>"By arbitrarily forcing return-to-office without providing data to support it and despite clear evidence that it is the wrong decision for employees, Amazon ha

>"By arbitrarily forcing return-to-office without providing data to support it and despite clear evidence that it is the wrong decision for employees, Amazon has failed its role as earth's best employer," one employee wrote, according to the report. Both this and open floor plans were never about data. This is about control. Nearly all employers, especially all of the oldest and largest will steadily pull their workforce back into offices where the bosses can satisfy their egos with the notion that seeing their people work makes them in charge. They don't just want to get things done. They want to see the buzzing activity of the office and feel like they are in control of it. And this will happen in spite of any protests from the employees. By now most companies, especially tech companies, are well practiced at forcing undesired changes on large groups of people. They even have most of their customers actually paying to be spied on. Something no one would have accepted even 15 or so years ago. So long as the company is arranged as a hierarchical power structure, this will be the way. That's the whole point of talk about things like "culture" as well. The reader may take note that, between companies in a supply chain, there is no talk about or desire to control culture even though those companies clearly depend on each other to do their business at least as much as they depend on their respective employees. Only within the company does anyone seek to control and define "culture". That is because setting company culture is means of controlling employee behavior. And it only applies to those who signed employee contracts. Consultants, general contractors, support staff, and vendors are almost always treated more as real and self-determinant humans than the employees the company leaders seek to control. In short, your boss doesn't see you as a peer or as a fully capable rational agent. They see you as a ward under their care. This is a side effect of the power imbalance created by the structure of the company. Isn't it strange that almost everyone on earth desires to live under a democracy more than a dictatorship but when it comes to the interactions that will dominate most of their days for most of their lives, somehow people are okay signing up to work under a dictatorship? ...And anyone still under the illusion that Amazon is or was ever earth's best employer might want to try talking to the delivery drivers and warehouse workers.