Everything Now

Willy Wonka’s guest Veruca Salt famously sang, I want the works, I want the whole works. Presents and prizes and sweets and surprises of all shapes and sizes. And now. Don’t care how, I want it now. The Oompa Loompas used the demand as an opportunity to blame parents who raise spoiled brats. The fulfillment team at Amazon saw the urgency as one more customer preference that could add to the revenue stream. A lot of purchasers want what they want right now (or at least same day). Do you really need what you ordered to arrive that quickly? Probably not. But customers love fast delivery and fast delivery brings repeat customers. Hence, the race to fulfill your every fulfillment center desire. In the NYT, Jordyn Holman takes you into one of Amazon’s same-day delivery centers to track the progress of a product even Veruca Salt could have waited on: An emotional support pickle. You Want That Gift to Arrive Today? This Is What It Takes. “While I watched, a screen directed Keri Simon, a fulfillment center associate, to grab particular items off the pod — a bottle of shampoo or a 2025 New Yorker calendar — and place them in a gray cubbyhole. On the other side of the cubbyholes, Isabel Isais packed the items into one of three different sleeves: two sizes of brown paper and one plastic option. The computer in front showed which packaging to choose. Using these sleeves is faster than loading up boxes. Then a machine spit out a shipping label, which Ms. Isais put on the package. All of this took seconds.” (That’s pretty good. Until they find a way to make it faster.)