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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

#192
post #165
post #121

Jassy said the quiet part out loud and admitted what I've always suspected, that most CEOs don't have original thoughts, instead governing by groupthink: > Other company CEOs helped Jassy make up his mind too. Jassy spoke to "60 to 80 CEOs of other companies over the last 18 months," and "virtually all of them" preferred in-office work, he said. I bet that none of those individual CEOs could empirically prove that re…

And yet they are CEOs and you and I are posting comments Hacker News.

I'm a CEO.

My company is a sole proprietorship, but still.

It's kind of a silly criticism, because the majority of people don't aspire to become corporate CEOs. I hate MBAs and would hate myself for becoming one. In fact I've never pursued wealth as my life goal. For many years, I was in academia; how's that for the opposite of wealth accumulation?

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

#193

What about the employees that have a requirement to work remotely due to a disability?

C'mon -- every corporate mandate has its exceptions and allowances. This one's obvious. And when I worked at a company and had a full-time remote allowance per my employment contract, guess what? The RTO mandate didn't apply to me.

While yes, I have to assume that folks with disability related requirements will keep them, anecdotally I have one friend who was explicitly hired as remote at Amazon who's being told to RTO now.

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

#195

A lot of complaining from one of the most privileged and highest paid classes of workers ever to exist in human kind. Talk of "exploitation", etc. To put it in perspective, you sit at a computer and type, and get paid $200k+ a year for it. Forget other people in the other part of the world, just compare your situation to the average American for a second - they don't have a choice of whether or not to be at the offic…

The "spoiled" middle class has always been the one to revolt against exploitation by the absurdly wealthy and powerful. The truly poor and downtrodden don't have the bandwidth to make demands of the wealthy, they're occupied enough just getting by from day to day. This is why countries like North Korea intentionally keep most of their people in poverty: a taste of freedom and prosperity tends to make people desire more and gives them the flexibility to fight for it.

Rather than discouraging tech workers from fighting for rights and dignity, we should be talking about how we can make sure that we bring the same benefits to those who aren't currently able to fight for themselves.

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

#196
it's absolutism. companies are not run as democracies. a few people who make decision that are in their own interests.

RTO means you must be at the office by 9, if not it's an issue. you have to be at your desk for fixed number of hours, if not its an issue. if you leave too early, its an issue. perception matters more than facts.

at home if you're busy, you work, if not you can relax. without any judgement.

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

#197

A lot of complaining from one of the most privileged and highest paid classes of workers ever to exist in human kind. Talk of "exploitation", etc. To put it in perspective, you sit at a computer and type, and get paid $200k+ a year for it. Forget other people in the other part of the world, just compare your situation to the average American for a second - they don't have a choice of whether or not to be at the offic…

Hey, why can't we all just be happy? No one said people making $10/hr shouldn't be able to work from home if that is best and gets the job done at least just as well.

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

#198

To be honest I think 3 days a week in the office is a perfectly reasonable requirement. It gives enough opportunity for people to get face to face time and to build the relationships they need to build whilst still offering flexibility. Should it be combined with some flexibility for edge cases? Sure, managers will always turn a blind eye when it makes sense. And part of that is you can only have flexibility if the b…

> To be honest I think 3 days a week in the office is a perfectly reasonable requirement.

It's not reasonable because it means you have to live within commuting distance of the office.

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

#199

To be honest I think 3 days a week in the office is a perfectly reasonable requirement. It gives enough opportunity for people to get face to face time and to build the relationships they need to build whilst still offering flexibility. Should it be combined with some flexibility for edge cases? Sure, managers will always turn a blind eye when it makes sense. And part of that is you can only have flexibility if the b…

One of the reasons I joined Amazon last year was their stance on remote work:

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/07/andy-jassy-says-he-wont-forc...

For me to go to the nearest office will add 4 hours in commute time daily, and I would still be video conferencing in Chime - as my team is all over the world and nobody is in my office.

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

#200

Given recent Big Tech behavior -- ie Amazon hiring based on work flexibility , then laying people off, then switching to RTO, who would trust these companies enough to move across the country for a role? In my (40 yo+) peer group people have largely settled down somewhere not near a home office during the pandemic. People have the entire cost structure of home ownership, day care, and commuting built around not needi…

I work for a big telecom that has grown by acquisition and so has a lot of regional branch offices... and we're _closing_ a lot of them and pushing people back into big "hub" offices in an RTO push that pretty much everyone acknowledges is a secret layoff.
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