Amazon's Jeff Bezos rolls up his sleeves

Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com, recently spent a week working on the floor of a Lexington, Kentucky distribution center. Although Amazon has been tight-lipped about his activities in the warehouse, The Lexington Herald-Leader says that the "short guy [with a] bald head, biggish nose, broad smile and friendly eyes" who looks "like a friendly leprechaun" toiled alongside his hourly workers in order to get a better feeling for their routines, complaints, and lifestyles.

It seems likely that he got an earful. Amazon just closed three such warehouses, which it calls "Fulfillment Centers." Some of the 215 workers who recently got their walking papers in Munster, Indiana, Red Rock, Nevada and Chambersburg, Pennsylvania will be given the option of transferring to other warehouses, but most will simply get their three weeks of severance and benefits that expire at the end of May.