What I Learned on the Coupang Floor
- Bursting the White Collar Bubble
When I was working in the ad business unit at Coupang’s headquarters in Seoul, friends would ask, “Coupang? So, are you a delivery driver?” I’d draw a hard line: “No, I work at the corporate HQ.”
I’m not proud of that deflection. It stemmed from a deep-seated bias—a white-collar superiority complex carved into my subconscious by elders who used to warn, “If you don’t study hard, you’ll end up suffering in a factory.” I knew it was a shallow mindset even then, but I was terrified of what others might think.
But after spending three 12-hour shifts on the floor at a Coupang Fulfillment Service (CFS) center, my perspective shifted entirely. The reality was nothing like the dystopian, Charlie Chaplin-esque factory settings we hear about in the news. It was more like a massive, high-stakes sports arena.
- The Logistics Floor as an Olympic Training Center
What struck me most was the people. There’s a prevailing narrative that these workers are just “grinding” because they have no other options—that this is the work people avoid until they have no choice. My assumptions were dead wrong.
I saw pride in their faces. Just as any high-functioning startup team has its “S-tier” performers, this floor was packed with talent—people with innate athleticism, raw energy, and animalistic instincts. Doing this day in and day out requires a level of grit and talent that most people never have to tap into.
The site felt like an Olympic training center. I observed a clear hierarchy: The “Level 1” newcomers like me focused on basic tasks at our workstations, while the “Level 3” veterans in colored vests acted as the floor captains. They were the ones on the radios, navigating the floor, managing the flow, and ensuring system-wide stability.
This wasn’t just manual labor; it was a team sport requiring high-level focus, physical rhythm, and something the robots couldn’t provide: human intuition. Take the non-standardized PB product packaging, for instance. A robot might miss a torn bag, but a human operator filters it instantly.
- The Brand, Experienced as Both Consumer and Producer
In Korea, the “Coupang part-time gig” is shorthand for “grueling but accessible.” Anyone can show up, regardless of age, background, or resume, and get paid the next day. I struggled to grasp the scale of the jobs this company created until I saw a woman in her 50s next to me, just looking to earn a little extra spending money. She was complaining for the last hour of the shift that she was exhausted, yet when I asked, “Do you use Coupang?” she lit up. “Oh, all the time! But my friend said this was an easy gig—why is it so hard?”
We laughed about it. “So this is how the packages I order show up at my door by tomorrow morning,” we realized. Around us were fresh recruits just out of the military, college students saving for a backpacking trip, and an older man in a faded Marine Corps T-shirt.
- The Algorithm of ‘Jeong(情)’
The company policy to address everyone as “Associate” (Sa-won-nim) might seem like a corporate formality, but in a culture that often looks down on manual laborers, it was a gesture of dignity. And then there was the Jeong—a uniquely Korean concept that defies simple translation. It’s not just politeness; it’s an emotional glue, a form of collective empathy.
When a newcomer would get lost—”Which floor is this?”, “Where do I put on safety shoes?”—someone was always there to guide them. It reminded me of the aftermath of the Sewol ferry tragedy, where thousands of ordinary people showed up to manually clear oil-slicked rocks that technology couldn’t handle. It’s that deep-rooted social affection that surfaces when systems reach their limits.
I spent my career living in the “tech-first” cities of Seoul, but this floor taught me something the algorithm couldn’t: the resilience of the human network.
- AI, Humans, and the Future of Work
Working on that floor forced a realization: We don’t hire humans because they are “lesser than” robots. We hire them because they are infinitely more flexible, context-aware, and emotionally intelligent.
The question isn’t “When will AI replace the warehouse worker?” The real question is, “How can we build systems that amplify this human intuition rather than override it?”
We are not being phased out; we are being upgraded into a different kind of role. The next phase of labor is about the “Human-in-the-Loop”—the high-context operator navigating the space between the algorithm and the physical world.
(Coming up in the next piece: How we take these lessons from the floor to architect a new paradigm for AI-driven HR and labor strategy.)
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