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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 kne
by 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 agoTotally 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 agoI 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 agoSo 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.
- kcplate 4y agoAs I pointed out, it’s all subjective and feelings based. I know our code quality is down and delivery gets delayed more since WFH. Maybe our team is extraordinarily bad at it. But I know some other folks have seen similar things too. We all feel more productive, management might feel we are not. It brings me back to my original point. Management holds the cards and their “feelings” will outweigh the workers in the debate absent of hard data from either side. The workers need to provide the evidence that makes it indisputable that WFH works better. If your company is doing an RTO, you workers have failed to convince their management that WFH is measurably better for the organization.