Stories That Pay Off: The desperate and hilarious ways cities begged for Amazon HQ

Did you hear? Amazon is moving in. The megacorporation recently announced that it’ll be splitting its new headquarters between two locations: the borough of Queens, New York, and in Arlington, Virginia. Like an Olympic bid, cities all over the country were eager for a chance at housing Amazon’s new HQ earlier this year — and some weren’t shy about how bad they wanted Bezos’ business. Mic explored a few of these cities and the lengths they were willing to go to pique Amazon’s interest.

Not everyone was happy about Amazon’s choices, Mic also reported this week. Plus, 7-Eleven may have outed its own employees to immigration officers.

And politicians, they’re just like us! We took a look at a few who’ve spent the early part of their careers waiting tables.

All the thirsty ways cities begged for the Amazon headquarters deal

A look back at the long, painful, promotional journey to HQ2.

Prime real estate: New Yorkers protest Amazon’s Long Island City arrival

The average salary of a job at Amazon’s new HQ will likely hover around $150,000 — and residents of Long Island City are voicing their frustration with Big Tech entering the neighborhood.

7-Eleven may be tackling some of its biggest critics — its own employees

According to a recent report by Bloomberg, 7-Eleven provided the names of several franchise owners to ICE, which directly led to raids by agents in several cases.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Barack Obama and 10 other politicians who worked at restaurants

Obama scooped ice cream at a Baskin Robbins and Rahm Emanuel lost part of a finger at an Arby’s.