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Amazon employees express dismay, anger about sudden return-to-office policy

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Re: Amazon employees express dismay, anger about sudden return-to-office policy

#51
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"what do you mean i can't collect silicon valley salary while working from Montana?"

Why would that be unreasonable when making Silicon Valley profits for my employer?

Wouldn't it be just as likely to pay Montana salaries to people even if they choose to live in Silicon Valley? A lot of people arguing for ability to work from anywhere don't realize they are now essentially competing with the entire world, or at least the entire population of engineers in their timezone.

Re: Amazon employees express dismay, anger about sudden return-to-office policy

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would quit immediately it I had to go to an office with a bunch of dogs in it. It's weird to me that in all the performative "inclusion" that companies get up to, they think it's ok to create a policy that will make a non-negligible portion of workers extremely uncomfortable. Their choice, personally a dog-friendly workplace is a complete nonstarter for me

I'm very much a cat person and uncomfortable around most dogs. That said, I collaborate often with non-sighted co-workers, some of which have service dogs, which are invariably well behaved, and in the office for a good reason.

big difference between a service dog and a family dog. They might as well let everyone take their young children to work.

Re: Amazon employees express dismay, anger about sudden return-to-office policy

#53
post #30
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the company was willing to pay SV salaries to hire someone what does it change for the company if the worker is not in SV, specifically?

That it can hire the same guy for less in Nebraska.

This sounds like circular reasoning to me. “You can’t collect an SV-level salary working remotely from the Bay because the company could just hire someone from Nebraska, and the company won’t pay him an SV-level salary because he’s not located in the Bay.”

Re: Amazon employees express dismay, anger about sudden return-to-office policy

#54
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What else is there to takeaway? They knew they weren’t working for a remote-first company. They knew what their contract said. They played a dangerous game and now they’re finally burned. You cannot collect an Amazon salary living out in Idaho or Nebraska.

Why not?

Capitalism?

Re: Amazon employees express dismay, anger about sudden return-to-office policy

#55
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What else is there to takeaway? They knew they weren’t working for a remote-first company. They knew what their contract said. They played a dangerous game and now they’re finally burned. You cannot collect an Amazon salary living out in Idaho or Nebraska.

Why not?

Because developers in those regions can tolerate less salary due to their lower expenses, as a competitive advantage.

Re: Amazon employees express dismay, anger about sudden return-to-office policy

#56
post #9

Looks like Management has decided that immediate 5 day RTO will cause too many resignations all at once. Start with 3 days, then 6 months later 4 days, and finally full time RTO will spread the resignations out and reduce business disruption.

With over 400k tech layoffs in the last 1 year, I wouldn't be worried about resigning employees of I were a big corp.

Re: Amazon employees express dismay, anger about sudden return-to-office policy

#57
post #43

Dumb. Covid is endemic now and it makes everything more difficult for everyone. Talking, thinking, concentrating are the first things to get hit by any mild covid infection. Hauling people's asses to office even one single day a week will skyrocket infection rates and hurt productivity in a way nothing else can.

Would like to see some data on this. I don’t know of anyone who’s gotten Covid since… summer or so?

I got Covid for the first time last month. Anecdotally I know at least a dozen more who also got it for the first time this past December/January.

Re: Amazon employees express dismay, anger about sudden return-to-office policy

#58
post #5

No one should be surprised by this. I interviewed at AMZN and the online quiz was basically "Which delivery driver would you fire in this scenario" and the 1-on-1 interviews were with people who when I asked what you like about AMZN replied "the stock price". If you take a job at AMZN you are treated like a cog in the machine. And that is fine if that is what you want.

Not that I am surprised by this event, in fact I remember reading that the original RTO was about December.

Regardless, I don't think that such generalizations are particularly useful. I have been given multiple different descriptions of what it's like to work there, wlb and so on, and it seems to depend entirely on the org.

Re: Amazon employees express dismay, anger about sudden return-to-office policy

#59
post #21

> "Staffers who posted in the Slack channel said they were caught off guard by the announcement. Many expressed frustration that they’d have to find arrangements for child care, caregivers for aging parents, or potentially move in order to be within commuting distance of the office. One worker said they’d recently leased a car with an annual limit of 16,000 miles assuming remote work was still an option; if they’re r…

"what do you mean i can't collect silicon valley salary while working from Montana?"

Should we pay less to people without children or dependent family members, given that their cost of life is smaller? What about paying less to non-smokers, since their healthcare needs will be smaller?

Re: Amazon employees express dismay, anger about sudden return-to-office policy

#60

> "Staffers who posted in the Slack channel said they were caught off guard by the announcement. Many expressed frustration that they’d have to find arrangements for child care, caregivers for aging parents, or potentially move in order to be within commuting distance of the office. One worker said they’d recently leased a car with an annual limit of 16,000 miles assuming remote work was still an option; if they’re r…

You really have to go out of your way to lease at 16k - they default to 12 and they'll really push you for 10 - not to mention that 15 is the default so you have to ask them to do pricing specifically for that number.

I commuted 5 days/week with a 12k/yr lease and still had plenty of miles left over. This person will definitely need to move closer to get rid of the lease.

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