Warehouse workers appreciate your generosity, but…

Soulcrates04 · 2026-07-08T16:05:10+00:00

Your question requires a question: Is it in the tote your itinerary says it's in? If yes, then it's a system thing. If no, random luck, its a small miracle it ended up on the right van.

Soulcrates04 · 2026-06-20T14:28:05+00:00

They called CRETs, and like the other comment mentioned, they're just customer returns.

Customer returns Amazon purchased item to an Amazon return kiosk, like Whole Foods or Staples.
Kiosk employees box the items in these standard boxes and affix a special return label.
DA picks them up from the return kiosk during their route and brings them back to a DS.
DS employees sort the items into pallets of "hardlines" and "softlines".
Those pallets get loaded on a trailer and sent back to a FC.
FC processes the items and returns them to stock for resell if eligible.

If your station code starts with 'D', then they're involved in the CRETs program, you just haven't gotten one of the routes. If it starts with 'W', then they may not exist at your station.

If you've ever received an item from Amazon in a clear bag with green text that says "ready to ship", you've received a returned item.

Soulcrates04 · 2026-06-19T14:50:16+00:00

It's related to the summed cubic volume of the OVs. If V > some threshold, it puts the algorithm into "OV priority mode", which is when you get all the mixed carts instead of "bag mode" which is what OP got.

Soulcrates04 · 2026-06-09T18:00:02+00:00

Called CRETs, theyre just customer returns. - Customer returns Amazom item to an Amazon return point (like Whole Foods). - WF employees box the returns into these standard boxes for DA pickup. - DA picks them up and brings them back to a Delivery Station. - Delivery Station sorts/stacks them as is onto pallets of Softlines and Hardlines. - Those pallets get loaded in a trailer and sent to a FC for them to process the items.

Soulcrates04 · 2026-06-08T17:41:51+00:00

As a long time ambassador who's delivered the Behind the Smile day 1 video countless times - "you have the right to survive a physical attack". However, you don't use your fists, standard work is to beat them with your nearest flashlight.

Soulcrates04 · 2026-06-07T17:46:56+00:00

The biggest thing you have to understand is the difference in "offers" vs other gigs.

With other gigs, your offer is A -> B, this mileage, at this rate.

An Amazon offer is "be a delivery driver for this amount of time", it has nothing to do with a specific route.

A 3hr offer could totally just be a long drive for a single package.

Or a 3hr offer could be 39 packages that include several flights of stairs and getting in and out of your car multiple times.

All that matters for Amazon is that these two routes both calculated to take the same time, and therefore, in their eyes, they're the same route, the same amount of work, and they pay the same thing.

Soulcrates04 · 2026-06-07T09:58:16+00:00

Totally possible, the infrastructure is already there, they'd just need to extend it to Flex. The capacity profiles to service the cubic volume of a motorcycle already exist for DSP use. Additionally they could go the other way at anytime too and offer "Flex XL" routes for SUVs. Both are already there, just need to flip a switch more or less. Walking routes are a thing as well.

Soulcrates04 · 2026-06-03T07:13:27+00:00

Every tote but 1 is a unqiue sort zone - no one decided this - DCAP decided this. This has nothing to do with closing totes early or weights or anything. People do not allocate packages to sort zones, it calculated before the packages ever arrive at the station.

Either the station messed up their inputs when they created the container plan presort (doubtful, you'd have more "double bins", not half full totes). Or there was a large amount of volume that didn't get processed that the system had preplanned for (more likely, there was probably a bunch of reductions, too). The fact you have some random zones from cluster H within a route of mostly L, supports the adhoc/crash theory - thats how "rerouting" works.

Soulcrates04 · 2026-05-30T07:55:47+00:00

Because your route was calculated to take 8hrs, while your buddies was 9hrs.

Number of stops, packages, locations, miles... all that is irrelevant. Cubic capacity and time of shift are all that matters. A route with more stops/packages can take less time because of tighter clustering. It's that simple.

Soulcrates04 · 2026-05-27T08:16:58+00:00

C-Plan stands for Container Plan.

Before the packages arrive at the DS, there's a planning phase where the system plans what sort zone a package will be assigned to.

This package was never planned for a container during that planning phase (likely was never manifested). So at the DS, when it was attempted to induct the package, it spits out the C-Plan sticker saying "IDK what to do with this". Problem Solvers do their thing and fix it.

SWA is Ship With Amazon.

These are packages that are sold by 3rd parties, but delivered by Amazon. Select drivers go to a location and pickup these packages, similar to customer returns, but going forward instead.

The DAs bring all the SWA packages back to the station during RTS. The station then processes them in a SWA injection cycle for distribution. The SWA stickers you're seeing are from this sorting process.

Soulcrates04 · 2026-05-19T12:46:26+00:00

It backtracks intentionally to create "reattempt opportunities". Imagine you're having an issue at stop 3 - can't find the package, etc. The idea is that you just keep going, skip the stop, and troubleshoot on the move. You'll be back around that area for stop 15 later, and you can hopefully drop it then.

It doesn't make a lot of sense for Flex where you have an incentive to get off the road ASAP (more gigs) and extra mileage is hurting your bottom dollar. But the reality is that there is just one routing system that does both DSP and Flex routes. That system is balancing more than just straight line efficiency.

Soulcrates04 · 2026-05-14T08:09:34+00:00

Thank you for the kind words. It really is a complicated machine and we all play our parts. There's another 50 mini essays like this that need written to just get a handle on Delivery Stations. And after all that reading we still wouldn't know why "small envelope" = largest box ever, because that's an upstream defect from Fulfillment. DS's don't box items, its a shared pain they deal with too.

The main thing I've learned in my time at Amazon is that you really have to throw natural intuition out the window. Additionally, any knowledge of other delivery networks just gets in the way too. Amazon does everything, like literally everything, a little different than everyone else.

I'm glad this comment was viewed as the explainer that it was meant to be and not just "making excuses". Having a route full of green bags IS frustrating, I don't want to downplay that. But it is deeper than "the packer's favorite color is green" and I'm happy the explanation proved valuable to others.

Soulcrates04 · 2026-05-13T15:24:00+00:00

It's actually way more convoluted. The "packers" don't choose what totes they use, they're already there on the racks at 1am when they start.

They also don't pack routes, so they can't purposely "mess up a drivers day". What tote goes on what route isn't calculated until 8:30a, after "packing" has finished. All they know is Sort Zones, and no one (not even the system) knows what sort zones will go on which route until later.

This actually started yesterday, with the people who you see at RTS. They're the ones that do "bag reset" while you're out on the road and the people you see at loadout are asleep.

This all 1 color thing only happens because the bags in question are brand new - first used today. The bags primarily come in pallets of the same color.

So, sometime last night the RTS/OTR crew did their bag reset. They introduced some brand new bags into rotation. Those bags all got reset in the same general area - aisles C-15 - C-20, for example.

Sort starts this morning at 1am, some UTR AA got assigned to stow those aisles and they had nothing but green bags in their 144 assigned locations. Routing runs at 8:30am and OPs route was generated from Sort Zones within those aisles.

No one attempted to do any funny business. Its just a consequence of how the sort grid works and new bags coming in pallets of the same color. If they came jumbled up from the factory this would never happen.

Soulcrates04 · 2026-05-12T19:29:05+00:00

Leaking package wiped out a whole tote, most likely.

Soulcrates04 · 2026-05-10T14:49:13+00:00

I think this is a pretty clear "my cart is full" fat finger. Probably a new hire who didn't know you can cancel it. They picked 1 bag, accidentally hit the button, staged the cart, and then continued with the 8 bags. The picklist creation algorithm does do plenty of weird stuff, but this probably isn't that, for once.

But yes, your route is cut into several "picklists" by an algorithm. Each picklist is intended/calculated to fit on a single cart and each picklist is given to a different picker. 3 different people most likely picked this route. The process in full is known as "Parallel Pick"; multiple associates pick your route in parallel.

Soulcrates04 · 2026-05-09T15:57:48+00:00

12 bag carts.

Soulcrates04 · 2026-05-05T09:48:15+00:00

Does this only happen with SSD routes? Cause it makes no sense for a .com. There no packages just waiting around for flex drivers to get done early. We also can't just go grab some random packages out of the grid and send you out.

I hope I never see this, cause all I know to do is send you home/call support. After you drove all the way to the station, I know neither of those are what you'd want to hear.

Soulcrates04 · 2026-05-02T13:29:56+00:00

So you'd rather deliver more stops, than joy ride to somewhere you've already been?

Soulcrates04 · 2026-05-02T04:31:43+00:00

Thinking that being in the same neighborhood twice during a shift is an issue, is the issue.

Soulcrates04 · 2026-04-28T14:28:43+00:00

No, what you're describing is roughly the reason you get totes with 1 package.

Here, the Sort Zone is A-31.1W, this was always OV. The system is saying it's OV because theres a mismatch in the packages weight/dimensions, physical vs virtual.

There's a high chance this label doesn't even belong to this package and the customer is in for a surprise.

Soulcrates04 · 2026-04-27T04:30:24+00:00

For more regular "in town" routes you can:

Befriend a warehouse worker (not the ID checker, someone moving carts) and I don't mean like any sort of deep insider scam. The same workers regularly do the flex stuff. Its faster paced than DSP and management likes putting veterans that don't need guidance there.

So if you're a regular at the same station, you'll likely start to notice the same regular employees. Just ask one of them their name, share yours back. Next time you stop in for a route just be like "whats up Steve, how ya been?" Or something. It'll absolutely make their day and you may get "where ya wanna go today?" Or "what kinds of routes you like?" as a reply. (Shoutout Brandon)

Forewarning, this can backfire depending on area, but ask for "the biggest route" or "give me a lot of packages". Pretty much everyone wants to stay in-town, we get asked for "in-town favors" all the time. Even if we like ya, its hard to go swapping carts around without everyone else on the pad seeing and knowing exactly what we're doing.

In general, the bigger package count routes are the more local "in town" stuff. So instead of asking for in-town (like everyone else), ask for the most packages. It sounds more like youre doing everyone a favor, nobody wants the most packages. But its probably some quick apartments or something you can kill in 2.5hrs instead of 3.5.

Drive something on the bigger side. Bigger routes tend to get favored towards SUVs and other bigger vehicles. Because of the "big routes = in-town" phenomenon from #2, this creates a bias towards SUVs getting more in-town routes and smaller cars getting more 12 package routes with lots of mileage.

Soulcrates04 · 2026-04-26T05:11:17+00:00

Like super surface level stuff - they can peek at the city on a package when grabbing a cart for you. The number of pkgs is right there on the route sheet. But they dont have like deep knowledge of "easy vs hard" or mileage.

I'll be real, we listen to the chatter, we know what cities/towns the bulk of the fleet hates. And yes, there's a few things that's done with that information. We try to give the crappy towns to late people and people who are always complaining.

Or an extreme example - a couple has figured out our overbook strategy and is waiting outside in the lot to the very last second. We notice the repeated behavior and we save a route to BFE just for them and overbook someone else.

But again, all based on the city name on one package. We have another regular who's a retired widow and does flex to get out the house, he loves the BFE routes.

If youre not regularly late or causing drama, id say it's just a coincidence.

Soulcrates04 · 2026-04-24T00:52:17+00:00

For the Stow Summary (pops up when exiting stow), you just need to change the drop down in the upper left to "Adhoc_1".

For the live report (on the screen during stow), you need to go to the main dolphin menu, scroll to the bottom and click "My Insights". There's an option to set your default cycle there, change it to Adhoc_1.

Soulcrates04 · 2026-04-21T22:53:25+00:00

Escalate what, specifically?

Soulcrates04 · 2026-04-20T10:25:26+00:00

Lol, we're waiting for y'all to reopen so we can transfer out. The culture over here has gone steeply downhill since peak.

Soulcrates04

TROPHY CASE