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Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: It’s probably not going to work out

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Re: Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: It’s probably not going to work out

#251
post #5

> Jassy reportedly said his decision to have employees return to the office was a “judgment call” and that employees can leave if they don’t want to comply. Amazon is having trouble scouting warehouse labor. Looks like they're trying to add skilled labor to the set of problems.

I think it already is. Their culture issues have made attracting fresh talent hard more expensive. I think this direction will haunt them, especially as they find themselves in 4th place at best in AI spend, which is likely the biggest incremental IT budget driver in this decade. It’s the wrong time to scare off good talent with bad edicts. You would have to at least double my salary for me to consider working at Ama…

I'd do it for 1.5X, but that's not what they offered.

Re: Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: It’s probably not going to work out

#252
post #126

Per the NYPost article on this, > During the meeting, which is known in internal Amazon lingo as a “fishbowl” meeting, Jassy declined to share data that motivated his decision to require employees to return to the office. The CEO told his charges it was a “judgment” call. Could some brave soul please leak whatever data these guys are seeing? Reports, statistics, even just emails where they whine about empty offices?…

>The conversation is dominated by conspiracy theories about real estate investments and 'CEO vibes', it feels untethered and fact-free.

One might think the fact that they don’t readily offer concrete evidence to support their actions is itself evidence that these “conspiracy theories” are on the right track.

The conversation is dominated by such talk because, as you said, no evidence otherwise has been offered to explain the fervent desire of those at the top for returning to the office.

Re: Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: It’s probably not going to work out

#253
From my experience, these kinds of hybrid policies with mandatory "X days in office" are the worst of both worlds.

A mandatory "X days in office" means that during the office days everyone is running and on edge trying to do all their "office" things so you don't get all (or even most?) of the benefits of an entirely on-site company:

"Culture" and watercooler chat doesn't really happen if everyone's schedule is packed and they are on edge from having to commute, find a desk, etc. Those things only happen naturally if everyone is in a comfortable routine - it's not something you can force to happen and especially not by forcing people to go through a stressful and aggravating experience beforehand.

Equipment and desk space is a problem. You have to lug around equipment, which might be a problem if you rely on anything beyond a small laptop, and plug it in/set it up every time you arrive at the office and then do the same when back home. Hot desking is a bit of a pain as well if people don't even have permanently assigned desks. This ultimately means people may be constraining themselves and not operating at peak comfort/efficiency just to avoid having to also carry equipment (that would otherwise make them perform better).

Transport is also a problem - because you don't commute daily you end up paying full price for transport - most "season tickets" won't help as those only work out cheaper if you actually commute daily. It's also more stressful and disruptive to commute only some of the time as opposed to daily where you can fall into a routine and tune out some of the annoyances.

Even when it comes to the uncomfortable truth that some employees might be slacking off when remote, hybrid (as opposed to full on-site) doesn't address that either, since they can not only still slack off during the remote days, but the above annoyances would also eat into their productive output in the office days when they aren't slacking off. Furthermore, the above annoyances reduce the output of the non-slackers too, which outweighs whatever small productivity benefit they might gain from forcing the slackers to work during office days.

Pick full remote or full on-site (with reasonable exceptions - most jobs wouldn't care if you occasionally need to work remotely) and stick to it. Hybrid combines the worst of both worlds and is ultimately just there to introduce some "pain" back in the typical employee's life because it's uncomfortable to the higher ups that grunts got a significant boost in both quality of life and finances (as they no longer have to live near the office) and enjoy a perk that used to be exclusive to the elites.

Re: Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: It’s probably not going to work out

#254

Friend of mine works for amazon and is worried about their team, because they have people from all over the country on the team, so if half the people quit instead of going into the LOCAL office, it'll catastrophic for the whole team.

This appears to be quite common.

Re: Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: It’s probably not going to work out

#255
post #160

Seems most of these top down driven mandates could be explained by some simple logic—if you don’t like your job very much as CEO, then you are thinking “man I wish I didn’t have to be here”.. and then it starts resentment toward people who also aren’t suffering along with you.. basically these mandates seem likely to be driven by stress at the top of the management, not based upon actual data. If you are asking for d…

> basically these mandates seem likely to be driven by stress at the top of the management, not based upon actual data. If you are asking for data that means you aren’t in charge sadly. Data is great and all (and I'm not defending this particular decision), but at leadership levels you have to make judgment calls all the time even in the face of data that may say otherwise.

What you're describing is generally how bad decisions are made.

Re: Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: It’s probably not going to work out

#256

From my experience, these kinds of hybrid policies with mandatory "X days in office" are the worst of both worlds. A mandatory "X days in office" means that during the office days everyone is running and on edge trying to do all their "office" things so you don't get all (or even most?) of the benefits of an entirely on-site company: "Culture" and watercooler chat doesn't really happen if everyone's schedule is packe…

From my personal experience and that of my friends in SV, hybrid with everyone in office for 2-3 same days, is the best experience. I don't have to commute every day. My team can do focused uninterrupted work on their WFH days. We can have team discussions, deep dives or 1:1's on RTO days which are far more conducive for the interpersonal communication.

Re: Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: It’s probably not going to work out

#257

If tech workers had a union they wouldn't have to put up with this. I wonder what % of people even want to go back to the office?

I am sure there are some parts of the world where there are tech worker unions. Do you know any examples? If so, we can look at their experience.

Re: Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: It’s probably not going to work out

#258
post #160

Seems most of these top down driven mandates could be explained by some simple logic—if you don’t like your job very much as CEO, then you are thinking “man I wish I didn’t have to be here”.. and then it starts resentment toward people who also aren’t suffering along with you.. basically these mandates seem likely to be driven by stress at the top of the management, not based upon actual data. If you are asking for d…

Question is who should provide data? That depends on your assumption about defaults. For most of the leadership, they have thrived and raised in an office environment. So mandating RTO is return to normalcy from their POV. If you think remote is awesome, it is on you to provide data that remote works.

Re: Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: It’s probably not going to work out

#259

If you want my cynical take, here's the real reason that Amazon and other big companies are all-in on RTO: the commercial real estate collapse that may (will?) happen if downtown office districts don't repopulate: https://wapo.st/3QXHpFT I think the reason that Amazon leadership isn't bringing data to support RTO is that not only are they aware of the "Urban Doom Loop” that this article is referring to, but I'd bet y…

> I'd bet you a lot of money that the C-suite (S-team) has a significant investment in commercial real estate.

This doesn't make any sense.

Amazon C-suite are paid largely in amazon stock, hold a large part of their wealth in amazon stock, and have stock price incentives that change their compensation. There is no way that they personally have anywhere near as much exposure to commercial real estate such that they'd look at stats that say "productivity will go down if we force RTO" and go through with it anyway because their commercial real estate investments depend on it.

Re: Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: It’s probably not going to work out

#260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And go where in this market? Software development is saturated.

I disagree. Software dev is saturated at FAANG salaries, but dial your salary expectations back and there are tons of dev shops still hiring.

People at amazon are looking for FAANG salaries to match their current job though
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