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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

#341

Post by pnt12 »

xwowsersx wrote: post #254

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, m…

I just take my rare (and voluntary) office days as socialization days: more talking, longer lunch hours, longer breaks.

Its fine once in a while but I don't wanna get back to WFO again.

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

#342

Post by kcplate »

pnt12 wrote: post #339
kcplate wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely seems like it’s a strange hill that people are willing to die on these days. I’m pragmatic. I’d rather have a job than look for one. So if my company decides to RTO, I am going to RTO.

For some, it's a pay cut, in money and free time. It's a valid reason they'd rather change job.

I have zero problem with that. If your current gig is not a good fit for any reason, change it. I guess I mean it’s strange to me how some folks feel entitlement enough to think that their individual preference should be important enough to demand their employers accommodate them. i.e. they shouldn’t have to find another job.

It’s simply not the same thing as safe working conditions, ADA accommodations, etc… it’s a preference…and one mostly born out of the pandemic.

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

#343

Post by danaris »

kcplate wrote: post #333
danaris wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this is not a universal thing. I have absolutely no problem shooting the shit over text, voice, or video chat, and since I went mostly-remote, I have had a number of highly productive conversations over Zoom that looked a lot like a typical casual interaction resulting in good brainstorming. In fact, some of those times, it was even easier to communicate what we needed because one or another of us could share our…

The problem with that argument is that WFH has a short history with a unmeasurable productivity benefit to the organization vs a long history with in office work productivity measurements. The other problem is that people advocating WFH over RTO tend to focus on the individual benefit to them rather than the holistic benefit to the organization.

The benefit is only unmeasurable if you've been doing no data collection over the past 3 years.

And frankly, there's been way too much prioritization of "benefit to the organization" across all sectors these past few decades, very much at the expense of the individuals who do the actual work.

The really dumb thing is there's also a lot of evidence that doing things that make individuals happier, healthier, and more comfortable is a net benefit to the organization. This leaves the logical conclusion, given the fact that we still do all these things that hurt regular people, being either that a) the people making the decisions actively want to hurt us, or b) they are doing these things to benefit themselves over the organization (in short-term profit, in feelings of control, in feelings of superiority over others, etc).

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

#344

Post by smeej »

shard wrote: post #331
smeej wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've been criticizing my generation for receiving the "participation trophies" they gave us as kids, as well as screwing over our entire economy with shortsighted self-protectionism, so I definitely mean it in a derogatory way against people their age. To be fair, I criticize them for the shit they did when they were my age too, so I'm criticizing them as a cohort, not because of their current age.

> They've been criticizing my generation for receiving the "participation trophies" they gave us as kids Are you sure that the people doing the criticizing are the same people giving out the trophies? > so I definitely mean it in a derogatory way against people their age The way you had used it, as commentary on middle managers, seem to include people from Baby Boomers all the way to Millennials. > I'm criticizing th…

Yes, 100%, Boomers are the parent generation of Millennials. They spent our whole childhoods giving us participation trophies, and our whole young adulthood criticizing us for having received them.

I criticize them as a generational cohort for being the most entitled, wasteful, short-sighted generation that has ever lived, and has done more to screw up the entire world they are handing on to their children than anyone in history.

They have done this at every stage of their lives, but especially once they were old enough to be having children.

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

#345

Post by smeej »

danjac wrote: post #336
smeej wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm specifically talking about the middle managers. They're the ones who need to be seen "doing things," so when it's time to surface any ideas for how to fix the problem, especially when it's their butts on the line, this is what comes out. But I also refer to the boards and investors. We'd love to think it's all a young person's VC game, but behind all that money is still, more often than not, someone who panics in…

Most middle managers I know are in their thirties and forties. So Millennial or maybe Gen-X but definitely not "Boomer". To quote the Princess Bride, "you keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means".

I'd say this of low- or first-level managers, but not the middle layers.

Those are filled with people who are clinging to their roles well past their usefulness, because even though they're ruining social supports like Medicare and Social Security by pulling out multiples more funds than they ever contributed, they also failed to save anything of their own or are otherwise refusing to retire and leave the workforce (even though they've already started receiving "retirement" benefits).

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

#346

Post by xwowsersx »

pnt12 wrote: post #341
xwowsersx wrote: post #254

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, m…

I just take my rare (and voluntary) office days as socialization days: more talking, longer lunch hours, longer breaks. Its fine once in a while but I don't wanna get back to WFO again.

Yeah I'm exactly the same way. I assume they are just days for face time and no deep work will be getting done. As you said, fine, maybe even necessary, every once in a while.

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

#347

Post by kcplate »

danaris wrote: post #343
kcplate wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with that argument is that WFH has a short history with a unmeasurable productivity benefit to the organization vs a long history with in office work productivity measurements. The other problem is that people advocating WFH over RTO tend to focus on the individual benefit to them rather than the holistic benefit to the organization.

The benefit is only unmeasurable if you've been doing no data collection over the past 3 years. And frankly, there's been way too much prioritization of "benefit to the organization" across all sectors these past few decades, very much at the expense of the individuals who do the actual work. The really dumb thing is there's also a lot of evidence that doing things that make individuals happier, healthier, and more c…

> This leaves the logical conclusion, given the fact that we still do all these things that hurt regular people, being either that a) the people making the decisions actively want to hurt us, or b) they are doing these things to benefit themselves over the organization (in short-term profit, in feelings of control, in feelings of superiority over others, etc)

That may be a logical conclusion given the perspective of a certain set of knowledge workers but how about the employees who are pissed that their roles don’t get that WFH option? Does their unhappiness get a voice with the organization? As an organization how do you reconcile that disparity? Just belaying their fairness concerns with a “learn to code” kind of answer seems a bit more evil than just resetting knowledge workers back to 2019 work environments in my opinion.

So it’s not always a decision to actively hurt, it’s possible that the decision is one of a more holistic fairness for the organization’s employees…which benefits everyone to a degree including the organization.

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

#348

Post by jjav »

smeej wrote: post #345
danjac wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most middle managers I know are in their thirties and forties. So Millennial or maybe Gen-X but definitely not "Boomer". To quote the Princess Bride, "you keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means".

I'd say this of low- or first-level managers, but not the middle layers. Those are filled with people who are clinging to their roles well past their usefulness, because even though they're ruining social supports like Medicare and Social Security by pulling out multiples more funds than they ever contributed, they also failed to save anything of their own or are otherwise refusing to retire and leave the workforce (…

> they're ruining social supports like Medicare and Social Security by pulling out multiples more funds than they ever contributed

FYI, people don't get to "pull out" funds from social security. You get paid what the government computes you'll get.

> they also failed to save anything of their own or are otherwise refusing to retire and leave the workforce

So which is it? They failed to save therefore they can't retire, or they could retire but are "refusing to"?

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

#349

Post by danaris »

kcplate wrote: post #347
danaris wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The benefit is only unmeasurable if you've been doing no data collection over the past 3 years. And frankly, there's been way too much prioritization of "benefit to the organization" across all sectors these past few decades, very much at the expense of the individuals who do the actual work. The really dumb thing is there's also a lot of evidence that doing things that make individuals happier, healthier, and more c…

> This leaves the logical conclusion, given the fact that we still do all these things that hurt regular people, being either that a) the people making the decisions actively want to hurt us, or b) they are doing these things to benefit themselves over the organization (in short-term profit, in feelings of control, in feelings of superiority over others, etc) That may be a logical conclusion given the perspective of…

I certainly haven't been saying "learn to code" or anything like it.

The idea that no one should be allowed to work from home because some people can't has nothing to do with "fairness". It's the same mentality that says "you kids should have to suffer the same things I did when I was your age", despite the fact that conditions have changed.

I am genuinely sympathetic to people who work jobs that cannot be made remote, but want to work from home. I hope that they will be able to find a way to achieve that desire. But no one gains anything when they force other people to stop working from home just to prevent a "disparity" like that.

There have always been, and will always be, differences in the conditions that different jobs require. As some others have commented, some people have to work shifts; some people have to work outside in bad weather—yet we don't see a clamoring to make everyone work shifts, outside, in bad weather. This is just a very unusual time when some of those differences are changing in a very visible and very widespread way.

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

#350

Post by kcplate »

danaris wrote: post #349
kcplate wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This leaves the logical conclusion, given the fact that we still do all these things that hurt regular people, being either that a) the people making the decisions actively want to hurt us, or b) they are doing these things to benefit themselves over the organization (in short-term profit, in feelings of control, in feelings of superiority over others, etc) That may be a logical conclusion given the perspective of…

I certainly haven't been saying "learn to code" or anything like it. The idea that no one should be allowed to work from home because some people can't has nothing to do with "fairness". It's the same mentality that says "you kids should have to suffer the same things I did when I was your age", despite the fact that conditions have changed. I am genuinely sympathetic to people who work jobs that cannot be made remot…

> It's the same mentality that says "you kids should have to suffer the same things I did when I was your age", despite the fact that conditions have changed.

No, not exactly. RTO efforts now are simply taking things back to the pre-pandemic normal. The pandemic was the excuse to go remote, if it’s no longer the excuse and if you can’t argue the benefits from a position of strength successfully to your organization…it comes off as a selfish benefit only available to a select few.

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