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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

#641

> If you or your child were sick, if you had some sort of house emergency, if you were on the road seeing customers or partners, if you needed a day or two to finish coding in a more isolated environment, people worked remotely. This was understood, and will be moving forward as well. This is Amazon having it both ways, which is what a lot of companies are doing. You can work remotely 'sometimes,' with a secret defin…

I especially liked "if you were on the road seeing customers" as if they're reluctantly granting an RTO exception to people meeting with customers and those employees should be thankful for it.

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

#642

I have yet to see metrics cited by any of these announcements. Do people think that's because: a). They don't have metrics, and all the cynics are right about this being vibes based b). They actually do have the data, and it's very grim for how poorly people on average perform when WFH but don't want to share it due to sensitivity or something Like, i'm actually pro Work From Office (don't yell at me, i joined a comp…

Do you honestly believe that if all the studies and research showed performance goes down when WFH that executives wouldn't be screaming it from the rooftops and shoving it down our throats to get us to come back in? Most people don't want to commute.

So why do something irrational that is not in the company’s best interest? Must be they want to reduce headcount, but even then, this is a poor way because the people with options will leave.

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

#643

> If you or your child were sick, if you had some sort of house emergency, if you were on the road seeing customers or partners, if you needed a day or two to finish coding in a more isolated environment, people worked remotely. This was understood, and will be moving forward as well. This is Amazon having it both ways, which is what a lot of companies are doing. You can work remotely 'sometimes,' with a secret defin…

Strategic ambiguity.

Amazon _always_ engages in "house always wins" games with ambiguity. They want it both ways

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

#645
post #368

I was in the "office is a good thing" camp for a while, but having been forced now to do 3 days, then forced to move to an office an extra 20 minute commute away, I've changed my feelings on the matter. Spending 2-2.5 hrs in commute a day is a terrible experience when trying to balance a high pressure job with the rest of life. I really miss hybrid with 1-2 days in the office. That was the best compromise all around.

How is any number 0-5 based on your preference not the best compromise in your opinion? Do you gain anything when someone who would choose not to be in the office ever is there?

All the people who want to socialize at work get the office, everyone who wants the flexibility of remote work get to enjoy that. From experience, making a remote-first team work in office is just working-remote but next to one another. Once you get used to all your processes being in-chat and having 5-10 async conversations going at once while working having to like stop and have only one stream of thought is like an adhd rug pull.

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

#647
post #368

I was in the "office is a good thing" camp for a while, but having been forced now to do 3 days, then forced to move to an office an extra 20 minute commute away, I've changed my feelings on the matter. Spending 2-2.5 hrs in commute a day is a terrible experience when trying to balance a high pressure job with the rest of life. I really miss hybrid with 1-2 days in the office. That was the best compromise all around.

Funny how that works huh? Only when it affects you, thats when you start paying attention.

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

#648
The original sin of Amazon has always been how it treats its warehouse staff. There is just no way you can isolate that to one part of your org. Eventually some sociopath will see what they can get away with and decide to apply the same principles to everyone.

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

#649
post #368

I was in the "office is a good thing" camp for a while, but having been forced now to do 3 days, then forced to move to an office an extra 20 minute commute away, I've changed my feelings on the matter. Spending 2-2.5 hrs in commute a day is a terrible experience when trying to balance a high pressure job with the rest of life. I really miss hybrid with 1-2 days in the office. That was the best compromise all around.

I usually read or sleep on the commute because I can take the train. It never really bothered me much because I like to sleep and read. Are all these negative comments about the commuting because you have to drive to work?
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