There's an anecdote in The Everything Store about a guy working so hard, with so many long hours, that he didn't get to return to his car for a month. It ended up being towed. It took the guy six months to figure this out because Amazon was working him hard enough that he had nowhere to be except at Amazon for about eight months. Guy is a friend of a friend. I met him at a party, then hung out with him at a couple more. I first heard that story in 2003. He was still working at Amazon. They laid him off in 2005, though. Why? Because Amazon. I've known maybe four people who have worked at Amazon. They aren't just negative towards the company. They aren't simply down. They're oddly shattered by the experience. I get the sense that working at Amazon is corrosive to one's soul.