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

#701

Post by wordofx » Tue, Sep 17, 2024, 6:18 AM UTC

I always find it amusing, reading comments from all these people who claim to be more productive working from home, or think that it works better. It proves they work in silos and contribute little.

But HN is like “no WFH good, WFO bad, me downvote you cos I fink I know wat I talk bout”

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

#702

Post by itake » Tue, Sep 17, 2024, 6:19 AM UTC

wordofx wrote: post #701

I always find it amusing, reading comments from all these people who claim to be more productive working from home, or think that it works better. It proves they work in silos and contribute little. But HN is like “no WFH good, WFO bad, me downvote you cos I fink I know wat I talk bout”

What do you think about these remote CEOs/executives (like the new CEO of Starbucks or Elon)? Do they contribute little too?

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

#703

Post by lynx23 » Tue, Sep 17, 2024, 6:21 AM UTC

Wow, look at the number of comments. Lots of entitlement around here. We have a saying around here, "give them a finger, and they will demand your whole hand." Fascinating how a single precedence case can raise expectations through the roof. The office will not go away, no matter how much the priviledge people rant.

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

#704

Post by gabegm » Tue, Sep 17, 2024, 6:22 AM UTC

wordofx wrote: post #701

I always find it amusing, reading comments from all these people who claim to be more productive working from home, or think that it works better. It proves they work in silos and contribute little. But HN is like “no WFH good, WFO bad, me downvote you cos I fink I know wat I talk bout”

People have different work preferences; some thrive working from home, while others do better in the office. I think the strong opinions about mandated office days stem from the fact that the job doesn’t necessarily require employees to be physically present.

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

#705

Post by ekimekim » Tue, Sep 17, 2024, 6:23 AM UTC

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.

I joined a company in late 2020 that had gone remote at the start of the pandemic, and this crossed my mind. The deciding factor for me? The founders had since moved to different locations across the US. That put their money where their mouth was more than anything.

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

#706

Post by wordofx » Tue, Sep 17, 2024, 6:27 AM UTC

itake wrote: post #702

wordofx wrote: post #701

I always find it amusing, reading comments from all these people who claim to be more productive working from home, or think that it works better. It proves they work in silos and contribute little. But HN is like “no WFH good, WFO bad, me downvote you cos I fink I know wat I talk bout”

What do you think about these remote CEOs/executives (like the new CEO of Starbucks or Elon)? Do they contribute little too?

lol you think Elon sits there writing shit at a desk? He delegates. Runs multiple businesses and floats about unblocking people and making sure progress is made.

Engineers don’t work like that.

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

#707

Post by JSDevOps » Tue, Sep 17, 2024, 6:29 AM UTC

If they are that serious they should turn off the vpn. If they don’t this is just talking heads.

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

#708

Post by ConcernedCoder » Tue, Sep 17, 2024, 6:30 AM UTC

this is why we need a union

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

#709

Post by wordofx » Tue, Sep 17, 2024, 6:32 AM UTC

gabegm wrote: post #704

wordofx wrote: post #701

I always find it amusing, reading comments from all these people who claim to be more productive working from home, or think that it works better. It proves they work in silos and contribute little. But HN is like “no WFH good, WFO bad, me downvote you cos I fink I know wat I talk bout”

People have different work preferences; some thrive working from home, while others do better in the office. I think the strong opinions about mandated office days stem from the fact that the job doesn’t necessarily require employees to be physically present.

While jobs maybe not require someone been physically present. So far over the last 2 years seeing multiple businesses do return to office, productivity sky rocketed. Sure a few people who didn’t want to return to the office left, but turns out they weren’t that productive. People are easy to replace now.

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

#710

Post by matthewsinclair » Tue, Sep 17, 2024, 6:37 AM UTC

I find the “remote vs onsite” debate to be a little bit misguided. I try to reframe it as a balancing act between “broad work” and “deep work”. The difference being that broad work is the kind of thing that needs collaboration and interaction and deep work needs focus and singular attention.

As an engineering leader, I have had some success and traction with non-engineers by re-framing the debate in this way.

I wrote these ideas up as a blog post earlier this year:

Broad work vs deep work https://matthewsinclair.com/blog/0165-broad-work-vs-deep-wor...