Amazon robots, workers speed stuff to you

 

Darnell Gilton (Photo for the Sun-Times by Ashlee Rezin Garcia).

     Darnell Gilton is “picking,” a process that takes six or seven seconds.
     “When the pod pulls up to me, I look at the screen,” explains Gilton. “The screen tells me what bin to pick the product from. I go to the bin, I grab the product, I bring it to the hand scanner here, I scan the product, the light tells me what tote to put the product in. Just like that.”
     The pod is a yellow tower about 7 feet high, each of four sides presenting a grid of merchandise tucked securely into bins, driven by an orange robot tucked underneath. The screen shows an item — in this case, a Real Techniques Miracle Complexion Sponge + Case located in cubby 2H. Gilton grabs it, scans it, tosses it into a yellow bin beyond a flashing green button, hitting the button to show he’s finished the task. Then he does it again, with a different product. About 350 times an hour.
     Gilton works at MDW7, the Amazon Robotics Fulfillment Center in Monee, one of nine in Illinois, with two more on the way. In all, there are 50 similar facilities in the United States, with another 100 worldwide, part of a staggering network of warehouses, distribution hubs, conveyers, chutes, trucks, pickers, drivers, supervisors and, of course, an omnipresent internet presence, which working together last year sold $280 billion worth of products and delivered 3.5 billion packages worldwide.  

     The advent of COVID-19 has made Amazon, already the most dominant online retailer in the world, more important than ever, as fear of going out in public has encouraged people to try e-commerce. Even as the president slashes at the Postal Service, trying to cut into Amazon’s business, it grows so fast the company, now worth $2 trillion, is hiring 5,500 new workers in Illinois, adding to the 23,000 already working in the state.
     Between that, and Amazon Prime Day last week — Prime Days actually, Tuesday and Wednesday, when the world’s largest e-retailer offered all sorts of sales for its 112 million U.S. members, more than a third of the entire population of the country, who get free shipping for a monthly Prime fee of about $12 — a visit seemed in order.
     MDW7 — “MDW” refers to the code for Midway; Amazon fulfillment centers are named for the nearest airport — is enormous, nearly a million square feet, and from the parking lot, that size immediately presents reportorial challenges.

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MDW7 in Monee (Photo for the Sun-Times by Ashlee Rezin Garcia).

Texas Notes: Trumpkin

 

   Austin bureau chief Caren Jeskey this week unholsters her political side and provides some welcome covering fire in our all-out melee. 

     I did something bad tonight. 

      I'm glad I did, and would do it again. 

     As I took an evening stroll I noticed a piece of paper stapled to a wooden post under a bright streetlight. It rudely accosted my eyes with its bold black letters and critique of the best hope we have today. It read “Quid Pro Quo Joe wants to lock us down, raise our taxes and take us back to perpetual war.” 

     It took me a moment to process what I was looking at and my mind screamed “no, no, no!” I live in a decidedly Bye Don neighborhood and this cannot be tolerated. I screeched to a halt in my Birkenstock tracks. My first impulse was to tear it down, but I stopped myself. That would not be right. We all have a right to express our opinions.
     The next thing I knew I’d ripped it right off and crumpled it up in one fell swoop, a hawk ending its prey. I looked around to be sure no one saw and just then a man in a motorized wheel chair came racing by having a non-sensical yelling match with an invisible person in his head. First I thought he was reacting to my act of violence against the signage but he just kept going. Of course being the social worker that I am I wondered about this guy’s diagnosis and if he needs medical care. I opted for not intervening and just hope he made it home okay. Back to the message that need not be entertained.
     Lock us down? You mean stop us from becoming a super spreader nation of unnecessary death? I’m sure I heard Kamala and Joe say multiple times that taxes will be raised only for those making $400K or more a year. I’ve been hearing in the news that billionaires are doing better than ever since COVID. According to an article last week about the super rich (www.theguardian.com/business/2020/oct/07/covid-19-crisis-boosts-the-fortunes-of-worlds-billionaires) “a report by Swiss bank UBS found that billionaires increased their wealth by more than a quarter (27.5%) at the height of the crisis from April to July, just as millions of people around the world lost their jobs or were struggling to get by on government schemes.” How much longer can we tolerate this grossly unethical and unsustainable financial structure?
     Perpetual war? Kind of like what we are now at risk for since the Orangesicle has imposed sanctions that are harming innocent Iranians and putting us at a greater risk of nuclear war?
     Malarky, I say and we won’t stand for it in our neighborhood; however, I still regret taking the sign down and maybe I’ll staple it back up today. The fact that it’s crumpled may send enough of a message. It must be hard for the very small smattering of red ones with MAGA and other surreal signage to exist among the sea of “Black Lives Matter “ and “Trumpkin: Orange on the Outside Hollow on the Inside” yard signs. Hard for them to watch the world stand up against the old-guard while they are still immersed. Clinging to a U S of A that hasn’t been and will never be. A place where intolerance gets a foothold and doesn’t slip.
     The silver lining in all of this is that just as schools were integrated and the Jim Crow South was called to task during our last historical period of nationwide ongoing protests—at least publicly if not behind closed doors—the good people of our nation are standing up again.      

     Desperate clinging to the good ol’ days is a bad idea. Just as we cant fight father time, we cannot stop the winds of change that are rapidly propelling us into a world where choice trumps all. We can marry who we want, self-proclaim our gender pronouns, love who we want to love, mix and mingle with whomever we chose, stand up to bullies and harassers, stop abuses of power and feel free to be who we are rather than who a washed up puritanical society tells us we can or cannot be. Where we uphold our promise to keep the church and the state separate. Oh wait, I forgot about the Coney Barrett hearings. Shit.
     For now it’s progress, not perfection, and I am ok with tearing down the walls of heartache every chance I get.

Barrett and the zombie tots of the apocalypse

     As the Republican majority in the Senate huzzahs Amy Coney Barrett onto the United States Supreme Court — which is their right — I hope you’ll forgive me for ignoring the hearing completely. This machine grinds onward whether I jam my hand into the gears or not. Why sweat the details? Better to keep my fingers.
     This isn’t a sideshow, but the main event, the core of the devil’s bargain Christian extremist America struck with Donald Trump five years ago: rescue our imaginary babies and we’ll forgive you everything else, every flailing, foaming, lying, malicious, pandemic-botching, country-betraying minute.
     Elections have consequences, the GOP sneers, two weeks before an election. Point taken. Thank you for the reminder.
     Though I wish I could go back in time to replay this week for all those indifferent, what-does-my-vote matter? sorts. It matters because of this.
     Hidebound, my-way-or-the-highway religion tries to steamroll the country back to its idea of goodness, via gigantic concern for proto-babies the size of kidney beans and no concern at all for actual baby-sized babies, newborns yanked from the arms of their mothers at the border. Heck, their parents’ paperwork isn’t in order. What choice have we?
     This is like the worst zombie movie ever: “Baby Crusaders of the Apocalypse,” as the Republicans conjure up an army of hacked apart fetuses, which assemble themselves and, eyes glowing, jerkily march on Jerusalem, to liberate the Holy Land from the clutches of Saracen feminists.

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Windblown.

 

     Vista Tower is coming along. I was strolling south on Michigan Avenue last week, and paused just north of the bridge to admire its progress. The 101-story building is the third tallest in Chicago, after the Willis Tower (sigh ... no, seriously, people have given up the Sears thing, right? Because it's been over a decade. Get with the program, folks) and Trump Tower (still going by its original name, alas). 
     Designed by Studio Gang—the same folks behind the way-cool Aqua building—Vista Tower has a very neat feature. If you look at the photo to the right, you'll notice a dark band near the top. That is the "blow-through" floor. Without it, the Chicago winds would rock the building so much people on the highest floor would get seasick. Many buildings try to counterbalance this effect with stabilizing weights, tanks of water and such. The blow-through floor allows wind to cut through the building, rather than push against it. The floor is a little taller than the regular floor, and doesn't seem as if it'll have any use for tenants. I get the impression it won't be a patio or pool or anything, but just an empty space. Which is a shame. I suppose if they clutter it with plants and deck chairs and bocce ball courts then the wind won't blow through right. 

     Maybe there will be a sly wink value to it. I can't help wondering if wisenheimers who get in trouble will say they live on the 83rd floor of Vista Tower, the way Elwood Blues tells the Department of Motor Vehicles that he lives at 1060 W. Addison (sigh, the address of Wrigley Field).

    Probably not. 

     Yes, today is a light entry. If you want, I'll give you your money back. The politics of late have been cascading over me, water off a duck's ass. Numb, maybe. Tired, disgusted, afraid; I'm not Sigmund Freud, I can't easily access the bottom of it, and don't really want to.

    Maybe I'm just waiting. The bus doesn't come any faster if you tap your foot. At some point sweating the details of this calamity is stupid. The woods are burning; do we really need to say "Oh look, that tree is on fire and that tree is on fire and this tree, and the one over there"? A big fucking forest fire. We all get it.  Now let's get on with this. 

      There came a point in the eternal O.J. Simpson trial where I just shut off, covering my ears and screeching, "Just tell me how it ends!" I don't think I'm going to watch either dueling town hall tonight, with Joe Biden on ABC, and Donald Trump on NBC. What would be the point? Anyone who didn't figure out a long time ago that Trump is a despicable con man, liar, criminal and traitor who will ruin the country, further, given the chance, is not going to grasp that now. And Biden, well, he could spend tonight's TV time teeing up newborn puppies and and perfecting his golf swing by driving them into the ocean and I'd still vote for him.

Like illness, Mr. COVID Answer Man lingers

 

     It might be hard to imagine, but I try to premeditate my columns, to consider possible ramifications before clicking on the “Submit for Approval” button. Is everything spelled right? Are my facts all in a row, quacking happily? Will I be frog-walked sobbing away from my career and into early retirement? But when I rolled out “Mr. Covid Answer Man” early this month, there was one response I never imagined: that readers actually would, as requested, send in questions. Sincere questions, some of them. So even though I like to flit nimbly from one topic to another, with this crisis reaching whatever nightmare crescendo we’re heading toward, I feel duty bound to address a few.

     Dear Mr. COVID Answer Man: What is the polite way to say to your brother who you are very close to that his girlfriend is acting recklessly in regards to the virus and is putting his and anyone he sees lives at risk?
     A destination wedding in South Carolina should not have been gone to, nor a trip to Colorado to support her friends’ MFA project.
     What the best way to say, “I don’t know if I can see you while your girlfriend acts like a member of the Trump administration?” — Not My Brother’s Girlfriend’s Keeper
     Dear NMBGK: The best way is the simplest. Try, “See you in two weeks.” Americans today are terrible when it comes to self-denial — that’s why we’re all so fat — and just because the journey might kill you is no reason to miss your Tri-Delt sister exchanging vows at Hilton Head. In her defense, we’ve been locked down for over six months and certain slippage is expected. Just don’t use it to justify further lapses. If you take a revolver, put a bullet in one chamber, spin it, then put the barrel to your head, pull the trigger and come off unscathed, that means you were lucky. Not that you should go, “All right!” and give it another go. Encourage him to encourage her to quit while she’s ahead and stay home scrapbooking her adventures.

     Dear Mr. COVID Answer Man: I cannot suppress my glee at the news that Pres. Trump has tested positive for the COVID-19 virus. Mr. Answer Man, how can I rid myself of these wicked thoughts? I am sure NOBODY shares them with me. — Not Quite Contrite

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Quiet city

 

 

     By Tuesday, Oct. 10, 1871, the fire that incinerated the center of Chicago had finally died out, helped by rain. The smoke cleared, and residents were struck by the lack of commotion, comparable only to when Abraham Lincoln's body paused in the city on its way to burial in Springfield.
     "Chicago's downtown, normally one of the most hectic places on the planet, was more still and silent than it would ever be again," Carl Smith writes in his excellent new book, "Chicago's Great Fire," then quoting a pair of contemporary reporters: "There was no running of the street-railroad cars, or other of the signs of life which are usually visible, even on Sabbaths and holidays. In short, the day seemed a dies non—a day burnt out of the history of the city."
     Maybe 2020 isn't quite shaping up to be an année non, a year lost by the COVID-19 pandemic.
     But close.
     Walking from Union Station to Harold Washington Library on Monday, I saw flashes of activity. A pedestrian or two in the distance, here and there. An occasional bus. Cars in ones and twos. But it was easily to saunter leisurely across Monroe Street, and the overwhelming effect was of eerie abandonment.  A stage set ready for a city to happen.
     On several levels, COVID-19 is a far worse disaster than the Great Chicago Fire. And only several hundred Chicagoans died in the fire; some 3,000 Chicago residents have died in the pandemic (and, it has to be pointed out, a wildly disproportionate number of Black Chicagoans, who make up 30 percent of the population but account for 60 percent of the deaths). The pandemic is certainly taking longer to unfold. While far more dramatic, the worst of the Great Chicago Fire was over in 36 hours. 

     Now, seven months in, we can't even be certain we've hit the Bad Part yet. 

     To get in the library, you pause in front of a thermal scanner, and have your temperature taken. Then it's pretty much as usual: people at desks, consulting books. Helpful librarians on duty, everyone masked, more or less, even most pedestrians in the street. Though emptier than usual.
     History serves many purposes; it warns, but can also reassure. We've endured bad things before. Whenever anyone suggests that the country has now split in some unrepairable fashion, I want to snarl, "We seemed to recover after the Civil War."

     Or did we? Maybe we haven't. Maybe this is just another skirmish in the endless struggled between would-slaveholders and their unwilling slaves. They even use the same flag.

     The cost of COVID-19, in business and businesses lost, might end up far exceeding the Great Fire: I'd hate to be the guy who had to figure that one out. Smith mentions that 25 percent of the loss to the city was its grand courthouse, and $100,000 worth of water drained away from melted lead pipes. How many businesses in Chicago will never open again, between the plague and the riots? Crossing the Loop, I couldn't help but notice boarded up or cracked windows, empty storefronts.

     But the city stands, which is something. The trains run—this was my first trip aboard a Metra in seven months. The car going into the city had nobody at all on it; coming back, two. The only person not wearing a mask was a conductor—well, he had one on, I'm sure he'd argue, but having it under your nose defeats the purpose. But I felt safe; well, as safe as a person can feel nowadays.
     The library closes Special Collections for an hour at lunch, and I swung over to LaSalle Street, to the Corner Bakery, and had a salad, outside, shielded from the misting rain by a big black umbrella. Occasionally someone passed by, but general LaSalle Street was empty at 12:30 on a Monday.
     Back at the library, in mid-afternoon, after I had about all the historical information I could cram in my mental pockets, I gathered my materials and headed to Union Station, treating myself to a Rocky Patel Vintage 1990 for the walk across the Loop. 

     There was enough stogie left for me to stand for maybe 10 minutes, just southwest of the Madison Street bridge, gazing at the water. I used to like to do that at the end of a long workday day, you know, when we used to spend days downtown. Lila, a big Wendella tour boat cruised past, going north, and I couldn't help but notice the tour guide on the upper deck sat perched on a stool, holding a microphone to his lips, and was saying something to an expanse of completely empty white chairs. If it weren't raining, I might have snapped a photo, but with a cigar in one hand, and an umbrella in the other, it would have taken a bit of fumbling, and umbrella, cigar and phone might have all ended up in the river. So you'll have to take my word for it. But I admired that spunky Wendella guide—maybe practicing?—giving a tour to nobody. 

     That has to be a little grim, but also reveals a kind of fidelity. That's being a professional. We soldier onward, circumstances be damned. That's certainly what I'm doing, here, not talking to empty chairs, of course, but not entertaining a multitude either. Still, work does pass these grim, uncertain days of unnatural stillness and waiting, as the leaves burst into color and drop, and the nation hurtles toward its perilous rendezvous. That's the beauty of routine; it's something to do when you don't know what to do.

Flashback 1992: Don't kill the messenger

Photo for the Sun-Times by Robert A. Davis

      My 2001 review of Travis Hugh Culley bicycle messenger meditation drew a comment  damning bicycle messengers, generally. Which made me remember this piece. I was proud of it a) for the lede and b) because we brought the messengers into the newsroom, to the 4th floor photo studio, and took studio photographs of them. I remember the shiver of pleasure I felt seeing them standing among the normals, bringing their bikes up on the elevator.  Now that I think of it, bicycle messenger services are another business decimated by the internet. No bicyclist can ride fast as an e-mail.

     This ran on the front page, in an era when the paper had a different hard news/feature balance than it does today. What's scary is to think of is that the 20-something messengers I quote are now in their 50s. 

     You see them everywhere, but never for long.
     Bicycle messengers, those chrome yellow and hot pink blurs that whistle by your nose as you wait to cross the street. The tattooed, 6-foot-6 Mad Max visions rocking on their heels in crowded elevators. The human motors brashly trying to outrun vehicles with more powerful, metal engines. They are there for a moment, then gone. They are not the easiest people to get to know.
     Which is too bad, since they certainly know you. You are pedestrians, the slow-footed beasts reading newspapers and bumbling into their paths, staring, dumbfounded, unable to make a move to save yourself as they bear down on you.
     "At 5 o'clock, it's like cattle being herded," says Rafael Muzones, 22, a messenger for Cannonball, who nevertheless strives to be courteous. "There are always a lot of close calls. I try to yell beforehand."
     The main question on the minds of pedestrians (sometimes called "civilians" by messengers) is: Do the madly pedaling couriers intend to zip so close? Could it be, possibly, a game?
    Of course it is.
     "You do get a certain thrill whizzing between pedestrians," says Brent Hannigan, 25, a messenger for four years in London and then Chicago. "Especially if they really (upset) me. I don't consider pedestrians evil. But I will whiz by and hiss something like, 'You're going to die.' I don't try to hit them, just try to scare them. Sometimes they deserve it."

Sal Massey (Photo by Robert A. Davis)

     "I really do not like pedestrians," says Sal Massey, 19, a rare female messenger. "They start going across the street, they see you, but they don't move. They're slow, and they get mad at you if you bump into them." 
     Her elbows and knees are covered with reminders of her encounters with those who travel on shoe leather.
     "That's what this is from," she says, pointing to a scar on her knee. "Some lawyer. Probably on drugs. Walked into the middle of the street. He yelled at me, and it was totally his fault."
     Another frequent civilian question is: Why are messengers so loath to come to a full stop at red lights, preferring to balance their bicycles while inching forward? Is it a point of pride never to put a foot on the pavement?
     No. The answer is simple. "Quicker of a start," says Raymond Riley III, 23. Bicycle messengers are, literally and figuratively, people in transition. Most are making their 30 or so deliveries a day, waiting for something else to come along in their lives. "It leaves a lot of time for painting, which is my hopeful career," Massey says.
     There are several benefits to the job. The first is getting to ride a bike, without a boss breathing down your neck. Then there is appreciating natural beauty.
     "Doing a physical job, you feel you're supposed to leer at women," says Hannigan.
     "That's one of the fringe benefits of the job, especially in summer," says Riley.
     It works both ways.
     "Do I check out guys?" Massey muses. "I have to admit, some of the messengers are pretty foxy. I can't say I don't."
     They may view it as a nuisance, but another advantage is food. Lots of it.
     "I eat nonstop," says Muzones.
     "You have to eat as much as possible," says Massey.
     "Oh God, yes," says Bruce Sheats, 40, a messenger for seven years. "Sugar! Chocolate and sugar and fruits."
     The downsides are many. Pay isn't great; a few dollars for each delivery and messengers have to rent their radios and pay for the upkeep of their bikes.
     Beside those sluggish pedestrians, at least 1,000 other bicycle messengers are zipping through the same limited downtown space, and accidents are routine.
     "You get bumped every day, against walls, simple knock-downs that most people would need a week to recover from," says Massey, who was hit by a car last week. Her delivery happened to be to Northwestern Memorial Hospital. She delivered the package, then had the hospital check her out.
     "I don't consider myself tough, but I guess I am," she says.
     Worse than accidents is weather. "Elements are the worst part - the wind, especially around the Sears Tower," Sheats says.
     Then there is coping with bike theft. Sheats has had five bikes stolen, two within two days. Massey cuts herself off before she can utter the entire brand name of her pricey hybrid bike, explaining that she just got it a week ago and immediately spray-painted it black to prevent potential thieves from recognizing its value.
     They are big bike fans.
     "Anywhere in the city you can drive, a bike is a lot better," Riley says. "As long as its not raining or snowing, I'm going to ride my bike."
     "I love bikes," says Muzones, who is a triathlete and rides 60 miles a day. "I ride even after work."
     While sometimes the sole focus is staying alive, at other times messengers can reflect on life and the city they are endlessly traversing.
     "I see a lot of things, I feel a lot of things," says Hannigan, who mostly thinks about his future filmmaking career. "There is the feeling of constantly observing people. I consider myself something of a philosopher who can go into places civilians can't go."
     Delivering messages "is the oldest form of communication, besides people talking," Massey says. "It goes back to ancient Rome, or before. And it's non-polluting."
                                     —Originally published in the Sun-Times, July 23, 1992