ruther I think is how you pronounce her last name. I actually gave her props on this post when I read it on LinkedIn online, and thought it was very cool. During the holiday season, she took time. They were fulfilling special orders out of their site BWI to uh, and they are preparing military orders go into service. Members took the time to do that. And there's a whole picture and a whole thing that said Amazon, thank you for service. Very cool. I thought, this is great. I thought this was an outstanding thing. I loved it. And you get two thumbs up from the Tiger team. Martha, on this. Uh, we're both vets ourselves, but even if we weren't, I still think it's a very cool, uh, post, so cringe your cool on this one, Jordan.
Speaker 1
[00.21.51]
Oh very cool. I've talked to a lot of people who do this at Amazon, and it's the coolest thing that you get to have veterans, uh, who prioritize packages for people, uh, serving in the military. So very, very cool thing Amazon does. Uh, from what I've heard, it's it's always been a thing, so. Bravo. Very cool.
Speaker 2
[00.22.13]
Yeah I agree. Uh, a very good one. I like that one a lot. So real quick, a couple more. I like the shirts. This is, uh, life is short at the veto. I really wish that I had a lot of
Speaker 1
[00.22.26]
people wear those shirts.
Speaker 2
[00.22.29]
Yeah, yeah, they're very cool. Uh, this this you can apply to your life. I do say if I best you can, but then your own life. Yeah. You should definitely take these. Yo. Uh, let me see. Uh, uh, here, here's, uh, Jordan. Here's, uh, you're in safety now. I know you do a lot of safety stuff, so this is an eyewash station. Um, back tag with the original date from 1996 on there. So people have been signing off on this since 1996. Oh,
Speaker 1
[00.23.00]
cool. That. I don't know if this is. And I hope nobody had to use it, because I feel like that would come quickly with some sort of eye disease.
Speaker 2
[00.23.09]
Yeah, I don't know. That paper has not hasn't that torn since 1996. I mean that's a long time to be recirculating that that same you go to most. Is it in warehouses across the country, eyewash stations or hit or miss some brand new fulfillment centers? Sometimes they're very good. But I have seen some of the gnarliest, nastiest wash stations that I would I would never even
Speaker 1
[00.23.32]
though. So maybe we should just put a PSA tire team. If you need to use an eyewash station, please check the air first because we're only a year 2026. We should not be using an eyewash station from 1996. Yeah, I'm going to
Speaker 2
[00.23.46]
say I'm going to I'm going to take a guess and say that this eyewash station and this poster should probably have some penicillin there on the side. So if you if you have to use the eyewash, then you must also take the penicillin afterwards.
Speaker 1
[00.23.59]
Yes. Please don't get a paper work even from touching the paper cut from touching the checklist. You might also need penicillin for
Speaker 2
[00.24.08]
that. Yeah, definitely. Uh, and the last one, Jordan. All right, so this one I cringe. Your cool on this beauty. It's, uh. It's a it's a garter vest. It's neon. It has a light. That's that's so cringe. I
Speaker 1
[00.24.30]
thought that please don't buy that.
Speaker 2
[00.24.33]
It's very cringe.
Speaker 1
[00.24.34]
Neon goth is not a style. Please do not. Please.
Speaker 2
[00.24.38]
Yes. It's a it's got. It's a neon garter vest. Shirt. Garters on the bar. Just the in general. Right. I will say this in general out there in the world of distribution. If you have anything that is like this. Right. That is sexist in nature, you should just get rid of it. And that includes pink vests. So I still see pink vests with the funny tag on the back that says, hey, I forgot my vest. And so now I have to wear a pink. Please get rid of that. That that to me is very cringe. We do not need to have that in 2026. The big just this. Get that out of your, uh, out of your out of your vocabulary there with the pink vests as a as a punishment, stupid. Um, I don't see that
Speaker 1
[00.25.23]
there is nothing wrong with a regular vest, I promise you all. Yeah.
Speaker 2
[00.25.27]
Yeah, absolutely. And thanks very much for coming back to do a special episode. Hey, I know you're exhausted because you're right in the middle of the season. You're coming out of peak season. So I'm really appreciative, and I know the audience will appreciate it out there, too. Uh, hopefully we'll do some more shows in 2026. What do you think?
Speaker 1
[00.25.46]
Oh, I think we should. But we had to end 2025 with a bang with the Tiger team. We want to thank you all for subscribing. Hopefully you subscribe and I think you all should just make a New Year's resolution now 2026. You will subscribe to and listen to the Tiger theme. All right
Speaker 2
[00.26.06]
I agree with that. I, I think that's that's my number one New Year's resolution. So uh, with that guys, thank you very much for 2025 and the eight shows that we did and we hope to do more in 2026. We appreciate the support. And uh, thanks for tuning in. Goodbye.
Speaker 1
[00.26.24]
Happy New year.
