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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

#71

Post by cmrdporcupine »

version_five wrote: post #3
theodpHN wrote: post #2

Amazon Wants 10,000+ Employee Dogs Back in Office, Facilitating Collaboration https://slashdot.org/submission/17188709/amazon-wants-10000-...

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

Google had a "bring your dog to work" option and I saw maybe 3 people use it at my site the entire time I was there (10 years). It's just a silly thing, because dogs (well, my dogs at least) require more interaction and free movement than they can get at an office. And if you bring your dog, now you can't go to the cafeteria for lunch, etc. and have to find someone to attend to them when you go to the bathroom or whatever.

I did it once because my wife and kids were away and I felt bad for my dog alone by herself at home. Neither of us enjoyed it.

I get why employers offer it -- a dog alone for hours by itself sucks. But they'd probably be better off just giving employees discounts on local "Doggy daycare" places.

Anyways now I have two border collies lying on the bed in my (home) office behind me staring at me wondering why I'm not doing something more interesting than shitposting on HN.

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

#72

Post by rrdharan »

ppg677 wrote: post #47
ddalex wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because salary is not determined by how much profit you make but by the demand of your labour in the market.

Newsflash-- the "market" is becoming less constrained by geography.

Why would you think that puts upward rather than downward pressure on wages?

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

#73

Post by tinyhouse »

I agree with Amazon and most employees should be happy about it. Here's why.

1. Any org at Amazon is very big. Without seeing others in the office it's extremely difficult to understand what other groups are doing if everyone is fully remote. It doesn't matter if your immediate coworkers are distributed. Remote work is great for much smaller companies where it's easy for them to prevent silos within the company.

2. Three times a week means you still have the flexibility during the week. Many of these people don't realize that fully remote means they can be easily replaced. The in-person requirement gives them some job stability if they are in a region with good opportunities. I see it with startups, so many of them look for cheap engineers elsewhere. Many hire contractors in Europe. If you bring unique skills you'd be fine. But most don't add more value than an engineer in Ukraine with decent English besides a better time zone. Do you think you'll get paid $200K more just because you're in the same time zone? Hell no.

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

#74

Post by belval »

mamonster wrote: post #13

> "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…

> In October, Jassy said Amazon would leave it up to individual managers to decide how often workers would be required to come into the office, which marked a sharp reversal from its earlier goal of returning to an “office-centric culture.” [1]

Risk management perhaps, but if your leaderships says it will be up to your manager and your entire org up to L8 (base SDE is L4) is working remotely then it seems like a reasonable assumption.

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/07/andy-jassy-says-he-wont-forc...

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

#75

Post by cainxinth »

gitfan86 wrote: 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.

I’ll never forget the article (WashPo, I think) about their corp culture from a few years back that said seeing someone crying at their desk was normal, expected, and unremarked upon.

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

#76

Post by nemo44x »

piva00 wrote: post #25
knorker wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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?

Because it would be ridiculous to not pay market rates. The market rate for a dev in Nebraska is different than in SV. So what changes is you’re a company that overpays.

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

#77

Post by llampx »

bko wrote: post #51
flerchin wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We already know we are competing with workers from all over the world. Go to Bengaluru, India or other IT-centric cities and marvel at how many silicon valley names you see on the skyscrapers, each of which has thousands of workers. This has been the paradigm since at least the early 00s. Remote-first may have accelerated it but it didn't bring it about.

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

#78

Post by mjr00 »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #45
knorker wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That is the opening question leading to "why hire anyone in USA or Western Europe when Asia exists?"

> That is the opening question leading to "why hire anyone in USA or Western Europe when Asia exists?"

Because good software engineering is 20% good programming and 80% good communication.

We, as an industry, already tried the offshoring strategy in the mid-2000s and quickly realized the cost savings of salaries were offset by the communication barriers. At least for projects where the quality of the output actually matters. You still see a ton of offshoring for projects where the result doesn't matter so much, like government IT contracts.

If Amazon/Google/etc had any data supporting that you could successfully get devs in Bangalore to code stuff up at $2/hour, they'd be doing it.

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

#79

Post by nemo44x »

lettergram wrote: post #38
piva00 wrote: 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?

Exactly, I hate the policy of paying based on region (I won’t work for those companies) You’re providing X value, and the company needs to make >X, often by some multiple mX profit so to speak. My costs are my business, and I shouldn’t be punished for making different life choices. If remote employees tend to produce a lower multiple, that’s fine. Just provide a salary at the reduced rate. Should be the same everywhe…

It’s about market prices. If you can find someone to overpay market rates to you then more power to you. But I know of 0 companies that do. I’ve worked for remote first companies that specifically didn’t hire in expensive areas so they could find more affordable talent. This is how markets work.

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

#80

Post by belter »

dEnigma wrote: post #33
belter wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last week I had to deliver an onsite at a company who insisted on doing at their location. You see the thing is...I have been curing a strong feverish cold, but was good enough to go. We were all 15 on a tiny cozy meeting room for 3 days. I am fairly certain half of this team will cook my virus and will feel miserable and might stay in bed next week...Am I guilty ?? ;-)

Of course you are guilty of putting others at risk of catching your virus, and you seem perfectly aware. Did you tell them that you were possibly infectious? If this is some kind of joke I don't understand it.

Now you are on to something. Is company management guilty when forces the employees onsite, knowing many could be infectious but not know about it yet?
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