Just stumbled upon this post on Amazon’s website: “Meet The Dogs Of Amazon“. I was reminded of my brief stint with Amazon.
Back in the mid-90s (est. 1996) I did one temp project with them, back when Amazon was located on 2nd Avenue, close to Pike Place Market. I helped build a call center. I set up the dumb terminals for the inbound call reps. Not the most challenging work. I just pulled a monitor from a box, added the keyboard, pinged the mainframe, then off to the next one. It was just a few day project.
During my intro, I was given a tour of the building. On one floor, there was a corgi and his human. Every hour or so, the human threw the ball down the hall, the corgi chased it, repeat. I thought it was pretty amazing. It was my first experience into a more relaxed office environment. Eye opening and rather life changing. And my first experience with tech culture.
I’ve been fascinated ever since.