Jeff Bezos pictures Amazon as inverted pyramid with himself at bottom

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.
Cliff
Owen/AP

• 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.”

Read more:

‘They treat us like disposable parts’: An Amazon warehouse worker
is waging war on working conditions in a new anonymous newspaper
column

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.