Delivered

The warehouse at night: temporary workers from Poland, Spain, Latvia, packed seven to a room in prefab bungalows. Then the dawn bus to Amazon’s sorting facilities. Underpaid, monitored, guarded by contractors wearing Thor Steinar hoodies. Far-right stuff, worn openly, by people in charge of your packages. The documentary doesn’t make speeches about it—it just shows you: the light, the faces, the routine humiliation of people broken enough to accept it.

I finally watched it yesterday. Directors Diana Löbl and Peter Onneken actually rented rooms in the worker housing, filmed it in a way that lets the rhythm and the light do the talking instead of narrating the obvious. You see the dormitory ceiling. You see the face of a guy trying to keep his job. You understand, through texture, what living in that particular hell actually means.

And then the thought that ruins everything: Amazon knew this. H&M knew. Apple knew. Every tech company, every fast-fashion brand, every supply chain I’ve been part of as a consumer has someone at the bottom of it living worse than I can imagine. My sneakers have that baked in. The phone I’m typing on. The coffee. The cheap chicken. There’s probably blood somewhere in the genealogy of everything I own.

Which triggers the familiar cycle: you watch the doc, you feel clear-eyed and moral for about six hours, you think I’ll just stop ordering from Amazon like that’s a sustainable position, and then… you get tired, or you need something fast, or the price is too good, and the guilt evaporates and you’re back in the old patterns. I know myself well enough to know this is what’s going to happen. Some blogger cut all Amazon links from his site. Clean break. Genuinely admirable. I’m also pretty sure I know how my version ends: with good intentions and a shopping cart.