By now you will probably know that I've taken a job elsewhere and will soon be moving to Dubai for it.
I sat chatting late one night with my bff Najwah about our former company (Amazon) that we both worked at for about a year, and we both had the same feeling towards it:
Working there was the hardest, best year of our lives.
When Najwah and I started there, we both came into the place thinking we were only going to work there for about 4 months to make some quick cash.
It was going to be for the seasonal period where Amazon hires extra customer service agents to help carry the load of the Dec-Jan peak.
Najwah and I didn't know each other at the time. I myself knew only one other person there, and trust me because of work schedules, running into her wasn't easy.
Even though we came into briefings for working there at different times, by some wonderful twist of fate, Najwah and I ended up signing our contracts on the same day, and ever since that day we had been in the same "groups" and work teams at Amazon almost until the end.
Looking at us on that first day, I don't think anyone would have predicted how close we would grow to become.
But God had a plan and made sure that we would be with each other for those 4 months at least.
We had our training together.
We both were placed in the same phone team together.
We both then had our chat training together, and eventually we both became chat agents at the same time.
Initially, Najwah thought I was snobby; I thought she was weird.
If you ask her she'll tell you that she thought I was quiet but interesting, and that (apparently) I had an accent. (I do not have an accent).
I've asked her once about this and she's told me that she knew there was a personality to me that I wasn't showing, and she liked that.
I on the other hand quickly grew to love her because of how un-filtered she is.
Anything she thinks, she will say. And to me, finding someone who genuinely speaks their mind is refreshing, and I absolutely love that about her.
A memory I will never forget is Najwah swearing at our new supervisor the very first time she was introduced to him because he called her 'Najwah Petersen'.
She hates that.
She immediately felt guilty afterwards and apologized for it, but the fact that she had the balls to say that to him in the first place is what I admire about her.
For the time we were at Amazon during this "temporary" phase, Naj and I had one goal, and that was to become a permanent employee.
Working at Amazon has a lot of benefits.
Secure job.
Good pay.
Opportunity for growth.
We had no idea where our lives were going to take us and had no plan, so all we knew was that was our goal, and we both needed to achieve it.
For those few months we kept our heads down and worked damn hard to make sure we reached that goal, which we eventually did.
Anyone who works between the hours of 7pm-7am can tell you that it is not an easy lifestyle to live.
Say goodbye to your friends because, honey, you'll be working; and that includes public holidays.
There were times where we were required to work overtime amounting to at least 50 hours a week, which although I wasn't a fan of, I could manage. Bringing in the new year at work was probably the most bitter pill for me to swallow.
Because you're forced to sleep in the daytime, you lose all contact with your social life.
Anyone outside of our little world couldn't truly understand what it's like to have to tell people you can't go out on a Sunday afternoon because you'll be asleep due to the fact that you need to keep your sleeping pattern.
Getting people to be quiet in the house during the daytime is a damn mission.
You start to genuinely become a different person, snapping at people for waking you up; getting upset over small little things because you're so stressed out of your mind that even someone just smiling at you could annoy you.
"Night owl" becomes an entirely new concept to you, and because of the nature of your job as a chat agent, you couldn't just sit still when you weren't at work. You always had to be multitasking, so much so to the point where you can't watch TV without doing something else at the same time.
Combine that with working in a position where all you do for hours on end is listen to people complain, and where you're driven to compete for excellent statistics, it's enough to make you sometimes feel like you're going to go crazy.
Because nobody outside of your work can understand what you're going through, you begin to rely on your teammates for so much more than even you realize.
Due to Amazon's security policies, you have to shut out the rest of the world, so you spend hours on end isolated with just your colleagues.
You're constantly asking their help on a situation, and making lunch-run requests at 11pm at night.
Through the good and the bad times, those people are right there in the trenches with you.
They know what it's like to have to force yourself into caring about the most trivial of problems for the sake of the job.
Those people become your family.
Now that both Naj and I are no longer working there, we can see that with so much more clarity.
I can say with ease that everyone there helped me in one way or another, because they did.
Thanks to Amazon, there are now some people that I can truly consider life-long friends.
I've met some of the most interesting personalities there (looking at you, Sasman), and I've learned what it takes to be a good leader (thanks, Titus).
I've learned to not judge a book by its cover; and that people you previously would not have paid attention to can surprise you.
I've learned that the world is not as black and white as I once thought (names shall not be mentioned but you know who you are :)).
As I've now closed that chapter of my life and am looking towards to the new one, I can't help but reflect back on my time there and smile.
I know that working there has taught me so much, not just about people, but also about what it really takes to run a good business; how to be successful in general; and most importantly how to work hard and take charge of a situation.
Working there has taught me about life and how the world works.
As someone who was pretty much straight out of university, I had dabbled in working for other companies, but never learned nearly as much as I did from my time at Amazon.
I believe that working there in one year has taught me so much more than I would have learned at any other company, and that I know would have taken years to get to learn if anything.
These are life lessons I know I will carry with me for the rest of my life, and for that, I am eternally grateful.
Working there was hard, it was sometimes painful, but I would never change that experience for anything, and I would highly recommend working there to anyone.
My friends, I will miss you more than you know.
I will miss our daily banter and making fun of the stupidity we had to deal with.
I will miss your stories of crazy weekend antics at some party.
I will miss our competitiveness over trying to be better than each other and almost always kicking the other teams asses.
I will definitely miss the free food and incredible parties that Amazon throws.
Amazon knows how to treat their customers, both external and internal, and I'll always carry the value of that with me no matter where I go.
I wish you all the best of success, and I know we'll keep in touch.
I can't wait to see who we all are 20 years from now :)
I thank you.
I love you.
I'll miss you.
Rasheeda xx
I sat chatting late one night with my bff Najwah about our former company (Amazon) that we both worked at for about a year, and we both had the same feeling towards it:
Working there was the hardest, best year of our lives.
When Najwah and I started there, we both came into the place thinking we were only going to work there for about 4 months to make some quick cash.
It was going to be for the seasonal period where Amazon hires extra customer service agents to help carry the load of the Dec-Jan peak.
Najwah and I didn't know each other at the time. I myself knew only one other person there, and trust me because of work schedules, running into her wasn't easy.
Even though we came into briefings for working there at different times, by some wonderful twist of fate, Najwah and I ended up signing our contracts on the same day, and ever since that day we had been in the same "groups" and work teams at Amazon almost until the end.
Looking at us on that first day, I don't think anyone would have predicted how close we would grow to become.
But God had a plan and made sure that we would be with each other for those 4 months at least.
We had our training together.
We both were placed in the same phone team together.
We both then had our chat training together, and eventually we both became chat agents at the same time.
Initially, Najwah thought I was snobby; I thought she was weird.
If you ask her she'll tell you that she thought I was quiet but interesting, and that (apparently) I had an accent. (I do not have an accent).
I've asked her once about this and she's told me that she knew there was a personality to me that I wasn't showing, and she liked that.
I on the other hand quickly grew to love her because of how un-filtered she is.
Anything she thinks, she will say. And to me, finding someone who genuinely speaks their mind is refreshing, and I absolutely love that about her.
A memory I will never forget is Najwah swearing at our new supervisor the very first time she was introduced to him because he called her 'Najwah Petersen'.
She hates that.
She immediately felt guilty afterwards and apologized for it, but the fact that she had the balls to say that to him in the first place is what I admire about her.
For the time we were at Amazon during this "temporary" phase, Naj and I had one goal, and that was to become a permanent employee.
Working at Amazon has a lot of benefits.
Secure job.
Good pay.
Opportunity for growth.
We had no idea where our lives were going to take us and had no plan, so all we knew was that was our goal, and we both needed to achieve it.
For those few months we kept our heads down and worked damn hard to make sure we reached that goal, which we eventually did.
Anyone who works between the hours of 7pm-7am can tell you that it is not an easy lifestyle to live.
Say goodbye to your friends because, honey, you'll be working; and that includes public holidays.
There were times where we were required to work overtime amounting to at least 50 hours a week, which although I wasn't a fan of, I could manage. Bringing in the new year at work was probably the most bitter pill for me to swallow.
Because you're forced to sleep in the daytime, you lose all contact with your social life.
Anyone outside of our little world couldn't truly understand what it's like to have to tell people you can't go out on a Sunday afternoon because you'll be asleep due to the fact that you need to keep your sleeping pattern.
Getting people to be quiet in the house during the daytime is a damn mission.
You start to genuinely become a different person, snapping at people for waking you up; getting upset over small little things because you're so stressed out of your mind that even someone just smiling at you could annoy you.
"Night owl" becomes an entirely new concept to you, and because of the nature of your job as a chat agent, you couldn't just sit still when you weren't at work. You always had to be multitasking, so much so to the point where you can't watch TV without doing something else at the same time.
Combine that with working in a position where all you do for hours on end is listen to people complain, and where you're driven to compete for excellent statistics, it's enough to make you sometimes feel like you're going to go crazy.
Because nobody outside of your work can understand what you're going through, you begin to rely on your teammates for so much more than even you realize.
Due to Amazon's security policies, you have to shut out the rest of the world, so you spend hours on end isolated with just your colleagues.
You're constantly asking their help on a situation, and making lunch-run requests at 11pm at night.
Through the good and the bad times, those people are right there in the trenches with you.
They know what it's like to have to force yourself into caring about the most trivial of problems for the sake of the job.
Those people become your family.
Now that both Naj and I are no longer working there, we can see that with so much more clarity.
I can say with ease that everyone there helped me in one way or another, because they did.
Thanks to Amazon, there are now some people that I can truly consider life-long friends.
I've met some of the most interesting personalities there (looking at you, Sasman), and I've learned what it takes to be a good leader (thanks, Titus).
I've learned to not judge a book by its cover; and that people you previously would not have paid attention to can surprise you.
I've learned that the world is not as black and white as I once thought (names shall not be mentioned but you know who you are :)).
As I've now closed that chapter of my life and am looking towards to the new one, I can't help but reflect back on my time there and smile.
I know that working there has taught me so much, not just about people, but also about what it really takes to run a good business; how to be successful in general; and most importantly how to work hard and take charge of a situation.
Working there has taught me about life and how the world works.
As someone who was pretty much straight out of university, I had dabbled in working for other companies, but never learned nearly as much as I did from my time at Amazon.
I believe that working there in one year has taught me so much more than I would have learned at any other company, and that I know would have taken years to get to learn if anything.
These are life lessons I know I will carry with me for the rest of my life, and for that, I am eternally grateful.
Working there was hard, it was sometimes painful, but I would never change that experience for anything, and I would highly recommend working there to anyone.
My friends, I will miss you more than you know.
I will miss our daily banter and making fun of the stupidity we had to deal with.
I will miss your stories of crazy weekend antics at some party.
I will miss our competitiveness over trying to be better than each other and almost always kicking the other teams asses.
I will definitely miss the free food and incredible parties that Amazon throws.
Amazon knows how to treat their customers, both external and internal, and I'll always carry the value of that with me no matter where I go.
I wish you all the best of success, and I know we'll keep in touch.
I can't wait to see who we all are 20 years from now :)
I thank you.
I love you.
I'll miss you.
Rasheeda xx
