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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

#201

Post by alright_scowl »

twblalock wrote: post #121
alright_scowl wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smaller salary to be able to live in much cheaper cities where your general quality of life will also be massively improved? Sounds like a win-win to me. Especially considering that the decrease in cost of living probably far surpasses de decrease in salary.

If you do the math that doesn't always work out. The main thing that is cheaper in cheaper cities is housing. Most of the other stuff people buy costs the same everywhere. If you move to a cheaper place and have a lower income, your non-housing expenses will become a larger portion of your spending. Once you've worked in tech for several years in the Bay Area or Seattle you will generally be well off enough to buy a…

> If you do the math that doesn't always work out.

I disagree. But it depends on how less the remote companies pay. Are we talking about 80% of the salary of a RTO company? 60%? 30%?

The close it gets, the better the math works out for remote companies. Moving away from metropolitan areas incurs in a huge decrease of expenses, and a huge increase in quality of life. But of course, it depends on the salary you'd make working remote.

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

#202

Post by sam0x17 »

photon12 wrote: post #50
sam0x17 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when you are a cloud for the world's governments and systemically important financial institutions, you have operating functions You can do all of that and still have plenty of money left over. Don't forget all the wasted money amazon has sunk into Alexa (recent news is the whole division is failing to turn a profit) and their attempts to dip their toes in video games (New World) which failed spectacularly. Yeah th…

Money doesn't matter if you can't attract and retain talent, which is my main point. IDK exactly what you are getting at.

I'm saying that Amazon has no excuse for it's inability to improve working conditions. It's able to bleed money elsewhere, it damn well should be bleeding it to the tune of improving workers' conditions and salaries

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

#204

Post by ryankshaw »

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…

> WFH will continue to proliferate among lower tier companies who simply don't have the same levers around prestige and compensation

...as it was for all of the tech world's history before 2020.

Not a comment on if that's a good or bad thing, just stating that we're seeing a reversions to what was considered normal.

Pre-2020, if you met a random guy living in small town Idaho or some random suburb in Indiana, working out of his house, completely remotely, it was more likely that they worked at some company you've never heard of than one of the highest-paying FAANGs, and that their income was more similar to his neighbors than the FAANG worker making $400k.

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

#205

Post by dopeboy »

mypalmike wrote: post #185
ahelwer wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they say they do it for the change of scenery and nobody else is there.

Some people find they benefit from physically separating home life from work life.

Bingo. Work and life are two separate spheres for me. Having physical separation of them is important.

I realize not everyone is like that. I’m also not a parent which would probably tilt the equation for me.

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

#206

Post by deschutes »

Many made expensive decisions assuming remote work would become the norm. My guess is there is a large overlap between the bristling crowd and expensive decisions crowd.

Sure remote work is good for many experienced individual tech workers but bad for basically everyone else including the company and the communities remote workers have moved to.

The pro remote arguments reek of motivated reasoning. It is especially hard to escape noticing that remote work is financially beneficial for tech workers. Particularly as it relates to housing.

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

#207

Post by icedchai »

benjismith wrote: post #83

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…

I feel the same way. Unfortunately, I work for a "remote only" company so I either 1) have to find a coworking space, or 2) find a new job.

Being on Zoom for even an hour a day is miserable.

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

#208

Post by slenk »

betaby wrote: post #30

I mean, according levels.fyi AMZ pays 400K+ total compensation. I don't think that would be too hard to fill up the office with the willing office.

But your cost of living goes up if you have to commute and/or live close enough to use public transportation to get to the offices.

The cities FAANG companies are located in don't seem to be exactly cheap.

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

#209

Post by wonderwonder »

sam0x17 wrote: post #202
photon12 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money doesn't matter if you can't attract and retain talent, which is my main point. IDK exactly what you are getting at.

I'm saying that Amazon has no excuse for it's inability to improve working conditions. It's able to bleed money elsewhere, it damn well should be bleeding it to the tune of improving workers' conditions and salaries

I think the 2 of you are saying the same thing just in a different way and at each other
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