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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

#331

Post by red-iron-pine »

r00fus wrote: post #323
datadrivenangel wrote: post #244

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.

This smacks of just dumping 50% of applicant resumes in the trash and declaring "we don't hire unlucky people". Sucks for your team and others who will likely need to disband or get merged into other teams.

"we don't hire unlucky people" is a lame hack to solve the problem of too many applications and not enough time.

this is an attempt to cut bodies, and hire on new workers at a lower rate. AZMN knows damn well that most of them won't move and is counting on them self-terminating.

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

#332

Post by MockObject »

reducesuffering wrote: post #319
manishsharan wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry .. I am unable to understand what you meant. Could you elaborate ?

Many people on HN claim that big co's like Amazon, Apple, and Google only want RTO (return to office) because they stand to lose so much money in real estate. However, these are companies worth >$1,000 billion. When you dig into the value of their corporate real estate holdings, it's almost always only $5-20 billion, a paltry percentage of their overall worth. Their financial incentives mean they do not care about lo…

> These companies care about their software productivity and profits, period. That's what drives their decisions.

Then there ought to be enough data on the productivity of RTO to shut up all the naysayers on HN. It's not there. It doesn't exist. Jassy admitted his decision was based on groupthink.

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

#333

Post by gingerrr »

peteradio wrote: post #297
gingerrr wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's something usually managed at the state level, so depends where they are in the US. In California constructive termination standing is very much a thing.

Excellent, any other states this might apply in?

Most states have some form of regulation against constructive dismissal/termination/discharge (term of art varies), but I don't know of a list. Would be good to have!

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

#334

Post by illegalsmile »

smsm42 wrote: post #314
RestlessMind wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my personal experience and that of my friends in SV, hybrid with everyone in office for 2-3 same days, is the best experience. I don't have to commute every day. My team can do focused uninterrupted work on their WFH days. We can have team discussions, deep dives or 1:1's on RTO days which are far more conducive for the interpersonal communication.

As a remote worker, given the choice I'd probably choose to go to the office 1-2 days a week and work remotely for the rest (I worked like that before and it was fine). Occasionally, being in the same room is very helpful. It's not worth firing someone who is physically so remote they can't go to the office, but with all possibilities open, my experience shows the hybrid model is the most efficient overall. In realit…

> In reality, the possibilities are not always open, so one has to find the model that works best for the particular team.

This is what's up. My team is distributed across all continental US time zones and as such many of us don't share a central office. I have one person on my team of 11 that I share an office with and we barely share any projects. They ask us to come into the office once a week but what's the point? They do nothing to encourage teamwork. Gone are the days where we'd have company wide lunches that promoted conversation, unity and employee cohesiveness. Now they offer us food trucks once a week? Not company paid for of course but rather the employees footing an over priced mediocre meal in the name of convenience. I really don't know what management is thinking.

End of the day, the people that want to be in the office are in the office and those that want to wfh are wfh. Companies need to shift expectations and priorities at this point because while they can push for office, and that's fine, the culture has changed dramatically. I offered my employer numerous tactics to promote teamwork and cross-team engagement and they're doing none of it. In-office isn't working and they're doing nothing to fix it but rather trying to force it to work.

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

#335

Post by toomuchtodo »

6D794163636F756 wrote: post #283
y-c-o-m-b wrote: post #228

PSA: if you have a disability as defined by the ADA (anxiety, depression, and adhd falls under this btw) and have been a remote employee this entire time, they may be legally obligated to provide continued virtual work privileges to accommodate your disability. There seems to have been some recent successful lawsuits surrounding that topic. Take a look here https://www.bfvlaw.com/fielding-remote-work-accommodations-r…

I have a friend who went through that. Amazon's HR likes to take its time to get back to you and in their case the accomodations had an expiration date.

https://www.ada.gov/file-a-complaint/

https://www.google.com/search?q=how+to+find+ada+attorney

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

#336

Post by lr1970 »

jtode wrote: post #101
nielsbot wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"…

> 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.

Socialism and Marxism were tried in 20-th century several times -- Russia, China, "Socialist Block" of East European countries under Soviet control, Cuba, etc. Somehow every attempt at creating a decent non-capitalist society quickly evolved in horrendous anti-utopia. I am genuinely interested in understanding why Marxism and Socialism never worked out as intended (might be with the exception of small North European countries)?

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

#337

Post by joquarky »

some_furry wrote: post #39

What they aren't telling you is even worse: If you're remote and choose to accept their relocation ultimatum, you have a very limited time to execute on it. I've heard 90 to 180 days. Relocation assistance is provided, but you're moving to an expensive city. Compare a mortgage for a 2 bedroom house purchased in 2017 in the sticks versus rent for a 2 bedroom apartment in Seattle. It's not an attractive change in livin…

> relocation assistance

I'm curious how they are going to convince/compensate someone who currently has a 2.75% interest rate on a 400k home to move closer to work and take on 6% rate on a 1M home that is smaller.

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

#338

Post by some_furry »

joquarky wrote: post #337
some_furry wrote: post #39

What they aren't telling you is even worse: If you're remote and choose to accept their relocation ultimatum, you have a very limited time to execute on it. I've heard 90 to 180 days. Relocation assistance is provided, but you're moving to an expensive city. Compare a mortgage for a 2 bedroom house purchased in 2017 in the sticks versus rent for a 2 bedroom apartment in Seattle. It's not an attractive change in livin…

> relocation assistance I'm curious how they are going to convince/compensate someone who currently has a 2.75% interest rate on a 400k home to move closer to work and take on 6% rate on a 1M home that is smaller.

Flat dollar amount, one-time payment. I've been told $7k for L4/L5 SDEs.

It's either that or "voluntary" resignation.

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

#339

Post by toomuchtodo »

lr1970 wrote: post #336
jtode wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"…

> 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. Socialism and Marxism were tried in 20-th century several times -- Russia, China, "Socialist Block" of East European countries under Soviet control, Cuba, etc. Somehow every attempt at creating a decent non-capitalist so…

In contrast to "Socialism" (Big S), democratic socialism seems to be possible and provides evidence of effectiveness, with the Nordic Model being the reference example.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_model

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

#340

Post by Sylamore »

bsimpson wrote: post #285
mv4 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's the stupid part about these RTO-by-fiat decisions. My team is in a different timezone. There is no interpersonal benefit for me dialing in from a particular office vs from wherever I happen to be. I should have the flexibility to work from an office when it suits me and remotely when it suits me. That's how it's been my whole career, and it's worked just fine so far.

Some companies like AT&T are taking this a step further. People who have spent their entire 20+ year careers working remote are now being told they must report to an office. And to address the inevitable hypocrisy of forcing you into an office that may not be the same office as your team, they are designating specific offices for each team and you have to relocate to that office at your own expense.

Now it's obvious this is just another massive layoff in disguise for them in particular, but apparently their wave 1 impacted group (relocate this year) is somewhere about 50/50 on people committing to relocate vs effectively volunteering to get laid off.

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