Amazon tells employees to return to office five days a week • Hacker News Board

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

#581

Post by Aurornis » Tue, Sep 17, 2024, 12:43 AM UTC

realmike33 wrote: post #551

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…

Take this with a grain of salt but I read on a similar Reddit post the return to office is mainly due to the tax incentives the city/county/state provided Amazon for having their offices located there. The Reddit user made a claim which Amazon could only receive those tax benefits if their workers actually worked in person at the location. --- I can see this being a valid argument for return to office for a lot of co…

> The Reddit user made a claim

Did they provide any links or evidence at all? Reddit is a hotbed of misinformation and claims like this proliferate and grow on Reddit with little basis in reality all the time. Unless someone can find compelling evidence that this is both true and a substantial tax credit, I would assume it’s just another product of the Reddit misinformation machine.

Even if it is true, the majority of the RTO is a transition from hybrid to 5 days onsite. I doubt they would have allowed hybrid to begin with if it impacted some hypothetical giant tax breaks.

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

#582

Post by blackeyeblitzar » Tue, Sep 17, 2024, 12:43 AM UTC

keyle wrote: post #542

ryukoposting wrote: post #490

As a firmware engineer, my job demands more "in-office-y" stuff than most other engineers on HN. I have specialized equipment. Hardware. I need to interface with manufacturing. So on. Guess what? I'm going on 1 year fully remote, and I'm doing great! Turns out, all that fancy equipment can be brought home with you. We deal with a contract manufacturer, and emailing them from home is no harder than emailing them from…

I'm in a similar situation, but no hardware involved. Just the flexibility to juggle the kids at pick up times is godsend. I have much better no-interruption stretches of programming which yields better results overall.

Is it possible that these RTO policies are actually meant to select for younger people and force others to resign? After all older people have more responsibilities outside of work like children and cannot work through Amazon’s meat grinder or do things like support brutal on call cycles. They’re also the ones with bigger commutes and other barriers to RTO, since they probably live away from city cores to buy houses and have space for a family. Meanwhile young people who live in the middle of downtowns in apartments that are near their work probably are unaffected by this kind of change.

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

#583

Post by Olreich » Tue, Sep 17, 2024, 12:43 AM UTC

realmike33 wrote: post #551

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…

Take this with a grain of salt but I read on a similar Reddit post the return to office is mainly due to the tax incentives the city/county/state provided Amazon for having their offices located there. The Reddit user made a claim which Amazon could only receive those tax benefits if their workers actually worked in person at the location. --- I can see this being a valid argument for return to office for a lot of co…

Usually the tax incentives are relatively minor and are long term as well. The more important thing with the real-estate strategy is that there's a lot of capital and personal clout wrapped up in these massive building projects and investments. Amazon recently had 2 shiny new buildings built in Arlington, VA. They have a bunch of buildings that were built in Seattle. There's definitely tax incentives involved, but those tax incentives are tiny compared to the billions of capital poured into the buildings.

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

#584

Post by ShufflerL » Tue, Sep 17, 2024, 12:43 AM UTC

Hmm I am not sure what exactly is Amazon trying to solve for? I reckon only the managers know.. Moving to office-first does not solve the root cause - because it might be some other deep seated issues. If it's really about boosting collaboration and communications in a remote working culture, that requires fostering by the Management especially the company does not start with remote first culture from the get-go.

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

#585

Post by greenthrow » Tue, Sep 17, 2024, 12:45 AM UTC

wnc3141 wrote: post #575

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.

Investors love layoffs right now. It's actually to avoid paying severance.

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

#586

Post by analog31 » Tue, Sep 17, 2024, 12:46 AM UTC

ryukoposting wrote: post #490

As a firmware engineer, my job demands more "in-office-y" stuff than most other engineers on HN. I have specialized equipment. Hardware. I need to interface with manufacturing. So on. Guess what? I'm going on 1 year fully remote, and I'm doing great! Turns out, all that fancy equipment can be brought home with you. We deal with a contract manufacturer, and emailing them from home is no harder than emailing them from…

I'm also in a supposedly "hardware" role. Early in March 2020, the people in my group were all watching the data that were becoming available. My boss came into our work area and said: "You guys can all see what's happening. Let's clear out of here, then we'll figure out what to do."

I went and got my minivan, loaded it with the contents of my lab, and took it home. Then I ordered high speed Internet service. A few days later the schools closed, and my family was all working at home. I already had some lab space at home due to my side business.

Now, I didn't really mind working from work. It's a few minutes bike ride from my house.

Oddly enough, things were happening so quickly that even being a few days or weeks ahead of the game meant that we were charting new territory within our company, which is a large multinational. For instance, with no specific location, we started collaborating beyond our original group. We improved our use of rapid prototyping services. We got a lot done despite, I think, having a more relaxed pace of work. Though I work in "hardware," what that means in this day and age is spending somewhere between 0 and 100% of your time programming. I spent a lot of time programming while looking out the window, taking a break and going for a walk, and so forth.

It was also comforting to go back, eventually. I like the people. It could get lonely at home. I'm definitely not a introvert.

(Edited to clarify: March 2020)

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

#587

Post by jogu » Tue, Sep 17, 2024, 12:47 AM UTC

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…

For what it’s worth the change isn’t from full remote to 5 days a week. It’s from 3 days in office to 5 so it shouldn’t be as drastic of a shift.

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

#588

Post by ivraatiems » Tue, Sep 17, 2024, 12:47 AM UTC

ryukoposting wrote: post #387

ivraatiems wrote: post #362

A note for engineers looking for jobs, based on this and about a thousand similar posts: If you joined a "remote" company that went remote during the pandemic, no, you didn't. Look for companies that went full-remote before 2020, or after ~2022. Otherwise, it can't be trusted.

Companies that went full-remote around 2020-2021 are more likely to try to drag people back into the office, but I wouldn't suggest that you don't interview with those companies. The best thing you can do is get to the finish line, get the offer sheet, and demand that your position as a full-time remote worker be written into your agreement with the company. FWIW I know someone who did exactly this with a defense pri…

Most companies in the US are hiring workers at-will. There are no contracts and anyone can terminate employment for any reason. I don't think that would work in the United States for most non-contract roles. It might work for contractors and for people in Europe.

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

#589

Post by fnordpiglet » Tue, Sep 17, 2024, 12:48 AM UTC

rachofsunshine wrote: post #525

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…

This is a legitimate thing to want, and I myself prefer remote work and run a distributed company... ...but I don't think it's engaging with the problems involved. Management exists for a reason. I'm not going to speculate too hard on what that reason is, but it's a profession older than those practiced by just about anyone on this forum, found across every culture, in every part of the world, at every time in histor…

As someone who spent half his career in executive management of globomegacorps management is for the most part total bullshit.

Every global company is already working remotely because teams are spread out everywhere. Even if your team isn’t your dependencies are. The more senior you get the more you work on zoom these days. Before the pandemic it was in conference calls.

In fact the half assed in office approach is worse because not everyone is on the same foot. The remote offices from the leaders don’t get to have the on mute influence with the leader. When the call ends the people in the local room with the leader have a little meeting to make the real decisions. That’s grossly inefficient and unfair, to the point it’s started to make me sick to my stomach when I see it happen and I refuse to book rooms for in the office meetings.

In fact a role I had prior to the pandemic was figuring out how to shut down most offices of a megacorp to save money. We called it “bring your own office.” We analyzed deeply the interactions and determined in a global corporation the percent of time we make better decisions in office was less than 20% or 1 day a week. When the pandemic hit our predictions came true. But our elderly CEO couldn’t understand how the strategy he agreed to to save money would work once his ideological hackles got raised so he mandated everyone return 5 days a week even tho we were then 5 years into the bring your own office plan he agreed to. There were no metrics or reason other than, basically, he likes working in the office because it made him successful in his career and he can’t conceive that anyone could do anything different.

There are people who work better in the office and having a small office with plenty of high quality meeting areas and private places to work is smart. Management should allow knowledge workers to work the way they work best and figure out how to maximize team efficiency as managers are required to do. It’s a hard job. I know. I’ve done it. But RTO is a short cut that fails to recognize the incredible inefficiencies inherent in the approach, especially in a global company.

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

#590

Post by dymk » Tue, Sep 17, 2024, 12:48 AM UTC

billti wrote: post #579

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 cont…

> 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.

Maybe for you. This is not a universal experience.