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Amazon employees push CEO Andy Jassy to drop return-to-office mandate

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101–110 of 278 posts

Re: Amazon employees push CEO Andy Jassy to drop return-to-office mandate

#101

I must be one of the very very few software engineers that would prefer to RTO. (I'm not at Amazon, btw). I do enjoy the flexibility of being able to occasionally work from home. But I miss the bustling office culture, going out to lunch with coworkers, forming friendships with people from the office who don't necessarily work in the same department/team. Most days, I go into town and work from a WeWork (because it's…

Do you mind me asking if you're under 30yrs old?

Re: Amazon employees push CEO Andy Jassy to drop return-to-office mandate

#102
post #51
post #28

The thing is, this becomes theater of working. Imagine commuting to the office 60-90 minutes each direction just to sit in a stuffy room and zoom Want to talk collaboration and productivity? Let's see if a company bans zoom for office days (but none will) And im not even going to start on the complete waste of time of people in an open space talking non stop about their fantasy football draft. I haven't heard those w…

> just to sit in a stuffy room and zoom Presumably, that's what the return to office plan is trying to fix. Right now, if you go into the office, you're spending a lot of time in zoom calls because half the people in every meeting aren't there. If everyone's in the office, you can just meet in person.

Everyone I work with barr one person lives in a different country, and it would be impossible (for visa reasons, mainly) for us to move to one place. So if I was in an office, I'd still be videoconferencing as much as ever.

Re: Amazon employees push CEO Andy Jassy to drop return-to-office mandate

#103
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

haha. Because loyal == high performing. That is how it works. There is absolutely no way that high performing employees that can get a job by crossing the street will ever think about jumping ship because of the shitty manner they are treated.

These companies have no accurate way of measuring performance anyway.

I don't know of you are making a judgement there but I think it's important to point out that there is practically no useful way of measuring performance in our industry; it's not a company problem.

Some of the most useful employees I've met probably produced less than the most junior developer in tangible assets.

Re: Amazon employees push CEO Andy Jassy to drop return-to-office mandate

#104

I must be one of the very very few software engineers that would prefer to RTO. (I'm not at Amazon, btw). I do enjoy the flexibility of being able to occasionally work from home. But I miss the bustling office culture, going out to lunch with coworkers, forming friendships with people from the office who don't necessarily work in the same department/team. Most days, I go into town and work from a WeWork (because it's…

What do you think of having it completely voluntary to RTO?

Re: Amazon employees push CEO Andy Jassy to drop return-to-office mandate

#105

No one knows what the future holds, but as the dust settles on WFH, I think that FAANG will double down on in-office and use their leverage as desirable large market cap companies with lucrative total comp packages to selectively seek out and retain those who are willing to agree to an in-office or hybrid work environment. They have identified in-person collaboration as a key competitive advantage going forward, want…

All it takes is 1 faang to say screw it you can wfh, then they have the recruiting advantage over the old dinosaur style businesses.

And that ultimately is what WFH is all about.

These companies have generous vacation policies and health insurance benefits not for reasons of productivity, but because that's part of what it takes to attract talented workers. People love to argue about WFH for reasons of productivity, but in the end that flexibility is another benefit that these companies may start to compete on.

Re: Amazon employees push CEO Andy Jassy to drop return-to-office mandate

#106
post #28

The thing is, this becomes theater of working. Imagine commuting to the office 60-90 minutes each direction just to sit in a stuffy room and zoom Want to talk collaboration and productivity? Let's see if a company bans zoom for office days (but none will) And im not even going to start on the complete waste of time of people in an open space talking non stop about their fantasy football draft. I haven't heard those w…

In Amazon's case, it might not be theater.

Amazon owns around a dozen skyscrapers in downtown Seattle. Amazon has a massive number of employees in downtown Seattle, and whether those people are downtown or not makes a significant difference to the real estate values in downtown Seattle. Making their employees come into the office may in fact mean a significant financial reward to Amazon, but not because the employees are doing better work.

Also, Andrew Jassy specifically has a number of personal financial interests in the Seattle area, including the local hockey team and the nearby Key Arena. Keeping downtown expensive and full of people is in his personal interests.

Re: Amazon employees push CEO Andy Jassy to drop return-to-office mandate

#107
post #51
post #28

The thing is, this becomes theater of working. Imagine commuting to the office 60-90 minutes each direction just to sit in a stuffy room and zoom Want to talk collaboration and productivity? Let's see if a company bans zoom for office days (but none will) And im not even going to start on the complete waste of time of people in an open space talking non stop about their fantasy football draft. I haven't heard those w…

> just to sit in a stuffy room and zoom Presumably, that's what the return to office plan is trying to fix. Right now, if you go into the office, you're spending a lot of time in zoom calls because half the people in every meeting aren't there. If everyone's in the office, you can just meet in person.

Disclaimer work in Amazon.

That at least doesn't work at all in my situation. I'm based in Seattle and I collaborate regularly with folks in probably 3-4 other geographic locations, ironically no one actually in Seattle.

If anything getting the video conferencing to work in a meeting room is more of a hassle/friction and a poorer experience when you still have to accommodate someone remote.

Re: Amazon employees push CEO Andy Jassy to drop return-to-office mandate

#108

No one knows what the future holds, but as the dust settles on WFH, I think that FAANG will double down on in-office and use their leverage as desirable large market cap companies with lucrative total comp packages to selectively seek out and retain those who are willing to agree to an in-office or hybrid work environment. They have identified in-person collaboration as a key competitive advantage going forward, want…

Now replace WFH with 401K and see if it makes sense. Its a benefit. To be competitive you offer it. If you don't, bye bye talent.

401K is unambiguously a benefit to every employee. Remote-first or remote-only is not unambiguously a benefit; some people actually prefer to be in the office and interact with people face-to-face. Yes, even some talented ones.

If remote work was all it took, Gitlab (remote only since 2014) would have sucked up every talented engineer on the planet. Yet somehow they're still a very distant second to Github in their space.

Re: Amazon employees push CEO Andy Jassy to drop return-to-office mandate

#109
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imagine commuting to the office 60-90 minutes each direction Assuming 240 work days per year. A one-hour roundtrip commute means you're spending 10 *WHOLE* days in your commute per year. Two-hour roundtrip? That's 20 whole days. Three-hour roundtrip? One whole month.

[flagged]

Three-hour roundtrip in congested cities like Boston or Los Angeles is not made-up or even rare occurrence.
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