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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

#391

Post by paxys »

rybosworld wrote: post #221

Demanding that folks work in the office 5 days a week does not make sense. Might be an extreme take but, I think engineers have some onus to stop agreeing to work there, lest the amazon corporate culture spreads further.

It made sense starting from when the concept of an office was established until mid-2020. Has the world really changed so much in these last ~4 years that we can't even imagine going in to work 5 days a week now? That too considering every other industry besides tech is already doing it?

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

#392

Post by ipaddr »

tschellenbach wrote: post #330
spacemadness wrote: post #285

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

Money/capital stops the worker in general or do you expect the average worker to be able to buy the firm they are working for now because wages are that good?

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

#393

Post by nyxtom »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #364
nyxtom wrote: post #56

I'm very close to being completely done with tech. This whole career has been stressful and the ROI is debatable

I've been doing it nearly 20 years, and I'm very done with it. But I need to save for retirement and I don't have anything else I want to do more. So I'm just apathetically collecting a paycheck. If you focus on the career part, you can increase your network and find a much less stressful position. Last two gigs I've had I wasn't even on call (lol, imagine!), and found remote work. So better opportunities are out the…

I'm in the same boat, this is a requirement to save for retirement and there's very little else that can compete - despite the fact that inflation is outpacing nearly all the efforts I've made thus far to have a reasonable retirement.

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

#394

Post by heraldgeezer »

AviationAtom wrote: post #331
spacemadness wrote: post #285

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 think it's more the few bad apples that spoil the bunch. Have you heard of over-employment? There are people working 2-3 full-time jobs, pulling over $500k, while actually putting in only a few hours worth of work each week. There are a ton more that are working one job, but likewise giving very little output. It's harder to catch those folks in the act when they don't physically have to be present in the office. W…

>It's harder to catch those folks in the act when they don't physically have to be present in the office.

Maybe look at output? My experience is in call center/helpdesk. Either someone takes calls and tickets or they do not, very noticeable.

If the company really wants, there is software like Teramind and Aktivtrak that screenrecords and keylogs.

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

#395

Post by dsugarman »

spacemadness wrote: post #285

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…

Your feelings are valid and they're doing this to perform better as a business.

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

#396

Post by couscouspie »

dividefuel wrote: post #252
pton_xd wrote: post #10

I think this was a pretty obvious end-goal when they required everyone to relocate back to Seattle and go in 3 days a week. As a tangent, everyone I know at Amazon is over-worked and stressed out. I legitimately don't know anyone whose happy there. How is that a sustainable corporate culture?

I thought 3 days/week would settle as the equilibrium -- enough to maintain real estate value while still paying lip service to employee wishes, and still achieving the stealth layoff of blocking full remote work.

I highly doubt that there is any truth to the narrative of real eastate value as a driver of RTO policies. The effect if there was one would be way too indirect and furthermore a classical prisoner's dilemma, as your company would benefit the most if you have the only company not forcing RTO: having the value of the real estate, while having the greates talent from remote work.

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

#397

Post by nielsbot »

omegaworks wrote: post #38
josefritzishere wrote: post #20

Never has a white-collar office needed so desperatelyl to be unionized.

Why would they unionize when most of their comp is stock? The fear mongering, uncertainty and doubt stoked by their CEO's fully-owned press[1] would tank their stock value. 1. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/22/business/media/jeff-bezos...

So they can fight back against before forced into the office 3 days per week?

People have democracy in the personal lives, but not in the workspace. Unions give the workers democratic power so they can collectively make demands of the business owners. They can also demand a greater share of profits.

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

#398

Post by IshKebab »

AviationAtom wrote: post #331
spacemadness wrote: post #285

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 think it's more the few bad apples that spoil the bunch. Have you heard of over-employment? There are people working 2-3 full-time jobs, pulling over $500k, while actually putting in only a few hours worth of work each week. There are a ton more that are working one job, but likewise giving very little output. It's harder to catch those folks in the act when they don't physically have to be present in the office. W…

> It's harder to catch [remote workers]

Yeah... that feels like it should be true - obviously they're harder to monitor because you can't see them! - but I think if you really think about it it isn't.

I think the number of people actually working more than one job is very small. So you're really talking about people slacking off, and that's just as easy to do in the office. Unless your boss is literally next to you anyway.

I used to read Reddit all the time at work.

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

#399

Post by jarjoura »

hintymad wrote: post #306
pknomad wrote: post #117

Genuine question for the folks over at Amazon: What is the value of working at Amazon (or even just AWS) these days? Every now and then I get a ring from a recruiter gauging my interest and sometimes I get the itch to just to go through the process so that I can have a FAANG in my resume. I've heard from others that Amazon could be an amazing place to work, citing fantastic colleagues and work opportunities. But then…

L7+ IC roles are not bad at all. Competitive packages. Tons of responsibility and freedom. I can't stress this enough. an L7+ really has lots of freedom and influence. They get to choose which meetings to go to, how much code they write, what architecture to use, who to work with, and have a serious say on what product features to launch, and which oncall to participate (except the GM escalation oncall). The company'…

Presumably, anyone at a staff+ level position in big tech, is likely influential and their word carries weight. So, I'm not sure how this is a pro or con for joining Amazon.

If anything, someone at that level earns so much money, and has so much unvested stock waiting for them, that even if they grow tired of the work, or disagree with its direction, they are unable to leave for something more fulfilling.

Being forced into the office 5 days a week might be enough to force you to reconsider though?! Maybe?!

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

#400

Post by thr0w »

hintymad wrote: post #306
pknomad wrote: post #117

Genuine question for the folks over at Amazon: What is the value of working at Amazon (or even just AWS) these days? Every now and then I get a ring from a recruiter gauging my interest and sometimes I get the itch to just to go through the process so that I can have a FAANG in my resume. I've heard from others that Amazon could be an amazing place to work, citing fantastic colleagues and work opportunities. But then…

L7+ IC roles are not bad at all. Competitive packages. Tons of responsibility and freedom. I can't stress this enough. an L7+ really has lots of freedom and influence. They get to choose which meetings to go to, how much code they write, what architecture to use, who to work with, and have a serious say on what product features to launch, and which oncall to participate (except the GM escalation oncall). The company'…

> Think about the L7+ who built EC2, DDB, EBS, S3, SQS, and etc.

Does the average L7 person architect those services significantly, or just kinda maintain them? It's almost crazy to think about any old AWS employee (granted L7 is up there) conceiving those things, they've had such a massive impact on the ability to build things on the internet.

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