Billionaire Problems

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The garbage cans are overflowing. Debris all over the lot.

More disturbing are the full bottles of urine, tossed all over the pavement.

The piss bottles are tossed out by drivers who are under strict time deadlines to deliver their packages.

In the middle of it all, Amazon announced that they set a record for profits.

It makes me a little sick.

It’s only been a few years since they built the massive Amazon warehouse in Tonawanda. The construction of the place was rapid.

It was fairly impressive. The men involved in the construction spoke about how quickly payments were made.

The joint got up and running quickly.

I’ve been on the property when the drivers leave in the morning. One truck after another, racing out of the lot. Drivers with blank stares.

Piss botttles empty and about to be filled all day long as they struggled to make their deliveries.

“How’s the job?” I asked one kid who was heading to his truck.

“Horrendous,” he said.

He pointed to the garbage all over the lot. He laughed at the bottles of urine that so aggravated me.

“What can we do?” He asked. “We don’t have time for breaks. The money sucks, the hours suck, the benefits suck, and they threaten us about starting a union. So we piss wherever we can piss.”

“Profits are through the roof,” I said.

He laughed.

“Yeah! We’re all so proud. Making rich guys richer is what we strive to do. Thank God he’s doing all right.”

The kid jumped into his truck.

“You’d think they’d have someone come around and clean the place up,” I said.

“Never going to happen,” he said. “We don’t even bring it up anymore.”

I have a buddy who reads things like this and answers:

“We are so broken.”

I think about that every time I see the garbage and the pee bottles.

Broken.

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