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

• jahutch2 3y ago
  Interesting discussion here. I'll first say, I think leadership messaging on a lot of this RTO stuff is terrible and tone deaf. I also think it's indefensible to hire someone in an explicitly remote role, then require they come to the office or be terminated -- that isn't RTO, because that person was explicitly remote, there's no "return." But, Amazon's gonna Amazon, and corporate C-suites are going to be out-of-touch rich f--s. With that out of the way, I will say, there is an inconvenient truth WFH advocates always ignore, and that's that a lot of people don't want to WFH. Not everyone is you. Our company has done anonymous surveys, and it's surprisingly even, with something like 30% preferring WFH, 30% preferring in-office, and a broad middle wanting Hybrid. The assumption is always young people want WFH and dinosaurs want the office, but the reality is quite different: - Younger folks broadly prefer the office. Folks in their 20s tend to be single and historically derive a lot of their socialization from office settings. They tend to live in housing situations where a dedicated office / good WFH setup is not possible (tiny apartment and/or roommates). Learning remotely is bad for most people. Onboarding remotely is bad for most people. Networking remotely is terrible for everyone. And younger folks largely want to live in major cities with lots of social, dating, and nightlife opportunities. - Mid-career professionals with active family lives largely prefer WFH. Particularly if they are the "do your work then live your life" type and not ladder climbers / networkers. These folks are also likely to desire larger homes and lower COL, so the tradeoff is worth it. This makes perfect sense of course. - Ladder climbers / hyper career focused folks prefer the office, because humans gonna human, "saw you recently" bias is a thing, and folks in office will inevitably have a leg up for higher level opportunities. - Introverts who need quiet and whose roles involve large amounts of focused work prefer WFH. - Everyone values flexibility (take morning meetings from home, ability to WFH when needed, etc). Using myself as an example, I'm 42, single, extroverted, and while I love to WFH as needed, and value being able to do it occasionally, I generally much prefer the office. I actually do my best work in an environment where other people and some noise are around. There's plenty of folks like me. I get our preferences aren't everyone's. I get that satisfying my preference means someone else is less happy. What I ask is that the WFH folks recognize the same. I'd honestly never take a full remote job. I'd find a new job if my company went full remote. But I'm also not interested in coming to an empty office. So when lots of folks don't ever come in, it negatively impacts my work experience. So clearly there's got to be some give and take on both sides here, as there's lots of opinions on this. I think this is how most leaders arrive at Hybrid.
• sokoloff 3y ago
  #disagree-and-commute
  • hinkley 3y ago
    I have yet to work at a place where 'disagree and commit' did not devolve into 'shut up and code'. It seems to be one of those things that looks good on paper and is rotten in practice.
    • hot_gril 3y ago
      I'm honestly fine with "shut up and code" at the appropriate times and wish more of my coworkers would do that.
    • fnordpiglet 3y ago
      To be fair Amazon really does encourage disagreement. But at some point a decisions is made and they want people to lean into it. Sometimes it can feel like shut up and code, but that’s not the rule.
    • HDThoreaun 3y ago
      What do you mean devolve? That's literally what it means, no devolution necessary. First you disagree, then whether you get your way or not you shut up and code.
• toomuchtodo 3y ago
  Y’all gonna unionize or what? It has to get old listening to edicts from the folks who filter up to the top. Could also investigate a constructive dismissal class action in the interim if you can find someone willing to take it on.
  • nielsbot 3y ago
    This feels like the first time there would be serious impetus (and a perfect case) for tech workers to form a union.
    • toomuchtodo 3y ago
      Indeed. It’s a power struggle and tech workers might as well fire back if being threatened with dismissal. Wind is at their backs. Otherwise the deal will always change and the screws turned tighter, forever the boiled frog. https://prospect.org/labor/2023-08-28-bidens-nlrb-brings-workers-rights-back/ https://prospect.org/labor/2023-08-28-bidens-nlrb-brings-wor... https://www.nlrb.gov/news-outreach/news-story/board-issues-decision-announcing-new-framework-for-union-representation https://www.nlrb.gov/news-outreach/news-story/board-issues-d...
      • pcurve 3y ago
        I love the idea. I wonder how the mgmt will react short and long term. My guess is there will be even more aggressive attempt to develop engineering center outside the US. (Vs outsourcing to ibm or offshore consulting.) This was already happening.
        • red-iron-pine 3y ago
          they've been offshoring to india, the philippines, or elsewhere since the 90s. there is a reason they kept coming back to the US, and it wasn't just remote stuff.
    • jtode 3y ago
      I am incredibly in favour of unions in all industries, but this one I have serious doubts it will ever happen. I'm gonna be un-PC and reach for a metaphor involving slavery - not because I am comparing tech workers, of which I am one, to slaves, but because I think it's the best real-world example of how oppression is distributed by hubristic figureheads of feudalistic systems. If you ever saw Spike Lee's "Malcolm X" biopic (or know about Malcolm X through other channels), there is a scene where he talks about the existence, during US Slavery, of "field" and "house" slaves, who tended to live in those same places they worked. Here is a real X speech that is very similar to what is in the movie, though the movie script distills it better for modern ears: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jf7rsCAfQCo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jf7rsCAfQCo Now if you take three groups at Amazon - warehouse workers, tech workers, and C-level executives, they all kinda slot into those roles very well, don't they? Again, not that we're slaves. But then, Jim Crow wasn't slavery either, right? Oppression comes in many flavours, some of them stronger, some of them weaker, but it has the same features, always, including the divide and conquer strategy. The axe's handle being recognizably wooden. This is all very old stuff. Ancestral. Atavistic. The problem runs deeper still. Even among the lowest working class, they have been fed on tidbits of heady turkish delight which says that if they do everything right, they can be one of the oppressor class. Like the midway lackey whose job is to walk around carrying a giant teddy bear that nobody will ever actually win, they are even given high-profile examples, lottery winners, pop stars from common backgrounds, tech "mafia" who live as monied dilletantes on megayachts, tipping their hats to Saudi princes and Russian gangsters. In the end, the workers of tech are just well-kept poodles who will heel to their masters and be loyal to the point of abject moral failure, just like the house slave. Look how much better we are treated than him. Fagedaboudit. If you want a just world, be a Socialist. Read Marx for real. And join the rest of the historically frustrated who will die watching humanity flagellate itself. If there's hope, it's in the proles.
• shmerl 3y ago
  Usual dumb management BAU. Worker in the cubicle is the limit of their imagination.
  • scruple 3y ago
    I mean, I'd love to go back to cubicles at this point. You watch something like Office Space today and it looks like a wonderful degree of privacy compared to the bullpens we're all sitting in today.
    • babyshake 3y ago
      The bullpens that are full of distracting off-topic conversation that makes it hard to concentrate, but apparently is some type of secret sauce of what makes for a productive office environment compared to being able to focus in the peace and quiet of our homes or work environment of our choice.
      • Gigachad 3y ago
        You can just put noise canceling headphones on and completely turn off the distractions when you need periods of focus.
        • Sylamore 3y ago
          I worked in an office bullpen type environment briefly with everything director and below being required to sit in the bullpen, and they were so proud of the set up till the nearly universal complaints of all the noise from everyone on the phone and all of the privacy offices being in constant use with nobody using the reservation tool to book them and they added white noise machines in the ceiling. Well that kind of helped with the cacophony of conversations a bit, but lead to just high noise floor so everyone just talked louder. At least with the white noise machine the noise cancelling headphones were a little more effective, but it still doesn't stop people from tapping you on the shoulder while you are trying to focus.
      • 8note 3y ago
• hinkley 3y ago
  > 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.
  • reilly3000 3y ago
    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 Amazon.
    • hot_gril 3y ago
      I'd do it for 1.5X, but that's not what they offered.
    • hinkley 3y ago
      I used to joke that for me to take a high stress position (at current employer, or a different one) they'd have to budget in a full time masseuse to work the kinks out of my shoulders. Possibly as I'm actively typing. An assistant wouldn't be amiss either.
    • GoodJokes 3y ago
      [dead]
• riscy 3y ago
  > In July, leaked messages seen by Insider suggested that Amazon would force a “voluntary resignation” on employees [...] Is Amazon trying to avoid firing people to screw them out of unemployment benefits? No way a forced resignation is not the same as firing.
  • grepfru_it 3y ago
    Nobody wants to say they got fired from Amazon. If the writing is on the wall, a silent majority will jump ship.
    • sokoloff 3y ago
      Of all the major tech companies, telling someone I was fired from Amazon would be the least embarrassing/most understandable company to say I was fired from. Especially if the story was "I lived 125 miles away from the Amazon office where my team was and they implemented a return-to-office mandate."
      • hinkley 3y ago
        Getting fired from Meta might be a badge of courage at this point...
      • unforeseen9991 3y ago
        As a hiring manager I'd be curious what was wrong with you to work there in the first place
    • gumballindie 3y ago
      And go where in this market? Software development is saturated.
      • grepfru_it 3y ago
        I disagree. Software dev is saturated at FAANG salaries, but dial your salary expectations back and there are tons of dev shops still hiring.
• SirensOfTitan 3y ago
  I don't know the origins of the "disagree and commit" philosophy, but Jassy's use seems like a self-serving perversion of what is an attempt at dealing with decision deadlock. ... that is, disagree-and-commit transactionally seems like it ought to be between peers. Disagree-and-commit when applied between superiors and reports could be rewritten as just "shut up and follow orders."
  • tantalor 3y ago
    > decision deadlock Where's the deadlock? It sounds like there is consensus on the side of people making the decisions (management).
    • cornstalks 3y ago
      The deadlock isn’t here. GP is talking about how “disagree and commit” is used to avoid decision deadlock (when programming), and they’re saying it’s being misused here.
  • sokoloff 3y ago
    That's exactly what it's intended to mean. Until a decision is made, feel free to express your disagreement and arguments in favor of your position. If your ideas/arguments are convincing enough (words that are doing a lot of work, I realize), then it will be chosen. Once the decision is made and communicated, you're expected to follow/implement it. Said differently: what's the practical alternative? If you don't like a decision, just continue to disagree with it, pocket veto/ignore it, pretend it doesn't apply to you/your team?
    • hinkley 3y ago
      Why would you persist in disagreeing with an idea if you did not see real world consequences for the wrong solution in your future? If you're dealing with obstructionist people, surely there are other ways to detect and address it than 'disagree and commit'.
      • 3y ago
• bhickey 3y ago
  He's going to get a very sudden lesson on adverse selection.
  • hinkley 3y ago
    These big companies have optimized for hiring fresh graduates, throwing tons of them at problems that probably really only need ten skilled people to sort out. There's a fresh batch of meat coming in about 8 months. Nothing worries these places (see Microsoft ten years ago) until the word on the street makes it down to college juniors. Like a cargo ship, or the Titanic, by the time you realize you're in trouble it's probably too late to do anything about it. You committed to this course ages ago and your vector is locked in.
  • fnordpiglet 3y ago
    Amazon is a human mill. It grinds through people at a startling rate and they frequently lose good people for stupid reasons. They generally look at people as fungible cogs, and all the leveling, top grading, and OLR processes reflect that. I think they (rightly) think they can absorb any losses and replace them with people willing to relocate and come in.
    • a_ml 3y ago
      [dead]
• Zaheer 3y ago
  Zoom CEO as well: https://www.businessinsider.com/zoom-ceo-encourages-employees-embrace-new-culture-or-leave-2023-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/zoom-ceo-encourages-employee...
  • synicalx 3y ago
    Not exactly a vote of confidence for their own product.
• ggm 3y ago
  You think Amazon legals aren't all over this? It would be silly to assume the NLRB has a lay down misere here. I would be thinking they were in from the start. I would love this to wind up as a driver for Unionisation but in this context I can't believe no legal input has been made to the CEOs office about consequences for his words, if truly as reported.
  • gumballindie 3y ago
    What consequences? Elon Musk demonstrated quite clearly there are none and that software engineers are just workers. There is no bargaining power. If people dare speak against the new status quo the controlled media proceeds with threats of ai replacement. This is the new norm.
    • oldoracle 3y ago
      Xitter ditched thousands of devs and it still runs as a technical thing. The market for devs is over-saturated with boot campers and band wagoners due to the money printer bubble. AI that can replace basic frontend work is not far off. AI that can generate 3D worlds is not far (I’m working on a version myself to later open source). AI may get facts in language wrong and never be AGI, but the color gradients and geometry we find makes acceptable UI is a finite set and deal with human UI glitches all the time. Government and big tech are facing a prisoners dilemma with AI and trying to slow down the inevitable by disrupting progress. They’ll project memes that sound reasonable relative to spoken traditions in business and government, largely due to having no idea what else to do/say. I say we all quit and focus on open source AI, let Jassy and Bezos work the warehouse. But I have enough years behind me to have just enough to have FU money. It’s easy for me to say that.
      • gumballindie 3y ago
        But once everyone is replaced by ai who’s going to buy products made by ai? Other ais? And will they pay with crypto currencies?
• hot_gril 3y ago
  Near the end of 2022, I got an offer at Amazon for a remote SWE role. The negotiations afterwards gave me the idea that eventual RTO was their goal. They said they had plenty of remote-friendly teams and started setting up manager interviews. Then one by one, they called back to say that team was either no longer hiring remotely or outright frozen. Even the ones that said they had team members all over the world. A few times they asked me to consider relocating, I declined. Eventually I did get a revised offer for a remote team, but it was less than my current comp. They revised upwards each time I declined or outright said goodbye. The last (and best) offer I got before they stopped calling was roughly my existing comp and level at the time, while being remote like my existing job. It wasn't worth switching for the same thing. So clearly wanting remote was a negative bargaining chip even though my current job is/was remote. Long story short, I also determined that they really only wanted me if I disliked my current job enough to leave without an upgrade, as others had done in my shoes. Nothing personal in the end, just observing their moves.
  • The_Fox 3y ago
    I had a similar experience for an SDM role at about the same time. Through all the interviews it was a remote role, then after letting me think about the offer for the weekend, they change the offer to onsite. "Do you want 6 months to move to Vancouver?" they said. Um, thanks but no thanks. I told my kids we'd feel like we have less money in the end if we had to live in Vancouver.
    • deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    • hot_gril 3y ago
      Yeah, that early of a bait-and-switch made me think even the final remote offer would suddenly become in-person once I changed jobs.
  • sidewndr46 3y ago
    The part about "that they really only wanted me if I disliked my current job enough to leave without an upgrade" was my impression as well after interviewing with Amazon.
• oldoracle 3y ago
  Hilarious to me Oracle has no issue with remote work while Apple, Amazon, Google, all flip out Deals they cut, whether it’s leases or tax breaks, are not my responsibility. Aside from Apple, the only thing the anti-remote places have is brand recognition. The knowledge they possess is worker knowledge. They’re having a hard time justifying valuations since their real social value is corralling workers who are then too busy to storm DC, and those workers seem keen to corral themselves.
  • SoftTalker 3y ago
    Next headline: Apple, Google, Amazon collude on revoking remote work options.
    • r00fus 3y ago
      It's not like they haven't done this before (but for salaries) [1] - they got off with a minuscule fine ($415M - better than the cost of doing business as usual) why wouldn't they do this again? [1] https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2015/01/16/377614477/tech-giants-will-pay-415-million-to-settle-employees-lawsuit https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2015/01/16/37...
  • unforeseen9991 3y ago
    I wonder how much real estate Oracle owns compared to the others?
    • oldoracle 3y ago
      US list is online: https://www.oracle.com/corporate/contact/field-offices.html https://www.oracle.com/corporate/contact/field-offices.html I never went to one of their offices. Probably boring office park vibes. Unlike the space donut and amusement parks it sounds like Apple and Google workers require to crank leetcode
      • gnicholas 3y ago
        Offices are ok, but nothing like FAANG (I've never been to Netflix's hq, but am guessing). Cafeteria food wasn't free either, though was pretty cheap.
• bedhead 3y ago
  CEO: “Come to work.” Employee: “No.” CEO: “This is going to end badly.” This is somehow controversial???
  • 000ooo000 3y ago
    That is a gross oversimplification.
  • fnordpiglet 3y ago
    Something can be disappointing yet not controversial.
• SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
  Isn’t there anyone that can steelman the WFH situation? Twitter, Amazon, Zoom, others are all ending or limiting their WFH programs. Doesn’t that tell anyone that there MIGHT be facts or at least good research on this that it isn’t producing good work for the money? I get that “corporations are bad maaaan” and all the good people are dreamy socialists… but what if you are wrong and it isn’t more effective?
  • wildrhythms 3y ago
    It's the tax breaks. >Of the billions in tax incentives granted to US companies every year by cities and states, many agreements require workers to come into the office some of the time, or at least live in the region. For companies receiving these incentives, relaxing in-office attendance could be costly. >The contracts were crafted in a pre-pandemic era, at a time when commutes to the office were a given. Now governments are deciding whether to crack down or rewrite the rules entirely. In some states and cities, policy changes have already been proposed to account for the new reality of hybrid work. https://archive.is/eOeIv https://archive.is/eOeIv https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-02-21/another-threat-to-work-from-home-tax-breaks https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-02-21/another-t...
  • 000ooo000 3y ago
    I guess you could look at the profit/revenue of these companies over the last few years during the WFH experiment, apply some slight multiplier for "this is our first go at WFH at scale and we haven't really committed to it, either", and draw a conclusion based on that. AFAIK, many companies did pretty well during the WFH experiment, and maybe in some cases, they overhired and now this is a convenient lever to pull on to bring the headcount back in check. Speculating wildly though.
    • SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
      Thanks. Of all the “highly intellectual” people here, you were one of the only to partially attempt a steelman. You know how I know that WFH side isn’t saying using the whole truth? They never look bad. No one ever says “I’m definitely only working half time, but they’re getting enough work from me so it’s fine” or “I’m being paid more and work less, they’re so clueless they have no idea”, or ”I know a lot of people are scamming but I’m not”. So while everyone is making the argument that corporate sucks and is out of touch, they’re simultaneously saying they’re angels who would never take advantage. It’s BS, and everyone on both side knows it.
• some_furry 3y ago
  What they aren't telling you is even worse: If you're remote and choose to accept their relocation ultimatum, you have a very limited time to execute on it. I've heard 90 to 180 days. Relocation assistance is provided, but you're moving to an expensive city. Compare a mortgage for a 2 bedroom house purchased in 2017 in the sticks versus rent for a 2 bedroom apartment in Seattle. It's not an attractive change in living expenses. If you leave Amazon within two years of relocation, you must repay the pre-tax amount of the relocation assistance. These handcuffs ain't golden. Voluntary resignation? What a sick joke.
  • joquarky 3y ago
    > relocation assistance I'm curious how they are going to convince/compensate someone who currently has a 2.75% interest rate on a 400k home to move closer to work and take on 6% rate on a 1M home that is smaller.
    • some_furry 3y ago
      Flat dollar amount, one-time payment. I've been told $7k for L4/L5 SDEs. It's either that or "voluntary" resignation.
      • cableshaft 3y ago
        $7k ain't shit for relocation. I once had a recruiter for Disney ask me to move to Seattle (without offering anything for relocation). I was single and lived in a one bedroom apartment in the Midwest and I calculated the rough cost of my relocation (still just renting) at being at least $8k (moving van, gas, early termination of my apartment lease, initial rent + security deposit at the new place, probably a few other expenses I don't remember currently). This was 12 years ago. This site[1] claims the following approximate costs for relocation: Current employee that owns a home: $97,166 Current employee that rents: $24,216 New hire that owns a home: $72,627 New hire that rents: $19,309 [1]: https://arcrelocation.com/employee-relocation/ https://arcrelocation.com/employee-relocation/
• Shekelphile 3y ago
  They are afraid of overemployment. It's very easy to slip through the cracks once you're a few years deep in some companies and stop working for months/yeahs before you get terminated. Someone I know is doing exactly that, got a new job anticipating being laid off/RTO from their big company job and still hasn't been terminated, despite not working beyond being present for random emails/meetings in over 6 months.
  • awesomeMilou 3y ago
    I'm always suprised that oversight is so lax in these companies that people can seriously get away with this.
• lapcat 3y ago
  The submission URL should be changed to the original: https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-andy-jassy-rto-office-policy-employee-jobs-2023-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-andy-jassy-rto-office...
  • some_furry 3y ago
    Yeah but that's paywalled.
    • lapcat 3y ago
      Hmm, my ad blocker seems to be blocking the paywall.
• jhot 3y ago
  I have a friend who has worked remotely for Amazon for a few years. He now has to ride a bus to the nearest office (1.5 hours away), meanwhile the rest of the teammated are at different offices. What a waste.
  • rented_mule 3y ago
    A friend of mine and her manager have been remote for their entire tenure of 7 years at Amazon. They live in the same city and often work together in person. The rest of the team has also always been remote, but they don't live in the same city. They are all being told to move to Seattle (1,500+ miles for my friend) or resign. Another company will be very lucky to get my friend as a new employee.
• DueDilligence 3y ago
  [dead]
• DueDilligence 3y ago
  [dead]
• red-iron-pine 3y ago
  Translation: I'm going to make sure it's not going to work out for you
• mydriasis 3y ago
  Read: Amazon CEO lays off its remote staff without severance
  • djohnston 3y ago
    If you just don't quit eventually there is still a dismissal + severance right? What if I just keep working from home?
    • joezydeco 3y ago
      Nobody owes you severance, unless you have a contract that says so. It might be offered in return for something they want you to do, like not badmouthing them on social media or suing for wrongful termination. Constructive dismissal is a more relevant topic here.
      • greggsy 3y ago
        Does constructive dismissal apply if there was an expectation to work in a traditional office setting when you commenced? I can imagine it would apply if it’s completely impractical to do so (e.g. during a pandemic), or if they keep changing the workplace location unreasonably, but I don’t think that’s the case here.
        • idkyall 3y ago
          I am not sure on all of the details as it seems most of the reporting on this is based on rumors leaked from Blind, but from what I understand, there is both RTO and ReturnToTeam at Amazon. RTT means you need to be in the same hub as the rest of your team[1]. So people may be within range of an Amazon office, but being asked to re-locate to another hub entirely if they joined or transferred to an org or team without a presence nearby. I think for those who were in person prior to the pandemic there is little recourse, but as I understand it, there are also people were hired as fully remote during the pandemic who are being asked to relocate[2]. I believe exceptions are not allowed unless you are L6 level or above. [1]https://www.pymnts.com/news/payment-methods/2023/rising-use-of-amex-cards-shows-credit-appeals-to-savvy-younger-consumers/ https://www.pymnts.com/news/payment-methods/2023/rising-use-... [2]https://www.reddit.com/r/ExperiencedDevs/comments/15ttywo/amazon_rto_finally_got_me_remotefriendly_companies/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ExperiencedDevs/comments/15ttywo/am...
• RomanPushkin 3y ago
  Corporations will do whatever they want to until we have unions in this country. Mass layoffs, termination with no reason, dictating how they want the workforce to be exploited. If this generation cannot see that, I hope younger folks or our kids will make this country a better place to live and work.
  • alexfromapex 3y ago
    I think the data is in on this and most companies have regretted implementing RTO so if it wasn’t Amazon I’d be shocked with the decision.
  • catiopatio 3y ago
    Asking salaried employees to spend three days in the office isn’t exploitative, and it’s certainly not equivalent to mass layoffs or termination without cause.
    • cr__ 3y ago
      Changing the conditions of employment unilaterally is exploitative, especially within a system in which employment is required to maintain access to health care.
      • boringg 3y ago
        No it does not qualify as exploitative - is it a tough adjustment? Probably yes, exploitative? No. Your health care example has little weight unless you are in a one employer town as you can always find other employers if you don't like one as much as that process isn't great.
        • dopple 3y ago
          Don't like being exploited by Company A? Try being exploited by Company B instead!
        • dangerlibrary 3y ago
• Roark66 3y ago
  I heard many times Amazon is a pretty bad place to work at. I wonder what percentage of people will decide to leave because of this. As someone who has been 100% remote for 6 years I can say with confidence, there are people that work best remote, and there are these that work best in the office. It is also a function of your seniority level (I'd much prefer to be on site as a trainee/junior). But forcing a one size fits all solution is the worst solution there is.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • CoastalCoder 3y ago
    One anecdotal data point: I was contacted last week by an Amazon recruiter. Although I'm unemployed, I didn't pursue that opening because of Amazon's overall reputation. If they still allowed mostly remote work, I would have just told her that I wasn't interested at this time. I.e., if I'm still unemployed in a month, I might suck it up and apply. But the non-WFH policy was the final nail in the coffin. I asked her to never contact me about Amazon openings, even in the future.
    • BitwiseFool 3y ago
      I've heard a lot of developers know that Amazon is a terrible company to work for, but having Amazon on your resume is a career booster. So they'll work there for a year or two just to enhance their future job prospects. Is this still true?
      • CoastalCoder 3y ago
        My personal bias is that someone who joined Amazon in the past few years was probably desperate or naive. But maybe it's just me, not sure.
  • gaoshan 3y ago
    I have a friend there that was hired into a mid level developer role and he hates it for many reasons (from management style to the personality of teammates to how code gets reviewed and pushed and more). Just biding his time to get enough years under his belt for his next move but he ranks it last in places he's worked (but first in pay, which is why he is sticking it out).
• lapcat 3y ago
  Jassy said the quiet part out loud and admitted what I've always suspected, that most CEOs don't have original thoughts, instead governing by groupthink: > Other company CEOs helped Jassy make up his mind too. Jassy spoke to "60 to 80 CEOs of other companies over the last 18 months," and "virtually all of them" preferred in-office work, he said. I bet that none of those individual CEOs could empirically prove that remote work is bad, just as Jassy himself could not, but apparently there's strength in numbers. https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-andy-jassy-no-data-return-to-office-rto-aws-2023-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-andy-jassy-no-data-re... The CEO herd mentality is why entire industries make the same mistakes simultaneously.
  • deleted 3y ago
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  • mrfox321 3y ago
    The same group think happened during COVID. Tech closed up shop on a Wednesday. Finance shut down the following Monday.
  • trentnix 3y ago
    That they uniformly laid off similar percentages of employees last fall (despite the fact the stock market has rebounded) should have confirmed your suspicions nearly a year ago. They seem to largely be lemmings, calling plays out of the same playbook.
  • manuelabeledo 3y ago
    > The CEO herd mentality is why entire industries make the same mistakes simultaneously. Also, most CEOs would jump on the hype train for anything that investors may like.
  • JackFr 3y ago
    And yet they are CEOs and you and I are posting comments Hacker News.
    • lapcat 3y ago
• DaveFr 3y ago
  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? Something tangible that gives us mere mortals actual perspective. The conversation is dominated by conspiracy theories about real estate investments and 'CEO vibes', it feels untethered and fact-free.
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  • thebigspacefuck 3y ago
    I just imagine everyone there is using Chime and it’s not working that well
  • hgsgm 3y ago
    Amazon built the entire company on two decision-making systems 1. A/B testing and multi-armed bandits. 2. "jeff_said", a special macro in the website that overrides the decisions of automated A/B testing and multi-armed bandits.
  • notatoad 3y ago
    >The CEO told his charges it was a “judgment” call. is it really an untethered conspiracy theory when the CEO is straight-up saying his decision is based on vibes?
    • ChildOfChaos 3y ago
      Trust me bro...
    • michaelt 3y ago
      If the CEO has a wealth of data and it says with remote working Metric A has gone up which is good, and Metric B has gone down which is bad, they have to make a judgement call about which metric to rely on even though they're making an evidence-based decision.
• stilwelldotdev 3y ago
  What about the employees that have a requirement to work remotely due to a disability?
  • freilanzer 3y ago
    They can find a new job then.
    • GGO 3y ago
      is that you Bezos?
      • freilanzer 3y ago
        No, it's me, sarcasm.
    • stilwelldotdev 3y ago
      Well yes, that's obviously true. There are a lot of companies out there that don't treat their employees like cattle who are eager to be driven from field to field. Impressively callous reply, though. Top notch heartlessness.
      • freilanzer 3y ago
        People don't seem to get sarcasm anymore.
        • stilwelldotdev 3y ago
          You have to add a /s or something. There are too many people on the Internet who are broken like this.
  • browningstreet 3y ago
    C'mon -- every corporate mandate has its exceptions and allowances. This one's obvious. And when I worked at a company and had a full-time remote allowance per my employment contract, guess what? The RTO mandate didn't apply to me.
• WhyNotHugo 3y ago
  I find the push for "back to the office" one of the most astonishing things to come out of corporate America. We've basically been moving to a model where people can work from home for a few decades. We're reached a point where it's not only feasible, but it's senseless to do otherwise for many positions. And then, suddenly and out of the blue, a lot of CEOs and upper management started demanding that employees go back to the office. There's really no reason to do this; data has proven over and over that people can work more productively from home. Nobody wants to waste time to work in a noisy, less comfortable environment. Yet the lords and dukes of our day demand that the commoners go back to the office or fine subsistence elsewhere. My impression so far is that it's done mostly to filter compliant employees from the more dangerous "free thinkers" which might question senseless commands. These years are going to be a fascinating read in future history books.
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  • p0wn 3y ago
    Tbe slavemasters want control. Will the American public follow orders?
  • rdtsc 3y ago
    > Nobody wants to waste time to work in a noisy, less comfortable environment. Except CEOs because they have nice comfortable offices, flexibility, assistants handling interruptions, and they don't have to spend long periods of time focusing. Looking over the heads of their minions is a tacit affirmation of their power and influence. Just like looking over an empty building full of open office desks without workers is kind of sad and disappointing. "Have I failed as a leader? I didn't, surely. But then, why is there is nobody here? We should fix this...".
    • slothtrop 3y ago
      I think middle-management has an instinct of self-preservation and they know that remote work could make some of them redundant. But I also think you're right that physically looming over and supervising is what some may be most interested in doing.
• badrequest 3y ago
  Everyone I've ever interviewed who currently works at Amazon is desperate to leave an environment ripe with overwork, backstabbing, and nasty office politics. You create the culture you want.
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• ajsnigrutin 3y ago
  Layoffs sound bad... hmm... how to get rid of a chunk of employees without making it look like a layoff, so our shareholders won't get scared? Let's take away the benefits and make them quit instead!
  • deleted 3y ago
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  • gidorah 3y ago
    Trouble is that with layoffs you can get rid of bad staff. How do you stop good staff quitting?
    • jupp0r 3y ago
      Good staff will quit by themselves after the layoffs unless incentivized to stay.
    • electriclove 3y ago
      I think they believe they can still continue to attract top talent. Otherwise, they wouldn’t go down this path.
      • gidorah 3y ago
        I agree. I suppose the rationale is probably that Andy thinks on balance it's the people that aren't doing anything that will go. Then again, I'm not CEO of Amazon, so noy my shout.
• dangus 3y ago
  This is so ironic coming from the company that benefits more than most others when society works from home. You know what’s close to the office? A bunch of not-Amazon brick and mortar stores.
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  • hgsgm 3y ago
    Same for all the big tech Internet companies.
  • j2bax 3y ago
    Almost as ironic as Zoom reversing their remote policies.
• offbyone 3y ago
  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 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 you a lot of money that the C-suite (S-team) has a significant investment in commercial real estate.
  • vb6sp6 3y ago
    its even more cynical than that. They aren't doing this for the greater good of preserving downtown areas, they are losing their tax breaks: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-02-21/tax-breaks-threaten-work-from-home-as-ceo-s-get-return-to-office-incentives https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-02-21/tax-br...
  • rco8786 3y ago
    > C-suite (S-team) has a significant investment in commercial real estate. Amazon itself is holding ~$92B worth of buildings on its balance sheet, you can imagine a large chunk of that is commercial.
    • martinald 3y ago
      But Amazon could liquidate it all and make enormous cost savings going remote only if they wanted to. I'm sure any loss they would take would be recouped by reduction in office costs and access to cheaper workforces outside of Seattle etc very quickly. It doesn't make sense.
    • claudiulodro 3y ago
      FWIW I imagine 95%+ of it is warehouses and fulfillment centers, not necessarily office space.
      • dangerlibrary 3y ago
        Maybe 95% by square footage - probably not by $$$.
• xt00 3y ago
  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 data that means you aren’t in charge sadly.
  • siftrics 3y ago
    While I agree with your reasoning, it's pretty ironic to blame top management for making changes "not based upon actual data" in the middle of a speculative claim that, itself, is not based upon actual data.
    • xt00 3y ago
      Good point -- one thing that would be interesting would be a postmortem at some point from a group of CEO's or somebody "in the know" who is able to get to the root of the issue so we can go beyond speculation. These people are typically in power positions that don't require explaining so often we get phrases like "I've thought hard about it and I've made a decision", where the real reasoning is left for people to guess at. Probably the main data we will eventually get will be when there are 2 companies that are in similar areas where one is full remote and the other has big office buildings in a downtown someplace.
  • rco8786 3y ago
    > 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.
    • aeze 3y ago
      What you're describing is generally how bad decisions are made.
• robotburrito 3y ago
  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?
  • RestlessMind 3y ago
    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.
    • eYrKEC2 3y ago
      Boeing engineers. Engineers working for Ford, GM, et c.
      • RestlessMind 3y ago
        Bad example then. All 3 of them have done multiple layoffs so unions didn't protect those jobs really. Here, RTO is used as a means to lay people off.
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• SilverBirch 3y ago
  To be honest I think 3 days a week in the office is a perfectly reasonable requirement. It gives enough opportunity for people to get face to face time and to build the relationships they need to build whilst still offering flexibility. Should it be combined with some flexibility for edge cases? Sure, managers will always turn a blind eye when it makes sense. And part of that is you can only have flexibility if the base line is established, if 50% of workers are still refusing to come in, the only way to solve that is a mass "Show up or else". In reality in 6 months you have a quiet word with your boss and probably the flexibility will creep back. Having said that, the way we got here is less than ideal. Senior management at tech companies made a whole tonne of bad promises and poor decisions during the pandemic and they've taken no ownership of that at all. The only reason this has become so difficult is because Senior management didn't have the intelligence to say "Hey, this pandemic is a once in a lifetime event, we're going to be flexible now but we need you to know this won't last".
  • bluefishinit 3y ago
    > To be honest I think 3 days a week in the office is a perfectly reasonable requirement. It's not reasonable because it means you have to live within commuting distance of the office.
    • Civil7598 3y ago
      yeah, it's not a big deal for people that are already there or were already commuting, maybe. But there were so many people hired, told they can work remote, and now are told they must uproot their and their family's life or be without a job.
  • mv4 3y ago
    One of the reasons I joined Amazon last year was their stance on remote work: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/07/andy-jassy-says-he-wont-force-amazon-workers-to-return-to-the-office.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/07/andy-jassy-says-he-wont-forc... For me to go to the nearest office will add 4 hours in commute time daily, and I would still be video conferencing in Chime - as my team is all over the world and nobody is in my office.
• softwaredoug 3y ago
  Given recent Big Tech behavior -- ie Amazon hiring based on work flexibility, then laying people off, then switching to RTO, who would trust these companies enough to move across the country for a role? In my (40 yo+) peer group people have largely settled down somewhere not near a home office during the pandemic. People have the entire cost structure of home ownership, day care, and commuting built around not needing to be in a major metro going into an office. I would be very doubtful, unless the senior-staff-principal hiring faded, that they would comply with RTO before switching roles. One solution to this could be to do what companies used to do - open more regional branch offices. Don't be so concentrated in one or two major metros that you eliminate any flexibility whatsoever.
  • madcaptenor 3y ago
    I work for a big telecom that has grown by acquisition and so has a lot of regional branch offices... and we're _closing_ a lot of them and pushing people back into big "hub" offices in an RTO push that pretty much everyone acknowledges is a secret layoff.
  • ghaff 3y ago
    >open more regional branch offices To what end? If most of the people you work with are scattered around different regional branch offices, what's the point of going into the nearest one other than to have basically a company-supplied co-working space?
    • softwaredoug 3y ago
      Yeah you can't entirely cover the globe. But you CAN offer people more affordable areas to live in. Even if you had a regional office a few hours away, its possible to go in once a week even.
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  • AtlasBarfed 3y ago
    Amazon wants to turn over its workforce as much as possible to keep them cheap and young. This is just another opportunity.
• wallawe 3y ago
  A lot of complaining from one of the most privileged and highest paid classes of workers ever to exist in human kind. Talk of "exploitation", etc. To put it in perspective, you sit at a computer and type, and get paid $200k+ a year for it. Forget other people in the other part of the world, just compare your situation to the average American for a second - they don't have a choice of whether or not to be at the office, because their office is our schools, our fire stations, our construction sites. And they get 1/4th the salary you do. Entitlement doesn't even begin to describe it.
  • CatWChainsaw 3y ago
    You Live In A Society is the best you can do? Pathetic.
  • rco8786 3y ago
    People are allowed to have opinions about their personal situation even if other people are in worse situations.
  • lolinder 3y ago
    The "spoiled" middle class has always been the one to revolt against exploitation by the absurdly wealthy and powerful. The truly poor and downtrodden don't have the bandwidth to make demands of the wealthy, they're occupied enough just getting by from day to day. This is why countries like North Korea intentionally keep most of their people in poverty: a taste of freedom and prosperity tends to make people desire more and gives them the flexibility to fight for it. Rather than discouraging tech workers from fighting for rights and dignity, we should be talking about how we can make sure that we bring the same benefits to those who aren't currently able to fight for themselves.
  • Civil7598 3y ago
    Hey, why can't we all just be happy? No one said people making $10/hr shouldn't be able to work from home if that is best and gets the job done at least just as well.
  • brandall10 3y ago
    Keep in mind there are people who signed on as remote employees that own a primary residence in an area far away, have children in school, a spouse who can't relocate, and so on. These folks effectively need to now look for another job.
• computing 3y ago
  [flagged]
• 5350-uiop-1130 3y ago
  it's absolutism. companies are not run as democracies. a few people who make decision that are in their own interests. RTO means you must be at the office by 9, if not it's an issue. you have to be at your desk for fixed number of hours, if not its an issue. if you leave too early, its an issue. perception matters more than facts. at home if you're busy, you work, if not you can relax. without any judgement.
• say_it_as_it_is 3y ago
  Amazon employees could mutiny the CEO in less than a month if they acted in unison, no unionization necessary.
  • lolinder 3y ago
    That's essentially the definition of a union: employees working in unison. Getting that many employees to act in unison is the tricky part that requires all of the infrastructure that Amazon is intent on ensuring doesn't get built.
  • rchaud 3y ago
    So all that would be needed is 100,000 people acting toward the same goals, in concert without any formal organization?
  • r00fus 3y ago
    Don't worry, the CEO isn't doing this without an entire barrage of anti-union (or unison-like activity) forces up his sleeve. You don't threaten your workforce unless you're confident you can mitigate any retaliatory or expected response.
• y-c-o-m-b 3y ago
  PSA: if you have a disability as defined by the ADA (anxiety, depression, and adhd falls under this btw) and have been a remote employee this entire time, they may be legally obligated to provide continued virtual work privileges to accommodate your disability. There seems to have been some recent successful lawsuits surrounding that topic. Take a look here https://www.bfvlaw.com/fielding-remote-work-accommodations-requests-post-covid/ https://www.bfvlaw.com/fielding-remote-work-accommodations-r...
  • 6D794163636F756 3y ago
    I have a friend who went through that. Amazon's HR likes to take its time to get back to you and in their case the accomodations had an expiration date.
    • toomuchtodo 3y ago
      https://www.ada.gov/file-a-complaint/ https://www.ada.gov/file-a-complaint/ https://www.google.com/search?q=how+to+find+ada+attorney https://www.google.com/search?q=how+to+find+ada+attorney
• wintermutestwin 3y ago
  WFH is the new norm. If you want to drag workers back into the office, you had better be offering a lot to make up for the added costs to the worker, including monetary, time, stress, etc…
  • computing 3y ago
    carrots and sticks
  • deleted 3y ago
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• datadrivenangel 3y ago
  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.
  • mv4 3y ago
    This appears to be quite common.
  • r00fus 3y ago
    This smacks of just dumping 50% of applicant resumes in the trash and declaring "we don't hire unlucky people". Sucks for your team and others who will likely need to disband or get merged into other teams.
    • red-iron-pine 3y ago
      "we don't hire unlucky people" is a lame hack to solve the problem of too many applications and not enough time. this is an attempt to cut bodies, and hire on new workers at a lower rate. AZMN knows damn well that most of them won't move and is counting on them self-terminating.
    • citizenpaul 3y ago
      This reminds me of the Halo game series where the AI cortana tells the protagonist "master chief john", that she chose him because he was lucky. However if you know the story of how the super solider Spartans are created. They are high scoring children kidnapped from their families, forced to participate in combat testing. If they live they are medically experimented on, cybernically augmented and put through a painful gene editing process that kills the majority of them. If they survive all that they get to spend the remainder of their life in brutal combat. I always though it was funny because who's definition of lucky are they using here? Same with Amazon. Are the lucky ones the discarded resumes or the saved ones?
• mjoneill 3y ago
  If this (or a similar policy) affects you and you suspect that it is an attempt by your employer to get you (and others) to quit in order to avoid having to pay severance, unemployment, etc... Understand what "constructive dismissal" is. It may help if you need to file unemployment claims.
  • peteradio 3y ago
    Does constructive dismissal retorts apply at all in the US? I assume the vast majority of those affected are in the US...
    • gingerrr 3y ago
      It's something usually managed at the state level, so depends where they are in the US. In California constructive termination standing is very much a thing.
      • peteradio 3y ago
        Excellent, any other states this might apply in?
        • gingerrr 3y ago
          Most states have some form of regulation against constructive dismissal/termination/discharge (term of art varies), but I don't know of a list. Would be good to have!
• Nextgrid 3y ago
  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.
  • RestlessMind 3y ago
    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.
• falcolas 3y ago
  It's darkly hilarious how Amazon's motto of "Disagree but Commit" was originally about leadership bowing to the data and opinions of their direct reports, and now it's a cudgel used by leadership to shut down discussion from their workforce. A shame, really.
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• Simulacra 3y ago
  I presently work the schedule, and it's pretty reasonable. I'm able to better separate work, and home life, see my colleagues and have richer interactions with them, but really the benefit of going into the office is finding out what's going on. If I wasn't in the office for those two days a week, I think I would be missing good opportunities for myself.
• andrewedstrom 3y ago
  I would never work for this company.
• gaws 3y ago
  How often is Jassy in the office?
• JSavageOne 3y ago
  Google, Meta, Amazon, and Apple have all been vehemently anti-remote work and adamant in rolling back remote work policies - though fortunately accepting a 3 days in office per week hybrid remote work policy. A couple points: - Amazon has had a terrible reputation as a place to work for a long time, it seems they don't care at all in trying to change that - Workers prefer the flexibility of remote work and do not want to be forced to go back into offices, commuting, and being confined to living in just NYC, SF, and a handful of other expensive cities with rampant crime and homelessness epidemics I don't think there's much workers can do other than refusing to work for companies that aren't fully remote, but given the imbalance between employer/employee power (due to lack of universal basic income) and the terrible job market, workers just do not have much leverage because there are enough desperate people who will. One thing workers who are passionate about worker freedom should do is consider not purchasing services from companies that are anti-remote work on ethical grounds, similar to avoiding purchasing cheap fast fashion products made in sweatshops. This would mean avoiding using AWS, Google Cloud, and buying Apple products. If there's any bright side to this though, it's that at least the new equilibrium for these companies is a hybrid model of 3 days in office per week, which is still a hell of a lot better than 5 days per week. Regardless it is definitely hard to return to an office after experiencing the freedom of remote work. I definitely hope that fully remote companies will be rewarded, and going forward I think the trend will still inevitably continue towards remote work in an increasingly digital world.