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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

#251

Post by kqr »

somethoughts wrote: post #223
rover0 wrote: 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…

Classic bureaucrat response.

"People are getting annoyed by these implicit class differences in our organisation, what do we do?"

"Let's encode them explicitly in the contracts. Then we can blame it on the contracts and pretend it's out of our control!"

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

#252

Post by [deleted] »

adverbly wrote: post #37
LapsangGuzzler wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pure speculation, but my guess is that he’s invested in the commercial real estate market and hoping for a turnaround. I don’t think it’s some profound or insane ideology he has, I think he’s just trying to prop up CRE like he does with crypto. He’s famous for buying distressed commercial properties and for gaslighting, it just makes sense and the whole moral argument was a great way to get people talking about it.

I don't think its a CRE angle. He has multiple companies built around transportation. Remote work => less demand for transportation.

[deleted]

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

#253

Post by scott_w »

geodel wrote: post #216
klipklop wrote: post #199

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…

I mean unless you could somehow dictate the agenda on who can dislike whom, a lot of people can just dislike upper middle class, no?

Billionaires own the most widely circulated print media in the U.K. so it doesn’t seem impossible that this agenda is being influenced.

Especially when those exact papers spilt a lot of ink telling people to “get back to work” despite the fact those people were always working during the pandemic.

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

#254

Post by xwowsersx »

If my company's office were close, I would return to it without much of a fight. But my roundtrip commute is over three hours. That changes my entire day/life. That's a lot of time and energy spent and the benefit isn't clear to me, at least not the way the office is currently structured or laid out. Our office is an open office plan and engineers are near sales and others whose job is to chat on the phone all day, making it nearly impossible to get any deep work done. The reality is that on the rare occasion that I do go to the office, no real work gets done. Constant interruptions, I maybe get 30 minutes of uninterrupted, heads down work done. There is so much socializing and roaming around and eating that goes on at the office. When I'm home, I'm just working all day. Being in the office is kind of cushy, actually. But a) I'd rather do my best work and b) I'm willing to work harder at home if it means I can avoid spending a large chunk of my day commuting. I think companies really need to make the office a place you _want_ to come to. Give me a space that's conducive to work. Make the office feel more inviting than home. Simply saying "you all need to be in the office" just isn't going to cut it. I know I've conveyed a few unrelated ideas here, but that's my ramble. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk :P

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

#255

Post by givemeethekeys »

shmatt wrote: post #133

So they are fine with worst in class vesting schedule, pressure cooker, stack ranking, PIP good engineers, disconnected middle managers culture. As long as they can do it from home

Hey, at least being able to work without having someone physically breathe down your shoulder makes everything else more bearable.

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

#256

Post by xwowsersx »

neom wrote: 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…

That was a real head scratcher for me too. I really think it was some kind of a virtue signal. He framed it in a way that evokes a kind of righteous indignation from people...like calling out the privilege of people who work from home when there are nurses who have no choice but to be at their workplace. I too tried to see the argument, but I just don't get it. I _can_ work from home and some people can't...therefore I ought to travel to some arbitrary place...for what exactly? As a show of solidarity with people who don't have a choice? I just don't get it...

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

#257

Post by mc32 »

hn_version_0023 wrote: post #217
klipklop wrote: post #199

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.

I don’t have a problem with the term Human Resources. It’s not trying to hide anything, it’s stating the obvious utility. It’s not trying to do anything extra or communicate something it’s not.

Worse would be something like Vanguard of the Revolution or Organization for the Workers, etc.

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

#258

Post by refurb »

great_psy wrote: post #35
nancyhn wrote: post #4

How do the Amazon warehouse workers feel about that? I could guess, but I don't know for sure.

You’re looking at it in a backwards way. I want to work from home. And while I understand warehouse workers cannot wfh, I think they should get paid regular wage for their commute time. Don’t go back in time.

Paying for commute time is ridiculous.

Ok, my job is in Seattle? I live in San Francisco and commute 30 hours a week. Pay me.

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

#259

Post by kqr »

zarzavat wrote: post #207
ethbr0 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Information workers and factory workers are different. Should they be, in terms of work-life balance?

Yes. The alternative is absurd. Should it be mandatory for everybody to work shifts just because some people have to work shifts? I’ve never met a factory worker who resents the existence of cushy WFH jobs. On the contrary, many aspire to have such a job.

There are also many people in non-desk jobs who could never imagine doing one. The recent example I have in mind are the wildland firefighters described by Desmond. It's hard, grueling, dirty, long work, but for many of them, it beats sitting still stuck at home attempting to look busy for some guy in a suit.

Just because our kind of people thinks of it as the dream job does not mean every type of person shares that ideal!

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

#260

Post by scott_w »

somethoughts wrote: post #175
neom wrote: 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…

My two cents on this is that he is saying "working from home is morally wrong" - for his companies ... but he left out the for his companies part. He owns a car company and a space ship company - both of which have assembly lines with tons of workers. A majority of his employees will need to be working in a factory or with physical equipment/prototypes. Therefore they must be at the office or at the plant. In that en…

But those aren’t moral issues, they’re productivity issues. My younger brother used to do his computer job from the office because it was attached to the factory. It meant he could talk directly with the people manufacturing the steel frames he specified in the building dressing to get the right thing built quickly. This was a USP of the company vs other design shops.

This could be true for Tesla, there’s no morality to this. The fact Musk brings morality in suggests he’s talking out his arse.

Twitter is a different company. If he doesn’t bring morality into it, he doesn’t have to be a hypocrite. He could easily say “working on site is necessary for Tesla, not for Twitter.” Being dogmatic is not good business.

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