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Amazon tells employees to return to office five days a week

cnbc.com

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

#571

Post by aussieguy1234 »

If you're good enough to work for Amazon, you're probably also good enough to start your own startup or get equally paying work elsewhere, even in the current market.

I read the internal memo shown in the article and I really dislike how casually he tries to put a positive spin on forcing everyone back into the office with zero mention of the consequences on the employees and no hard evidence on any productivity benefit.

Studies show that out of full time in office, hybrid and remote, in office is the least productive.

I expect to see an exodus of top talent from Amazon and possibly a reduction in the quality of their services.

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

#572

Post by icehawk »

paxys wrote: post #391
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?

WFH worked before COVID. Parts of my team were fully remote 10 years ago. I haven't been going in a full five days a week for 6 years. I got way more productive from home.

I'll never do the 5 days in the office again.

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

#573

Post by senderista »

valbaca wrote: post #60
darth_avocado wrote: post #7

It's going to be great. Bring in people for "in person collaboration" only to have all of them talk to each other on Zoom because every single team is distributed. It is that way because the same set of leaders pushing for RTO, hired people all over the world when remote work took off.

only to have all of them talk to each other on Chime* Amazon doesn't get to use anything that isn't Amazon-built

Nope, we use Quip and Slack because the Amazon equivalents were just too painful.

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

#574

Post by hansvm »

akira2501 wrote: post #550
drawkbox wrote: post #531

Looks like they have until January to change to fully on-site. That isn't much time to make life changes that allow using 2+ hours extra per day that was typically remote. > The decision marks a significant shift from Amazon’s earlier return-to-work stance, which required corporate workers to be in the office at least three days a week. Now, the company is giving employees until Jan. 2 to start adhering to the new po…

> Just seems a bit heartless. The writing has been on the wall for a while. Aside from that, Amazon decided to convert their workforce to work from home rather quickly, and shelled out the money and the effort in order to actually achieve that. > Remote jobs just allow a team to be more robust and dynamic to life changes. If you weren't hired into a remote job then you don't have much a right to expect or demand this…

> If you weren't hired into a remote job then you don't have much a right to expect or demand this.

This is being mandated for a number of employees who were hired remote as well.

Separately, why not? I generally have an expectation that I won't have to move across the country from one office to another. Especially not without some good reason. Especially not without literally any reason. Especially not if I'm going to have to foot the bill for switching houses, either disrupt my spouse's career or spend time apart, switch kids' schools in the middle of the year, .... Employers are (often) within their rights to do so, but the knowledge that Amazon does this sort of thing frequently is precisely why I work elsewhere.

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

#575

Post by wnc3141 »

drawkbox wrote: post #531

Looks like they have until January to change to fully on-site. That isn't much time to make life changes that allow using 2+ hours extra per day that was typically remote. > The decision marks a significant shift from Amazon’s earlier return-to-work stance, which required corporate workers to be in the office at least three days a week. Now, the company is giving employees until Jan. 2 to start adhering to the new po…

I think this is a backdoor layoff that doesn't spook investors.

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

#576

Post by fnordpiglet »

hintymad wrote: post #493
fnordpiglet wrote: post #462

As a former senior person at aws although I left on good terms I will never return there and this stuff cements the deal for me. I need a company that respects my decisions on how I do best in my career and not surveil of police my work style. As long as I am a trusted leader who delivers results that customers need why does anyone care where my bag of water is physically located? Who are you to tell neurodivergent e…

> How petty are the tyrants. I would consider the relationship between a company and its employees as alliance. If both have the same goal and compatible style, then they work together. Otherwise, they part ways. Tyranny is possible only with violence, while employment is at will, at least in Amazon.

For me it’s at will absolutely and I won’t work there no matter how much money they offered me to go back.

For most people it’s only at will in one direction. They need the job, often for home and board, and always for insurance benefits. Saying it’s at will ignores the worker needs the benefits more than management needs the individual worker. Management absolutely uses that asymmetry to force people to do their petty whims. If you’ve ever worked for anyone else before we all know this to be true. It’s so true and pervasively experienced it’s almost vacuous to even say it.

I for one am pretty sick of the endless litany of bullshit in my career and am probably going to go it on my own again or just retire. Almost no one is so lucky as me and that’s a fucking tragedy of epic proportions.

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

#577

Post by billy99k »

adpirz wrote: post #249
keeptrying wrote: post #234

[flagged]

I think this is heavily life-and-career-stage dependent IMO. If you're young, early career, and don't have dependents, you should absolutely prioritize in-office. Otherwise, the calculus varies.

I've worked remotely for around 12 years and love it (it's even better now that I have kids) I had a good 10 years in the office, when I was starting out.

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

#579

Post by billti »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #462

As a former senior person at aws although I left on good terms I will never return there and this stuff cements the deal for me. I need a company that respects my decisions on how I do best in my career and not surveil of police my work style. As long as I am a trusted leader who delivers results that customers need why does anyone care where my bag of water is physically located? Who are you to tell neurodivergent e…

> Who are you to tell neurodivergent employees to suffer?

I found this line telling. I’m wondering if the Hacker News crowd is biased towards the “hacker” stereotype - the socially awkward coder who likes to be left alone and crank out largely independent work.

I have a couple of folks like this in my team, and they are absolutely as good (or better) working from home, as they don’t really talk to others much or contribute in meetings anyway.

But you can’t build a team/org out of those personality types. Much of the creative work and important decisions _does_ happen face to face, let alone the ad-hoc ideation and brainstorming from being in the same space.

I don’t think it’s a requirement that everyone be in the office 5 days a week (I don’t do that myself), but I do see the negatives of letting the team work from home whenever they want and expecting to get the same level of work done over Teams/Zoom calls and email.

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

#580

Post by AtlasBarfed »

dividefuel wrote: post #407
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 think revenge is the motivation, but it's hard to know what the actual motivation is. I think it's some mix of: - Execs truly believe that culture and productivity are better in office (i.e., what they actually say in their announcements) - An opportunity to force attrition without layoffs - Maintain real estate value / Justify real estate investments - Belief that remote workers are more likely to jump to an…

Look people, those foosball tables are a major investment.

Major.

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