Amazon Tells Employees to Relocate or Resign

Post by kcplate » Tue, Jun 24, 2025, 9:56 PM UTC

0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #49

kcplate wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really depends on what your employment agreement says. If it specifically stipulates that your position is “remote” and your company decides to change that, you could argue that your agreement would need to be renegotiated and their breaking of the contract would entitle you to whatever remedies are in the contract for you when that happens. Hopefully you have a remedy beyond “you stop working for us and we stop p…

Given the mad max employment law, I am just hoping (?) that there are some restrictions on this. Otherwise, why would a company ever do layoffs? Just have an employment clause that you can be relocated at any time. “Yeah, next week we are going to need you to be at work in the Alaska office. Following week, your butt needs to be in Florida. Failure to comply is an instant termination “

Post by quectophoton » Wed, Jun 25, 2025, 10:43 AM UTC

yks wrote: post #35

quectophoton wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at it from the companies' point of view: - Human contact is more important than efficiency gains, hence mandating return-to-office. - At the same time, efficiency gains are more important than human contact, hence reducing human headcount in favor of increased AI use. If you read between the lines, you can see how those two points are related: humans find difficult to feel connected when their communication part…

> Human contact is more important than efficiency gains, hence mandating return-to-office. First, citation needed. Second, in this day and age companies try whatever they can to ruin in-office employees' morale as well, which goes counter to the position that social quality of life is important for efficiency.

Post by lurking_swe » Wed, Jun 25, 2025, 6:14 PM UTC

frollogaston wrote: post #43

lurking_swe wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

isn’t it trivial for management to see a higher bar, and enforce it? If expectations are not met, just fire them. The solution is simple IMO. Are the managers competent? Do they know how to evaluate if work/goals are being met without counting how many hours the employee is online?

Letting people work at a slow pace for a while, PIPing them, then ultimately firing, is very expensive. An unproductive teammate not only doesn't get stuff done but also brings down the rest of the team. Edit: Some companies also don't like the morale effects of sink-or-swim, though Amazon is fine with it I've heard.

Post by frollogaston » Wed, Jun 25, 2025, 6:27 PM UTC

nizmow wrote: post #52

lurking_swe wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

isn’t it trivial for management to see a higher bar, and enforce it? If expectations are not met, just fire them. The solution is simple IMO. Are the managers competent? Do they know how to evaluate if work/goals are being met without counting how many hours the employee is online?

I suspect this will become increasingly common with companies that allow remote work. Atlassian is a large Australian tech employer that is full remote, and this is definitely the case there - performance reviews twice yearly and a very high attrition rate.

Post by frollogaston » Wed, Jun 25, 2025, 6:40 PM UTC

yks wrote: post #42

UltraSane wrote: post #14

The US road system is a HUGE subsidy to companies by enabling employees to commute long distances. If companies bore the commute costs of worker commutes they would be MUCH more in favor of remote work.

It is obvious that the "suburb-to-downtown commute" lifestyle arrangement of America is not scalable, wasteful and a massive quality of life drain. Yet we're committing to it, why? Because the employers don't want to pay more in unemployment insurance and try to lay you off in some roundabout way? This is maddening.