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Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: It’s probably not going to work out

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Re: Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: It’s probably not going to work out

#101
post #9

Y’all gonna unionize or what? It has to get old listening to edicts from the folks who filter up to the top. Could also investigate a constructive dismissal class action in the interim if you can find someone willing to take it on.

This feels like the first time there would be serious impetus (and a perfect case) for tech workers to form a union.

I am incredibly in favour of unions in all industries, but this one I have serious doubts it will ever happen. I'm gonna be un-PC and reach for a metaphor involving slavery - not because I am comparing tech workers, of which I am one, to slaves, but because I think it's the best real-world example of how oppression is distributed by hubristic figureheads of feudalistic systems.

If you ever saw Spike Lee's "Malcolm X" biopic (or know about Malcolm X through other channels), there is a scene where he talks about the existence, during US Slavery, of "field" and "house" slaves, who tended to live in those same places they worked. Here is a real X speech that is very similar to what is in the movie, though the movie script distills it better for modern ears: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jf7rsCAfQCo

Now if you take three groups at Amazon - warehouse workers, tech workers, and C-level executives, they all kinda slot into those roles very well, don't they? Again, not that we're slaves. But then, Jim Crow wasn't slavery either, right? Oppression comes in many flavours, some of them stronger, some of them weaker, but it has the same features, always, including the divide and conquer strategy. The axe's handle being recognizably wooden.

This is all very old stuff. Ancestral. Atavistic.

The problem runs deeper still. Even among the lowest working class, they have been fed on tidbits of heady turkish delight which says that if they do everything right, they can be one of the oppressor class. Like the midway lackey whose job is to walk around carrying a giant teddy bear that nobody will ever actually win, they are even given high-profile examples, lottery winners, pop stars from common backgrounds, tech "mafia" who live as monied dilletantes on megayachts, tipping their hats to Saudi princes and Russian gangsters.

In the end, the workers of tech are just well-kept poodles who will heel to their masters and be loyal to the point of abject moral failure, just like the house slave. Look how much better we are treated than him.

Fagedaboudit. If you want a just world, be a Socialist. Read Marx for real. And join the rest of the historically frustrated who will die watching humanity flagellate itself. If there's hope, it's in the proles.

Re: Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: It’s probably not going to work out

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree and commit is ideally suited for something like the tabs vs spaces or other style guide debates where there's no obviously/universally best answer. It's more important that all devs in a given file (at least) are using the same convention and people have different opinions about it. Have the discussion (the time to disagree), make and publish a decision, expect everyone to commit to the made decision. Every…

> something like the tabs vs spaces ... where there's no obviously/universally best answer. No there is, some people are just wrong.

That’s true, but weirdly the right answer has changed during the 30 years I’ve been in the industry.

Re: Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: It’s probably not going to work out

#103
post #67

The submission URL should be changed to the original: https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-andy-jassy-rto-office...

Yeah but that's paywalled.

Hmm, my ad blocker seems to be blocking the paywall.

Re: Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: It’s probably not going to work out

#108

Read: Amazon CEO lays off its remote staff without severance

If you just don't quit eventually there is still a dismissal + severance right? What if I just keep working from home?

Nobody owes you severance, unless you have a contract that says so. It might be offered in return for something they want you to do, like not badmouthing them on social media or suing for wrongful termination.

Constructive dismissal is a more relevant topic here.

Re: Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: It’s probably not going to work out

#109

Read: Amazon CEO lays off its remote staff without severance

If you just don't quit eventually there is still a dismissal + severance right? What if I just keep working from home?

Severance isn’t guaranteed unless it’s company policy, and I would be concerned about being ineligible for unemployment benefits if I’m fired for breaking a company rule on attendance. Granted, I don’t know if being required to return to the office counts as constructive dismissal (and thus becoming eligible for unemployment benefits) if I was promised remote work and if I live too far from the office for a reasonable commute.

Re: Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: It’s probably not going to work out

#110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you just don't quit eventually there is still a dismissal + severance right? What if I just keep working from home?

Nobody owes you severance, unless you have a contract that says so. It might be offered in return for something they want you to do, like not badmouthing them on social media or suing for wrongful termination. Constructive dismissal is a more relevant topic here.

Does constructive dismissal apply if there was an expectation to work in a traditional office setting when you commenced?

I can imagine it would apply if it’s completely impractical to do so (e.g. during a pandemic), or if they keep changing the workplace location unreasonably, but I don’t think that’s the case here.

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