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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

#241

Post by HelloMcFly »

slothtrop wrote: post #151
rdtsc wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I think most "middle managers" want to WFH. It's more senior management driving RTO.

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

#242

Post by reaperman »

softwaredoug wrote: post #177

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 make $80k as a full-stack developer with ML application ability. If Amazon hired me at $160k I'd only need to work 6 months before getting fired for moving to prove the safe economic choice. Plus I'd be moving to an area with more jobs and connections.

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

#243

Post by antisthenes »

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?…

> Could some brave soul please leak whatever data these guys are seeing? Reports, statistics, even just emails where they whine about empty offices? Something tangible that gives us mere mortals actual perspective.

Yeah, the "Gut" dataset, gathered from "My ass", and filtered by "bullshit" column.

We have to stop playing this game and pretending like RTO is some hidden innovation-building gem that no one is aware about that turns failing businesses into Fortune 100 powerhouses.

People in the 90s had it figured out - if you want people to get together to discuss important issues, it's called a business trip. No, you don't need to do it for every sprint or feature proposal. Do it in moderation, 2-3 times a year, and let people live where they want to live (usually next to their families).

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

#244

Post by datadrivenangel »

Friend of mine works for amazon and is worried about their team, because they have people from all over the country on the team, so if half the people quit instead of going into the LOCAL office, it'll catastrophic for the whole team.

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

#245

Post by mjoneill »

If this (or a similar policy) affects you and you suspect that it is an attempt by your employer to get you (and others) to quit in order to avoid having to pay severance, unemployment, etc... Understand what "constructive dismissal" is. It may help if you need to file unemployment claims.

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

#247

Post by computing »

wintermutestwin wrote: post #230

WFH is the new norm. If you want to drag workers back into the office, you had better be offering a lot to make up for the added costs to the worker, including monetary, time, stress, etc…

carrots and sticks

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

#248

Post by ghaff »

dangerlibrary wrote: post #219
brewdad wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those people made a choice to uproot their lives completely of their own volition. Sometimes those choices don't work out and they always come with consequences.

It's not obvious to me why you made this comment in this thread. Are you under the impression I would disagree? Making choices based on the best information you have, because your employer provided it to you, and then having your life unilaterally uprooted by that same employer seems like a bad thing. It also seems like something that an employer should probably explain / justify with a business reason other than "vi…

To the degree that people were explicitly told that they'd be able to work from home indefinitely, it certainly deserves more than an "Oops. We changed our mind."

On the other hand, during the pandemic, companies (somewhat understandably) made a lot of fairly vague and open-ended statements about future plans and a lot of employees read those statements in accordance with what they wanted to be the case even if it was far from set in stone.

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

#249

Post by hot_gril »

The_Fox wrote: post #75
hot_gril wrote: post #23

Near the end of 2022, I got an offer at Amazon for a remote SWE role. The negotiations afterwards gave me the idea that eventual RTO was their goal. They said they had plenty of remote-friendly teams and started setting up manager interviews. Then one by one, they called back to say that team was either no longer hiring remotely or outright frozen. Even the ones that said they had team members all over the world. A f…

I had a similar experience for an SDM role at about the same time. Through all the interviews it was a remote role, then after letting me think about the offer for the weekend, they change the offer to onsite. "Do you want 6 months to move to Vancouver?" they said. Um, thanks but no thanks. I told my kids we'd feel like we have less money in the end if we had to live in Vancouver.

Yeah, that early of a bait-and-switch made me think even the final remote offer would suddenly become in-person once I changed jobs.

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

#250

Post by LiquidSky »

michaelt wrote: post #229
notatoad wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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?

If the CEO has a wealth of data and it says with remote working Metric A has gone up which is good, and Metric B has gone down which is bad, they have to make a judgement call about which metric to rely on even though they're making an evidence-based decision .

Great, then share that evidence. The problem is all these royal decrees to return to the office never come with even a shred of actual data to explain them.

Once it became clear that they couldn’t show WFH harmed productivity, their arguments became increasingly abstract (e.g., “office culture”) and finally we’ve arrived at simply “because I said so”.

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