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

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

#111

Post by taf2 »

jonas21 wrote: post #51
shmatt wrote: 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.

We ended this long time ago our 70 ~ folks come into the office Tuesday- Thursday and work remote Monday and Friday. Specifically because early on we noticed when we let people choose their days we ended up in shitty half zoom half not . My feeling is the time in the office is to bond with co workers and collaboration on new ideas. It’s worked really well for our team as even just by chance bumping into someone on another team and talking shop has fixed dozens of bugs and resulted in at least one or two great features

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

#112

Post by bradgessler »

shmatt wrote: 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…

This is what I don't understand about return-to-office mandates for global software/services companies. Even 10 years ago when I'd visit Google HQ, I'd always end up on a conference room on a Google Meet with other Googler's from around the world. What is the point of going to an office to be on video calls all day?

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

#113

Post by ipaddr »

brandon272 wrote: post #54

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…

FAANG want you to come back for their real estate valuations. You get to sit on zoom and pretend you are doing this to increase face to face.

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

#114

Post by caoilte »

brandon272 wrote: post #54

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…

The FAANG key competitive advantage is cartel/monopoly status. Getting employees into the office is just middle management ego stroking, it won't actually help them.

The degree to which they maintain market dominance over the next 5-10 years will depend on how well they time buying out startups which threaten their dominance (and which will no doubt be built by more productive WFH employees).

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

#115

Post by goostavos »

x86x87 wrote: post #2

this RTO mandates are getting old. Do people, in general, believe that we can revert to whatever we were doing before the pandemic started?

All you need are enough people to fall in line.

Amazon is filled with workers on visas. At least from the subset I've talked to, this isn't the hill they plan to die on. "Come in or fuck off back to {home country}" is a pretty strong bargaining chip.

For me, getting fired would mean taking a few months off to leisurely reset, then slowly getting back on the leetcode grind, and then trying to find a new remote job. Drawing lines in the sand is much easier when "uproot your entire life" isn't on the table.

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

#116

Post by weard_beard »

mjr00 wrote: post #108
weard_beard wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

I prefer to microwave fish for lunch. Leave your preferences that make me ill at home. Where you belong.

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

#117

Post by otikik »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #106
shmatt wrote: 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…

Saint Peter, don't you call me 'cause I can't go. I owe my soul to the company store

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

#118

Post by wwweston »

brandon272 wrote: post #54

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…

> They have identified in-person collaboration as a key competitive advantage

That's an interesting statement about the relative value proposition of a lot of the technology many in this sector make their money selling firsthand or secondhand.

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

#119

Post by VBprogrammer »

akira2501 wrote: post #91
paxys wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What did we build exactly? The current model of tech open offices originated in the early 2000s. Before that we had cubicles, starting around the 60s and 70s. And something else before that. Office buildings themselves don't go all that far back, maybe a couple hundred years. None of these is the "right" model. We will continue to evolve to what suits the present work culture and requirements, and WFH is where we hav…

> What did we build exactly? A shared workspace with centrally located and maintained resources. This allows for greater overall efficiency but allows the organization as a whole to quickly dedicate resources to new and emergent problems. In theory this should save money and allow the company to successfully capture and serve more business. > None of these is the "right" model. There is no "right" model. Everything i…

> Work from home has some employee benefits, but has higher direct and abstract costs for the employer.

Ah come on now. Instead of my employer paying for a space for me to sit in central London, the electricity and internet connection, I pay for those things myself. Instead of wasting time on a train I get a bit of work done before most people are online.

The only costs are in the crocodile tears of middle management who cannot advance themselves simply by growing their headcount.

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

#120

Post by paxys »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #106
shmatt wrote: 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…

And don't forget that downtown businesses and real estate developers are putting pressure on local governments, who in turn are putting pressure on big employers to mandate that employees commute daily and spend money in the city.
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