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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

#111

Post by matwood »

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.

Every person I've known who worked at AMZN is just counting days until RSUs vest so they can quit. I'm sure there are good teams there, I just don't know anyone who has been on one.

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

#112

Post by ubermonkey »

otikik wrote: post #48
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…

Yes, they should have expected shitty behavior from Bezos and Co. My take is that this is a cover mass layoff. Amazon is enforcing this now in the hopes that people like these folks resign voluntarily. Another mass layoff would make their share price drop again.

>mass layoff

Yeah, could be. They know there will be attrition because of this; the labor market is still really favorable to workers, and there's plenty of remote work.

I remember years ago when Garmin relocated its dev team from San Jose to Overland Park, Kansas -- paid relo! -- and lost a ton of devs in the process. Not many folks in San Jose are going to jump at the chance to move to Kansas, so they mostly ended up hiring locals in Kansas.

And, shockingly!, the software quality in Garmin devices started plummeting soon after. Weird.

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

#113

Post by ProjectArcturis »

hotpotamus wrote: post #31
knorker wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

One of the problems I've always had with remote work is how do you justify large differences in pay between the US, Europe, and Asia if the location of an employee is not supposed to matter?

The C-Suite has been trying to outsource for 30+ years now. It doesn't work because the talent just isn't there.

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

#114

Post by mguerville »

Adraghast wrote: post #63
xwdv wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What if the dev in Boise and the dev in Seattle and the dev in Butte got together and agreed none of them would work for less than a certain salary?

Devs in Vancouver would benefit

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

#115

Post by ProjectArcturis »

dsm4ck wrote: 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.

Resignations are a feature, not a bug.

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

#116

Post by snapcaster »

belter wrote: post #16
eggy wrote: post #8

It is for a three-day return-to-office, not full time. Given the state of the economy, I'd be worried about just quitting. It seems during the pandemic tech workers went for broke and took car leases and moved away banking on being able to WFH for a long period of time. I wonder if Amazon made it clear WFH would not be permanent or an option. There are plenty of tech workers who would like to work at Amazon if a bunc…

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 ?? ;-)

Nah, they'll be fine

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

#117

Post by louistsi »

trpv wrote: post #43
unity1001 wrote: post #15

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?

Because no one tests anymore.

Source: Have COVID. Picked it up during a week of working in an Amazon office, funnily enough.

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

#118

Post by _hcuq »

mabbo wrote: post #64

I said this in another thread on this topic, but this was one of the key reasons I left Amazon in 2021. I knew this was coming. It was clear from tech survey (company-wide very long survey on all topics) that devs did not want to be in the office. Yet there was an email from leadership that said "We know you all can't wait to be back in the office". This bizarre dichotomy where we know they know we don't want this, b…

Good people always have other options. That's something employers often forget.

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

#119

Post by matwood »

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.

IT workers have been competing with the entire world since the late 90s.

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

#120

Post by ncsurfus »

tinyhouse wrote: post #73

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. T…

Nobody on my team will be in the same office. Almost all the folks I need to interact with on our current/future projects will be in different office.
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