By Zoe Agnew
Mike Daisey is a very disgruntled worker. More specifically, a disgruntled
former worker at the infamous internet bookseller, Amazon.com. Hailed
by
many as a success story, Amazon.com is of course one of the early
internet
companies that still exists and still serves hundreds of thousands
of happy
customers. The flip side of this tale are the perspectives of the
workers
behind this internet saga.
At the moment that Mike Daisey's Non-Disclosure Agreement from Amazon.com
expired he launched a one-man performance piece on his experiences
with the
company. Yet the number of people he lures to his show could never
compare to
the potential number of viewers of his website and his short web film
"Rear
Entry."
Daisey exploits the medium of the internet to expose the exploitation
of
workers at the hands of the internet industry. His film's is based
on several
Amazon .com mistakes: allowing Mike Daisey to labor in misery, allowing
his
NDA to expire, and forgetting to ask for his building ID once Daisey
quit.
So armed with a camera and a cameraman, Daisey proceeded to enter
the building
of his former employer and film the empty cubicles and empty meeting
rooms of
the steadily downsizing company. His commentary also encompasses the
corporate culture that reveals its bankruptcy under Daisey's gaze.
Daisey is not the most polished comedian. After all, his professional
career
has consisted mostly as a Customer Service Representative and only
recently as
a commentator and comedian. What makes this few-minutes-short film
especially
biting is the fact that Daisey actually did work with this company
for two
years. Daisey is not detached from his subject, and in fact revels
in his
subjectivity.
Daisey has no idea of the legal ramifications that might come of
his film and
purports to cares not at all. He is also unclear about what he does
care
about. We are never privy to any glimpse of what exactly Daisey expected
from
Amazon.com: immersion in literature and book culture? Star Trek posters
and
other internet workers' insignias? A wonderful Customer Service
Representative environment?
Regardless, Daisey has picked the right medium to deliver his brief
but apt,
biting and entertaining, film.