Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#461

Post by i_am_proteus » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 11:36 AM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #417

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…

> 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 20t…

>An overcrowded train is not slower than an empty one.

I have taken the "California Train" which runs from San Francisco to San Jose, and advertises its capacity to carry bicyclists. Numerous times, however, bicyclists were denied boarding (each had paid for his ticket) because the carriages had become overcrowded, with the subsequent train arriving in forty-five minutes' time.

This experience made me understand why many commuters in that region embrace the automobile in spite of its many drawbacks.

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#462

Post by i_am_proteus » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 11:45 AM UTC

wiether wrote: post #431

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…

> you have to ignore strikes in France to pretend its working well and is reliable This is the same argument has "what about the rain ?" for people who don't want to commute by bicycle. Yes, it happens. But it's only a few days a year. Contrary to traffic. So you can adapt. Human is supposed to be great at adaptation. And the rest of the year it just works.

To imply that in some parts of the world (desert climate, reliable public transit service), the disruption is infrequent and manageable, and in others (wet and cold climates, unreliable public transit service) the disruption is significant enough to render the bicycle or the public transit economically non-viable for some users.

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#463

Post by barnacled » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 11:48 AM UTC

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…

As somebody who works in London, you are right that infra is much better here than at least some places in the US (was shocked when I visited Austin) but the commute is brutal, overcrowded and often unreliable. For example the train line I used to rely on would fail 1-2 times a weeks such that I has to find another way into the office.

Unless you're rich you will be living 40 mins - 1hr out, I am more like 1hr20 so I can own a home that isn't tiny or in a high crime area.

The commute costs, if I pay a year in advance, ~£5k/yr, set to go up by 10-15% next yr.

Generally speaking, and especially taking into account the climate crisis, it really doesn't make much sense to do all this even when there is more infra.

It is time for more companies to accept that WFH is largely a win/win.

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#464

Post by JKCalhoun » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 11:54 AM UTC

smashem wrote: post #206

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.…

Funny, I left Amazon two weeks ago because WFH burned me out. I'm currently taking a sabbatical. * Zoom fatigue is real. * I find it much harder to collaborate with peers. * I feel like less of a part of the company. Not being in the office, so I'm no longer seeing that busy bee activity on the floors, not able to mingle with other people from other teams, not seeing new faces, no team activities, and no desk with my…

I'm with you. But you missed the social interaction part. I actually like my coworkers as people and enjoy(ed) hallway chit-chat.

Some members of the team, for example a woman that does documentation, I see almost not at all any longer because she's not one of the WebEx invites. But she was always just down the hall in the office.

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#465

Post by JKCalhoun » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 11:57 AM UTC

randycupertino wrote: post #265

smashem wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny, I left Amazon two weeks ago because WFH burned me out. I'm currently taking a sabbatical. * Zoom fatigue is real. * I find it much harder to collaborate with peers. * I feel like less of a part of the company. Not being in the office, so I'm no longer seeing that busy bee activity on the floors, not able to mingle with other people from other teams, not seeing new faces, no team activities, and no desk with my…

> * Zoom fatigue is real. The issue I had is once we started going back to the office 2x a week, all my meetings were STILL on zoom all day, I just took them from my cube with my mask on. It was a total bummer!

Been going back to the office one day a week for a a few months now. People are okay with dropping the masks when not in the main flow of traffic (hallways).

One on ones with the boss are much nicer when we can go outside for a stroll....

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#466

Post by dudul » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 11:57 AM UTC

smashem wrote: post #206

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.…

Funny, I left Amazon two weeks ago because WFH burned me out. I'm currently taking a sabbatical. * Zoom fatigue is real. * I find it much harder to collaborate with peers. * I feel like less of a part of the company. Not being in the office, so I'm no longer seeing that busy bee activity on the floors, not able to mingle with other people from other teams, not seeing new faces, no team activities, and no desk with my…

> I find it even more Groundhog Day. To wake up from bed, walk a few steps to my desk, and start plugging away. Yeah, commuting can suck, but at least there's more stimulation and "life" to it.

How about replacing your commuting by a morning walk outside?

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#467

Post by jimmaswell » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 11:59 AM UTC

vladvasiliu wrote: post #361

Talanes wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm actually wondering what you consider not a long commute if 30 minutes hits the threshold. I've known plenty of people who have longer commutes driving directly from home to work.

It's not only a question of time, but also of how that time is spent. For example, I would much rather prefer to walk 30-40 minutes instead of taking a crowded, smelly metro for 20. I actually used to regularly walk 50 minutes to get home in the evening because I didn't want to deal with the transit. There's also the fact that this is the time it takes when everything works well. Again, I take an automated line, whic…

That's interesting, I'd generally much rather drive an hour than walk 20-30 minutes. I lived on a college campus for a while where you could walk to everything and I like it much more now driving everywhere.

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#468

Post by sbarre » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 11:59 AM UTC

corobo wrote: post #429

smashem wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny, I left Amazon two weeks ago because WFH burned me out. I'm currently taking a sabbatical. * Zoom fatigue is real. * I find it much harder to collaborate with peers. * I feel like less of a part of the company. Not being in the office, so I'm no longer seeing that busy bee activity on the floors, not able to mingle with other people from other teams, not seeing new faces, no team activities, and no desk with my…

> To wake up from bed, walk a few steps to my desk, and start plugging away. Yeah, commuting can suck, but at least there's more stimulation and "life" to it. You're allowed outside for non-work reasons too though haha. I've incorporated an hour of just wandering around into my day and it's the best work situation I've ever had

This was key for me as well. Just leave the house with my headphones and some podcasts or music, and wander around for about an hour, rain or shine.

I try to do it every day.

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#469

Post by chrisseaton » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 12:07 PM UTC

jimmaswell wrote: post #467

vladvasiliu wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not only a question of time, but also of how that time is spent. For example, I would much rather prefer to walk 30-40 minutes instead of taking a crowded, smelly metro for 20. I actually used to regularly walk 50 minutes to get home in the evening because I didn't want to deal with the transit. There's also the fact that this is the time it takes when everything works well. Again, I take an automated line, whic…

That's interesting, I'd generally much rather drive an hour than walk 20-30 minutes. I lived on a college campus for a while where you could walk to everything and I like it much more now driving everywhere.

> I'd generally much rather drive an hour than walk 20-30 minutes

Why?!

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#470

Post by Consultant32452 » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 12:10 PM UTC

tdeck wrote: post #307

belval wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, the Amazon interview experience is modelled that way for fairness. We are pretty much told that we can't deviate too much from the script because by doing so we might advantage a candidate over another. There are exception with more senior employees that tend to disregard that advice but overall it's pretty well followed. Sorry about your bad experience though.

One option might be to add this explanation to the script so the candidate understands why the process seems so alienating.

People really undervalue self-narration. It works so well in many areas of life. I narrate with my kids, "I'm parenting you this way to get X outcome." Here's my canned start to every interview:

"This interview has a simple three step format. There's no gotchas or narrow trivia here. I'll start by asking you technical questions about the work you say you did until I've gotten the information I need about that. Then there will be a few social questions. Lastly, I'll open it up for you to ask me anything you want about working here."

Doing this seems to help the people with social anxiety and/or autism. Setting specific concrete expectations right up front and then sticking to it really comforts people.