Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Amazon is piloting teams with a 30-hour workweek

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 299 posts

Re: Amazon is piloting teams with a 30-hour workweek

#21

Post by ebbv »

I hate to be cynical (really, I do) but this seems like a clear attempt to soften Amazon's current public image as being a horrible place to work. It seems like all surface/headlines and no real substance. The headline makes you assume "Oh employees are going down to 30 hours a week but still being fully paid." because in order for this to be really noteworthy at all, it would have to be, right? But that's not what this is. They are basically just knocking people down to part time but keeping benefits, apparently?

That doesn't seem like a good deal to me. I don't want a 25% pay cut for 25% fewer mandatory hours of work. As other commenters have pointed out, unless this comes along with a reduction in responsibilities and/or increase in staff, the same amount of work still needs to be done. And most exempt employees already work more than 40 hours a week.

Add to this the fact that the Washington Post is owned by Bezos, and this just seems like a clear PR stunt to me, and a lame one at that.

Re: Amazon is piloting teams with a 30-hour workweek

#22

Post by [deleted] »

yazaddaruvala wrote: post #19

So while this is really good for people that have dependents at home, or other consistently demanding activities. I would not enjoy such an arrangement. The arrangement I'd be most excited by is a team with forced three month sabbaticals yearly (or honestly even 6 month sabbaticals). Of-course with the normal amount of vacation time added as well. The way it would work is: Say a team is supposed to have 8 people. Hir…

[deleted]

Re: Amazon is piloting teams with a 30-hour workweek

#23

Post by ycombinatorMan »

radiorental wrote: post #6
citizenflynn wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And my team at Amazon almost every day has only 4/5 engineers at the office because one is taking it easy working from home. Sometimes people take hour lunches and leave after 7 hours. Sometimes they want to finish something and stay later.

Punctuation and order are not prerequisits for making a point, but they help. Sometimes sleep deprivation manifests itself in strange ways sometimes.

Like saying sometimes twice

Re: Amazon is piloting teams with a 30-hour workweek

#28

Post by rdtsc »

citizenflynn wrote: post #3
krisdol wrote: post #2

The folks I know at Amazon may have been in the office for a normal amount of time, but they worked long night after long night from home. If they're approaching a 30 hour work week as a reduction from 40, it's bound to fail. They have to realize it would be q reduction from 60 or 80

And my team at Amazon almost every day has only 4/5 engineers at the office because one is taking it easy working from home. Sometimes people take hour lunches and leave after 7 hours. Sometimes they want to finish something and stay later.

Don't work for Amazon but work from home. I don't take it easy at all. It can be even harder than being in the office because it is hard to stop working. So have to be vigilant about that.

Now not burning gas and time and nerves stuck in traffic every day and being able to have lunch with my family is a nice bonus. But if that is considered "taking it" easy, a potential employee wouldn't benefit from that either, that would be time and resources just wasted (I guess car mechanics and gas stations would benefit from that at some point).

Post reply on HN