Almost everyone has bought something from Amazon at one point or another. Nowadays, with a membership, customers are able to get their shopping delivered to their doorstep on the same day it's been ordered.
When Amazon opened the Swansea depot back in 2007, one couple saw it as their ticket to a new life. Emma Varnals and Darren Wells made the move from London to be by the sea.
With a combined service time of 40 years, Emma and Darren are believed to be the longest serving couple Amazon have in the UK. The pair have loved every minute of working together. Get Swansea stories straight to your inbox with our newsletter.
Darren joined the company in 2002, and after seeing how much he enjoyed it, Emma followed suit in June of the same year. The pair worked in different departments in a warehouse in London until they heard about the huge new depot opening in Swansea in 2007.
Darren said: "We'd looked at relocating to Scotland as they had some buildings there but when they announced the Swansea site, we thought wow, by the sea. Working with a company likely don't get many opportunities to actually relocate the company so it just seemed like a great adventure. That and salty sea air helps the skin apparently."
Over the years, the pair have gone from packing VHSs to DVDs and have seen a whole range of products come and go. Emma said: "It was videotapes. The very side of DVDs. That was huge when they came out, a little silver disk that you could watch a film on. Also now we have some white scanners. We used to have to go off little bits of paper but now the scanners even have pictures of the product so its much easier."
Emma and Darren say there are plenty of perks to working together, including sharing the commute and getting to spend more time together.
Darren said: "We live together and work together so we do spend most of our time together. We see each other on the floor, have a wave and a smile at each other and carry on.
"Other couples, they get home and talk about it. But a lot of the time, we don't need to talk about work because we've been there. We've done during the day because we've been together through the breaks and so on.
The couple have been together for 22 years, and were originally set up by Darren's mum. Darren's mum kept insisting Emma was the girl for him, and she was right.
Darren said: "Emma and I actually went on our first date to watch House on Haunted Hill, which was a remake of the original, which my mum and dad saw in the cinema on their first date.
"We are still yet to tie the knot which we which we're working on. We've kind of been as the format that we want your marriage so well. When we talk about weddings that's when the arguments start."
Over the years, they have worked through some historic events at Amazon. One Darren distinctly remembers is the launch of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
Darren said: "Some of the events happened when we did the Harry Potter books seven. So we did like a three week three week night shift. Remember JK Rowling didn't want anything to come out, nothing about the plot or anything. That was kind of interesting. When you arrived at the building you had to go through security. You were fully patted down any time you came in or left to make sure you weren't smuggling books out. That was quite exciting."
Emma and Darren plan on staying with Amazon until they retire, where they will continue to spend as much time with each other as possible.
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