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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

#811

Post by user3939382 »

belval wrote: post #212
strivingtobe wrote: post #181

> We want to operate like the world’s largest startup It's always amusing when a multi-decade-old, multi-hundred-billion-dollar company says stuff like this. You're not a startup. You never will be. And if you were, you probably would actually offer perks in your offices that might actually encourage people to be there. Instead, the only perk that Amazon has is that you get one free coffee per day, and even that they…

I like working there, but Amazon definitely has the worst in-office accomodations. No snacks, no free coffee, for-profit (like 4-5$ for a chocolate bar) vending machines on every second floor, no cafeterias in most building and when they have one it's a hole-in-the-wall that microwaves stuff (except Seattle). In the original RTO email they even pointed the importance of employee spending money in the surrounding rest…

Super tangential please accept my apology. Do you have any insight on why one of the biggest companies in the world can’t create a dark mode on their app after 10 years?

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

#812

Post by mrweasel »

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?

Because they measure the wrong things or is completely driven by sentiment.

Sort of similar, a friend of mine was fired. Ostensibly for not bringing in enough revenue/profit in a consulting business. Very few of his hours where billable, so he looked unprofitable. The issue: He was working on internal tooling, building systems that everyone else rely on to do their jobs effectively. His value was hidden in the work of others, but that's not measured.

When looking a "work from home", you rarely see companies measure job satisfaction, stress levels or even do proper exit interviews. The sort of things you need to keep on top of the keep people long term. Many customers won't report back to your boss that because you sat a your desk at home you where able to help them after your normal working hours, saving time the next day. In consulting tracking billable hours is normal, but if you don't track when and where those hours are worked, you're not going to see that some work better at the office, while others have a skyrocketing productivity boost at home.

Other times you have bosses that wants "butts in seat" because they don't trust their employees. Hell, we had a sister company where the employees sat in a fucking horseshoe configuration at the office, on the "inside" of the horseshoe, so the owner could sit at the open end at check that people where working at all times. Do you think that fucker is going to let people work from home?

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

#813

Post by user3939382 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #47
DataDaemon wrote: post #9

What about CO2?

Eventually, the goal is to have everyone live in an apartment building in the city and walk to work. That is far less CO2 than people living far away from infrastructure and services in detached single family homes and driving everywhere in their unnecessarily large vehicles.

So the goal is to have everyone live in noisy environments totally detached from nature?

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

#814

Post by highcountess »

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…

[flagged]

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

#815

Post by gttalbot »

And this is how we operationalize age discrimination. Note the layoffs of middle management announced at the same time. Force everyone into the office, ideally through a difficult commute into an area that it's very expensive to have a family.

People for whom this is really untenable will quit without severance. Some with difficult circumstances you can PIP out without severance. Then the rest you lay off. Congratulations now the severance bill you have to show to Wall St. is a lot smaller.

Sociopaths.

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

#816

Post by rlpb »

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…

I understand the need for human contact and to get out of the house. But you can achieve that working "from home", too, albeit with some consideration for confidentiality requirements[1]. Usually the place you must work from isn't defined. I work "from home", but once a week I work in the same room as a bunch of locals who also work from home.

A few advantages: 1) you have a wider pool of people to choose to co-work with, since they can have other employers, too; 2) you can choose who you want to co-work with; 3) you get to (mostly) choose which and how many hours you wish to co-work; 4) no stress about being late due to a commute or childcare commitments, since co-working hours are optional.

[1] I deliberately arrange to work on things that aren't confidential on co-working days.

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

#817

Post by mrweasel »

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…

> I know this might be an "unpopular opinion,"

It should not be. I work from home 100% now, but feeling alone is a very real issue for many of us. I have friends I talk to during the day via IRC or one the phone, regular chats and video calls with colleagues and managers, family is right around the corner and I try to get out every day and talk to people.

For some the isolation is wonderful. For others, like me, it's amazing for doing focused work, but I also need people in my life. For some problem arises when their sole social circle is people they work with. If you struggle to talk to people you don't know then coworkers quickly be an "outlet" for socializing.

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

#818

Post by lazide »

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?

Not the parent poster, but companies want people who will deal and cater to their needs, not people who will whine and complain about (even very real) issues.

And employees will typically want companies that will cater to their every whim and pay them very well to be catered too.

Where the two meet is the labor market.

Conditions are changing, and ‘hard’ force is being applied again.

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

#819

Post by squigglydonut »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #544
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…

Some companies used this to reduce their headcount without having to fire people. Maybe Amazon is doing the same thing.

This is what I believe as well. It's an assuming narrative that allows them to say that it wasn't them it was the employee choice.

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

#820

Post by walthamstow »

hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #711
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 a software lead for passenger information systems on public transit. What that means is: The little screen that shows you what your next stop is, and the little voice clip that plays "Next Stop: Braintree" or what have you. It's not quite as nice a feedback loop as ordinary web dev, but I've found a $20 webcam easily pays for itself many times over in this environment. This becomes all the more important as we st…

I'm extremely curious about the nationality and residence of a person who uses Braintree (a town in Essex UK with a silly name) as an example but purchases things in dollars
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