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Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

seattletimes.com

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Re: Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

#241

Post by true_religion »

caskstrength wrote: post #222
ajkjk wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's so annoying that the vocal commenters on here assume that every engineer agrees with them that working from home is preferable to having an office. Nothing against other people working from home but please keep in mind that people's can differ greatly from your own.

> Nothing against other people working from home but please keep in mind that people's can differ greatly from your own. It is clear who is stopping them from working from home, but who is stopping you from going to the office?

People want to work in the office with other people. If they go and end up working alone because their team is remote, then there is no point.

This happened to me once. The team was in NYC, and I wasn’t so I was coming to the office uselessly. I do like coming into the office since it’s easier to turn onto and way from work with travel as a context switch but that aspect made it worthless for anything else.

Re: Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

#242

Post by idlewords »

thisarticle wrote: post #216
sleepybrett wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the number is a large enough percentage they couldn't do a lockout. While it may be an industry-wide supply side problem for employees you can't just fire a huge portion of the staff and hire new people and expect things to just keep on truckin', losing that much institutional knowledge would be suicide.

Tell that to Twitter.

Basecamp might be a more salient example.

Re: Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

#243

Post by thebytefairy »

Uehreka wrote: post #31
coin wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting FAANG salary isn’t enough?

Can people on this site please stop acting like everyone in tech (or “everyone in tech who matters”) is working for FAANG and getting a FAANG salary? Believe it or not there exist software developers who make less than $100k.

Which are the companies that have generated billions for VCs that don't pay higher end salaries? I agree many startups pay less, but I wouldn't say those have 'made it'.

Re: Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

#244

Post by idlewords »

throwawayidle wrote: post #226
idlewords wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a multi-year effort beginning with Trump's election to organize tech workers, and one of the key arguments was that there was a short window of opportunity in which to act, before some combination of automation and changes to the workforce removed the unique leverage tech workers enjoyed. The message was "now is the right time" for maybe three years, and now that ship has sailed. All we're left with is easy…

Speaking as somebody who was there when Tech Solidarity came through town after the Trump election, I saw you give a presentation that focused more on collecting Democratic party donations and fighting Trump than on any actual labor organization. You had people drive in hours from out of town (this was deep purple Texas, Houston), and you wasted their time rattling a can for a party that sucks. Worse, you never came…

I'm sorry that event was a disappointment. I had a terrific speaker lined up who called to cancel as I was walking to the venue. She was an experienced labor organizer and I would have loved to hear what she had to say. But like you, it turned out I came a long way for nothing.

Re: Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

#245

Post by tjr225 »

cvoss wrote: post #16
tjr225 wrote: post #2

If these workers could get remote jobs, they would- but they can’t. Amazon knows this, and probably can’t wait for them to quit. For now all they can do is complain about having to go to an office to be a spoiled, overpaid tech worker. If I had that job I would be keeping my mouth shut and enjoying the paycheck, but to each their own I suppose.

Believe it or not, there are other motivating factors for doing good work than money. Just because I'm fairly compensated doesn't mean I'm going to tolerate major inconveniences that impede my ability to work efficiently, productively, and with a positive attitude. Part of why I want to do my job well is because I find the work itself gratifying. Once that motivating factor vanishes, I'm going to complain or look els…

[dead]

Re: Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

#246

Post by xtracto »

true_religion wrote: post #241
caskstrength wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nothing against other people working from home but please keep in mind that people's can differ greatly from your own. It is clear who is stopping them from working from home, but who is stopping you from going to the office?

People want to work in the office with other people. If they go and end up working alone because their team is remote, then there is no point. This happened to me once. The team was in NYC, and I wasn’t so I was coming to the office uselessly. I do like coming into the office since it’s easier to turn onto and way from work with travel as a context switch but that aspect made it worthless for anything else.

So people who want to work in the office are entitled to keep their coworkers who dont want to be stuck there?

Re: Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

#247

Post by acheron »

fzeroracer wrote: post #203
goostavos wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think houses are for the duel FAANG income, no kids crowd. Even on a senior FAANG salary, there's no knob I can turn on the calculator that ends up making sense for me to buy at these interest rates (in a part of town that doesn't leave me with a >1hr commute). I remain a renter. Dump it all into stocks and hope for the best!

That's basically me; I keep a decent chunk in savings in case of emergency / downturn and then the rest in stocks / retirement etc. I hate having to invest in the stock market because most of it is gambling and speculation, but at least I can dump it in an index fund and it'll be fairly safe. There's a reason why a significant number of millennials and below are cheering on for a housing bust and it's because it's po…

My parents just sold their fairly nice large house for something like $170k. Of course it's not in a cool city. Living in a high cost of living area with expensive houses is voluntary consumption. If that's what you voluntarily want to spend your money on then fine, but you get just as much sympathy as the people complaining about how expensive brand new BMWs are.

Re: Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

#248

Post by rlabrecque »

tjpnz wrote: post #24
neilv wrote: post #4

> “There’s a feeling of the culture and the values that are being told are important for us to bring to the table are not being mirrored by the top executives,” the worker said. “They do not model with their behavior what we are told to do with our roles.” Are they referring to Amazon's Leadership Principles, or something else? https://www.amazon.jobs/content/en/our-workplace/leadership-...

I read that to suggest the execs aren't coming to the office themselves.

I don't work at Amazon, but my C-suite and leadership team is in the office and that really makes a HUGE difference in going back.

Both by them leading by example and getting to have the face to face time with them.

Re: Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

#249

Post by mathattack »

Seems like walking out when the company is doing layoffs is doing their own dirty work for them, no?

My sense is if they think the work can be done remotely, it will be done in a low cost location. It’s too easy to say “You’re not here, you’re fired. Let’s move it to Iowa/Liverpool/India.”

Re: Seattle Amazon workers plan walkout over return to office, layoffs

#250

Post by red-iron-pine »

chadcmulligan wrote: post #177
ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If these middle managers who want "stacks of people to organise and watch over" had any real power, they would have flexed their muscles to prevent layoffs in the first place. When it comes time to trim the fat, executive management isn't going to take any backtalk from mere middle managers trying to build empires.

Isn't it all the way up though? The VP's don't want to lose head count either, thats how they measure their empire.

their empire is measured in budgets and bonuses; headcount is often tangential to that
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