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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

#151

Post by slothtrop »

rdtsc wrote: post #136
WhyNotHugo wrote: post #128

I find the push for "back to the office" one of the most astonishing things to come out of corporate America. We've basically been moving to a model where people can work from home for a few decades. We're reached a point where it's not only feasible, but it's senseless to do otherwise for many positions. And then, suddenly and out of the blue, a lot of CEOs and upper management started demanding that employees go ba…

> Nobody wants to waste time to work in a noisy, less comfortable environment. Except CEOs because they have nice comfortable offices, flexibility, assistants handling interruptions, and they don't have to spend long periods of time focusing. Looking over the heads of their minions is a tacit affirmation of their power and influence. Just like looking over an empty building full of open office desks without workers i…

I think middle-management has an instinct of self-preservation and they know that remote work could make some of them redundant. But I also think you're right that physically looming over and supervising is what some may be most interested in doing.

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

#152

Post by notatoad »

DaveFr wrote: post #126

Per the NYPost article on this, > During the meeting, which is known in internal Amazon lingo as a “fishbowl” meeting, Jassy declined to share data that motivated his decision to require employees to return to the office. The CEO told his charges it was a “judgment” call. Could some brave soul please leak whatever data these guys are seeing? Reports, statistics, even just emails where they whine about empty offices?…

>The CEO told his charges it was a “judgment” call.

is it really an untethered conspiracy theory when the CEO is straight-up saying his decision is based on vibes?

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

#153

Post by garciasn »

catiopatio wrote: post #114
RomanPushkin wrote: post #111

Corporations will do whatever they want to until we have unions in this country. Mass layoffs, termination with no reason, dictating how they want the workforce to be exploited. If this generation cannot see that, I hope younger folks or our kids will make this country a better place to live and work.

Asking salaried employees to spend three days in the office isn’t exploitative, and it’s certainly not equivalent to mass layoffs or termination without cause.

On top of the promise of remote work for the last several years and then changing the terms of employment w/o any tangible reason, asking salaried employees to pay for incremental childcare, transit cost, potential COL increase, and personal time cost w/o any compensation is definitely exploitive.

Sure, you want me to go back on two years of financial gains? Pay me the difference I've gained in that time and I might give it some thought.

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

#154

Post by hgsgm »

dangus wrote: post #135

This is so ironic coming from the company that benefits more than most others when society works from home. You know what’s close to the office? A bunch of not-Amazon brick and mortar stores.

Same for all the big tech Internet companies.

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

#155

Post by dfxm12 »

DaveFr wrote: post #126

Per the NYPost article on this, > During the meeting, which is known in internal Amazon lingo as a “fishbowl” meeting, Jassy declined to share data that motivated his decision to require employees to return to the office. The CEO told his charges it was a “judgment” call. Could some brave soul please leak whatever data these guys are seeing? Reports, statistics, even just emails where they whine about empty offices?…

The data probably suggests they should lay off a bunch of people & that this might be best way for them to do so, in terms of not legally needing to offer severance, legal issues, PR, stock prices, etc.

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

#156

Post by geodel »

WhyNotHugo wrote: post #128

I find the push for "back to the office" one of the most astonishing things to come out of corporate America. We've basically been moving to a model where people can work from home for a few decades. We're reached a point where it's not only feasible, but it's senseless to do otherwise for many positions. And then, suddenly and out of the blue, a lot of CEOs and upper management started demanding that employees go ba…

> from the more dangerous "free thinkers" which might question senseless commands.

Still need to be seen these courageous free thinkers keep serving corporate overlords or venture out based on their own free spirit. So far we have lot of principled stand but little concrete action from thinking class.

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

#157

Post by gaoshan »

Roark66 wrote: post #118

I heard many times Amazon is a pretty bad place to work at. I wonder what percentage of people will decide to leave because of this. As someone who has been 100% remote for 6 years I can say with confidence, there are people that work best remote, and there are these that work best in the office. It is also a function of your seniority level (I'd much prefer to be on site as a trainee/junior). But forcing a one size…

I have a friend there that was hired into a mid level developer role and he hates it for many reasons (from management style to the personality of teammates to how code gets reviewed and pushed and more). Just biding his time to get enough years under his belt for his next move but he ranks it last in places he's worked (but first in pay, which is why he is sticking it out).

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

#158

Post by offbyone »

If you want my cynical take, here's the real reason that Amazon and other big companies are all-in on RTO: the commercial real estate collapse that may (will?) happen if downtown office districts don't repopulate: https://wapo.st/3QXHpFT

I think the reason that Amazon leadership isn't bringing data to support RTO is that not only are they aware of the "Urban Doom Loop” that this article is referring to, but I'd bet you a lot of money that the C-suite (S-team) has a significant investment in commercial real estate.

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

#159

Post by gidorah »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #133

Layoffs sound bad... hmm... how to get rid of a chunk of employees without making it look like a layoff, so our shareholders won't get scared? Let's take away the benefits and make them quit instead!

Trouble is that with layoffs you can get rid of bad staff. How do you stop good staff quitting?

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

#160

Post by xt00 »

Seems most of these top down driven mandates could be explained by some simple logic—if you don’t like your job very much as CEO, then you are thinking “man I wish I didn’t have to be here”.. and then it starts resentment toward people who also aren’t suffering along with you.. basically these mandates seem likely to be driven by stress at the top of the management, not based upon actual data. If you are asking for data that means you aren’t in charge sadly.
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