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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

#381

Post by unethical_ban »

WhyNotHugo wrote: post #365
unethical_ban wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a silenced minority of people who feel that in office participation is better for learning, collaboration, brainstorming, even in technical fields. I'm not going to argue with your convince you to change your mind about RTO, but don't use the term nobody. I'll add that I understand there are many benefits to remote work, including some that I truly enjoy. And that I'm not sure CEOs care about my personal car…

> There is a silenced minority of people who feel that in office participation is better for learning, collaboration, brainstorming, even in technical fields. There definitely are situations when going to the office can be beneficial (brainstorming day, team-bonding activities, etc). It's important for people to have a choice to go to an office when needed. RTO is about forcing people to go to the office, even when t…

Those benefits you list require the attendance of all, and sometimes you need to participate with coworkers whether you like it or not.

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

#382

Post by awesomeMilou »

Shekelphile wrote: post #46

They are afraid of overemployment. It's very easy to slip through the cracks once you're a few years deep in some companies and stop working for months/yeahs before you get terminated. Someone I know is doing exactly that, got a new job anticipating being laid off/RTO from their big company job and still hasn't been terminated, despite not working beyond being present for random emails/meetings in over 6 months.

I'm always suprised that oversight is so lax in these companies that people can seriously get away with this.

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

#383

Post by vagab0nd »

cmpbl wrote: post #380
vagab0nd wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Amazon LPs has to be the most blatant corporate brain-washing tool ever invented. Put aside the contradicting nature between the LPs themselves, they are almost exclusively used for the benefit of the company and at the expense of the employees. It's also served as a hiring filter, and probably a very good one at that.

(Former Amazon) Tenets in general, including the LPs, are valuable as a common decision-making framework. Amazon is a leader in laying those out there for all to read (including on their public website). People would frequently refer to the LPs in resolving difficult debates, and I valued them. Amazon is Amazon because it gets things done. Certainly many at Amazon circa 2000s thought AWS was an incredible boondoggle…

Sorry, I don't buy it.

I don't doubt that Amazon is a great company. But if you are asserting that it got there because of the LPs I find it hard to believe. Are you suggesting that had those people "had backbone" and "were right, a lot", then AWS wouldn't have succeeded? That seems quite far-fetched.

The LPs look good on paper. But it's a stretch to call it a decision-making framework because the LPs are so vague and open to interpretation. Furthermore, they are often used by those in power to exploit those who are not, as illustrated by the story.

Then again, I don't work for Amazon so what do I know.

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

#384

Post by 8note »

babyshake wrote: post #49
scruple wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, I'd love to go back to cubicles at this point. You watch something like Office Space today and it looks like a wonderful degree of privacy compared to the bullpens we're all sitting in today.

The bullpens that are full of distracting off-topic conversation that makes it hard to concentrate, but apparently is some type of secret sauce of what makes for a productive office environment compared to being able to focus in the peace and quiet of our homes or work environment of our choice.

When the floor is full of nearby teams, I used to just spend my time in office zones out and eavesdrop, waiting for a wake word somewhere on the floor, then go chat to make sure they're building the right thing.

Worked pretty well

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

#385

Post by wkat4242 »

skinnymuch wrote: post #354
lr1970 wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Cuba hasn’t fared well? Has socialism been tried without American and western interference? The Nordic countries aren’t socialist. Have you read Marx? What do you find is the issue? I haven’t read too much myself but I don’t see why you think capitalism will keep working out the way it is now when we have never been at this point in history with technology and globalization with the continued western hegemony?

Cuba hasn't fared well because the US is strangling them with sanctions.

The Nordic countries have strong elements from socialism. It's the balance that's the best.

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

#386

Post by wkat4242 »

SoftTalker wrote: post #71
Shekelphile wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Doesn’t that tell anyone that there MIGHT be facts or at least good research on this that it isn’t producing good work for the money? I'd wager that most people are just as productive or more productive when WFH, but there will always be unethical people who will abuse the privilege when given the chance. There are tons of anecdotes of people just being straight up lazy, defeating naive monitoring solutions with mo…

I'd take the other side of that wager. I think most people who can WFH are doing as little as possible.

I think most people in the office are doing as little as possible as well.

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

#387

Post by wkat4242 »

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…

Not just a bad company to work for, but also a bad company to work with as a client IMO.

I stay very far away from them just as with Oracle though the latter is worse as a client (they don't seem to be bad to work for I hear)

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

#388

Post by TheNewsIsHere »

tiffanyh wrote: post #28
SirensOfTitan wrote: post #8

I don't know the origins of the "disagree and commit" philosophy, but Jassy's use seems like a self-serving perversion of what is an attempt at dealing with decision deadlock. ... that is, disagree-and-commit transactionally seems like it ought to be between peers. Disagree-and-commit when applied between superiors and reports could be rewritten as just "shut up and follow orders."

> ”Disagree-and-commit when applied between superiors and reports could be rewritten as just ‘shut up and follow orders.’” The CEO isn’t just any superior, they are the highest superior. So literally everything coming from the CEO is “do X and follow orders”

In the particular case of Jassy, likely.

But “STFU and do what I say” is a choice in management style, and not all CEOs choose that approach.

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

#389

Post by [deleted] »

smsm42 wrote: post #313
taurath wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was just disagreeing and committing is the new “just following orders”

"just following orders" implies doing something inherently immoral, but refusing to take responsibility and laying it on higher authority. Nothing like that is happening here. RTO is not inherently immoral - while I prefer remote work, it's a valid choice for management to have different preference for their teams. The team members can either agree with that or move to another team or employment - neither choice is m…

[deleted]

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

#390

Post by eYrKEC2 »

RestlessMind wrote: post #257
robotburrito wrote: post #163

If tech workers had a union they wouldn't have to put up with this. I wonder what % of people even want to go back to the office?

I am sure there are some parts of the world where there are tech worker unions. Do you know any examples? If so, we can look at their experience.

Boeing engineers. Engineers working for Ford, GM, et c.
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