SEAmod has left the (Amazon) building ... literally.

[oneida_books]

SEAmod, Susan, has left the (Amazon) building … literally, and not in a “headed to that great beyond” kind if way (thankfully). Her last post on the ASF was close to when she left.

(Same post on NSFE)

I knew it was bound to happen at some point. However, that doesn’t change how I feel about things right now. I really wish it had been many years from now and under different circumstances. I know everyone won’t feel the same about her absence, and that’s OK. Some won’t care, just because they don’t really know much about her/you. Those who might take some sort of joy in this just don’t matter to me.

While I know Amazon doesn’t care about the loss, sadly I don’t think the majority of sellers will realize how much of a loss this is to our community; how much she/you advocated for the average seller; all the behind the scenes work that went unnoticed. Well I noticed, as did many others, and I thank her/you for being the longest tenured AZ Employee Poster in the forums. Granted the last few years her/your participation has been on a lower level, yet it has still been there helping sellers.

I was in the OSFE when she/you first came in so many years ago, under DarrenK if I’m not mistaken. For a while you were even our lone Moderator, and that during a rough stretch for the ASF. Yet she/you kept it going, building on what DarrenK had started. Eventually even becoming our Global Admin covering every ASF around the globe.

I was privileged to be a part of a small’ish group, who spent a lot of time in the forums, who were able to help for a period of time with the OSFE. It allowed me to have more interactions with you than most. What I saw was a caring person who enjoyed her job and knew who to go to on our behalf when issues arose.

Your stats as a Moderator showing are not accurate …

… and do not reflect what I know to be. Only 5K replies? Not possible. This was from 2023, which might not include posts made within certain groups.

I can’t even imagine how many PM/DM conversations you had with posters.

I never got the chance to meet up with her/you. I wish I had! Hopefully though somehow in the near future we can make that happen.

People come and go here. I get that. You gave us many years and I can’t thank you enough for that. In this day and time even more than a year of ASF participation is rare, so we should be thankful to have gotten so many.

Whatever life has ahead for you I hope that you enjoy it to the fullest! Don’t look back

Rob
Oneida Books

[Pepper_Thine_Angus]

@oneida_books

I don’t think the majority of sellers will realize how much of a loss this is to our community; how much she/you advocated for the average seller; all the behind the scenes work that went unnoticed.

This, all day this. I only ever ONCE reached out to Susan (I think), but the one time I did, it was not for myself, and she stepped up. She was the spot of humanity within the grey bureaucratic mess that is Amazon.

Susan, if you read SAS, you are welcome here any time! Even if just to say hello.

[Dogtamer]

@oneida_books

SEAmod, Susan, has left the (Amazon) building … literally, and not in a “headed to that great beyond” kind if way (thankfully). Her last post on the ASF was close to when she left.
…

@oneida_books

I was privileged to be a part of a small’ish group, who spent a lot of time in the forums, who were able to help for a period of time with the OSFE. It allowed me to have more interactions with you than most.

What I saw was a caring person who enjoyed her job and knew who to go to on our behalf when issues arose.

Hardin & Holly were right:

Love, once earned, will NOT Fade Away.

'Tis a sad day for the Amazon Seller Community when a champion like SusanH lays down arms, and gives up the mantle, to be sure - but here’s hoping that her path will e`er be strewn with roses.

[papy]

Susan/SEAmod was a real, actual human Amazonian who I trusted and respected. She is who I went to when I was being harassed via OSFE PMs and when a fellow active OSFE user suddenly passed away. Susan even reached out to me twice, to thank me for topics I had posted.

Both being available and reaching out proved her dedication to Amazon Seller success. Susan had an extremely difficult job, but she showed up for the Amazon Seller community every day, not just to meet a posting quota or appear to be helpful, either. Susan was with us.

Before everyone else was doing it, Susan knew what it took to build a meaningful online professional community with authenticity, credibility, and grace. I hope that lessons learned in her presence are seen here on SellersAskSellers–especially because they were so widely ignored by Amazon’s NSFE. And I hope she decides to join us here, too! Always welcome.

…although I would also like to think that ecommerce and especially Amazon might be the last things she wants to spend her time on now.

[lake]

I never understood how Susan passed the corporate culture test for new hires.

She was older and warmer than the typical Amazonian. And she remained warmer and more caring in spite of becoming an Amazonian.

And she was recognized for her skills and style. For part of her tenue as a mod, she was on the Executive Response Team. Many of those emails to Jeff@ went to her. She leveraged that status to help sellers on the OSFE. ERT members need to be able to identify who had the levers of power to solve problems.

It is not clear to me how she had developed those skills, and how this related to her role as a mod and her role in seller support. Often she would assign a poster’s case to herself, and personally resolve the issue.

Frankly, I do not know how she was able to survive the growth of Amazon and the deterioration in human intelligence which came with it.

[mod edit: removed PII to PM]

[Jenga244]

Do you know for sure she left via other means…or are we just assuming that’s the case since it’s been so long since her last post?

She definitely helped us with things, too…as recent as a few months ago. She was an asset to Amazon, and I’ve only probably said that about 2 or 3 people I’ve ever come across from there.

[Image]

@oneida_books has been following this/her for quite some time. While I do not know for sure, if he dies not have a personal relationship, they have a professional one. I will let Oneida, one of those I learned from when I first started on Amazon many years ago respond. If he selects to do so.

[oneida_books]

@Jenga244

Do you know for sure she left via other means

I do know for sure that she is gone, and have no doubt she was pushed out by Amazon. I know she didn’t want to leave.

I’m hoping she will land over here and post some, but who knows.

[oneida_books]

I’ll add that maybe @Diane was right …

@Diane

I have wondered - and still do - whether her tendency to openly agree with some of the negative comments about Amazon would/did contribute to her “disappearance.”

This could be the why.

I’m sure though that this is right though.

@Diane

I doubt it was an amicable parting, such as a retirement, with cake and punch at an office party.

I’m seriously doubting any party, and as we can all see, no chance to say goodbye in the NSFE,

[ASV_Vites]

@oneida_books

I’m seriously doubting any party

Kind of like when I quit my job. Tossed my laptop, ID, company CC, and the key card to the building on my bosses desk and told him to go eff himself.

No party.

[Haegan2005]

While we never talked, I did see her responses to the people who needed help.

She will be missed.

[lake]

@ASV_Vites

Kind of like when I quit my job. Tossed my laptop, ID, company CC, and the key card to the building on my bosses desk and told him to go eff himself.

No party.

When I left my last salaried position, I left with a fat check and a distribution contract. A hell of a lot better than a party.

Hopefully, they were generous.

[jml]

@oneida_books

I do know for sure that she is gone, and have no doubt she was pushed out by Amazon. I know she didn’t want to leave.

I was hoping it was her own choice to move on to another page of her life and it pains me to hear that that’s not the case.

Her effort to help the seller community is beyond measure.
I think Susan might just be as frustrated as we are in recent years when the mods are being stripped of the power/tools they once had.
The Amazon landscape has changed so much that apparently she is too honest, logical, and flexible for their liking now.

If selling on Amazon is a fantasy novel, even though things have been gradually declining for a while, this is when the last dragon left the realm and marked the end of a golden era. Now true darkness falls upon and winter awaits.

[anon72228237]

@oneida_books

I’ll add that maybe @Diane was right …

@Diane

I have wondered - and still do - whether her tendency to openly agree with some of the negative comments about Amazon would/did contribute to her “disappearance.”

This could be the why.

and yet, Cooper_Amazon LINKED my highly negative view of Amazon (the Thesaurus post) for a newbie and recommended they read it! I almost fell off my chair…

[rms]

Has anybody met her in person?

I ask because I recall some serious changes in the character of her posts a few years back, and subsequent hypotheses that she might be a house name used to reply to posters when their issue was something that the executive comittee wanted to highlight.

[lake]

Never met her in person, but I had message conversations with her over time which built on each other and included discussions about other Amazonians which had proved to be accurate.

This is not to say I could not be fooled. I was suckered by the not-dead Nurse Jackie.

[oneida_books]

@rms

Has anybody met her in person?

I would have if I had gone to the last Amazon Accelerate, or any for that matter.

@rms

I ask because I recall some serious changes in the character of her posts a few years back, and subsequent hypotheses that she might be a house name used to reply to posters when their issue was something that the executive comittee wanted to highlight.

I’ve never doubted. Her handle is unique - SEAmod - and although some posts “possibly” were done using her login, I highly doubt it.

[Dogtamer]

@rms

Has anybody met her in person?
…

@oneida_books

I would have if I had gone to the last Amazon Accelerate
…

I remember that, more than a mite bit more poignantly now than I realized at the time (and especially so since the text of Susan’s reply, quoted in the above-linked SAS post while it was still freshly unmoderated on the NSFE, was subsequently (081024) altered to remove the endearing entreaty to have a chance to break bread together, and/or hold an in-person tête-à-tête):

https://test.sellersasksellers.com/t/amazon-accelerate-2024/4180/15

[Wade_Wilson]

I assume you gave her an invite to join here?

She was always a nice, fair person. On more them one occasion she even called me directly to assist with issues from an older generation of the forums.

[boardgames4us]

Sad news. Though I have not exchanged messages in several years, I have always appreciated the conversations we wrote. They were always honest and thoughtful. Not always helpful, but you akways knew where you stood, what was possible, what was not, and where possible, where to reach out or what she would do to help.

Changes in place even before the pandemic left less access to that wisdom and those changes did not make things better, resulting in less interest, on my part, to staying active on the forums.

I hope that she has either retired to something pleasant or found a better role where here efforts would be more appreciated.

Dave