r/FASCAmazon

DISCLAIMER: I do not intend to breach any secretive information. All of what is being seen here is intended for the public to see. I will explain in a Reddit-friendly version each shift hour, and what some T3s do on a typical shift. No secrets are being breached here. Please do not confuse this with FCs please. This is not for FCs, but for SCs.

Other than that, this is part 1 of this series.

I have worked with the 3 that are being mentioned here, and this is all from my experience being around them and observation.

I have included those 3 roles because it's easier for me to get into. For part 2, I will explain maybe 2 or 3 more roles that are not talked about as much. I won't include much since I barely know what they do. I don't know if I want to do a part 2 though.

Intro

All of leadership goes to a pre-shift meeting. They include all branches of Learning, Operations (including line-lead/team-lead/PGs), Safety, and HR. In rare cases, TOM team and even ship clerks are included as well. Without getting into too much detail, let's just say that the purpose of this meeting is to include what went well, plans for the shift, leadership principles, and things like that.

After the pre-shift meeting, when it ends, you might see leadership make a chant, something like 1 AM saying, "1 - 2- 3" and the whole group saying "Teamwork" or "Communication" or whatever is involved as well.

Think of this type of meeting like the stand up meeting for T3s and up.

During the 1st hour of the shift, you will see a bunch of people clock in 5 minutes early, and some running late. Most of the AAs will be at stand up. Others won't. When the shift starts, the AM begins with them leading stretches or having any other leader from whatever branch lead stretches. Sometimes even a PA leads a stand-up meeting for them to get a greater taste of leadership power.

After stretches start, the AM or PA, but mainly the AM will discuss safety tips, what went well during the previous day or previous shift, and even tell everyone the volume goal that they will try to hit. They not only give out expectations for scanners, since scanning is the main source of power, but they can also give out expectations for Inbound, Smalls, Non-Con, Waterspiders, or Stagers when necessary. Behavioral expectations and standard work included.

Afterwards, they end their shift with a chant, like, "powerclap on 3. 1, 2, 3, CLAP" or whatever your site does.

Now that I've gotten the intro part out of the way, I am now going to explain to you, from a T1's perspective, what each T3 branch (Learning Trainers, PAs, and Safety) are doing during your shift.

Learning Trainers

Before the shift starts, the Learning Trainer will notify their ambassadors what their duties are going to be. You'll have the trainer slacking their ambassadors through a group chat what their assignments are going to be, the one that expects you to be at Learning after standup, and the other who are the "if I need you I will find you" type.

Back in my day around the 2023-2024 era, some of the trainers chimed in the ambassador chat which ambassador will do what. Now, some trainers like to give out the tasks through slack.

In some cases, if there are no assignments, but then something randomly pops up, the trainer can pull the ambassador out at random, with the permission of operations, if they are not in a critical role. In some cases, the trainer cannot pull some ambassadors and have them in learning because operations need them to process units in whatever area that's needed, or if they are in a critical role, or if headcount is low.

When it comes to trainers giving tasks to ambassadors, there are many different types of personalities when it comes to this:

The trainer wanting all of the ambassadors whether they like them or not
The trainer that only trusts certain ambassadors to do the job and uses the same one all of the time, and not use others since others will suck at the job. They will even do half of what the ambassadors usually do and be at their desk doing paperwork later on.
The trainer that has certain ambassadors does certain things or supports them based on what they are comfortable in doing.
The trainer that doesn't trust the ambassadors at all that much and would rather do all of the work themselves.

Tasks that trainers assign ambassadors at a sortation facility include:

Day 2 and Day 3 new hires
Annual retrains
New types of training if new training is implemented
Scanner Retrains
Trainings in different process paths
Going around for coaching purposes for AAs who have specialized paths, like waterspider.
Error/Failed moves coachings.

Ambassadors deemed trustworthy by their trainers are in charge of assisting them in Day 1 activities. They also substitute the trainers and take their place if they are gone. Some of these ambassadors have been interim trainers or interim PAs before and can handle certain tasks that the trainers can do, but they don’t necessarily give out permission without the trainer or Learning Coordinator/AM’s approval.

For every task that an ambassador does, the trainer will watch them. They monitor what steps of the training process the ambassador is at. They keep track of training audits, and even shadow audits. In some cases, they can even aid the ambassador when they train AAs or do error/failed moves coachings as well.

The trainers are the ones who have a bunch of to-do lists on their PCs. They are not just on their computers doing nothing. They have a lot of paperwork to complete, and a variety of training that they oversee. They also check on the new hire's progress despite rate not being a big requirement. They even know the time to proficiency (TTP) scanning hours of the associate.

If you make failed moves in scanning, staging, waterspidering, DDU non-con processing, or even problem solve processing, they have the power to revoke your permissions either temporarily or permanently.

During the shift the trainer expects the ambassador to follow through on the scheduled plan for new hires. As a former ambassador myself, it was really difficult to follow through on those plans mainly because of latecomers, people not understanding, and lack of equipment/PPE and in rare cases, preparation. This expectation not only goes for new hires, but for any situation described in the 7 points that I've made so far.

The thing that irritates trainers the most are when they can't use ambassadors because they are in a special roles, like problem solve, or TDR, or Waterspider. Or the ambassadors can't pull certain people from specific areas because the PAs over there need these people. For example, if a PA needs "x" people in non-con since they have a lot to get through over there, the trainer can't just get the ambassador to get that person. That ambassador must skip that person and save for later. This goes for any training like CAST, or annual retrains that are done yearly.

Learning Trainers also have the right to override an AM’s request for a specific ambassador in whatever role they are trained in. That depends on how urgent it is, and headcount. In my experience, Learning and Operations always butt-heads in Sort Centers.

Learning Trainers are also used as "emergency headcount" and support on the floor if for whatever reason the building needs help.

In a Sort Center perspective, think of the trainer as a bigger Learning Ambassador with even more responsibilities.

Process Assistants (PAs)

For every Amazon job, PAs are the bridge between the AAs and Ops. They serve the needs of AAs, while also mainly serving the needs for Ops. Think of them as the "people persons" of Amazon.

In the beginning of the shift, during, or even after stand up 15 minutes into the shift, they may steal some people even though they are in different areas if headcount is low. I'll give you some examples:

Stand up.

In stand up, while the AM is giving out the meetings and important information, the PA is sneakily asking some AAs where they are rostered, and if they are somewhere less important, like the lanes/chute areas, they will ask if they could do things, like waterspider, stage, CPT chase, container-load, non-con, or even go to inbound.

Within 15-45 minutes of the shift

2a. The AMs will see how many people are in every area. If one area is low, the AM will ask the PAs in a specific area if they have people trained in whatever process path they are looking for, and if trained, send those people over there if possible.

2b. The PA from another area will come and steal stagers, scanners, etc to do important things like waterspider, non-con, and so forth without even telling the PAs running the lanes/chutes and staging. That's if they desparately need headcount in those areas.

2c. Situation 2b happens, except the PA communicates ahead of time to the other PA how many they need, or the specific person they want if necessary.

In a typical sort center setting, your PA will try to steal people from the lanes/chutes first, and then do other areas.

Not only will you have PAs try to steal people, but if your site is a DDU site, you will have the ship dock AM or in some cases, even ship clerks, take stagers and use them as chasers. Some of them even as POD auditors as well (will be talked about later on).

I define taking people from the lanes/chutes as "lane grabbing/chute grabbing." We might even call it “scanner grabbing” too because scanners, especially the ones that are “yes man/yes woman” people, are taken to do extra things on the lanes as well.

The PA in whatever area they are in already knows who their people are and will roster the same people to their area 99% of the time if they like them in the way they work, or in general, or if that’s what the AA wants to do. The PA is like the big brother or sister of the family of the sort center.

There are many PAs or even PGs/leads running different areas of the building:

1 running half of the lanes/chutes
1 running the other half of the lanes/chutes
1 running Inbound
1 running Non-Con
1 running Smalls (if your site has smalls)
1 running Outbound (staging and XD/container loading, and in some cases, Pallet and POD auditing)

[Lanes/chutes]
The PA on the lanes/chutes must make sure that the associates are actively working. They need to make sure that the pallets are wrapped. They must make sure AAs are grabbing 2 packages and going. A typical scan rate is around 120 - 180 UPH or even a bit in the 200s for trickle scanning.

That PA is on their computer seeing how much volume is being processed. They can even see the associates’ rates in real time. They even know who is idle and who is not idle. In some cases, whenever they can, they know which pallet is about to depart at a specific time. Carts as well.

On a typical shift, if one lane is heavy with work than the other, or if one chute area is heavier than the other, then the PA running a specific area of lanes/chutes will send some scanners to eat up volume over there if and only if one area has less work than the other.

At any given time, for whatever reason, whether it be the beginning or towards the end of the shift, people can be sent from one area to the other, like lanes to non-con, lanes to inbound, and so forth.

While scanners are scanning packages to pallets/carts and the PAs are watching those areas, safety will come around with a clip board and do a safety audit on pallets. It is a literal checkboard to see which pallets were safe, which ones were not safe, and which ones were the best. If a whole lane/chute area is wrapped up good (5-3-5), even if the pallet is closed out, then safety won’t focus much on that. They’ll make a good report on that. Later, the audit is emailed to the PA through an excel spreadsheet-like form. The PA needs to have their pallets as green. If a large majority of pallets are not green, they could get a write up, but I don’t know who writes them up.

I know the green pallet safety audit exist for sites with pallets that go to the post office (DDU), but I am not entirely sure if SC-SC or SC – AMZL sites have to get through that as well. I do not even know if go-cart safety audits exist too in terms of how AAs build the go-carts. I’m not sure if they still exist or not. It’s been 2 years since I’ve been at an SC.

The situations described in the last 2 paragraphs are partially the reason why PAs sometimes hunt for people who are waterspider trained.

[Inbound]

The PA running inbound is responsible for ensuring that work gets fed to the whole building. They usually are TDR trained, and if not, they have a TDR lead as their sidekick. The PA inbound will decide which trailers should be unloaded first, and which ones last. They can also see on their PCs which trailers are fluid, big-box, or ones with carts, pallets, or shuttles. They coordinate how many container unloaders there should be. How many people should side load, and how many fluid or big box unloaders there should be.

The inbound PA will try to get rid of the fluid trailers first, for they mostly contain smaller and regular sized boxes, most of them being size 20, and some of them being as big as 160 – 180, and in rare cases, 296. There may even be AFE sized boxes in there as well, like 176, 220, and any other AFE size box you could think of in addition to the singles boxes that I’ve mentioned.

The big box trailers are usually prioritized second. They have a mixture of regular sized boxes and mostly have really big and bulky boxes that are too big to fit on a pallet. Those trailers from my experience get unloaded the quickest because of how big the size they are. The cat litters, and the weights, and the TVs may be heavy, but when you unload them quickly, and safely, they get done quickly. In some cases, if there are too many big box trailers, inbound stops so that non-con can process all the work first.

Sometimes inbound stops also because of the lanes or if there’s conveyor belt trouble on the main conveyor line that goes to the lanes/chutes.

The PA can see the progress of the trailers on their computer. They know if a trailer is close to being finished. They know if the trailer is halfway done. If a trailer is close to being finished, the TDR lead will keep an eye on that trailer until it’s done. Then, the unloaders take the conveyor belt back inside the building. Then afterwards, the TDR person does their thing and closes the trailer. That empty trailer then gets staged somewhere else, and a new inbound trailer later gets placed in the same location later on. The PA then moves the AAs to the next trailer to unload.

They can see which trailers are coming, and even which ones are for the next shift, and how many left they must get through.

The inbound PA also makes sure that if there’s a blind associate side loading a container, that no one unloads a trailer from where the blind person is. They even usually have a bunch of people side loading packages or even jiffies onto conveyors. They even can tell which ones go to smalls or non-con or not. The inbound associates are taught that as well.

[Non-Con]

The PA running non-con is kind of like running the lanes/chutes except for less responsibilities. They really don’t do much commanding over there. There’s a separate volume goal for non-con, and it’s usually lower.

If your site is a DDU site, it is more likely, they may need a number of non-con processors (usually 5 or 7), and some people sort out the non-cons on pallets, and some scan them in.

Every site’s non-con is different. There could be people over there depending on how much non-con volume your site handles. I don’t know about the auto sorter era though.

The only things that the PA running non-con will ever do, are probably:

1. Have an AA close out a special shuttle or cart if CPT is close to departure or if already full

2. In some cases, have AAs stage non-con if work is already done

3. Maintain the flow/speed of this area

4. Move people around, but it happens sometimes

Other than AMZLs growing even faster in non-con and having them keep up, there really isn’t much that a PA does over there rather than support. From what I’ve seen, it’s more of a chill area for them if they have the right people.

They push non-con when necessary to keep the flow of the building going.

[Smalls]

The PA running smalls kind of has the same vibe as non-con, but if there’s too much to handle, then they could ask for additional support.

They can move AAs from one area of shuttles to flow scan to another. Ask to close out if the shuttle is close to CPT or full, or in some cases, if still a manual site, have an AA deliver and park totes from the U-boats to the lanes.

When small sort is done, they are in the “stuff down scan down” phase. This means that there are no inductors for smalls anymore and that stuffers stuff the remaining packages into their totes, and then everyone there flowscans until they either take VTO or go back to regular scanning.

So, unless smalls is busy, on a regular day, the PA doesn’t really do anything much. Heck, sometimes, depending on where you are at, this area is closed and is only used in high volume situations.

[Outbound (Staging, container loading, and pallet/POD auditing)]

I have no input for fluid loading since I have no experience. I’m just going to speak on behalf of staging and container loading

There’s a lot to unpack here, so I’m going to do my best to explain it.

Depending on the size of your sortation center, you may have one PA or AM overseeing the outbound side of the sortation center. They may oversee about 8 to 12 stagers for the lanes/chute areas, and container unloaders as well. For DDU sites, the PA running outbound can also select Pallet and POD auditors, and even CPT chasers if they are not doing that.

If container loading, the outbound PA can see on their PCs the progress of the trailers if they are full or not. They know the container unloader’s rates. They may even ask the AAs container loading to load up a specific trailer if CPT is close to departing. If SC – SC loading, the PAs can even ask their stagers or unloaders to stage a pallet of a specific location not to the POD, but to place it in the trailers if a trailer is available.

The PA running outbound usually sets up their stagers in many different ways. They can direct stagers to a specific lane or other areas like smalls or non-con if there’s much work to stage there. There’s even stagers for the lanes/chute areas, smalls, and non-con. Because of the size of the non-con packages in shuttles, non-cons tend to grow slightly faster compared to the lanes, and if there’s less stagers, it will be hard for the outbound PA to eat down all of the work. Converting scanners to stagers temporarily usually solves the problem, but it gets hectic with scanner volume sometimes.

The PAs don’t really do much with the pallet and POD quality auditors. However, sometimes the auditors not only audit the pallets, but in some cases they have to merge and wrap the pallets themselves. Auditing is their main job to do.

The audit form either goes directly to the AM/OM or it goes directly to Learning for reasons unknown. That’s for DDU sites, but not sure if SC-SC or AMZL have pallet and POD audits.

What all the PAs have in common is that they all will announce break. You won’t see that happen at an FC since break times are set. They will even announce when break is over as well at an SC, unlike an FC.

DDU Ship Clerks

In sortation centers that handle packages that go to USPS, the ship clerks are usually the ones in charge of the operations there. They usually work NIT/WD shift, and if MOR shift happens for sites that temporarily have this, work all the way up to around 7 or 8am in the morning.

Their job is to oversee the 3p box trucks coming to pick up and collect pallets so that they can go to the USPS building in whatever state it’s going at. The box truck drivers usually go to them for things if there’s a pallet that they need, or if there need help whatsoever. They usually direct the drivers on where to park so that they can unload. If the drivers come late, or if they come really early and their usual spot is taken, the ship clerk moves the pallets from one pod to the other, changing the shipping label location information.

They are under the direct supervision of one ship dock AM overseeing the whole dock. If there’s a lot going on in the dock (as usual), the ship clerks/dock AM can take some T1s (usually stagers) and use them for CPT chasing. They also own the pallet and POD auditors and direct the auditors to different areas to audit pallets. The ship dock AM may even ask the learning team to have some ambassadors pallet and POD audit if they need help.

The ship clerks could also ask associates to consolidate single non-con packages into a pallet or another shuttle that’s going to one specific location. That’s to make room for the drivers to fit in the pallet. Smalls as well.

The DDU ship clerk can tell if a chased pallet is already staged on their computer. They can even see which ones need to be chased on the computers as well. They can even ask if anyone is waterspider trained and can change the shipping labels on a pallet if needed.

Even the ship clerk gets exhausted chasing pallets themselves sometimes.

There’s usually about 3 – 5 ship clerks during the night, and in very rare cases, they work TWI for peak and prime week.

When it comes to CPT chasing, there are 2 types of ship clerks you will encounter: One that uses sticky notes to give to the chaser to chase specific pallets by small groups, and one that gives the chaser a whole paper that’s printed.

Depending on the situation of your site, your ship dock AM may try to keep you for up to 6 hours, 2 hours after your shift has ended, whether it be NIT or WD since there’s usually a lot of work to do on the dock at a DDU site. As long as you follow hours cap of 30 if part time, or 50/60 if full-time, then you won’t get into trouble.

From my experience, it’s usually a lot of fun to work with ship clerks and chase pallets. At least I am left alone, and operations, unless it’s an emergency, can’t touch me. The PAs can’t grab anyone who’s needed on the dock.

Ship Clerks are usually chill and laid back from what I've seen when they are not talking to 3p drivers. Especially if some know little English. Some can be a bit pushy, while most of them are really chill. If your ship dock AM likes you a lot, they may have you to eventually become a ship clerk one day.

That's all I have to say on here for part 1. Stay tuned for part 2 (if I plan to make one, of course).

MLOA

Seasonal upt grant rate?!?

Could this actually be a real accommodation?

Can you be seasonal for over 11months?

Cringe

Amazon Online Assessment

What will I be doing as a uis?

Today is my first day working here in inbound. Does anyone have any tips for me?

I just got a flex shift at Amazon. I’m still a bit confused since I didn’t think to have asked this question at orientation(I applied as a delivery station associate)

PHX7

The perks of SLS

Kinda in a bind

It was a while ago when I saved these.

AWS DCO New Hire — Looking for First-Day Advice

Can you pick up VET at a sort center?

Flex shifts

Where to go next?

Stockton warehouse which one is best

A Reddit-friendly version of what some of your T3s you work closely with are doing at a Sortation Center on a typical shift (from a T1's perspective): Part 1: Learning Trainers, PAs, and DDU Ship Clerks (might delete this post eventually, don't know yet)

Amazon new hire a t o z