The time Jeff Bezos made me feel small
Just before COVID hit, my wife was flying back to China to see her grandfather, who sadly passed before she could arrive. When she returned, I wanted her to have a good Christmas — not really her thing, but I figured some gifts would help. One of them: the brand-new AirPods Pro 2. Easy enough, right? Amazon, click, done.
I was on vacation, alone at home, playing way too much Destiny 2 PvP. The delivery was scheduled a few days before she got back. Perfect timing. The day comes — I’m literally watching the Amazon driver on the app — and suddenly the status flips: “Delivery failed, customer not at home.” Excuse me? I’m right here, my dude.
Support reassures me it’ll be fine tomorrow. Next day, I meet the driver in my building’s hallway. He smirks, hands me two packages, walks off. Weird. At home I rip them open. Inside the “AirPods” box? Vitamins. Niacin B. What the actual hell?
Now I’m pissed. I call support, ranting about Amazon’s Tenets, asking for a Bar Raiser like some parody of a corporate hardass. The poor frontline agent listens politely but can’t do much. I hang up, embarrassed and still fuming. Then I remember something: Bezos once said his email was public — jeff@amazon.com. So I write:
Hi Jeff
Just wanted to drop you a note that whatever is going on with your ability to deliver products, it’s not showing well here in Paris, France.
I ordered Apple Airpods for my wife for Christmas, and after having the product delayed, and having escalated this with your customer support, what was delivered to me instead was a bottle of vitamins.
This seems intentional and nefarious, and if true would mean a systemic level of disruptive bs occurring in your logistics/supply chain delivery efforts. I called your customer support to escalate, but I honestly have low expectations that it will be solved.
You have bad eggs in your department. I thought you should know.
I hope you have a good holiday on behalf of my wife and I.
K
I hit send, proud of myself for “registering my gripe.” Figured that was it — no AirPods for wifey, back to Destiny 2. But an hour later I get an email from Amazon’s Executive Retention team: “Jeff received your email. I’m here to help make things right.”
Holy shit.
Within hours, they had traced the driver, flagged the vitamins stunt, and arranged a new pair of AirPods — even though they were sold out. I stood there, feeling incredibly small and incredibly seen. The richest man on earth had briefly turned his Sauron eye toward me and barked “FIX IT” before moving on to rocket ships and whatever else the ultra-wealthy do.
That moment inspired me to build Ubisoft’s VIP Support / Special Projects team. It’s still the thing I’m most proud of in my 20-year career. All because Bezos made me feel seen, and very small.