Amazon Heroes

Amazon recently created a tribute video for their employees … the folks that are continuing to process, pack, and deliver items to our homes during the pandemic. It’s pretty moving IMHO:

While I would certainly argue that all of the points are true in the video, from a personal and professional perspective, the court of social opinion didn’t necessarily agree. “Heroes” may have been perceived as too polarizing of a term, given that it’s now associated with frontline healthcare workers and first responders.

For me, heroes can take on many forms. I feel like the folks in the grocery store are pretty heroic, as they show up to work so that I can go get groceries. I thank them every time. I think the postal delivery folks are pretty heroic as they deliver our mail and keep us connected in that way. I thank them every time.

Social media also pointed out that Amazon hasn’t always been known to treat their employees fairly. Yes, that is certainly in the news and we can all certainly make choices about the brands we let into their lives based on their known activities. And I’ve written many times about how companies should put their employees first … take care of your employees and they will take care of your customers. I dedicated space to that in my new book coming out.

For me, I leave that part to the Amazon employees. They can be the judge of how fairly they are treated and act accordingly. I, for one, am thankful that they are continuing to do their job so that I can have items delivered to my home while in shelter.

So for me, at the end of the day, I applaud Amazon for applauding their workers. They are keeping us afloat in many ways. And while it’s certainly true that others in our society are truly saving lives, that doesn’t mean that others aren’t contributing in immense ways as well. I am thankful for them all. And right now we are relying on them all.

What’s your experience? JIM

PS - While watching a show on Amazon Prime last night, I caught this little ad from the Ad Council.