Amazon Announces RTO for Employees • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon Announces RTO for Employees

#11

Post by pcan77 » Fri, Feb 17, 2023, 11:45 PM UTC

_vertigo wrote: post #7

1101010010 wrote: post #4

> Jassy said he and the S-team, a tight-knit group of senior executives from almost all areas of Amazon's business, decided at a meeting earlier this week that employees should be in the office "the majority of the time (at least three days per week)." Was the meeting in a physical office? Can we expect the policy to apply to them as well as the rest of the staff? You know, to make it easier to "ask ad-hoc questions…

Honestly I would be surprised if the majority (all, really) of the S Team isn’t planning on coming in every day of the week

not really a big deal for them considering they have the big bucks to buy a nice home 5 min from the office, or you know, pay for a car service to drive them.

Re: Amazon Announces RTO for Employees

#12

Post by xakahnx » Fri, Feb 17, 2023, 11:49 PM UTC

librish wrote: post #6

There are a lot of companies making remote work work for them, and for a lot of people's lifestyles it's a huge boon. My personal experience has been that WFH has lead to an absolute grinding halt in productivity that requires any form of collaboration. A lot of people will often not respond to Slack for several hours and any video conferencing is usually scheduled for later in the week, instead of in 20 minutes. I k…

Have you tried calling people on the phone? This is the remote-work equivalent of tapping someone on the shoulder. It's equally helpful for companies that have multiple offices where you need to collaborate with someone not physical near you

Re: Amazon Announces RTO for Employees

#13

Post by _vertigo » Fri, Feb 17, 2023, 11:49 PM UTC

humanrebar wrote: post #8

_vertigo wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I would be surprised if the majority (all, really) of the S Team isn’t planning on coming in every day of the week

To the same floor of the same office?

No, probably not. They’re executives, they probably have offices in different buildings corresponding to their business area throughout Seattle. Like the AWS head doesn’t need to work from the same building as the head of Consumer.

But yeah, I’m not sure that they always meet in person when they meet. I have no idea about that. But I don’t think that the majority of their job function entails meeting each other, probably it entails running their division.

Re: Amazon Announces RTO for Employees

#14

Post by mrhands556 » Fri, Feb 17, 2023, 11:49 PM UTC

radicaldreamer wrote: post #9

WFH makes it possible for some engineers (and managers) to not do any work and is often a case of "out of sight, out of mind". Without a strong way of gauging impact (a ton of hypergrowth startups and large companies are in this bucket), you can basically coast along doing minimal work. On the other hand, there are a ton of engineers who are hyper-productive when working remotely but because companies don't know how…

In my experience all the people who are most vocal for WFH are the ones who fall into the “out of sight out of mind” bucket.

Re: Amazon Announces RTO for Employees

#15

Post by _vertigo » Fri, Feb 17, 2023, 11:50 PM UTC

pcan77 wrote: post #11

_vertigo wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I would be surprised if the majority (all, really) of the S Team isn’t planning on coming in every day of the week

not really a big deal for them considering they have the big bucks to buy a nice home 5 min from the office, or you know, pay for a car service to drive them.

Yeah, that’s kind of my point. They probably love to come into the office

Re: Amazon Announces RTO for Employees

#16

Post by prepend » Fri, Feb 17, 2023, 11:50 PM UTC

librish wrote: post #6

There are a lot of companies making remote work work for them, and for a lot of people's lifestyles it's a huge boon. My personal experience has been that WFH has lead to an absolute grinding halt in productivity that requires any form of collaboration. A lot of people will often not respond to Slack for several hours and any video conferencing is usually scheduled for later in the week, instead of in 20 minutes. I k…

I use teams and zoom and frequently interact with team members. It’s pretty great.

Re: Amazon Announces RTO for Employees

#17

Post by whateveracct » Fri, Feb 17, 2023, 11:53 PM UTC

librish wrote: post #6

There are a lot of companies making remote work work for them, and for a lot of people's lifestyles it's a huge boon. My personal experience has been that WFH has lead to an absolute grinding halt in productivity that requires any form of collaboration. A lot of people will often not respond to Slack for several hours and any video conferencing is usually scheduled for later in the week, instead of in 20 minutes. I k…

I have deep collaborative conversations via DM all the time. If anything it's better because it's written.

Re: Amazon Announces RTO for Employees

#18

Post by sokoloff » Fri, Feb 17, 2023, 11:55 PM UTC

xakahnx wrote: post #12

librish wrote: post #6

There are a lot of companies making remote work work for them, and for a lot of people's lifestyles it's a huge boon. My personal experience has been that WFH has lead to an absolute grinding halt in productivity that requires any form of collaboration. A lot of people will often not respond to Slack for several hours and any video conferencing is usually scheduled for later in the week, instead of in 20 minutes. I k…

Have you tried calling people on the phone? This is the remote-work equivalent of tapping someone on the shoulder. It's equally helpful for companies that have multiple offices where you need to collaborate with someone not physical near you

The absolute best way to not reach me is by cell phone call.

If you’re not my wife or kids, use any of the text mediums, but I’m not picking up an unscheduled call (and if you’re not already in contacts, it won’t even ring).

Re: Amazon Announces RTO for Employees

#19

Post by jmartin2683 » Fri, Feb 17, 2023, 11:55 PM UTC

I’d quit. No need for all that. Pretending like it’s 1995.

I can’t imagine anything less productive than trying to work in a room full of people going about their own business.

Re: Amazon Announces RTO for Employees

#20

Post by blindriver » Fri, Feb 17, 2023, 11:56 PM UTC

librish wrote: post #6

There are a lot of companies making remote work work for them, and for a lot of people's lifestyles it's a huge boon. My personal experience has been that WFH has lead to an absolute grinding halt in productivity that requires any form of collaboration. A lot of people will often not respond to Slack for several hours and any video conferencing is usually scheduled for later in the week, instead of in 20 minutes. I k…

I worked for a company that invested heavily in remote, literally everyone was remote. Even with that type of focus, it was the most unproductive I've ever been because you would never be able to contact anyone in a timely way. It was the most frustrated I had ever been.

I now work at a company where I am remote, but my coworkers work in an office. Just by having everyone in the office makes it easier to contact someone on chat. But even then I am only about half as productive as I would be if I were completely in the office. Put me down as someone that believes 1 to 2 days remote work a week is convenient but I would much rather be in the office.