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Amazon tells employees to return to office five days a week

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Re: Amazon tells employees to return to office five days a week

#351

I feel like Big Tech management is simply in revenge mode. Managers and executives felt a tiny bit less powerful for a small amount of time due to their workers pushing for remote and having the leverage to do so. Now that interest rates have wrecked the employment market they are wasting no time going scorched earth on their current remote employees. The narratives they keep shoving down peoples throats are insultin…

> I feel like Big Tech management is simply in revenge mode Doesn’t this sound like tribal, us-versus-them, reductive explanation for the behavior of those you disagree with?

I've always felt there was a certain amount of us-versus-them going on in the office -- though I don't think that's the main reason here.

Right now, I think it's a matter of over-hiring the last couple years. This is both a productivity and loyalty check. Anyone not coming in will either be let go, or recognized as an exception.

As for my opinion of there being a level of us-versus-them, I felt it has manifested in things like dress codes. If you're old enough, you might have worked at some place where you wear a suit. That might seem perfectly normal for higher paid management or sales, but it's just keeping people in line at the lower levels.

I've worked at a number of places where "rank has its privileges". Managers would have larger desks, offices, better computers, etc... Regardless of what was needed to do the job.

I'm certain there is a level of "I have to, so you have to", whether it makes sense or not.

Re: Amazon tells employees to return to office five days a week

#353

I feel like Big Tech management is simply in revenge mode. Managers and executives felt a tiny bit less powerful for a small amount of time due to their workers pushing for remote and having the leverage to do so. Now that interest rates have wrecked the employment market they are wasting no time going scorched earth on their current remote employees. The narratives they keep shoving down peoples throats are insultin…

> I feel like Big Tech management is simply in revenge mode.

Indeed this is how Cory Doctorow explains it: https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/17/hack-the-planet/

Re: Amazon tells employees to return to office five days a week

#355

I feel like Big Tech management is simply in revenge mode. Managers and executives felt a tiny bit less powerful for a small amount of time due to their workers pushing for remote and having the leverage to do so. Now that interest rates have wrecked the employment market they are wasting no time going scorched earth on their current remote employees. The narratives they keep shoving down peoples throats are insultin…

maybe part of it, certainly many reasons for this decision.

more likely, it's a constructive layoff and they want to justify real estate cap-ex

Re: Amazon tells employees to return to office five days a week

#356
I can’t tell if this applies to AWS as well but companies that have gone on all in on cloud hosted infrastructure should probably come up with an exit strategy pretty quickly given Amazon’s general flailing.

You really don’t want your important systems being underpinned services run either by disgruntled employees about to quit or by the bottom of the barrel types who have no choice but to stay even when treated like this.

Re: Amazon tells employees to return to office five days a week

#357

I feel like Big Tech management is simply in revenge mode. Managers and executives felt a tiny bit less powerful for a small amount of time due to their workers pushing for remote and having the leverage to do so. Now that interest rates have wrecked the employment market they are wasting no time going scorched earth on their current remote employees. The narratives they keep shoving down peoples throats are insultin…

I don't like this us vs them mentality. Nothing stops you from starting your own business and being on the "manager" side of things. Cost of capital is up, productivity is down. So all companies have to work through options to increase productivity, and/or reduce costs. Companies will take different approaches to this

Is productivity down? It seems like it's just growing slower than pre global financial crisis.

Re: Amazon tells employees to return to office five days a week

#359

I feel like Big Tech management is simply in revenge mode. Managers and executives felt a tiny bit less powerful for a small amount of time due to their workers pushing for remote and having the leverage to do so. Now that interest rates have wrecked the employment market they are wasting no time going scorched earth on their current remote employees. The narratives they keep shoving down peoples throats are insultin…

Yes,revenge(or rather a desire for reversion to the previous norm) might be part of the reason, however there might be another aspect which makes it more urgent for the execs

WFH is overwhelmingly popular amongst employees and has the most potential to be a topic tech workers band together on. Tech employees realizing that collective action can work genuinely terrifies execs. Therefore it's imperative to the moneyed class that RTO be normalized back as soon as possible before people start to organize. The weak job market just makes it easier and the upcoming interest rate cuts might dent that advantage a bit.

Re: Amazon tells employees to return to office five days a week

#360

I can’t tell if this applies to AWS as well but companies that have gone on all in on cloud hosted infrastructure should probably come up with an exit strategy pretty quickly given Amazon’s general flailing. You really don’t want your important systems being underpinned services run either by disgruntled employees about to quit or by the bottom of the barrel types who have no choice but to stay even when treated like…

I hear a bunch of companies are thinking of moving everything back to the office.
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