7 ms·

Amazon to staff: Come into the office or your promotion is at risk

31 points by hashtag-til 3y ago

hashtag-til 3y ago
I'm really happy I passed on an offer from Amazon a couple years back.
- cplusplusfellow 3y ago
  Honestly haven’t heard many good stories about Amazon work environment and culture. I’ve worked with a lot of former Amazon ppl though.
- pram 3y ago
  Turning down AWS got me a $20k raise at my previous job. God bless 'em
stmblast 3y ago
Why am I not surprised at this point
dragon-hn 3y ago
I thought they were going to fire people who didn’t come in? Has that not happened?
- Analemma_ 3y ago
  (former Amazon employee here - left before the RTO pressure ramped up but still have friends/colleagues there) A lot of the issue is that middle management and senior management are not on the same page here, in a rare example of middle management's interests being more aligned with rank-and-file workers. A lot of middle managers at Amazon (think L6 through L8) aren't any happier with RTO than the lower ICEs are, and so they're really slow-walking the process: giving false status reports of progress and granting lots of exceptions. (I know one L7 at Amazon who gathered all his directs' badges and beeps them into the office every morning to make it look like people are there). Senior leadership at Amazon is really grumpy about this and trying to find leverage wherever they can to get everyone back even when middle management is lying to them.
  - glitchcrab 3y ago
    Well that sounds like a great place to work.
  - htrp 3y ago
    > I know one L7 at Amazon who gathered all his directs' badges and beeps them into the office every morning to make it look like people are there That person sounds like the kind of manager people would fight to work for
    - rednerrus 3y ago
      It's me, hi, I'm the problem, it's me.
  - dmitrygr 3y ago
    > I know one L7 at Amazon who gathered all his directs' badges and beeps them into the office every morning The hero we need but do not deserve
johnny99k 3y ago
The last time I had to work in an office was my first job out of college almost 17 years ago. I told myself then that I didn't want to do this ever again. The next job I had was remote and I've since either had my own business supporting me or contracts/work that don't depend on any location. If you want to work remotely, you can't rely on the kindness of a company's heart. You need to have it in your contract from the beginning. I know people that moved multiple states away during the pandemic and were then told to either relocate back home (company wasn't paying) or be fired.
- hughesjj 3y ago
  > You need to have it in your contract from the beginning. I mean, that was the case for all the pandemic remote workers mentioned in the article. Permanent roles with no expectation of relocation to the office, fully remote, etc. Amazon is just changing the terms of the contract and terminating employment for anyone who doesn't like it.
  - bluefirebrand 3y ago
    But they're quick to point the other finger when it's someone who was office-first before the pandemic! "Your contract states...." Hypocrites. They just want everything their way, they don't care what they agreed to initially.
    - paulddraper 3y ago
      Either side can change the rules. But if the other doesn't agree, they part ways.
      - bluefirebrand 3y ago
        Constructive dismissal is a thing, sure. But this massively glosses over the fact that the employer has vastly more leverage in this sort of thing.
  - billy99k 3y ago
exabrial 3y ago
I mean if you don't like it, don't work there? I don't understand what all the fuss is about.
- nameless912 3y ago
  The problem is that there were lots of folks hired with the explicit promise that remote was here to stay. This is at best a rug-pull; IMO it's like your salary suddenly being slashed by 20% a few months after you started with no explanation. It's not technically illegal in most places, but it certainly feels really bad and makes me sure I never want to work there.
  - hughesjj 3y ago
    It's not technically illegal but constitutes a constructive dismissal afaik, meaning you qualify for unemployment and I think if over a certain number of people are 'dismissed' it's WARN act triggering. Not a lawyer, not particularly well informed, but this is my understanding.
  - fshbbdssbbgdd 3y ago
    Does this apply at Amazon? I have several friends who moved away during covid and most of them were explicitly told that the remote work was a temporary covid thing, but it kept getting extended as the pandemic continued. Moving away was a gambit that this would last forever. This worked for some, and didn’t go so well for others.
    - dimmke 3y ago
      Amazon has publicly changed course on this issue several times since the beginning of the pandemic. I am going to start linking this comment every time I see something like this on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37314299 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37314299
      - fshbbdssbbgdd 3y ago
        That’s pretty damning!
gumballindie 3y ago
At this point in time i doubt anyone with experience wants to work for garbage like amazon, or indeed any “mandated” on site companies.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  A couple of years ago, Amazon was very, very persistent in trying to recruit me. There are few companies I'm less willing to work for than Amazon, but it was impossible to get them to believe that enough to stop contacting me.
  - gumballindie 3y ago
    You dodged a bullet. Was also approached seven years ago in the UK, turned them down as pay was rather low. Few months later I met someone working there and they told me it was quite unpleasant. Dodged a bullet too.
    - JohnFen 3y ago
      Yes, one of the reasons why I would never work for Amazon is that I am friends with several devs who do/did.
ctvo 3y ago
Contrary point of view: Extraordinary circumstances allowed you to stay remote during a pandemic. Now that it's over, it's fair and expected that they want you to come into the office. Your original contract with them was you being an in-office employee. There is nothing wrong with them aligning on promotions being tied to you fulfilling your obligations. If this is all too much, there's absolutely nothing stopping you from leaving and finding a truly remote workplace. (Disclaimer: I understand some people were hired as remote, told they'd remain remote, and are now being forced to come to the office or relocate. That sucks, and I'm sorry it's happening).
- bluefirebrand 3y ago
  Your contract is worth the price of the paper it's written on. You can bet that trying to get your employer to abide by the terms written on it will be impossible if they decide they don't like what they originally agreed to. You even mention such cases where people signed a remote-only contract which employers are now using intimidation tactics to get you to ignore. Since employers are so brazenly treating contracts as being non binding, why should employees? Basically: it is far past time that employees started using our own muscle to get the clowns in charge to behave. Refuse to go back to offices.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    > Your contract is worth the price of the paper it's written on. Contracts are generally worth more than that, because they give you a basis on which you can successfully sue. However, that means that a contract's value depends on what you're willing and able to do to enforce it.
    - bluefirebrand 3y ago
      Very few people have the resources to successfully sue their employer. Even if you did have the resources, do you want your name to show up on every Google search as "the guy who sued his last employer" when you're job hunting? There is a lot of social pressure for people to just shut up and take whatever their bosses give them.
tjarrett 3y ago
During the pandemic I was changed to permanent full time remote. I work for a large private university. If they told me to come back into the office three days a week I would not even consider not complying. I'm pretty sure they'd fire me after a week or two of me not showing up. It blows my mind that people can get away with just ignoring such directives -- especially in the commercial sector.
- dmitrygr 3y ago
  > it blows my mind that people can get away with just ignoring such directives Depends on who you are and how needed you are. And while everyone is replaceable, it is not true that everyone is replaceable within a week, or even a month.
- garciasn 3y ago
  It blows my mind that companies can get away with telling employees they will forever be remote only to ignore their own directive a few years later because of...reasons.
- Analemma_ 3y ago
  > It blows my mind that people can get away with just ignoring such directives -- especially in the commercial sector. If labor is a seller's market, they can get away with whatever they can get away with. Amazon could just terminate everyone who refuses to RTO; the fact that they haven't done so yet indicates they don't think they have a strong hand in labor negotiations, so why shouldn't people push back?
ozten 3y ago
Heard from an Amazonian that they are clocking in before midnight and then out again after midnight as an experiment in hopes of getting credited with two days of badging in for a single arduous trip to their building. Lessons in be careful what you measure.
- killingtime74 3y ago
  That's one code change away from not working though
  - ozten 3y ago
    I applaud the absurdity and playfulness.
  - m463 3y ago
    PST or UTC?
ChrisArchitect 3y ago
[dupe] More discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38278966 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38278966
nathants 3y ago
obviously the solution is to never seek promotion. come in at the package you want. be content.
brandon272 3y ago
At the end of the day Amazon is explicitly stating a policy that would have been applied implicitly anyway: employees who don't follow company protocol and, as has been described in this thread, openly and proudly antagonize their employer by doing things like having other people scan their badges to fool others into believing they are in an office, will tend to be passed up for promotions and will not have an advantage compared to people who show up and play the game that the company wants them to play. This was/is naturally where this was always going to end up. There is a lot of "you can't MAKE me do this because you NEED me" going on right now on the part of employees and it is odd to me that people assume that it would go permanently unchallenged.

31 points by hashtag-til 3y ago

hashtag-til 3y ago

I'm really happy I passed on an offer from Amazon a couple years back.

cplusplusfellow 3y ago
Honestly haven’t heard many good stories about Amazon work environment and culture. I’ve worked with a lot of former Amazon ppl though.
pram 3y ago
Turning down AWS got me a $20k raise at my previous job. God bless 'em

stmblast 3y ago

Why am I not surprised at this point

dragon-hn 3y ago

I thought they were going to fire people who didn’t come in? Has that not happened?

Analemma_ 3y ago
(former Amazon employee here - left before the RTO pressure ramped up but still have friends/colleagues there) A lot of the issue is that middle management and senior management are not on the same page here, in a rare example of middle management's interests being more aligned with rank-and-file workers. A lot of middle managers at Amazon (think L6 through L8) aren't any happier with RTO than the lower ICEs are, and so they're really slow-walking the process: giving false status reports of progress and granting lots of exceptions. (I know one L7 at Amazon who gathered all his directs' badges and beeps them into the office every morning to make it look like people are there). Senior leadership at Amazon is really grumpy about this and trying to find leverage wherever they can to get everyone back even when middle management is lying to them.
- glitchcrab 3y ago
  Well that sounds like a great place to work.
- htrp 3y ago
  > I know one L7 at Amazon who gathered all his directs' badges and beeps them into the office every morning to make it look like people are there That person sounds like the kind of manager people would fight to work for
  - rednerrus 3y ago
    It's me, hi, I'm the problem, it's me.
- dmitrygr 3y ago
  > I know one L7 at Amazon who gathered all his directs' badges and beeps them into the office every morning The hero we need but do not deserve

johnny99k 3y ago

The last time I had to work in an office was my first job out of college almost 17 years ago. I told myself then that I didn't want to do this ever again. The next job I had was remote and I've since either had my own business supporting me or contracts/work that don't depend on any location. If you want to work remotely, you can't rely on the kindness of a company's heart. You need to have it in your contract from the beginning. I know people that moved multiple states away during the pandemic and were then told to either relocate back home (company wasn't paying) or be fired.

hughesjj 3y ago
> You need to have it in your contract from the beginning. I mean, that was the case for all the pandemic remote workers mentioned in the article. Permanent roles with no expectation of relocation to the office, fully remote, etc. Amazon is just changing the terms of the contract and terminating employment for anyone who doesn't like it.
- bluefirebrand 3y ago
  But they're quick to point the other finger when it's someone who was office-first before the pandemic! "Your contract states...." Hypocrites. They just want everything their way, they don't care what they agreed to initially.
  - paulddraper 3y ago
    Either side can change the rules. But if the other doesn't agree, they part ways.
    - bluefirebrand 3y ago
      Constructive dismissal is a thing, sure. But this massively glosses over the fact that the employer has vastly more leverage in this sort of thing.
- billy99k 3y ago

exabrial 3y ago

I mean if you don't like it, don't work there? I don't understand what all the fuss is about.

nameless912 3y ago
The problem is that there were lots of folks hired with the explicit promise that remote was here to stay. This is at best a rug-pull; IMO it's like your salary suddenly being slashed by 20% a few months after you started with no explanation. It's not technically illegal in most places, but it certainly feels really bad and makes me sure I never want to work there.
- hughesjj 3y ago
  It's not technically illegal but constitutes a constructive dismissal afaik, meaning you qualify for unemployment and I think if over a certain number of people are 'dismissed' it's WARN act triggering. Not a lawyer, not particularly well informed, but this is my understanding.
- fshbbdssbbgdd 3y ago
  Does this apply at Amazon? I have several friends who moved away during covid and most of them were explicitly told that the remote work was a temporary covid thing, but it kept getting extended as the pandemic continued. Moving away was a gambit that this would last forever. This worked for some, and didn’t go so well for others.
  - dimmke 3y ago
    Amazon has publicly changed course on this issue several times since the beginning of the pandemic. I am going to start linking this comment every time I see something like this on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37314299 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37314299
    - fshbbdssbbgdd 3y ago
      That’s pretty damning!

gumballindie 3y ago

At this point in time i doubt anyone with experience wants to work for garbage like amazon, or indeed any “mandated” on site companies.

JohnFen 3y ago
A couple of years ago, Amazon was very, very persistent in trying to recruit me. There are few companies I'm less willing to work for than Amazon, but it was impossible to get them to believe that enough to stop contacting me.
- gumballindie 3y ago
  You dodged a bullet. Was also approached seven years ago in the UK, turned them down as pay was rather low. Few months later I met someone working there and they told me it was quite unpleasant. Dodged a bullet too.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    Yes, one of the reasons why I would never work for Amazon is that I am friends with several devs who do/did.

ctvo 3y ago

Contrary point of view: Extraordinary circumstances allowed you to stay remote during a pandemic. Now that it's over, it's fair and expected that they want you to come into the office. Your original contract with them was you being an in-office employee. There is nothing wrong with them aligning on promotions being tied to you fulfilling your obligations. If this is all too much, there's absolutely nothing stopping you from leaving and finding a truly remote workplace. (Disclaimer: I understand some people were hired as remote, told they'd remain remote, and are now being forced to come to the office or relocate. That sucks, and I'm sorry it's happening).

bluefirebrand 3y ago
Your contract is worth the price of the paper it's written on. You can bet that trying to get your employer to abide by the terms written on it will be impossible if they decide they don't like what they originally agreed to. You even mention such cases where people signed a remote-only contract which employers are now using intimidation tactics to get you to ignore. Since employers are so brazenly treating contracts as being non binding, why should employees? Basically: it is far past time that employees started using our own muscle to get the clowns in charge to behave. Refuse to go back to offices.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  > Your contract is worth the price of the paper it's written on. Contracts are generally worth more than that, because they give you a basis on which you can successfully sue. However, that means that a contract's value depends on what you're willing and able to do to enforce it.
  - bluefirebrand 3y ago
    Very few people have the resources to successfully sue their employer. Even if you did have the resources, do you want your name to show up on every Google search as "the guy who sued his last employer" when you're job hunting? There is a lot of social pressure for people to just shut up and take whatever their bosses give them.

tjarrett 3y ago

During the pandemic I was changed to permanent full time remote. I work for a large private university. If they told me to come back into the office three days a week I would not even consider not complying. I'm pretty sure they'd fire me after a week or two of me not showing up. It blows my mind that people can get away with just ignoring such directives -- especially in the commercial sector.

dmitrygr 3y ago
> it blows my mind that people can get away with just ignoring such directives Depends on who you are and how needed you are. And while everyone is replaceable, it is not true that everyone is replaceable within a week, or even a month.
garciasn 3y ago
It blows my mind that companies can get away with telling employees they will forever be remote only to ignore their own directive a few years later because of...reasons.
Analemma_ 3y ago
> It blows my mind that people can get away with just ignoring such directives -- especially in the commercial sector. If labor is a seller's market, they can get away with whatever they can get away with. Amazon could just terminate everyone who refuses to RTO; the fact that they haven't done so yet indicates they don't think they have a strong hand in labor negotiations, so why shouldn't people push back?

ozten 3y ago

Heard from an Amazonian that they are clocking in before midnight and then out again after midnight as an experiment in hopes of getting credited with two days of badging in for a single arduous trip to their building. Lessons in be careful what you measure.

killingtime74 3y ago
That's one code change away from not working though
- ozten 3y ago
  I applaud the absurdity and playfulness.
- m463 3y ago
  PST or UTC?

ChrisArchitect 3y ago

[dupe] More discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38278966 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38278966

nathants 3y ago

obviously the solution is to never seek promotion. come in at the package you want. be content.

brandon272 3y ago

At the end of the day Amazon is explicitly stating a policy that would have been applied implicitly anyway: employees who don't follow company protocol and, as has been described in this thread, openly and proudly antagonize their employer by doing things like having other people scan their badges to fool others into believing they are in an office, will tend to be passed up for promotions and will not have an advantage compared to people who show up and play the game that the company wants them to play. This was/is naturally where this was always going to end up. There is a lot of "you can't MAKE me do this because you NEED me" going on right now on the part of employees and it is odd to me that people assume that it would go permanently unchallenged.