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Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

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Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#411

Post by paulez »

jdavis703 wrote: post #17
taurath wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really curious why only within country? Security reasons? Also why 4 weeks? Just to be available for meetings? I find it funny that this is the American version of a nice holiday - go pay money to rent an Airbnb so you can work in a different environment.

There's different tax, visa and HR regulatory implications they probably don't want to deal with. For example if Amazon has an American worker who decides to work remotely in France (where Amazon is also established) can Amazon fire the American "at will" or are they subjected to French regulations that make terminating workers extremely difficult?

To be able to legally work in France, an American citizen would need a work visa which requires to have a local work contract. So they would have to follow French regulations.

It also includes a minimum of 5 weeks vacation and 2 weeks of PTO, too bad!

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#412

Post by rsj_hn »

paulez wrote: post #411
jdavis703 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's different tax, visa and HR regulatory implications they probably don't want to deal with. For example if Amazon has an American worker who decides to work remotely in France (where Amazon is also established) can Amazon fire the American "at will" or are they subjected to French regulations that make terminating workers extremely difficult?

To be able to legally work in France, an American citizen would need a work visa which requires to have a local work contract. So they would have to follow French regulations. It also includes a minimum of 5 weeks vacation and 2 weeks of PTO, too bad!

Sorry if I misunderstood -- the 5 weeks isn't paid? If it is, what is the difference between the 5 weeks and the 2 weeks?

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#413

Post by lmm »

GoOnThenDoTell wrote: post #376
lmm wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Europe only has good public transport in very few selected cities and you have to ignore strikes in France to pretend its working well and is reliable. It's working well and reliable enough. > The city with the best public transport in the world is probably Tokyo in terms of frequency and service reliability but it is constantly over capacity and things are not getting better. Things absolutely are getting better;…

Not everyone wants to move every time they get a new job, or every time their spouse gets a new job

What point are you making?

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#414

Post by TeMPOraL »

vladvasiliu wrote: post #317
baby wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have this theory that one of the contributing factors to the "I don't want to go to the office" trend in the US (which I'm part of), is that cities are also not made for commuting. Coming from Europe, where public transport is really practical, and cities are built for density, your commute is often much less cumbersome AND you can enjoy some social life after work since you're in the city. Here (the bay) it was ju…

I've never lived in the US, so I can't comment on the commute situation there, but I live and work in Paris proper and one of the main reasons "I don't want to go to the office" is the commute. I need 30-45 minutes to get there, and our public transit system is supposedly good. But the metro's still too crowded, dirty, smelly, etc. And I even usually avoid rush hour and take an automated, hassle-free line. Commuting…

Seconding. I live in Kraków, Poland, which has a great public transit infrastructure. For all jobs I had, I could always get into the office in 20 to 40 minutes. That's still 20 to 40 minutes too much - it's 40 to 80 minutes per day, out of my very limited free time. I hated it, and I prefer WFH.

A threshold for me is probably around 5 minutes, counting from my apartment's door to the office door. Anything more feels like wasting time, so I'll avoid it for as long as I have the option.

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#415

Post by gvurrdon »

soylentnewsorg wrote: post #236
sharkweek wrote: post #6

I live in Seattle and thus a notable percentage of my social circle works at Amazon. The folks I know who work there were almost entirely all prepared to quit if the company forced their initial "everyone back in the office" requirement, especially in this current job market. It feels rare to see Amazon ever make a change to such a publicly stated policy like this, I can only imagine that the groundswell of feedback…

I interviewed w/ Amazon - they contacted me during the pandemic and I though what the hey, ignore the worst reviews of any company on glassdoor, let's see what they're all about. The interview was, and I hate to use this word, followed a template clearly put together by an MBA who went into middle management without any work experience, The two people to whom I talked showed the enthusiasm of a dead wet beaver while…

> Then a bunch of weird generic scenarios - what have you done that fits this scenario and how did you handle it.

That part was particularly frustrating; often I couldn't think of anything relevant to the specific wording. At least you got a rejection letter, though. Multiple interviews over >1 day and I had to log in to the Amazon Jobs account to see my application's status had changed to "no longer under consideration".

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#416

Post by KptMarchewa »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #414
vladvasiliu wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never lived in the US, so I can't comment on the commute situation there, but I live and work in Paris proper and one of the main reasons "I don't want to go to the office" is the commute. I need 30-45 minutes to get there, and our public transit system is supposedly good. But the metro's still too crowded, dirty, smelly, etc. And I even usually avoid rush hour and take an automated, hassle-free line. Commuting…

Seconding. I live in Kraków, Poland, which has a great public transit infrastructure. For all jobs I had, I could always get into the office in 20 to 40 minutes. That's still 20 to 40 minutes too much - it's 40 to 80 minutes per day, out of my very limited free time. I hated it, and I prefer WFH. A threshold for me is probably around 5 minutes, counting from my apartment's door to the office door. Anything more feels…

Calling Kraków's transit great is a long stretch.

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#417

Post by pjc50 »

baby wrote: post #276
mabbo wrote: post #189

I quit Amazon 3 weeks ago after nearly a decade. Work from home was one of the biggest reasons. In my view, the personality traits that are conducive to promotion up the Amazon leadership ladder are strongly aligned with loving work-from-office. Most people L10 and higher not only don't understand the desire for permanent work from home, I think maybe they cannot understand it. It's just too foreign to many of them.…

I have this theory that one of the contributing factors to the "I don't want to go to the office" trend in the US (which I'm part of), is that cities are also not made for commuting. Coming from Europe, where public transport is really practical, and cities are built for density, your commute is often much less cumbersome AND you can enjoy some social life after work since you're in the city. Here (the bay) it was ju…

> Europe, where public transport is really practical, and cities are built for density

Hmm, European cities weren't built for commuting or public transport, almost all of them were laid out in the medieval era for walking. They then acquired one or more railway stations in the 19th century, creating commuter ring #1 and becoming an order of magnitude larger, and may have been partially redesigned for cars in the 20th century, creating commuter ring #2. A popular conversion was demolishing the medieval-era city walls and replacing them with a ring road. Some were entirely flattened during the war, although generally rebuilt on the same plan.

Now most American cities were by comparison entirely designed for commuting ... by car. The problem with car commuting is that once you're over capacity it slows down the experience for everyone. Public transport just jams you in physically, which was uncomfortable before the pandemic and now just a nightmare. An overcrowded train is not slower than an empty one. (Subway throughput can be embark/disembark limited, though)

The difference to me seems to be the walkable core. That in turn depends on norms about use of public space and perceptions of public safety.

I'm slightly biased, but I think the Edinburgh New Town design with a couple of modern adaptations could be the ideal even for the 21st century. Grid layout, four to six floors, high ceilings, decent size windows, wide streets, occasional shop on the corner or restaurant in the basement.

("New" here means 18th century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Town,_Edinburgh, not "new" as in postwar new town or medieval New Forest)

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#418

Post by pjmlp »

lmm wrote: post #358
ekianjo wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe only has good public transport in very few selected cities and you have to ignore strikes in France to pretend its working well and is reliable. The city with the best public transport in the world is probably Tokyo in terms of frequency and service reliability but it is constantly over capacity and things are not getting better. Crowded trains are hell. so no commute is certainly better pretty much just anywh…

> Europe only has good public transport in very few selected cities and you have to ignore strikes in France to pretend its working well and is reliable. It's working well and reliable enough. > The city with the best public transport in the world is probably Tokyo in terms of frequency and service reliability but it is constantly over capacity and things are not getting better. Things absolutely are getting better;…

> It's working well and reliable enough.

For whom?

Around this German state, a 30 minute drive turns into 2 hours commute into each direction if I go with public transport.

And this is one of the places with best connections.

Back home in Portugal, and many other southern countries, good luck with the bus connections that only come around once per hour, and better not skip the 2nd connecting bus/train.

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#419

Post by vbezhenar »

novaRom wrote: post #398
cerved wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30 minutes is still 5 hours a week

Times 50 weeks is 250 hours or literally 250/8= 31 active days wasted per year! A month of your life! It's fine if you walk you can think about anything, but if you drive a car you waste your time.

I can think about anything when I drive a car. Walking exercises your muscles, so it's preferable way of transportation because of health, but not because of thinking, IMO.

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#420

Post by sjg007 »

sbrother wrote: post #297
baby wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have this theory that one of the contributing factors to the "I don't want to go to the office" trend in the US (which I'm part of), is that cities are also not made for commuting. Coming from Europe, where public transport is really practical, and cities are built for density, your commute is often much less cumbersome AND you can enjoy some social life after work since you're in the city. Here (the bay) it was ju…

This hits home. I've been working remotely ever since we moved away from LA, largely because the traffic situation there was just unbearable. I don't even know how people with kids do it, since it takes hours to drive a few miles on each side of the work day, how do you drop off/pick up kids from daycare? I realize it's incredibly privileged position to be in but I actually don't know how we'd fit office-based work i…

In LA or California really you can put your kids in schools by your office.
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