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Amazon employees push CEO Andy Jassy to drop return-to-office mandate
251–260 of 278 posts
Re: Amazon employees push CEO Andy Jassy to drop return-to-office mandate
#252The 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 was why I left my previous company. The CTO would ask me to come to work, he lived next door to the office, and I loved 90 mind away. I'd leave home at 8, be in by 10 only to get a text from him at 11 that he's going to WFH. My team members did the same. Picked it up from him. I tried my best to stay level headed but I had it and quit. Culture is respecting your colleagues' time. He and his employees had no respect for any of it.
Re: Amazon employees push CEO Andy Jassy to drop return-to-office mandate
#253Please Andy. Listen to your Devs. Make it 1 day mandatory at worst.
Re: Amazon employees push CEO Andy Jassy to drop return-to-office mandate
#254The 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.
Maybe if you work for a small company or a small department where every person is co-located. Larger companies usually have people around the world that need to communicate. That happens over teleconferencing.
Re: Amazon employees push CEO Andy Jassy to drop return-to-office mandate
#255Re: Amazon employees push CEO Andy Jassy to drop return-to-office mandate
#256Earlier quoted context omitted.
Saint Peter, don't you call me 'cause I can't go. I owe my soul to the company store
It’s a good song but I’m struggling to see how it applies to the topic under discussion. Maybe if Amazon was paying their workers in Amazon gift cards I could see it. Or maybe if Amazon owned apartments that they rented out to their employees? Afaik that’s not the case. GP said they own “skyscrapers” but really they own their own office buildings which are mostly like 4-10 stories tall and do not include apartments
It applies because Amazon itself, as well as its owners and likely executives of Amazon have personal financial interest in Seattle real estate and the downtown economy. This is the modern, more low key "company store".
Re: Amazon employees push CEO Andy Jassy to drop return-to-office mandate
#257Earlier quoted context omitted.
I understand what you're saying about entitlement. It can be tiresome to hear the same topics brought up repeatedly. With the constant negativity that surrounds it, it gets exhausting to listen to. At the same time, most of those complaints are coming from generally reasonable people. If a company promised no RTO and then went back on it, that'd be frustrating for them. If a company can't state why they want to go RT…
> beyond some hand-wavey "collaboration" answer that companies are giving I'm confused what the alternative is that you would like. I'm sure they can link a bunch of studies that show its more productive to work in office, and I'm guessing those that want to stay remote will show a bunch of other studies that say its not; which continues ad nauseam.
If a company claims they're data driven, then they should use data to make choices.
In this case, they'd need to look at the cost. "will my employees being in office perform so much better despite having to drive through an hour of traffic?" I'm not sure how you'd go about this one.
"Will increasing risk of becoming sick be worth the extra productivity increase, assuming there is one?" If there's a 10% increase in getting sick, and the median number of sick days per year is 5, then will 0.5 more days of being sick for every employee be a justifiable cost?
RTO also has all the costs associated with office space, employees to manage those facilities as well. I always hear that building costs are miniscule in the grand scheme of the business, but I never hear the number as a percent of overall costs.
At the end of the day, some attempt to justify the decision beyond "collaboration" is what I personally want. I don't think putting a bunch of introverts in a room together is going to suddenly increase socializing.
Re: Amazon employees push CEO Andy Jassy to drop return-to-office mandate
#258Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s a good song but I’m struggling to see how it applies to the topic under discussion. Maybe if Amazon was paying their workers in Amazon gift cards I could see it. Or maybe if Amazon owned apartments that they rented out to their employees? Afaik that’s not the case. GP said they own “skyscrapers” but really they own their own office buildings which are mostly like 4-10 stories tall and do not include apartments
It applies because Amazon itself, as well as its owners and likely executives of Amazon have personal financial interest in Seattle real estate and the downtown economy. This is the modern, more low key "company store".
I still don't understand the connection. I assume the term "company store" is being used to invoke the exploitative nature of living in a company town and being paid in scrip.
How does "a major local employer wants the local economy to thrive" lead to more exploitation than usual? If anything, I'd expect a thriving local economy to mean that there's more competition for workers, increasing their bargaining power and reducing the probability/severity of worker exploitation.
Re: Amazon employees push CEO Andy Jassy to drop return-to-office mandate
#259Many 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 h…
>bad for basically everyone else including the company and the communities remote workers have moved to. Why? Is it better for places with more jobs and money to stay that way instead of spreading the wealth around?
I was thinking of upwards price pressure on housing stock in those communities as the main negative effect. Rationale being that tech salaries are going to be significantly above incomes the local economy supports and thus tech workers are going to be relatively price insensitive.
That said, remote work is hardly the only thing contributing to this problem. And I agree with the idea that changing housing policy is the best way to address it.
I don't dispute that there will be positive effects as well. They seem less significant to me.
Re: Amazon employees push CEO Andy Jassy to drop return-to-office mandate
#260Amazon has over 1.4 Million employees. Looking at this article, 14,000 joined a slack channel to complain. So only about 1% is pushing Andy Jassy about this. Should we assume the remainder (~99%) is OK? If so, this is yet another instance of a small group of people strategically using regular/social media to amplify a minority position which the majority doesn't support.
1.5, but probably over a million of those are FC workers who are not on slack cuz they're running around the warehouse. There are just over 400,000 office employees WW So it's closer to 3.5%, and the announcement was only posted Friday morning before a long weekend so that's likely to grow.
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