4 ms·

> At what point in that history has a worker ever made the demand “I am not showing up to where you say my job is at” and kept that job? You wrote your comment

by belval 4y ago

> At what point in that history has a worker ever made the demand “I am not showing up to where you say my job is at” and kept that job? You wrote your comment as if I am implying this is illegal or something. Of course they don't have to give me any justifications, hell they could fire me tomorrow as well. However, they do need workers and Amazon, as opposed to Google, Microsoft, Meta, etc... is not "hip", "cool" or "startup-esque". Their prestige is lower than the competition, their grind is harder, and as a consequence they bleed a lot more SDE than other companies. Most SDEs at Amazon are mercenaries, they are there for the money, stocks and resume padding with entire team being <2 years at Amazon. In that context, unless they are certain that every other FAANG-like company will RTO at some point soon, they will bleed even more employees and it will have a serious impact on product launches.

ruralthinker 4y ago
Maybe they are fine with the attrition.
kcplate 4y ago
Was not my intention to do that, but I posted more as a general commentary of the strange attitudes I have seen regarding RTO on HN. I get the stress of it—I have been WFH for the last 3 years and wouldn’t want the commute again. However, it almost as if on HN the prevailing attitude is one of “How dare they!?”. I just find that kind of a bold and entitled attitude.
- belval 4y ago
  I get where you are coming from, but let me explain why I feel this way. When I was hired at Amazon, it was in the early months of February 2020, before we knew what was going to happen. When I was due to start, everyone was already WFH, so they shipped me my stuff and I went on to work from home for almost 3 years. During those years, I shipped products, had meetings, built relationship with coworkers and overall was (hopefully) good at my job. So now, when Andy Jassy says it's better if we are all in the office, I can't help but doubt it. I went to the open-floor office, it was loud and I still had to take my meetings through Chime because Amazon is global, my train was late, weird homeless dudes screamed at me at the station and ultimately the experience did not feel all that better. I am convinced we changed during those 3 years and while some people long for the coffee discussions and the face-to-face meetings, they were ultimately not what made the business move forward, only an aspect of it that some people held on to because deep down we are social animals. The "How dare they!?" sentiment comes from the fact we had not tried "real" WFH before 2020 and it turns out for a lot of people it's simply better than going to the office. When Andy Jassy says "you have to come back" without sharing actual data to show that we had a drop in productivity, the question becomes "why?". As human we do X for Y, that's how we rationalize a ton of stuff, but for the return to office, especially in software, it's not clear what Y is and without Y then it makes no sense to do X. All that to say, maybe I'm entitled, but I still think WFH is the best way to work in software and I won't abstain from complaining when my leadership refuses to explain decisions that go against my best interest.
  - kcplate 4y ago
    Totally understand. I know I am more productive at home and everyone on my team feels they are more productive from home too. However, as a team, I also know our productivity is subtly down in the last 3 years, because it falls on me to measure these things. I don’t have hard data as to why, but right now my best guess as an explanation for my team is that we see ourselves as more productive when we are head down and cranking, and we are. But outside of those moments, we are not as productive, but we don’t perceive that we aren’t. Unfortunately my team are only heads down about 75% of the time and the productivity losses we feel are happening in that 25% of time and we just don’t notice.
    - saagarjha 4y ago
      > However, as a team, I also know our productivity is subtly down in the last 3 years, because it falls on me to measure these things. How are you doing so?
      - oblio 4y ago
        I don't think anyone will share real data. I'd really love for some director level person to spill the beans and provide anonymized data but it's super unlikely.
    - angoragoats 4y ago
      So 75% of the time you're more productive, and in the other 25% of the time you're less productive? You said you don't have hard data as to why, but can you provide some more of the data that shows the productivity loss in the first place? It sounds to me like your net productivity could be break-even, or even higher given the very vague numbers you provided. It's also likely that if the productivity losses occur only in this 25% of the time that you're not "heads-down" as you say, then they could be explained by bad company culture/process which could be worked on, for an easy productivity win across all teams at the company. If you could provide this data it would be very helpful, as it would be the first hard data that I have ever seen showing any kind of productivity loss from being remote.
bamboozled 4y ago
Amazon needs workers, and if everything is remote, you're (likely) going to be a lot easier to replace with someone cheaper from a country with lower salary :) Either way, there are probably millions of people who want to work for a FAANG and will happily go into an office if required. They'd likely be happy to move continents to be at said office.

by belval 4y ago

ruralthinker 4y ago

Maybe they are fine with the attrition.

kcplate 4y ago

Was not my intention to do that, but I posted more as a general commentary of the strange attitudes I have seen regarding RTO on HN. I get the stress of it—I have been WFH for the last 3 years and wouldn’t want the commute again. However, it almost as if on HN the prevailing attitude is one of “How dare they!?”. I just find that kind of a bold and entitled attitude.

belval 4y ago
I get where you are coming from, but let me explain why I feel this way. When I was hired at Amazon, it was in the early months of February 2020, before we knew what was going to happen. When I was due to start, everyone was already WFH, so they shipped me my stuff and I went on to work from home for almost 3 years. During those years, I shipped products, had meetings, built relationship with coworkers and overall was (hopefully) good at my job. So now, when Andy Jassy says it's better if we are all in the office, I can't help but doubt it. I went to the open-floor office, it was loud and I still had to take my meetings through Chime because Amazon is global, my train was late, weird homeless dudes screamed at me at the station and ultimately the experience did not feel all that better. I am convinced we changed during those 3 years and while some people long for the coffee discussions and the face-to-face meetings, they were ultimately not what made the business move forward, only an aspect of it that some people held on to because deep down we are social animals. The "How dare they!?" sentiment comes from the fact we had not tried "real" WFH before 2020 and it turns out for a lot of people it's simply better than going to the office. When Andy Jassy says "you have to come back" without sharing actual data to show that we had a drop in productivity, the question becomes "why?". As human we do X for Y, that's how we rationalize a ton of stuff, but for the return to office, especially in software, it's not clear what Y is and without Y then it makes no sense to do X. All that to say, maybe I'm entitled, but I still think WFH is the best way to work in software and I won't abstain from complaining when my leadership refuses to explain decisions that go against my best interest.
- kcplate 4y ago
  Totally understand. I know I am more productive at home and everyone on my team feels they are more productive from home too. However, as a team, I also know our productivity is subtly down in the last 3 years, because it falls on me to measure these things. I don’t have hard data as to why, but right now my best guess as an explanation for my team is that we see ourselves as more productive when we are head down and cranking, and we are. But outside of those moments, we are not as productive, but we don’t perceive that we aren’t. Unfortunately my team are only heads down about 75% of the time and the productivity losses we feel are happening in that 25% of time and we just don’t notice.
  - saagarjha 4y ago
    > However, as a team, I also know our productivity is subtly down in the last 3 years, because it falls on me to measure these things. How are you doing so?
    - oblio 4y ago
      I don't think anyone will share real data. I'd really love for some director level person to spill the beans and provide anonymized data but it's super unlikely.
  - angoragoats 4y ago
    So 75% of the time you're more productive, and in the other 25% of the time you're less productive? You said you don't have hard data as to why, but can you provide some more of the data that shows the productivity loss in the first place? It sounds to me like your net productivity could be break-even, or even higher given the very vague numbers you provided. It's also likely that if the productivity losses occur only in this 25% of the time that you're not "heads-down" as you say, then they could be explained by bad company culture/process which could be worked on, for an easy productivity win across all teams at the company. If you could provide this data it would be very helpful, as it would be the first hard data that I have ever seen showing any kind of productivity loss from being remote.

bamboozled 4y ago

Amazon needs workers, and if everything is remote, you're (likely) going to be a lot easier to replace with someone cheaper from a country with lower salary :) Either way, there are probably millions of people who want to work for a FAANG and will happily go into an office if required. They'd likely be happy to move continents to be at said office.