Eurest Food & Beverage Programme 2013 14 - Vienna International: Fill & Download for Free

I worked at Microsoft for 6.5 years. I also love learning about tech industry corporate cafe food. So I will answer your question in far more detail than you may have wanted.(And my apologies if any of the hard-working MS dining folks read this and are offended by my feelings here - I do respect your work and good intentions tremendously.)If you compare Microsoft’s current food to your college dining hall, it’s probably pretty decent.If you compare Microsoft’s food to any of Microsoft’s peer companies in our industry (Apple, Google, Facebook, etc), it’s sorely lacking. But most Microsoft employees probably won’t consciously mind the difference -- or if they do, they probably won't admit to it.Why is Microsoft’s food inferior to Silicon Valley companies? In Silicon Valley, gourmet-quality food originated as a tool to recruit new employees in a phenomenally competitive job market, to keep morale high for engineers who are frequently courted by neighboring competitors, and to incentivize engineers to work late on a daily basis. These are needs that generally aren’t quite as transferable to the Seattle-area job market.At a high level, I believe Microsoft has comparatively inferior food because of three recurring and pernicious cultural habits:Microsoft tends to copy the surface-level characteristics of its competitors, without fully appreciating the depth involved in doing something right.Microsoft employees are conditioned to be grateful for what they have (even when it’s crappy), and not complain about things that are orthogonal to the business.Microsoft doesn’t value gratuitous excellence, and can settle for “good enough” unless there’s clear competitive pressure. (“If you can’t make it good, make it look good.” - Bill Gates, 1981)The key difference between Silicon Valley and Microsoft foodIn Silicon Valley, the Bon Appetit Management Company essentially pioneered the concept and business model of providing high-quality, sustainable, healthy corporate cafeteria food in the 1990s, under Fedele Bauccio's leadership. They now run nearly every famous tech dining facility in the region, and along the way, have pushed for fundamental supply chain changes in animal husbandry and social responsibility.One of the first things Steve Jobs did when he returned to Apple in 1997 was to fire their food vendors (Guckenheimer) and bring in Bon Appetit. Steve also recruited a prominent chef from Steve's favorite Italian restaurant (Il Fornaio in Palo Alto) to run the Caffe Macs dining facility.Microsoft, on the other hand, has never used Bon Appetit. They’ve stayed with a company called Eurest, which brought a distinctly different (and more conventional) approach to food service.When I first came to Microsoft in 2008, what struck me the most was just how incredibly, unbelievably horrid their food was — and the extent to which nobody seemed bothered by it. Everything was served (and largely still is) with disposable silverware and on paper plates.I’d literally never seen anything this bad in Silicon Valley: lunch primarily consisted of burgers, pizza, calzones, and various other quasi-junk food products that were cheap and easy to make. The soups all came right out of cans. The salad dressings were premade. There were high-margin Frito-Lay potato chips and other junk food for sale everywhere in the cafeterias - things I'd never seen at places like Apple or Google. Even when I biked 100 miles a week, I couldn’t lose any weight eating that stuff daily. At one point, my doctor even referred me to a nutritionist and warned me against continuing to eat it.Whereas Steve Jobs ate all the time in Caffe Macs and expected the food to be excellent, our executives rarely appeared in person in our cafeterias (I presume they had better options.)Here’s an actual Microsoft lunch from that era: the "Kung Pao Portobello Philly with Napa Slaw" (aka: "human vomit on a hotdog bun”).As one of my friends, an engineering manager at Apple, quipped on Facebook about another lunch, “It's so cool that Microsoft will make fresh-cooked meals for your dog":In contrast, here are samples of what lunch at Apple's Caffe Macs looked like at that time:So, a bit of a quality gap, eh?Since then, Microsoft has made an earnest effort to upgrade the food to be more in line with industry peers. They’ve made dramatic improvements. But I would argue that the food is still materially inferior to competitors' cafeteria food — and my belief is that it’s because of the 3 pernicious cultural habits mentioned above.#1: Microsoft tends to copy the surface-level characteristics of its competitors, without fully appreciating the depth involved in doing something right.Microsoft indeed invested in building beautiful new cafeterias. They've created the surface-level characteristics of a modern tech cafe, with incredibly well-thought out environmental design. But much of the food has not been materially improved - just more attractively presented, and in nicer surroundings.Healthfulness. Food in Silicon Valley cafes is often healthy because engineers are too busy to cook, so engineers often eat at their corporate cafe to reclaim time. First-rate cafeterias like at Apple exist as a productivity booster. They make it healthy and sensible for you to eat at work meal after meal. Apple's breakfast menu includes breakfast salads, actual fruit smoothies, and lots of options you could eat regularly without harming your health. But that's not the case at Microsoft’s cafes.If you look at Microsoft’s breakfast menu, it is overwhelmingly foods that are terribly unhealthy for you to eat daily — you can’t easily go there for breakfast daily as a time-savings, unless you could order the one or two healthy entrees almost every single day without going insane. While it superficially resembles a Silicon Valley cafe, it misses the fundamental end-user need of enhancing productivity by saving your employees’ time, and preserving their health.Similarly, lunch in my cafe - one of Microsoft's flagships - remains primarily a presentation of cheap-tasting meat with some sides. And it still cost nearly 8 bucks!Whereas I could go vegetarian at Apple’s or Google’s cafes very easily and love every healthy vegan meal, Microsoft’s vegetarian options are generally second-class products (e.g. replacing a piece of meat with a hunk of tofu) — and for the same price. So Microsoft unfortunately incentivizes people to choose unhealthy food, despite having what I believe to be the best nutritional labeling system (based on the Harvard Healthy Plate model) of any corporate tech cafe I’ve seen.Quality. Google serves (really good) restaurant-quality sushi in their cafeteria. Microsoft can boast that they now serve sushi, too. It’s literally the worst sushi I’ve tasted in my life. My local chain supermarket likely sells better sushi. One of my coworkers literally just threw the whole thing out after he tasted it.In other words, the food is often of variable quality - there's no reliable baseline of what you'll get. And often, the quality can be exceeding low.Sustainability. Google is well known for using the purchasing power of their food services to jumpstart a sustainable and ethical food supply chain around the Bay Area, rather than to just present inhumanely sourced food products in nice-looking cafes.While Microsoft sources some produce from local farms, they have never (to my knowledge) used their food services to take a firm and public stand on sustainable and humane agriculture. To the best of my knowledge, Microsoft just serves the same inhumanely raised, factory-farmed animal products as before, but in nicer-looking venues.Facebook, for example, is known to source a clear majority (about 75%) of their food from organic farms. Microsoft seems to tend more towards gimmicks like having leafy greens growing in the cafeterias hydroponically (which one of my friends observed being “harvested” by being thrown right into the garbage).Top leadership commitment. At Google, Apple, Facebook, Dropbox and so many other Silicon Valley companies with great food, the executives are personally invested in having great food. At Apple, Steve Jobs personally restructured the cafe in 1997 as one of his first activities as iCEO — even when the food served then was arguably already far better than what Microsoft serves today. At Google, Larry & Sergey personally oversaw the choice in hiring Chef Charlie by organizing a big cook-off.And at Facebook, the tragic and premature death of Chef Josef in 2013 rocked the company, with tributes shared by hundreds of employees. Mark Zuckerberg himself announced the terrible news, calling him a “legend” and “institution”.All these stories reveal a culture around appreciating the cultural value of great food - something that never was part of Microsoft’s DNA. Could Satya Nadella even name any of the main chefs on campus, let alone write a sincere and touching obituary for any of them from memory? I would be shocked.Correspondingly, I don’t believe Microsoft pays the bucks to bring on top-tier chefs, and the ingredients they use feel to be fairly low-end. If you walk through a typical Microsoft salad bar and compare it with an Apple salad bar, the presentation may look equally attractive, but the contrast in quality and caliber of the food is material.#2: Microsoft employees are conditioned to be grateful for what they have (even when it’s crappy), and not complain about things that are orthogonal to the business.When I briefly worked at AOL West (the remnants of Netscape) and the penny-pinching Dulles headquarters replaced our Bon Appetit facility with food of similarly poor quality to Microsoft’s, it just took a few days until the entire company literally stopped using the cafeteria and started eating out with their coworkers. Ultimately, Bon Appetit was brought back.At Microsoft, the culture unfortunately feels predisposed towards tolerating broken things, and of discouraging employees to complain about anything that feels orthogonal to the business. At Google, I understand that employees actually complain when the food isn’t good enough, and they actually expect it to be improved.#3: Microsoft doesn’t value gratuitous excellence, and can settle for “good enough” unless there’s clear competitive pressure. (“If you can’t make it good, make it look good.” - Bill Gates, 1981)At times, Microsoft can unfortunately settle for what’s convenient and “good enough”, rather than insisting consistently that everything be outstanding. The food culture is simply a reflection of that broader corporate culture.What does a commitment to "outstanding" look like? Consider sushi at Apple. The sushi chef in Apple’s cafeteria is Steve Jobs’ favorite sushi chef, Toshi Sakuma, who ran the critically acclaimed, high-end Kaygetsu sushi restaurant in Menlo Park. When Toshi was ready to sell his restaurant, Steve personally invited him to join Apple and make sushi at Caffe Macs full-time. (I presume he was also paid a sufficient enough of money to make it worth his while, but I don’t know this for a fact.)At Microsoft, they bring in chefs from local restaurants as well. But you'd never hear a story of Satya Nadella recruiting a top chef to make a new home at Microsoft. Instead, we get restaurants like Shanghai Shanghai, which made literally the worst Chinese food I’d ever tasted in my life - it was even worse than the fast food Chinese in my small Dutch town. It had deservedly horrible ratings on Yelp. They appear to have shut their restaurant down, and now prepare Chinese food full time at Microsoft.Similarly, all the “local restaurants” featured in the Microsoft cafeterias I’ve seen appear to have been commercially mixed or have fairly mediocre ratings on Yelp. (I also don’t know for a fact, but I presume that Microsoft simply is not willing to pay enough money to make it worth the while for higher-end chefs to cook for the company.)To conclude, overall, I would argue that the food at Microsoft is no longer objectively ‘bad’ — a hard-working and dedicated culinary advancement staff has improved it remarkably.However, it remains far below Silicon Valley standards for underlying cultural reasons that appear systemic at Microsoft, and feel unlikely to change unless its broader culture changes.

Be a war dog investor. There is a TON of money to be made.I’ve invested in alcohol, cannabis, and all kinds of “unethical opportunities.” But, I think this one draws the line for me.I’ve finally found something that I won’t invest in, even though there is a lot of money to be made.Grab a drink and snack, you’re going to want to hear this story, which is 100% true…And, at the end of this story, I’m going to tell you how this opportunity is still very much available… and maybe even more so than ever.Source: NBC“What do you know about war? They’ll tell you it’s about patriotism, democracy, or some shit about the other guy hating our freedom. But you wanna know what it’s really about? What do you see? A kid from Arkansas doing his patriotic duty to defend his country? I see a helmet, fire-retardant gloves, body armor and an M16. I see seventeen thousand five hundred dollars. That’s what it costs to outfit one American soldier. Over two million soldiers fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. It cost the American taxpayer $4.5 billion each year just to pay the air conditioning bills for those wars. And that’s what war is really about. War is an economy. Anybody who tells you otherwise is either in on it or stupid.”That is from the opening scene of the movie War Dogs, which is a true story about two “very entrepreneurial” guys named, Efraim Diveroli and David Packouz.To understand this story, we have to go back to 2003 and the start of the Iraq War.Between the US, the UK, Australia, Denmark, Poland, and Peshmerga, there would eventually be over 300,000 invading soldiers in Iraq.In order to support such an invasion, there is an enormous amount of logistics, infrastructure, and support services that need to be developed.Everything from sleeping quarters to food services to toilets have to be figured out.US military base near Baghdad, Iraq. Source: S MeyerAnd those costs are in addition to the obvious equipment expenses.US military forces in northern Kuwait prepare to invade Iraq. Source: CNNSo how much do you think the US has spent on wars since 2001?"As of August 2016, the US has already appropriated, spent, or taken on obligations to spend more than $3.6 trillion in current dollars on the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Syria and on Homeland Security (2001 through fiscal year 2016). To this total should be added the approximately $65 billion in dedicated war spending the Department of Defense and State Department have requested for the next fiscal year, 2017, along with an additional nearly $32 billion requested for the Department of Homeland Security in 2017, and estimated spending on veterans in future years. When those are included, the total US budgetary cost of the wars reaches $4.79 trillion." -Watson InstituteALMOST $5 TRILLION.THAT’S TRILLION. WITH A “T”.Source: Watson, BrownWar is BIG business.And that's what David Packouz and Efraim Diveroli took advantage of.Diveroli started an arms and ammunition company that supplied the US Government's war efforts in the middle east. He then partnered up with Packouz and they started to go after bigger contracts.Within their first year working together, they secured over 100 government contracts that totaled more than $10 million.And then in 2007, they won a huge contract - $298 million - to supply ammunition to the allied forces in Afghanistan.At the time Diveroli was 21 and Packouz was 25.The two won the contract because they significantly underbid their competitors by securing Cold War era ammunition in Albania.However, the ammunition was made in China, which was a violation with the US contract.To get around the issue, Diveroli and Packouz had the ammunition repackaged to conceal the origin.While this was going on, the media picked up on the story of two 20-year-olds who had won the enormous government contract. Subsequently, the US Government then did an investigation into their business and discovered the issue with the Chinese manufactured ammunition.Packouz ended up serving seven months house arrest, while Diveroli served four years in prison.But, you want to know the real crime?That one contract only made up 0.006% of the total money that the US Government has spent on wars since 2001.So where is the rest of the money going?Great question.Obviously, there are the big companies like Boeing ($BA), Lockheed Martin ($LMT), Raytheon ($RTN), and Northrop Grumman ($NOC).But, what about the others?Let's take a look at some of the notable recipients of massive government contracts:#1 Eurest Support Services (ESS) - is a food catering company that specializes in harsh-environment large-scale food service and facilities management. Its primary clients are military forces and other security services, major defense contractors, and construction, mining, and oil exploration and production facilities worldwide. They are owned by the publicly traded company Compass Group plc.#2 Academi, which used to be Xe Services, but was originally (and most famously) named Blackwater - is an American private military company that is known worldwide. They have been the recipient of billions of dollars for different contracts... like when they provided security services during Hurricane Katrina for a quarter million dollars per day... or for one contract that totaled $1 billion during the Iraq war. Owned by Constellis, the company has thousands of employees, helicopters, planes, ships, and all kinds of specialized equipment.#3 Armed Forces Entertainment - is an entertainment company that travels the world stopping at different US military bases. AFE operates year round and has everything from famous singers to MMA fights.But, you don't have to be a mega corporation to win these big contracts. In fact, anyone can bid...Source: FBOThere are currently around 40,000 opportunities.In a nutshell, this is how it works:Some department of the US Government posts an ad that describes what they need. Let's say the Department of Justice needs toilet paper (this is actually a real opportunity on the site).The opportunity is posted on Federal Business Opportunities and is open for bid by anyone who wants to supply toilet paper.Anyone who sees the opportunity on the site can then submit a bid stating what they will provide and for what price.The bid is then awarded to the company that provides the most competitive bid. (For the toilet paper one I saw, it was worth $24,000.)Now you know how the military-industrial complex works.The more supplies that the government consumes, the more they pay to private bidders, and in theory, the more the economy gets a boost.So what happens when the government slows down? What happens when there is no war to consume products and services?Well, we could say there is a conspiracy to start wars to fuel economies... but that would never happen, right?Photo Source: JSPictured above: "Erik Prince, founder of the notorious security firm formerly known as Blackwater, is apparently the architect of a proposal to send 5,500 new contractors and a 90-plane private air force to assist the Afghan government." -Just SecurityWell... Trump is now considering plans to privatize the Afghanistan war.The plan would save US tax payers over $30 billion dollars a year, and could significantly reduce the number of soldiers currently in Afghanistan.The idea to privatize the war came from ex-Blackwater CEO Erik Prince."Under the proposal, 5,500 private contractors, primarily former Special Operations troops, would advise Afghan combat forces. The plan also includes a 90-plane private air force that would provide air support in the nearly 16-year-old war against Taliban insurgents."To make this clear... the US is looking at hiring third party contractors to fight a war.I'm not going to speculate on any political or ethical issues here...My point is that whoever gets a hold of these contracts is going to make A LOT of money. And most of the contracts are going to have nothing to do with direct combat. They're going to be support contracts - the toilets, the beds, the entertainment, and on and on.

I need to ask a question before I answer this question. Having worked in a number of restaurants from Luby's to Braums to McDonalds to Whataburger to Carl's Jr. to Steak N' Shake to Eurest Dining Services, I noticed one poor working condition that is consistent in absolutely every restaurant kitchen I have ever worked in; the kitchen floors are always becoming greasy, which is why special-slip-resistent-soled restaurant shoes are required for working in the restaurant industry. The floors are mopped and mopped and mopped throughout the day and evening hours but the busier the restaurant gets during lunch rush or evening rush, the more hazardously slippery the floors become. In spite of slip-resistent shoes, people slip and slide along the floors to fill customer orders in an “at-risk and somewhat substandard” work environment. Every night between the hours of midnight and three a.m., the floors are freshly mopped with a sanitizing and degreasing solution and there is very little slip hazard; however, the floors could rightly be considered a poor working condition. Now, the question I need to ask: Is this the result of the restaurant industry being allowed to “get away” with maintaing poor employee conditions or is it the result of the work processes required to perform the work necessary for the restaurant to stay in business? My assessment is the later. The restaurant is not at fault for the greasy floors because the deep fryers, food preparation processes, and grills produce a greasy environment that happens to “settle” onto the floors; consequently, the floors become coated with grease. I had managers who had the floors mopped every two or three hours in an effort to minimize the slip-hazard, but while work was being performed, the condition of a slip-hazard existed. The management and labor who worked in the restaurant industry understood and accepted the risk and consumers who patronized the business acquiesced to the potential hazard by continuing to do business with the restaurant industry.Now let's address Amazon's obviously perceived reputation for getting away with poor working conditions. Just like I have worked in a number of restaurants because they were about the only jobs I could get when I really needed an income, I have also worked in a number of warehouses for the same reason and I will honestly tell you that Amazon…based on my 28-month work experience at an Amazon Fulfillment Center in Texas…is getting a bad rap here. Comparatively speaking, Amazon maintains the cleanest, most comfortable, and possibly safest warehouses I have ever worked in. What is more, Amazon addresses complaints and concerns about work conditions and safety issues faster than anyone I have ever worked for regardless of industry.LIGHTING: The UPS Walnut Hill Hub center I worked in during the mid-1980's had the worst and dimmest lighting I have ever experienced in a warehouse setting. Everything moved in shadows. On the brown slide where I worked sorting and moving boxes by their zip codes, it felt like I was working in twilight. Whereas, Amazon has always been extremely well-lit with extra lighting coming on automatically throughout the warehouse via the wonder of motion sensors as one enters an area. I know there have been complaints about a lack of windows in Amazon facilities but I have honestly never worked in any warehouse that gave windows an architectural consideration. I was actually fired from that UPS hub center for incorrectly reading two zip codes because I really couldn't make them out in the dark at the speed I was supposed to read them at in order to make rate.CLIMATE-CONTROL: I worked as a temporary in a warehouse at DFW airport for the six-week Christmas rush in 2013 without climate control; it happened to ice and snow—a lot—that year between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I was wearing ski pants, a parka, heated socks and padded gloves and still felt like I had to defrost myself after 12-, 14-, sometimes 16-hour shifts. Sixteen hours was the maximum shift anyone could work in a day and the closer we got to Christmas, the more 16-hour shifts we worked. I had to sleep in my truck between shifts because the parking lot was iced over and I was iced into the parking lot … tires fuzed to the pavement. I felt frozen for the entire six weeks as I helped unload mail from tractor trailer rigs without heat in the warehouse and sort mail trays and packages by zip code so they could be reloaded onto other tractor trailer rigs or onto overseas cargo planes. It was friggin' cold. I was never so glad to be “let go” of a job as I was on that Christmas Eve of 2013.I incurred the opposite extreme working as a temporary for the June-July-August (summer months) in Texas picking and packing automotive parts for a major warehouse. There was no air conditioning except for in the small section of management offices in the building. We had two overhead fans for the entire building which could have housed at least two football stadiums. The owners were from New York and this was… TEXAS! Summer in Texas in a warehouse like that is as close to hell on earth as I ever want to get. Talk about your sweat shops! And, no dress code. I couldn't have seen more undressed, under-dresssed actors unless I had been on the set of a porn movie in process of being filmed. These people wore no clothes! Sexual harrassment wasn't frowned upon; it was an encouraged employment policy and was business as usual. There were people who worked the job and there were people who played on the job: we received the same paycheck amounts for being there the same number of hours but—what can I say— I am a fool with a work ethic who knows I don't look good naked. I saw it. I heard it. Management and labor alike turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to it. It was just something that went on in the course of a business day. The girls giggled about it and jiggled all over the place to encourage attention; the young men strutted around like peacocks in full-feather in a henhouse. I wrote a letter of complaint to the temporary agency I worked for and was threatened with immediate replacement. The warehouse was covered in dust. The boxes I picked were covered in dust. My hands were black after just starting my shift and stayed that way all day because no gloves were provided for any of the workers but you could bring your own. Half of the RFID scanners didn't work; if you could find one at all. It was a disorganized mess. The whole warehouse was a dirty, dimly-lit, dust-encased, poorly-ventilated, ineptly supervised disaster waiting to happen. It is a miracle a single order ever went out of that warehouse completely fulfilled. They did provide free gatorade, air conditioning in the breakroom, and car-loan discounts if you were a “real” employee.Say what you will about Amazon but there is a dress code and it is enforced; the heaviest jacket I have ever had to wear in the building in the dead of winter is a zip-up hoodie and summer may be hot but the building temperature is a far far cry from what I would consider a “sweat shop.” There is no air conditioning just for management; they get the same thermostat the rest of us peons get. Temperature-wise it is a level playing field. Amazon provides gloves and (PPE) personal protection equipment. The company also provides first-aid, band-aids, and over-the-counter medicines like ibuprofen and tylenol. There is a market in the breakroom so you can buy a meal if you forget your lunch. The lockers are clean and abundant. Security is polite, professional, and courteous. The cleaning crew does a kick-ass, bang-up job keeping the trash empty, the bathrooms clean, and the breakroom neat. The floors are clean. That said…Amazon is not a perfect work environment. No work environment that runs 24, 7 is going to be perfect. But, Amazon, in my opinion, tries harder to accommodate its workers with a safe, clean, organized work environment than just about any place I have ever worked. To drive that point home I would personally be willing to give a fresh, clean, crisp $100.00 bill to anyone from Amazon who could last the same 6-weeks in the same cold conditions at that DFW warehouse working 16-hour shifts and then do the same identical 3-month summer shift at that motor parts warehouse I did because when you complain about the work conditions at Amazon you don't know what you are talking about or how good you have it. I am not saying Amazon is perfect. I have gripes and complaints about it too. I am over 50 with 10 years of college and a master's degree in accounting from an accredited university and although I have applied for other jobs within Amazon, I cannot even get an interview for those positions. I have seen countless 20-something-year-olds with a fraction of my education and practically none of my work experience or Amazon-tenure get hired or promoted into management and supervisory roles while the best job I can get with Amazon is standing on a line packing boxes 10-hours a day. I need the paycheck; what's more, I need the insurance Amazon provides so I do it—not exactly self-actualization but life doesn't come with guarantees, at least mine hasn't. I attribute my lack of promotability within Amazon to my age of 50-plus years. I am simply not qualified to be a 12-year old manager; a 10-year old supervisor; or, a 5-year old executive because I have never mastered a Leap-Frog device and it has been years since I have been acquainted with anything manufactured by Fisher-Price. In Amazon's defense some of these young people are incredible: smart, talented, personable, and capable. Some are not; most are overly-ambitious, self-interested spoiled brats with only personal gain in mind. They could care less about Amazon as a company as they knock over anybody who gets in between them and the Amazon candy-bowl, which they want all for themselves. They want self-promotion even without qualification or consciousness or consideration of anyone else. It is all about me, me, me and what can I get and where can I go and how many bodies can I step on as I pile up corpses on my way up the ladder of my own personal success. If Amazon has an Achilles heel, it is this…in hiring and retaining people who are only interested in cheating or cutting-corners to be the fastest rate-maker; pushing their way into corporate “clicks” of people who can foster their development and advancement without consideration for anyone or anything other than how can I help myself and what can I do for me; pulling unethical or compromising strings to position themselves into a spotlight where they can be moved around or moved up…in doing this Amazon defeats itself. Older responsible workers get discouraged and leave; talented, educated, hard-working employees get ignored and passed over; Amazon is left with the rotten apples in charge of everything —eventually—who cry “it's unfair,” “it's unfair,” because it is all about me, me, me; what I can get; and what I want. Screw the company, I want it in my paycheck and in my pocket and I want it all now. So, unions come in; owners lose options, control…the downward spiral takes hold.Life isn't fair. Anyone who has worked or lived any length of time will tell you life is not fair. If you have a backbone, you suck it up and you make the best of it. You sleep in a cold truck if you need a paycheck and that is what a job requires. You sweat your entire body weight in a single day picking automotive parts if that is what a job requires. With an education or without an education, you do what you have to do to earn a living, put food on your table, and survive. Having an education doesn't guarantee you the opportunity to ever get a chance to use it. For me, education was a waste of time, money, intellectual resources, and talent. I sacrificed a lot and got very little…other than massive student loan debt.Still, I am convinced I am better for having earned an education. I can tell you in all honesty that it is not the conditions at Amazon that need improving…the actual warehouse work condtions far exceed many I have encountered. What Amazon needs to improve is its company culture with its high school student body policy of electing the most popular, albeit only marginally competent, young person to be student body president…no experience, no education, nothing much to offer other than a nice picture of a bright-faced kid on a poster. I have seen countless older employees who are perfectly capable of doing the job at the rates Amazon requires get “railroaded” out by these young entitlists. So, why does Amazon get away with poor work conditions? In a nutshell, because those who are complaining and belly-aching, and griping about the lousy work conditions at Amazon have no real-world experience about what it is like to work in a real sh@#-hole warehouse nor do they have a clue about the existence of the rathole conditions in other warehouses. They need perspective and they don't have it. Instead of picking all the time on big-bucks Bezos because he made a lot of money from a good idea; instead of pulling him through the mud because his name makes for good, profitable publicity and click-bait; why don't people in the press try to expose other companies with less cash who have real problems that need to be addressed. Poor working conditions at Amazon? ….simply a money-making mirage for the mainsteam media and a soapbox for socialist politicians.This is entirely my own opinion and no one else's. I am not a champion of Jeff Bezos. In fact, I honestly believe that were he to apply for a job with Amazon today, he would not be hired for any job other than the one I currently do because of his age. He got the breaks in life; I did not—no harm; no foul. Just the way it is in life sometimes. I did the best I could given the circumstances and resources I had available to me. I do not feel he should be persecuted for having been successful. I am not a champion of Amazon. In fact, I am planning to quit Amazon at the end of September 2018; I am simply not interested in mastering “Leap Frog,” which means I don't “fit” the company culture. C'est la vie.