There's some surprising things you learn when you join a company like facebook pre I. P. O. And meet a lot of people who have gotten fabulously wealthy. One such thing I had never heard of is private banking. If you have $250,000 in a chase bank account, someone's going to give you a call fairly soon afterwards to ask to have an in person consultation with you. They'll offer you coffee shuttle you into a glass partition room in the back of the bank and explain that Chase has a private banking service where you get a different looking debit card and more personalized treatment when you walk into a branch, nothing too fancy, but it's perhaps nice to have some small perks. What I didn't know is that if you had say 20 times that amount more than $5 million. Someone from Jpmorgan, the parent conglomerate that owns chase would give you a call and offer a completely different level of service. Apparently most of the major financial institutions have this concept like Wells Fargo which requires $1 million and Goldman Sachs which starts at $10 million. The features of the various private banks might differ but they all involve having your own personal banker or team of bankers who you can contact at any time. These folks have impeccable manners and will quickly attend to whatever banking needs. You have almost all normal fees like wire fees are waived.

You might even get a small perk like a free safe deposit box or tickets to a Mariners game but much more than that. Any problem you hit with any sort of money transaction is personally fixed by a team of people. You can call or email at all hours. When I once explained to a private banker that the Jpmorgan website can be a little disorienting at times. He was a little confused. He couldn't understand why I wouldn't instead just contact my banking team and have them do whatever it is I wanted. I wasn't successful explaining that I'm the same sort of guy who would also prefer to order his own pizza on a website because it's self directed and there are never communication or misunderstandings. The point is that these folks make banking an absolute priest but they'll do far more than normal banking transactions. When I expressed some concern a few years ago around inflation, I was convinced was coming. My private banker gathered a team of three specialists, one investment advisor, one currency trader and one economic specialist to hop on a call with me for over an hour to answer my questions and to share their view of coming inflation and what I might do in order to protect my savings every month or two. Jpmorgan invites its private bank clients to video calls featuring all sorts of nationally known politicians, economists and investors, none of whom I'll name here in case they don't want it known.

But you've definitely heard of these people and prior to Covid, I was periodically invited to small gatherings and fancy Seattle hotels where Jpmorgan would fly in experts from Wall street to address some current topic in the investment world. These gatherings were informative exclusive and typically featured fancy meals. When I asked my private banker about the most over the top thing she's had to do for a client, she explained that she once flew with a coworker to veil the colorado ski resort in order to get the witness signature of one of her clients who really didn't want to have to leave the resort to, you know, find a notary. This is the world of private banking, which I had no idea about until a good friend of facebook explained it to me while I didn't have the savings to exactly qualify at the time, this friend of mine introduced me to his private banker who agreed to take me on as a client likely due to the apparent trajectory of earnings that I seemed to be on at the time. Little did she know that I'd soon quit facebook and start a nonprofit, much less end up working at an amazon warehouse, earning a few bucks above minimum wage. I've luckily been grandfathered into the system whatever they now think of my prospects. Welcome to peak salvation. Today's episode socioeconomic bends.

It was a weird feeling then to be on my morning break in the warehouse next to a set of loud conveyor belts, which occasionally made beeps of various tones and receive an email from Jpmorgan invited me to a private holiday party at the space needle. The party would include drinks and a fancy dinner no doubt but we would also have the entire space needle to ourselves. I even had to look up what the invitation meant when it said the party featured hosted valet parking. It turns out that instead of parking like a tourist in a garage and walking your way to the space needle you could pull up to a private circular drive that puts you directly at the base of the space needle and leave your keys to a valet for free. Being as I nearly never pass up free food, I absolutely wanted to attend this event furthermore, I had not seen the space needle since it closed a few years ago to replace its spinning restaurant with instead a platform of glass on which you could stand and see Seattle down below and the entry ticket alone, ignoring food and drink would otherwise cost me over two hours of work. So attending on JPMorgan's dime was definitely a priority. I. R. S. V. P. Do the invitation from the warehouse break room and went back to work,

attending would be trickier than I thought the invite was for a Tuesday evening and Tuesdays are a working day for me With mandatory overtime. I'd need to leave directly from the warehouse and drive straight to the party hoping that the 18 miles to downtown Seattle weren't too congested during rush hour, I could manage it if I brought a change of clothes with me along with shoes that didn't have composite toe boxes, I'd either work a slower pace in the final hours of the day to sweat a bit less or I'd do one of those wet paper towel wipe downs in the warehouse bathroom before changing into a button shirt and slacks. Either way, I was going to make this work, you're probably familiar with the concept in diving called the bends where if a diver rises too quickly, the nitrogen gas that dissolved into their tissues under the tremendous pressure of deep waters suddenly comes out of solution. You essentially boil from the inside as nitrogen gas bubbles emerge within all your bodily tissues. To avoid the bends or decompression sickness, divers are taught to ascend slowly out of the deep to get the nitrogen gas out of their bodies at a controlled pace, Going directly from moving boxes in an Amazon warehouse for 11 hours to eating steak atop the space needle amongst multimillionaires in under an hour was bound to induce a disorienting form of socioeconomic bends. But there was no other way. It had to be done on the day of the event. I counted down the minutes until I could leave work. Jpmorgan's food had always been amazing in the past and of late,

I especially appreciated the value of free and there's a way in which one takes all the local tourist favorites of one city for granted. Much as I took all the national monuments and museums for granted. Growing up in D. C. This time would be different. I'd see the newly renovated space needle with fresh eyes by dint of having put two commas worth of money into a bank when it came time to clock out, I rushed away from B. F. I four towards the minivan where I had stored the requisite change of clothes and shoes. I'm not exactly expert at changing in cars but um since I drove the minivan, this isn't as hard as I thought it would be alright then with that I've got the both the shirt and the slacks on now it's just the more formal shoes left. That part is the easy part. Instead of a man in jogging shorts, a reflective vest and shoes designed for reducing the type of electrostatic discharge that could damage equipment and factories. I was now someone who wore a button shirt slacks and dress shoes. My clark Kent transformation in the van complete.

I drove towards the highway that would bring me to downtown Seattle prior to arriving at the space needle, an odd moment passing the structure informally known as Bezoza balls in downtown Seattle next to the amazon headquarters where all the white collar employees work. These three conjoined glass structures officially named the Seattle spheres or amazon spheres house a lush oasis of plants within the tripartite futuristic domes rising nine stories into the air. The blurb on its official website proudly announces that the spheres are a place where employees can think and work differently, surrounded by plants. You can google this right now. That single sentence is shown in the top search result as summary of these spheres purpose Wikipedia expounds designed by N. B. B. J. And landscape firm site workshop. It's three glass domes are covered in pentagonal hex, Akane, Tahitian panels and serve as an employee lounge and workspace Uh which employees, I'm pretty sure they don't mean yours truly nor anyone else in b. f.

I. four. As I slowly drove past the glow emanating from the spheres amidst glistening buildings. In the Seattle dusk, it's light illuminating not only the surrounding sidewalks but also revealing the otherworldly virgil within my jaw nearly slacked as my mind spun in wonderment. It felt like the moment when I was inducted into the world of private banking, not just as a concept, but as a reality that some people live. I was a bumpkin who volunteered as tribute from a district only to arrive incredulous gobsmacked at the capital in Hunger Games for me. A good day was getting a seat in B. F. I forced break room where the building's only natural light was available And that seat would last 11 minutes during morning break if I decided not to P given two minutes walking time to and from my spur or nine minutes if peeing seemed necessary. The Amazon spheres in contrast are home to more than 40,000 plants from the cloud forest regions of over 30 countries. It was hard to imagine a world where independent of what my watch read. I could think and work differently, surrounded by plants,

contemplating amazon leadership principles like invent and simplify, learn and be curious. Think big. And of course with my daily mandatory overtime as living proof frugality. Little did I know at the time that I would receive this text message from Amazon a mere 15 hours later.

Hello valued amazonians. All departments have called 11 hour and 30 minutes shifts with the fifth day of mandatory extra time for the week of december 12th to 18th. This will be a 57 hour and 30 minutes scheduled work week. Thank you. B. F. I. For Hr.

That means my days in the warehouse will now start at 6:30 a.m. And end at 6:30 p.m. Half an hour after the spheres close looks like it have to be on a day off if I ever want to enter the spheres, assuming I'd be allowed in at all. But for now I have more pressing things. Okay I'm just now pulling up to the traffic circle in front of the space needle. Uh It's a very fancy traffic circle with a bunch of christmas lights on and here's where valet parking is. Hi sir, I'm here for the jpmorgan event. This is good. Right here, Yes, yes, you go ahead and leave the window down and if you don't mind leave the car running. I passed tourists taking selfies at the base of the space needle. It's the next best alternative to seeing Seattle from the top. Given that Jpmorgan has reserved the entire space needle for its private event, I fight unsuccessfully against the tingle. I feel in walking past the tourists and opening the door labeled closed for private event,

enjoying with no small sense of shame, the privileged confidence of entering a formerly public space that you know has been reserved for you. Some rare few people must go through all of life with that same confidence. Walking past the rabble surrounding them without a second glance, never once fearing someone would ask their credentials much less embarrassingly, escort them out from an area for which they weren't meant how quickly a change of clothes and host of valet parking can transition. A man from a warehouse worker mesmerized by Brazos balls into a man guiltily enchanted by the idea of getting photos of the Seattle skyline that these tourists might now never get. You could never imagine from the bottom, what you could see from the top And shortly now I'd write a private elevator, taking me 520 ft above Seattle in 43 seconds while simultaneously giving me a clinical case of the socioeconomic bends. The nitrogen gas of shared human struggle forced into me for weeks by the pressure of 11 hour shifts, lifting six tons a day would boil out of solution everywhere in my psyche all at once with that rising elevator damaging, if not in fact killing. What empathy I had left party time. My guess is that most tourist experiences are better enjoyed in small exclusive groups, especially ones featuring expansive views.

I saunter a full circle around the glass in case top walkway of the space needle taking in the twinkling Seattle skyline, the thick parallel ribbons of bright red and white representing rush hour on I five and the sparkle of moonlight shimmering on the puget sound colored the most midnight of blues, interrupted only by the arrowhead wake of a commuter ferry leaving court. There's plenty of time and no crowds I offer and stopped to take a picture of a couple. It's important to them that the photos composition includes the Seattle great wheel, the lit up ferris wheel on pier 57. That seems like many others in recent years to be inspired by the tourist magnet that is the London eye. I assure them that it will mildly tickled that of course even millionaires would want some of the same things everybody wants. Here's my spouse and me from the space needle see the Seattle ferris wheel A multimillionaire of the low 7-digit variety is likely to follow this up in the deafness of manner that hints without calling attention to the need to call attention. This was at a holiday party JPMorgan through for its clients. A millionaire of the eight digit variety, however, likely omits this context. For the same reason he drives the Audi to trader joe's and not the McLaren, I'm afraid of heights, but out of social anxiety that drives a need to fill dead air.

I've told a fellow passenger in the elevator of wealth that I benefit from exposure therapy. So I stepped hesitantly onto the rotating glass floor that warranted a $100 million dollar multi year renovation of the space needle, hundreds of feet beneath which lie tiny Seattle tourists taking selfies upward. The space needle website proudly says. The glass alone weighs 37 tons, but this does the opposite of reassure for someone acrophobic. I counted my mind as Seattle spins slowly under me. The overachiever in me can't even let this small thing go. I must not just stand on the glass, feel my pulse begin to thump my sternum. Surely others can hear this and step back to safety. No, I must stand on there long enough to declare victory over my primal self with a clear conscience. I do so, but not a moment longer. It was time to return to the main party.

The party is held in a large room built midway up the space needle in 1982. Expressly for receptions and fancy business meetings. It's set up with dinner tables sprinkled throughout the center of the room and buffet tables lining the sides under windows showing a panoramic view of Seattle. As I enter, a woman offers to take my coat and another offers a small crab cake order have served on a little wooden plate. All around me are people in various stages of social banter. There's the man who's talking a bit too loudly about subjects. He clearly wants others to Over here. There's the woman addressing apologetic staff about something or other related to her champagne. One man subtly pulls his companion closer as another in their circle leans in perhaps a bit too intimately towards her. Every few minutes, one of the members, in the largest circle of about eight people raises their voice to deliver a punchline and she says, I meant philadelphia. The group erupts in raucous laughter, the kind that nonchalantly knows others are watching.

The kind that says we were prom king and prom queens. It's okay to look, but please don't ask to join at least one other group inevitably takes a swing at outdoing the large circle in boisterous hilarity, but the attempt is half hearted and ultimately risks appearing thirsty. I don't find an obvious place. So I head for the bar and ask for a soda without ice because, you know, I want to maximize the valuable part. There's a pianist playing live his music, eventually to be overwhelmed by the din of upper class conversation as the evening wears on, but not before I approach him, I'm already late. So there's something heartwarming and grounding about recognizing music from a charlie brown christmas special in this environment. But this moment proved evanescent. He transitioned to classical as a room filled with guests. I often feel awkward in conversation,

especially in starting them. I'd much rather spend a free night alone, reading or doing some project rather than spend it with people. So when confronted with a room full of strangers without anything in common but uncomfortably money, I don't have much to talk about and tend to work out new material with a series of high risk openers. My first chance comes at the salmon and steak buffet table where the south asian man in front of me tentatively takes the third to last available piece. I jumped right in with a cold open. Thanks for leaving to pieces. I waited for the expected ensuing look of confusion when it satisfyingly arrived, I committed hard to the premise because you know, this allows me to take the second to last piece without a moment's moral dilemma here I paused the gesture toward the man behind me regarding what this gentleman would then eat the south asian man sri ram thankfully chuckled the opener now landed, I proceeded to a bit, I had worked out in other venues prior, you know, it's super rude for the chinese, I'm ethnically chinese to take the last piece of anything from a communal plate.

So I invented something I think will sell like hotcakes the idea and here's Sriram interrupted me in a move as Gosha speaking up in the middle of a magician's trick and stopped me from sharing the truly novel and dare I say at the same time hilarious idea of creating dim sum plates that each have one single artificial piece of whatever it is you would serve on the plate such that no one ever has to feel bad about taking the last piece of anything yet no real food is ever wasted. A truly bankable idea which once again, Sri Ram interrupted saying chinese, my wife is chinese. This rare and pleasant surprise dismissed my mild annoyance at having been stopped in the middle of a successfully battleground tested bit. Oh, I responded. My wife is from goa sri ram instantly recognized that state in India and his demeanor quickly matched my own at having found another coupling between an east asian and south asian. We differed in that he had met far more instances where the man is east asian and the woman is south asian. Whereas I had met far more of the opposite. But we both agree that these configurations of couples once quite rare were now becoming more popular, especially in the tech heavy pacific northwest. I really like the rest of the conversation which you can fill in by imagination using sentences like what do you do at JPM Organ conversation starting investment buzzwords like Bitcoin in a rather failed attempt at eliciting surprise by mentioning that I know a real life Tommy boy, a son of India's largest brake manufacturer who had to get an M. B. A.

In order to one day take over his father's business In general telling a 20something a story that depends foundational e. On having seen a 1995 David Spade and Chris Farley movie is a formula for sure. Fire bombing. Sometimes my sense of isolation is reinforced by noticing my environment In a room of 70 guests, every last person was white except for me and one South Asian family of three. In fact Jpmorgan had brought in more racially diverse employees like sri ram than existed among all its invited guests. I tried to smile at and engage the south asian family but no dice. There are two types of minorities, ones who seek refuge by identifying with each other and ones who feel stereotype threat and avoid the only other minorities in the room at the extreme. Imagine growing up in a small town where you and someone of the opposite sex were the only two asian people and everyone else was white that be awkward, right? Everyone would expect the two of you to date which puts tremendous pressure on any conversation you might have with that other person. So much pressure. In fact that you might spend all of high school avoiding ever talking to them. So as not to give the wrong impression either to her lest she think you're only interested in her because of the rather limited supply of dateable asians nor to onlookers lest they assume the two of you would naturally get together because you're too close minded or segregationists to consider dating people outside your race. I find this polar dynamic to hold true in most situations the next time you're in a group as part of an overwhelming majority.

Look to the minorities to see if you can spot this dynamic, I bet you'll find they either gravitate quickly toward each other or they spend the entire evening deliberately avoiding each other, Partly due to my sense of isolation and partly due to the fact that I had spent 11 hours lifting boxes. I focused my attention primarily on food. The salmon was tender and had retained all its moisture. The steak cut easily and was a gradient of all the right colors. Since the word melts is used way too often in culinary parlance, you'll have to substitute some other word to describe the sensation of eating the salmon and steak on the dessert table with the rainbow assortment of macron's. I took one of each color and arranged them on my white plate to make my own little artist's palette. I was later delighted to find the red one tasted like fruity pebbles, which suggests the macaron might have come from Mac Aiden's a Seattle macaron shop that features a red fruity pebbles. If so, let's just say that in amazon associate wage terms. I personally ate an hour's worth of macaroons. I sat alone as everyone else mingled, but by my own choice,

the surface explanation was that I'm an introvert who finds social situations with strangers uncomfortable. I suspect the deeper reason was that the whole evening had me ruminating about something that had just happened earlier that day in the warehouse for the first time since starting work at amazon. The internal computer system had gone down, bringing all work to a stop while most associates in ship gathered around the team meeting area and played music with some even dancing. I sat a distance away between two pallets of goods rising above me on either side and savored the moment of quiet sean, a veteran of ship dock, who had corrected me patiently several times when observing me make mistakes, did a double take as he walked past and spotted me between the pallets Philip? Why are you sitting here alone? Were you bullied in school or something? I laughed this off as he clearly meant for it to be a joke, but his uncanny off the cuff, perceptiveness shook me. I had been bullied in school, never felt safe, and certainly never felt I fit in!

Was my righteous internal monologue about not wanting to participate in vacuous conversations simply a ruse of sour grapes to fool even myself All the empowering kelly Clarkson refrains playing in my head that it doesn't mean I'm lonely when I'm alone. What if the little Philip, the one who lived constantly in fear of physical violence? The one pummeled unprovoked in a gym bathroom while the entire class laughed outside. The one who always felt awkward, always felt excluded? Never really went away. What if instead time passed deep in the cave of that hurt, eventually resentful mind. And that little Philip began consoling himself, mumbling like gollum about the sweet revenge He'd one day have rubbing the shiny ring of his achievements, his millions, his precious, precious accomplishments? Why must the observations made privately to this microphone in the safety of this sound insulated room all be biting? Do they really all have to be prom kings and prom queens?

Did the man dropping philadelphia as his punchline, really mean to be loud? Or was the excitement of the moment, or perhaps even his own social discomfort conceivably driving a delivery volume that had no actual basis in self aggrandizement? Did the lady really dress down the wait staff, regarding her champagne? Or did the clearing up of some misunderstanding? Unnerve her? Would perhaps the easier explanation of the evening? Certainly the most charitable one B that I sat alone. Not because I was excluded, but because I excluded myself that familiar patterns from childhood didn't just bend the reed. But in my case broke it such that I electively perpetuate traumas long after their causes had ended, like the man who continued to walk 100 lee out of a perverse comfort inhabit long after a heavy burden had been removed from his back. Or simpler. Yet with the entire previous psychological explication,

a cover for a base er motive. I feel awkward, so I'll throw rocks at all of you later when you can't defend yourself, I'm vaguely uncomfortable with my wealth so I'll criticize all of you so I can feel more at ease. Look, you're all white and the three of you who aren't are simply trying to be by shunning me. Look at me, I'm with the people. I just came from an amazon warehouse and stared agog at Brazos balls. For heaven's sake. I'll never forget the districts you with your capital hairdos, your fancy crew. Really? There was a crudite platter and I had to look up how to even pronounce that. Your trophy spouses, your erudite jokes,

you are, why the pitchforks are coming, Not me, No, sir. I came hungry after working mandatory overtime and I'll have another free Pepsi and a slice of steak. Thank you very much. I'll tell you where to shove your philadelphia. The truth is not a single person said an unkind word to me. The only people who talked to me the whole night were Jpmorgan staff who are, in a way paid to do so, but they nevertheless were universally friendly and it's not the responsibility of the other guests to make me feel comfortable or to actively include me. Like it was some sort of stretch break during a multilevel marketing conference where every connection especially the lonely ones was a possible lead to be reeled in and back slapped. The truth is, had you dropped me into that room without context that evening, I would never have said these people look like smug multimillionaires conspiring to grind the lifeblood out of commoners for profit because they weren't,

they were a room full of people making small talk, trying to look like or perhaps living a reality where the fabulous food was a tiny take it or leave it sideshow compared to the many interesting people they were meeting. Well them and one chinese guy who kept going from one buffet offering to another, returning to his solo table from whence he tried to make keen observations, he hoped would one day amuse his seven podcast subscribers. But are they all cherubs and me? The devil in disguise. Nice as they seemed. There was the time I attended a Jpmorgan expert panel hosted at a ritzy hotel downtown, which, amongst other things discussed how to exploit opportunities in the distressed market exploit. Here was not, I'm pretty sure, meant to have a negative connotation and should instead be read to mean capitalize on opportunities, has its plain meaning. But the market that was distressed,

capital d I was to learn was the property market and distressed a euphemism for I can't make rent. It turns out if you metaphorically zig when they bankrupted duty zag, you stand to make a lot of money Say it's 2008 and a whole lot of people are about to get evicted in the Great Recession. If you have lots of cash on hand, what the panel called good liquidity, you could have become an even wealthier man. Well, there was one woman in attendance, a chinese one at that twice exceptional if you will. But I'll use broad strokes here. The point is, if you had known then what I learned in the panel years later and had the willingness nay the market efficiency enhancing initiative to act in the distressed market, you could have earned two common windfalls. Lots of questions for the panelists ensued. On the other hand, I did attend and I did not leave my steak behind and discussed yes,

steak. Again, delicious Again. As the true meaning of the panel's topic revealed itself. No, I ate everything and I stayed through. I learned I've not acted on it. But I learned how I might I was present in the room where it happened. I'm every bit as complicit but really must it be complicity or would the more charitable line, the less cynical line be that most in the room weren't scrooges rubbing their hands eagerly salivating at the next possible opportunity to exploit The aforementioned markets that most in the room were as worried about their unknown futures as any of us every bit as financially insecure, inconceivable as that might be to those with less. Perhaps that even the words themselves distressed market added a layer of indirection and in personalization, which made it easy to see it all as a game of numbers, a sort of scoreboard where you just might have discovered a loophole to victory. I find myself completely torn about where I belong in our complex world, where the lines of social and economic strata flow sometimes with,

but sometimes just past each other. I'm a multi millionaire, just like everyone else here, we could together treat the staff as nameless and complain when the Canapes don't have a gluten free option, right. But I represent one of only two non white client families when even that other family won't talk to me. So am I instead alone? And is this why no one other than pay Jpmorgan staff ever approached me. I'm reminded of this internal conflict most starkly when recalling a conversation I had with George, the Filipino associate who considerate, li warned me not to work any harder than average associates lest amazon abuse my initiative To attract enough workers. People who joined just prior to peak would get a $3,000 bonus once they completed six months at Amazon George knew this and said to me quite earnestly, you're so lucky! $3,000. He said this several times that day. You're so lucky.

I didn't have the heart to tell him I wasn't planning to stay to collect it. That in honesty it wasn't an amount which prior to this job I would have considered motivating. I had stayed an extra three months at Facebook in order to collect stocks worth $660,000. Upon leaving Facebook, I further gave up unvested stock worth $400,000 every six months. It wasn't just the ridiculous chasm and bonus sizes that had me hold my tongue. It was also that for the first time I felt truly lucky to have walked away from the $400,000 bonus I would have gotten every six months. You see at the time I had viewed it as an insult. My career at facebook began strong and further grew with my leading of the London Engineering office. Facebook's largest office outside the US. That's what was awarded with stock worth over $600,000 every three months. But several years after that, when I stopped managing large teams and became an individual contributor. Again, the company had grown many multiples and employees and I was no longer valued in the same way I was. While the company was small because I'm a generalist,

small companies need individual contributors who are generalists, large companies need individual contributors who are specialists and because facebook valued me less, they cut my stock to less than a third of what it was at its peak. This at the time felt like betrayal, but when speaking with George, I suddenly felt ashamed and humbled. No matter which way you cut it. The opportunity and freedom to walk away from $400,000 is a profound privilege. George had helped me see this, I was, I am so lucky. In fact, by the end of my time at amazon, I would come to understand that I landed in the luckiest of all positions By applying at the perfect time of year, I was eligible for a $3,000 bonus. That if I understand correctly was quite rare in Amazon's hiring history.

Unlike most people who are hired as contractors during peak referred to as white badges. I was hired directly as an employee, a blue badge with all its attached benefits like health care, tuition assistance, a 401K and various other perks. Many white badges are rightfully concerned that they won't be converted to blue badges at the end of peak and will instead be let go. I on the other hand, got randomly assigned through the great wheel of fortune to be a blue badge from the start, but I neither need the benefits nor intend to keep the job after peak. I wanted to get the day shift and specifically the shift they call donut monday Tuesday thursday friday, which avoids weekends. I since learned that the donut day shift is the most coveted shift, One that many associates spend months applying for internal transfers to. It's still unclear to me why amazon would offer the most coveted positions in the warehouse ship dock. Day shift donut blue badge, Randomly two new people applying from the Internet on a whim rather than to give its existing associates right of first refusal.

Regardless, I have been tremendously lucky and I'm humbled by a personal hands on understanding of the more difficult conditions under which most amazon associates work at the moment though, feeling sorry for myself at a tourist attraction reserved exclusively for multimillionaires. I felt mopey and excluded, caught awkwardly between many worlds. A man without a country. I didn't have the street cred to hang with the associates. Really hang with them for what do you suppose? What happens? Should they discover my real past? My current circumstance? At B. F. I. Four. The management had recently announced the holiday prize in which four lucky associates would each win $25 if they but colored in a black and white Star Wars scene during their break and were randomly chosen from amongst nearly 3000 others.

My co workers were happily participating, eager for the slim chance to win an extra $25, but there was no number of anecdotes I could tell them about my subway sandwich making days. That would convince them that I was there. Pierre And what of this crowd? With their jocular confidence. With their well mets with their lustrous coffers. They're veritable Pat Benatar load of we belongs. Has making money changed my position any in their eyes what of me trying out tales of my recent employment as conversation starters tales perhaps even from just earlier that same day, you know, as well as I how that go at the end of a long evening with an over full belly, I fell back toward the one domain I'm comfortable with my one skill that seems universally welcome and disarming. I'm the non threatening, somewhat awkward than unexpectedly humorous Asian man. The same one you've seen over and over in movies. The deferential one who's take it or leave it,

but never a problem. The one who's just about to start one last awkward conversation before the credits roll, I go to the coat rack that is now bereft of the woman who first populated it. Another eager lever and I would need to find our own coats Tough one. There are so many dark jackets, right? This is why I wore the red one you see clever bit. I had the only red coat. He had a classier black one like every other attendee. You know, it's funny the Asian man opened his mouth dropping two surprises at once like a bogo sale on stereotypes. My english won't require more concentration from you to understand. And hey, I'm not part of the staff after all, you can sometimes see non asians relax when these unexpected mercies transpire. He adapted quickly and laughed politely instead of confronting me with an amateur comedians nightmare.

Is this a bit are you doing a bit? I can complain all I want. But the fact remains that I was invited to an exclusive event for multimillionaires because despite all my discomfort in admitting it, despite all my attempts to mention reasons you should downplay my social status so that you'd have more empathy for me. I am a multi millionaire and an intelligent charismatic one at that. By all rights. I should probably instead be doing my best Madonna impression with the world. My Argentina or am I Brittany in the world Justin timberlake, my deluge of piteous words falling on deaf ears. I grabbed my coat and descended the elevator that took me from society stratosphere back to sea level. It was now mere hours before I had to clock in. How's it going? Yeah. Oh, this is great. And do you have the key?

Okay, great. Well thank you very much. Thank you. All right, take care of their tipped him $20 more than an hour of my work tomorrow for less than 90 seconds of his. three reasons. One stereotype threat. The last thing I want is for the valet to assume a stingy tip from me was because I'm Chinese, I'd have to weigh overcompensate to guilt and solidarity. I can't come directly from over stuffing my face with free steak, too stiff. This guy and three virtue signaling I knew I'd do a podcast on this entire disorienting night and now I've let drop the fact that I tipped a working class man 20 bucks. See I'm not the bad guy right coming next week, the involuntary curling of my fingers and numbing of my hands reach a crisis point and I also begin to bleed from places unexpected as the job turned serious, you won't want to miss just how odd an injury can be.

Peak Salvation is a spark anvil production. Today's episode was written and produced by Philip su and edited by Rebecca Ambrose. All names, which don't include last names have been changed to protect privacy if you like what you hear, please like and subscribe and recommend to a friend. I really appreciate all your support. If you have questions or things you'd like to discuss more. Please write me at Philip at peak Salvation dot com. That's P H I L I P at peak Salvation dot com. Thank you for joining me on such an amazing journey.