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Amazon corporate workers plan walkout next week over return-to-office policies

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Re: Amazon corporate workers plan walkout next week over return-to-office policies

#231
post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By adding "morally" it enforces questioning one's own principles in support of the thing. Without "morally" it's dismissable nonsense (ie. bullshit). With "morally" it requires pulling at strands that make up our world-view. It's not necessarily a bad thing to question one's world-view on occasion, but causing that level of fundamental questioning, for a comment that would otherwise be easily dismissable, is gaslight…

Personally I think the repeated part of the gaslighting definition is really important (and the implication that the repetition is conducted abusively). Otherwise you'd argue that any dialog that causes one to question one's world-view is gaslighting, and that's simply not true under the colloquial use of the term. If I make a statement that killing is not justifiable even in self defense, and that causes you, who be…

Preemptive corollary: to repeatedly espouse one's viewpoint, even if it pertains to the mental health of a class or group of people, is also not to gaslight, though that is more recently how the term has been used and how we bridge from a serious topic to a rhetorical device used as a Kafka trap. Gaslighting is targeted at an individual, with the specific goal of essentially brainwash. It's not espousing a political belief that may negatively impact a group of people, even if the result would be oppression of the faction's liberty. That's just politics, and politics in the west is all about choosing which factions to oppress and at what cost to the majority.

For example, repeatedly arguing that you think the idea of unchecked ownership of assault weapons is a stretch too liberal of an interpretation of the 2nd amendment, and that it's crazy to think it's okay for anybody to own one without training, and that you think it'd be a good idea to limit gun ownership and require mental health checks and registered firearms lists of trained individuals, and even that you think it's immoral to allow such easy access to acquire devices that make killing trivial, because it puts too much responsibility in the hands of civilian organizations to protect people from maniacs, which they clearly can't do at scale, and even to go so far as to argue they're insane to think otherwise, is not an instance of gaslighting gun owners or rights advocates into thinking their worldview is broken and in need of an update. But by the casual interpretation, it is, since you're arguing to oppress the liberty of some group of people on practical and/or moral (designation doesn't matter, anything that causes them to question their worldview) grounds.

Re: Amazon corporate workers plan walkout next week over return-to-office policies

#232
post #7

The corporate workers were okay with hearing about the warehouse workers peeing in bottles because they were getting their fat paychecks on time. Remember, capitalists will come for you no matter how comfortable you feel.

How exactly do you propose a mid-level software engineer affect the working conditions in a warehouse?

Don't be a cog in the machine of an unethical company? Everybody's trying to act like it's soooo difficult, and every FAANG SWE is like some Obama-platitude "single working mother with 3 kids working 2 jobs"

Re: Amazon corporate workers plan walkout next week over return-to-office policies

#233
I hope these return to work policies get outdated. Remote work is the single greatest thing about high speed communication in my opinion. A lot of tech advancement related to computers has proven to be underwhelming. We have fancy 3D games and social media and search engines. None of these things are better than a climbing rope, mountain bike, or good library in my experience.

Re: Amazon corporate workers plan walkout next week over return-to-office policies

#234

The amount of class warfare here is hilarious. Will you really parrot elite coined phrases like “laptop class?” What even is the laptop class? It’s a meaningless term created so it’s easier to dehumanize a group of people that have a massive salary range. There are WFH making $50k. They are not all vest and resters. Do we really need to make the conversation be about the upper middle class being “lazy” and completely…

> Will you really parrot elite coined phrases like “laptop class?” Sometimes, I think about the phrase "human resource" and how it's a nice linguistic nod toward "natural resources", which obviously are meant to be exploited. It makes it easier when you think about laying off thousands of people, or making thousands commute needlessly simply to boost someone's ego.

"Exploit" and "use" have multiple meanings, some positive and some negative.

It's the words people hear based on their own particular biases determine if those words associate with anything particularly positive, neutral, or negative.

The problem with creating abstract business jingo is it's typically viewed as an artificial "thieves' cant" between managers. A sublanguage meant to obscure and hide meaning.

Re: Amazon corporate workers plan walkout next week over return-to-office policies

#235
post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why stop here? Some workers have shifts, some have to work outside in the rain. It's only fair that everyone works outside in the rain in shifts?

I would say usually this is deftly handled at other tech companies (MSFT, AAPL, Netflix, Facebook, Google) by outsourcing all meal preparation, cleaning services, security, low level IT, contract manufacturing to other companies. That way there is not a separate class within the same company. This works most of the time to not create a press $*$!storm. The challenge for Elon (and Bezos/Jassy) is that his two of his c…

The jobmarket is "unfair", we all have different conditions and earn a different wages. Suddenly when Musk hates WFH he cares about fairness?

Re: Amazon corporate workers plan walkout next week over return-to-office policies

#236
post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why stop here? Some workers have shifts, some have to work outside in the rain. It's only fair that everyone works outside in the rain in shifts?

I would say usually this is deftly handled at other tech companies (MSFT, AAPL, Netflix, Facebook, Google) by outsourcing all meal preparation, cleaning services, security, low level IT, contract manufacturing to other companies. That way there is not a separate class within the same company. This works most of the time to not create a press $*$!storm. The challenge for Elon (and Bezos/Jassy) is that his two of his c…

Contractors are treated pretty poorly at those companies

Re: Amazon corporate workers plan walkout next week over return-to-office policies

#237
post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say usually this is deftly handled at other tech companies (MSFT, AAPL, Netflix, Facebook, Google) by outsourcing all meal preparation, cleaning services, security, low level IT, contract manufacturing to other companies. That way there is not a separate class within the same company. This works most of the time to not create a press $*$!storm. The challenge for Elon (and Bezos/Jassy) is that his two of his c…

The jobmarket is "unfair", we all have different conditions and earn a different wages. Suddenly when Musk hates WFH he cares about fairness?

I think its important to realize that Elon's smart enough to realize that part of his job is performative - for his primary investors/faithful (i.e. Cathie Wood, Tesla Daily, Hyperchange, Ross Gerber).

They want Tesla to maintain that original "Elon sleeping under desks", all hands on deck, Tesla hunger of yore. To them - they probably were concerned about the design teams getting to soft from WFH and getting uppity.

Re: Amazon corporate workers plan walkout next week over return-to-office policies

#238
post #81

During the pandemic I had an initial meeting with a hiring manager at Amazon that didn’t care that I was multiple time zones away from her office. Even though the official policy was actually return to office when pandemic conditions change. Luckily I didn’t want to go through their interview process- I’m guessing I would have gotten axed in the layoffs for being newer on the team and not being able to come to the of…

I have a friend who was hired in 2019, moved to a city with Amazon office and then moved back in 2021 while keeping his job. He still works at Amazon and is fully remote indefinitely. From what he had told me, this is only impacting those who work within commuting distance of an Amazon office. Those who were hired as remote employees or relocated during pandemic years were pretty much grandfathered into fully remote…

I entertained a position at Amazon (that I ultimately didn’t take) that would have been remote. I’m sure that would have changed as I live about half an hour by bike from the nearest office.

Re: Amazon corporate workers plan walkout next week over return-to-office policies

#239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Farhad Manjoo wrote: "Office Workers Don’t Hate the Office. They Hate the Commute." That's true for a decent number of people...but definitely not all. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/19/opinion/elon-musk-remote-... And another thing -- the "morally wrong" is remarkably selective. Musk is clearly saying that it's "morally wrong" for white collar workers to be remote while insisting that blue collar workers be fully p…

Couple of interesting implications: 1. Fewer people commuting would make commuting faster / more bearable 2. Employee's who's work requires physical presence at a specific place could / should demand higher pay because of the new convenience differential (#2 is fraught with assumptions and state / country based situational sensitivities)

Furthermore, if fewer people are commuting then employees whose work requires physical presence will have shorter commute times, and better parking spots.

Re: Amazon corporate workers plan walkout next week over return-to-office policies

#240
post #13

I still think out of all the...unique... things Elon has said... work from home is morally wrong has to take the cake. I try to spend time looking at things as radically as I can. I think it's helpful to accept folks views as widely as possible, but I'm still trying to wrap my head around work from home being morally wrong. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5OHFt8QyiU I was on a bicycle ride listening to this intervie…

Musk presenting wfh as a moral argument frustrates me, and comparing office workers with manual workers strikes me a false dichotomy.

Everyone is different, and flexibility should be a recognition of that.

If anything the arbitrary denial of flexibility is much more of a moral argument.

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