I calculate that we roughly have an average of 3.4 minutes to travel, park, find the correct packages, scan them using the Amazon app that we have downloaded to our phones and bring them to the door. The essence of the job is speed, he tells me: each drop should take no more than a minute.

For two hours, an experienced Driving Associate sits next to me in the van. The glitches in our training become clear a week later, when I start my first shift. But all of us are used to some level of corporate bullshit, and the mood in the room is good we are happy to have work. The delivery procedure was explicit and detailed, and we can’t deviate slightly.

But most of the two days is taken up by learning about Amazon’s stringent and detailed protocols regarding delivery methods. (Drivers are provided with masks, hand sanitiser and gloves.) Maybe half an hour covers practical advice on driving safety. The training makes clear that our safety is Amazon’s first priority – so we are encouraged to buy our own first aid kits and safety shoes. The training we receive is not led by a human but by a laptop on a table, playing a recording of another class, with slides and video clips projected on a screen.

At one point a video clip of Jeff Bezos, one of the wealthiest men in human history, is played, giving a heartwarming story of his early struggles. Over two days we are given Amazon training, featuring Amazon protocols and Amazon branding. On a cold November morning, a group of a dozen or so gather outside a hotel on the outskirts of Inverness. NGC Logistics, which hires us, has a contract with Amazon, creating two tiers between us and our ultimate, real employer. It was work, but not an actual job: my van may have had a notice in the front saying “Amazon courier (back in five minutes)”, but in fact my colleagues and I were self-employed, independent contractors. I ended up delivering orders across the Scottish Highlands for about seven weeks. T his winter, with my own small business shuttered due to the pandemic, I was lucky enough to find work as an Amazon Driving Associate.

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