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Amazon RTO policy is costing it top tech talent, according to internal document

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Re: Amazon RTO policy is costing it top tech talent, according to internal document

#171
post #167

5 days a week RTO is just beyond the pale. 3 days, sure. 4 days, maybe. But 5 days in office is harsh. Top talent sees this as rude, lack of trust, unnecessary babysitting and middle managing. 3-4 days sure, good for networking, collaboration, etc. But give people 1 day a week flex at least to be trusted adults who can responsibly wfh.

In most companies this mythical collaboration doesn't exist unless it's between actual decision makers who steer the product's direction. In the end, most office employees just do their work, ask a question or two from their colleagues and participate in some, often unnecessary, ceremonies.

Sir David Attenborough is gonna make bank on the documentary featuring these animals engaging in these most unnatural of corporate environments

Re: Amazon RTO policy is costing it top tech talent, according to internal document

#172

Obviously true, but Amazon never wanted top tech talent. They wanted disposable tech talent. When I was there the expected tenure was 18 months. Managers were expected to fire 10% of their team every year. Benefits were mediocre and the pay was so so. They chewed through devs by putting them in brutal oncall rotations with expectations like, "when you are on call you have a maximum of 15 minutes from being paged to b…

> "when you are on call you have a maximum of 15 minutes from being paged to being checked in to the incident. Carry your laptop everywhere you go. Why is that brutal? That's what on-call is. That's literally the point of paying someone extra for being available.

What’s this “paying someone extra for oncall” concept you speak of :|

Re: Amazon RTO policy is costing it top tech talent, according to internal document

#173

5 days a week RTO is just beyond the pale. 3 days, sure. 4 days, maybe. But 5 days in office is harsh. Top talent sees this as rude, lack of trust, unnecessary babysitting and middle managing. 3-4 days sure, good for networking, collaboration, etc. But give people 1 day a week flex at least to be trusted adults who can responsibly wfh.

That may be the point of the 5 day RTO. Make 3 days attractive. You start with 5 so that everyone warms to the idea of 3 days.

Re: Amazon RTO policy is costing it top tech talent, according to internal document

#174

5 days a week RTO is just beyond the pale. 3 days, sure. 4 days, maybe. But 5 days in office is harsh. Top talent sees this as rude, lack of trust, unnecessary babysitting and middle managing. 3-4 days sure, good for networking, collaboration, etc. But give people 1 day a week flex at least to be trusted adults who can responsibly wfh.

I work full remote. If they ask me to RTO, I quit and retire. Game over, man.

But, given that, "5 days a week RTO is just beyond the pale"? No. That's just normal for pretty much everyone on the planet.

Top talent? If they're not willing to negotiate on 5 days RTO you need to adjust your ideas of how marketable you are, you're not top talent and you're not a trusted adult, you're a human resource.

Re: Amazon RTO policy is costing it top tech talent, according to internal document

#175

5 days a week RTO is just beyond the pale. 3 days, sure. 4 days, maybe. But 5 days in office is harsh. Top talent sees this as rude, lack of trust, unnecessary babysitting and middle managing. 3-4 days sure, good for networking, collaboration, etc. But give people 1 day a week flex at least to be trusted adults who can responsibly wfh.

Its not RTO is bad per se.

Its the fact that the policy doesn't work in a shitty culture!

Re: Amazon RTO policy is costing it top tech talent, according to internal document

#176

5 days a week RTO is just beyond the pale. 3 days, sure. 4 days, maybe. But 5 days in office is harsh. Top talent sees this as rude, lack of trust, unnecessary babysitting and middle managing. 3-4 days sure, good for networking, collaboration, etc. But give people 1 day a week flex at least to be trusted adults who can responsibly wfh.

I have no idea how i used to manage with five days in office. I am currently using myunch hour to see a doctor. A few weeks back I needed to see a plumber, and before that an electrician. Its five seconds out of the work day let them in and send them on their way but I guess we're looking at burning annual leave if I was stuck in office.

Before that people just took flex days and it was fine. With RTO enforcement and measurement it's made it less flexible

Re: Amazon RTO policy is costing it top tech talent, according to internal document

#177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have a good one.

I hope your mediocre manager ass gets canned.

I'd be upset too after seven years at AWS. Brush up on that leetcode!

Re: Amazon RTO policy is costing it top tech talent, according to internal document

#178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're not doing so ok, and I hope you get better. And that's not an insult. I mean it.

I hope you leave the workforce so some younger, less brainwashed folk can clean up the crock of shit you left behind.

I started freelancing at 16, graduated high school at 17, started my first "real job" later that year.

If you graduated at 18, went to college for at least 4 years, and have already spent 7 years at AWS... you odds are you're pretty much my age if not older lol (31)

Big yikes

Re: Amazon RTO policy is costing it top tech talent, according to internal document

#179

Obviously true, but Amazon never wanted top tech talent. They wanted disposable tech talent. When I was there the expected tenure was 18 months. Managers were expected to fire 10% of their team every year. Benefits were mediocre and the pay was so so. They chewed through devs by putting them in brutal oncall rotations with expectations like, "when you are on call you have a maximum of 15 minutes from being paged to b…

> "when you are on call you have a maximum of 15 minutes from being paged to being checked in to the incident. Carry your laptop everywhere you go. Why is that brutal? That's what on-call is. That's literally the point of paying someone extra for being available.

They don't pay extra.

Re: Amazon RTO policy is costing it top tech talent, according to internal document

#180

I started to think that these type of articles posted on Hacker News are a bit excessive. This and the AI stuff. This is one American company (high-profile, for sure) that might or might not be having retention issues. It's up to them to decide that, individual employees of the said company to decide if this arrangement is still right for them and shareholders if this will be a worthy investment in the next years. I…

How does that boot taste?

A quite delicate taste of leather on my soft palette.
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