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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

#761

Post by dickersnoodle »

newsclues wrote: post #652
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…

Should we be giving 25% raises to grocery store and retail workers who don’t have the option of WFH? Lots of people don’t work in an office and still have to commute, shouldn’t they get compensation if the office workers get this benefit?

Yes, they should.

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

#762

Post by bagels »

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…

Where do you get 2 hours from?

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

#763

Post by malermeister »

camillomiller wrote: post #743
mrweasel wrote: post #732

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Eliminating 2 hours a day of driving and train rides left me with more energy I can expend on my work! Companies forget this. I have had coworkers quit because they couldn't deal with transport. One got stressed out of his mind because our office was close to motorway which frequently has accidents and if that happened he might not be able to pick up the kids on time. Others had to leave clients hanging because the…

Ok, so why is that. I can't seem to find any reasonable explanation as to why they forget it. Especially considering that data absolutely does not seem on the side of RTO. What's your theory?

I think there's a few factors at play:

1) Ego/Power trip reasons: It just makes you feel like the big man to be physically lording over your minions and they miss it.

2) Class Warfare: Workers need to be kept miserable enough so they turn to mindless consumption and don't start asking any inconvenient questions.

3) Financial Conflicts of Interest: Higher Management is likely to have some real estate investments, maybe even in commercial real estate. They might be worried more about that part of their portfolio than about the company stock part.

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

#765

Post by alliao »

kwanbix wrote: post #757
mrweasel wrote: post #732

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Eliminating 2 hours a day of driving and train rides left me with more energy I can expend on my work! Companies forget this. I have had coworkers quit because they couldn't deal with transport. One got stressed out of his mind because our office was close to motorway which frequently has accidents and if that happened he might not be able to pick up the kids on time. Others had to leave clients hanging because the…

I know this might be an "unpopular opinion," but after working fully remote for three years, I found myself feeling really down. I felt like a prisoner in my own home. So, three months ago, I started a new job with an office that’s 45 minutes away, and I’ve been going in every day—and I couldn't be happier! I do have the option to work from home all days if I want, but honestly, I prefer going to the office. Now, I g…

do you have family?

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

#766

Post by jamalaramala »

Another point to consider: the environmental impact of having hundreds of thousands of people commuting to work every day.

Transport is the second most important source of greenhouse gas emissions, after electricity and heat.

I'm not sure if large office spaces are more energy efficient than home offices.

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

#767

Post by WhyNotHugo »

weq wrote: post #679
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…

Instead of announcing mass layoffs, tech companies use RTO orders. They are very effective at trimming the fat and creating peons. Also effective in stopping the corperate real estate crash that alot of important trust funds depend on. Productivity < Compliant Workers < Stock value

RTO definitely helps reduce workforce and keep the most complaint workers.

I suspect that "most compliant workers" and "most creative engineers" has little overlap.

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

#768

Post by james_woods »

Citing an article from MIT Sloan Management Review:

"But there’s no clear evidence that these mandates improve financial performance. A recent study of S&P 500 companies that was conducted by University of Pittsburgh researchers found that executives are “using RTO mandates to reassert control over employees and blame employees as a scapegoat for bad firm performance.” Those policies result in “significant declines in employees’ job satisfaction but no significant changes in financial performance or firm values,” they concluded." (https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/return-to-office-mandate...)

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

#769

Post by jamalaramala »

thousand_nights wrote: post #22

i can't believe how out of touch some of these rich corporate execs are, as if everyone's aim in life should be to pour every ounce of their energy to make some massive trillion dollar corporation even richer this capitalistic yearn for endless growth is such a parasitic meat grinder they write these memos with "touching" stories, i started from the bottom here, 27 years, amazon is my life, blah blah, as if anyone, p…

> i can't believe how out of touch some of these rich corporate execs are, as if everyone's aim in life should be to pour every ounce of their energy to make some massive trillion dollar corporation even richer

You must consider their objectives and incentives... making shareholders richer makes them richer. Making employees happier doesn't. (At least in the short term...)

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

#770

Post by martinohansen »

kwanbix wrote: post #757
mrweasel wrote: post #732

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Eliminating 2 hours a day of driving and train rides left me with more energy I can expend on my work! Companies forget this. I have had coworkers quit because they couldn't deal with transport. One got stressed out of his mind because our office was close to motorway which frequently has accidents and if that happened he might not be able to pick up the kids on time. Others had to leave clients hanging because the…

I know this might be an "unpopular opinion," but after working fully remote for three years, I found myself feeling really down. I felt like a prisoner in my own home. So, three months ago, I started a new job with an office that’s 45 minutes away, and I’ve been going in every day—and I couldn't be happier! I do have the option to work from home all days if I want, but honestly, I prefer going to the office. Now, I g…

One does not exclude the other.

I work for a remote-only company but use a workspace almost every day. I get to chose my own “office” and the people in it, I also pick the commute I want, this one is just 5 minutes away.

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