How To Burn A Bridge
By Alynda Wheat

(FORTUNE Magazine) – Ex-Amazon employee Mike Daisey (right) waited the requisite year for his nondisclosure agreement to expire before skewering the cult--er, culture--Jeff Bezos created. His one-man show, 21 Dog Years: Doing Time @ Amazon.com, sold out its spring run in Seattle and heads to New York City this month; a book is due next year. In the meantime he bought 600 copies of Ward's Business Directory of U.S. Private and Public Companies: 2001 Supplement for visitors to his Website. (Daisey was taking advantage of the 2-cent price and Amazon's recent free-shipping promotion.) Alynda Wheat went to the master for a few tips on how the dissed and the gruntled can achieve a healthy catharsis.

1. Don't hold back. "What they are is a cult. They take people and give them a belief system that they're owners in startup mode, and, if we invest as much blood and tears in the company, they'll stand behind them."

2. Employ salient facts. "Added together, all the money including stock, divided by total hours--I made about $6 an hour."

3. Be modest in your expectations. "I've never actually thought I could change Amazon, because I can't imagine them changing. Jeff's a lot more powerful than I am."

4. Keep communication lines open. "We always keep an empty seat for Jeff, no matter where the show is playing in the world."

5. Don't be afraid to embarrass yourself. "I wrote Jeff when I was there. [The letters] read like a hybrid between an indictment and a really bad issue of Tiger Beat. They're all love letters. I think in a very real sense I'm in love with Jeff Bezos."