Online retail giant Amazon has long come under the spotlight for its supposedly Dickensian corporate culture.
Every few months a worker pops up to offer their horror story at the hands of one of the most successful digital businesses going.
They talk of being overworked, of management being overbearing to the point of ridiculousness, and of the fear that they are just one mistake from the exit door.
I have heard compelling testimony on this subject from staff who genuinely appear down at heel.
But on the flip side of the coin I have also heard testimony about Amazon’s uncompromising style that I believed to be embellished from people with an axe to grind or an agenda to push.
And that does not surprise me given that, at a value of $250 billion-plus, it is the ultimate in corporate giants to be felled.
At the weekend the New York Times published a report into how Amazon treats its workers. Instead of relying on a single worker account, the paper spoke to 100 former and current staff members about their experiences.
For Amazon, the resulting article did not make for pleasant reading.
The headline ‘Wrestling big ideas in a bruising workplace’ set the tone for what was to come.
There was talk of employees regularly being reduced to tears, staff with significant medical or personal issues being “evaluated unfairly” or pushed out,and “purposeful Darwinism” a phrase the Times claimed was linked to the “annual culling of staff”.
While there were those who gave positive accounts of their time with Amazon, it was stinging and potentially damaging stuff nonetheless, and quickly provoked founder Jeff Bezos into a rebuttal.
In an internal memo he told staff he did not recognise the company described in the article and, further, would not expect such an organisation to survive, let alone thrive as Amazon so obviously has.
Mr Bezos also took to the airwaves to defend the culture within his organisation and said his door was open to any member of staff who felt they had been subjected to “callous management.”
The rights and wrongs of the Times’ article I cannot vouch for.
But what I can tell you about is my own experience of Amazon.
A couple of years ago I requested and was granted a visit to Amazon’s largest UK fulfilment centre (note, it is not a warehouse) at Dunfermline.
Once through the security controlled entrance I was given a guided walk through the sprawling buildings,and what I found was an intriguing workplace the like of which I had never seen before or since.
Yes, there were people working hard.
The sheer volume of orders passing through the building means there is no shying away from hard graft as an Amazon staffer.
And I can only imagine the strains and stresses on such an operation in peak periods such as the run-up to Christmas, when hundreds of new workers are drafted in.
But what I witnessed on my visit was not a Dickensian scene. Workers were not being used as pit ponies.
There was a break room on the packing floor that had facilities including a television for workers to watch whilst taking lunch.
I also saw an employee leave his work station to go to the toilet during his shift, busting the myth that loo breaks are not allowed during the working day.
There’s no doubt it was hectic.
But what I saw at Amazon (granted on a scheduled site tour) was organised, ordered and professional.
I can’t say more than that.