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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

#41

Post by elil17 »

adoxyz wrote: post #25
User23 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm all for remote work in tech, but I also think it might be difficult to convince a court that "please come to work" is creating a hostile work environment.

I guess it depends on the circumstances. Like if they were told they could go full remote, and the employee moved out of state and settled down somewhere where there is no office, now to be told j/k get back in here, seems like a case could be made.

There is no case to be made in the US unless the constructive dismissal was discriminatory in nature. It is legal to get people to quit by making working conditions worse, as long as you don't break any employment laws by doing so.

Say that I want you some of my employees to quit. I say you are only allowed to have meetings while doing handstands, but I provide reasonable accommodation for disabled people who can't do handstands. If I fire you for not doing a handstand or if you quit because you don't want to do handstands, I have done nothing illegal under US law.

Doesn't mean it's a good system. But that is the system we have.

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

#42

Post by paxys »

xivzgrev wrote: post #35

"For instance, some employees who are part of global teams will come into the office only to continue taking virtual meetings, and they may not even have a coworker in their office, the petition states." My company is RTO, but with teams across offices, so I know this pain all too well. Our leadership has not addressed this disconnect either, so I wouldn't hold your breath.

I'm in the exact same situation. My company issued a 3 day/week in the office mandate for anyone living within X miles of an office. Except that most of our hiring during the pandemic has been remote and in lower-cost regions (to cut costs no doubt), and so people who do end up going to the office will still not have any coworkers around them and will just be in meeting rooms doing zoom calls all day.

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

#43

Post by rtp4me »

x86x87 wrote: post #16
turtlebits wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The complaints are also getting old. If you were hired with the expectation that you go in the office, RTO is an eventual expected outcome. I do see the psychology of taking away what many see as a "benefit", but it's really just going back to the norm.

Hmm... the complaints are getting old? I guess the beatings need to continue until morale improves. https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0535/6917/products/traditi... Hard disagree with "If you were hired with the expectation that you go in the office, RTO is an eventual expected outcome." Ask yourself why do we need to RTO? Who needs the RTO?

Don't ask yourself or your neighbor. Ask your company why they want you to RTO.

Who needs the RTO? Apparently, the company does. This is why they are asking people to return...

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

#44

Post by posguy »

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…

*Amazon Chime, not Zoom :D

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

#46

Post by EarthIsHome »

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…

> Imagine commuting to the office 60-90 minutes each direction

Assuming 240 work days per year. A one-hour roundtrip commute means you're spending 10 *WHOLE* days in your commute per year. Two-hour roundtrip? That's 20 whole days. Three-hour roundtrip? One whole month.

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

#47

Post by bitL »

x86x87 wrote: post #24
SilverBirch wrote: post #8

Remote work definitely comes down to a company culture issue. For most engineering jobs I would say flexibility is a massive competitive advantage. There are so many great engineers out there who prefer not to be in the office it's a great talent pool, but needs to be actively managed in order to get the best out of it. Having said that, Amazon comes across as exactly the company that would require you to be in the o…

imho Amazon has a big problem with its image and hiring. It is literally impossible to find good developers that want to work for Amazon. Taking advantage of the current market conditions to do this is going to spectacularly backfire once the market recovers.

Given Meta and Google are slowly turning into another Amazon (e.g. by an influx of Amazon managers bringing their "culture" with them) and Amazon is now paying competitive, I don't think that would be a big medium-term problem for them.

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

#48

Post by sam0x17 »

photon12 wrote: post #31
wonderwonder wrote: post #7

Kind of think people not being able to return to the office is the goal. It lets them reduce head count without the need for severance. Kind of like in office space when they just stopped paying the guy. I did laugh at the part about being the world's best employer. Pretty hard to do with mandatory pips and firing warehouse employees via algorithms.

Welllll, when you are a cloud for the world's governments and systemically important financial institutions, you have operating functions that keep you being able to retain those customers. AWS has had issues in the past with employee retention in those types of departments. If there is a theory of RTTO as a form of soft layoffs, it still seems like we have a lot to learn about how that impacts the compliance and sec…

> 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 they can afford to do a lot of things better, and it's all a write-off for them either way.

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

#49

Post by dahfizz »

EarthIsHome wrote: post #46
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…

> Imagine commuting to the office 60-90 minutes each direction Assuming 240 work days per year. A one-hour roundtrip commute means you're spending 10 *WHOLE* days in your commute per year. Two-hour roundtrip? That's 20 whole days. Three-hour roundtrip? One whole month.

[flagged]

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

#50

Post by photon12 »

sam0x17 wrote: post #48
photon12 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Welllll, when you are a cloud for the world's governments and systemically important financial institutions, you have operating functions that keep you being able to retain those customers. AWS has had issues in the past with employee retention in those types of departments. If there is a theory of RTTO as a form of soft layoffs, it still seems like we have a lot to learn about how that impacts the compliance and sec…

> 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.
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